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   It is one thing to walk into the kitchen and forget why you went there but it is quite another to put something somewhere and forget it like it never happened. It is a rather disconcerting feeling.

   Saturday, my wife and I were out driving around on the Ranger looking for shed deer antlers. We enjoy walking in the woods on a nice winter day, more for the pleasure of getting out of the house than finding antlers. It is a pleasant surprise when we discover a dropped antler, but we have yet to figure out what to do with them after we find them. So far, we have a whole lot of them stored in the little shed, a few hung in the garage, and the really big or unique ones displayed on the coffee table in the living room.

   On our journeys about the farm, we ventured to the top of a hill overlooking the lake. My wife was walking a fence line hoping to spot antlers where deer jump over a fence and knock them off when they become loose. I went the opposite direction following a deer trail into the woods. I have found it is good to stop occasionally and look where you have just traveled. Sometimes, at the same area from different angle will show things not seen before. A short distance into the timber, I stopped to look behind me. I noticed what appeared to be a trail camera mounted on a tree next to the trail I had just walked up. Thinking this was strange for someone to have a camera on my place, I went back and took it down. It is the same make and model as several other cameras I have. The color on the outside is faded, much like the others I bought several years ago. Surely, I could not have placed a camera and forgotten all about it. The display indicated the memory card was full. The smaller memory cards, such as this one, will hold about a thousand pictures. If this was indeed my camera, it had been out there on the edge of the timber for quite a while.

   I put the camera in the Ranger, and we headed out to search another spot for the elusive deer antlers. After a few hours of driving and walking with little success, we decided to call it a day. We enjoyed the time outside and got our share of fresh air and exercise.

   Back at the house, I settled into my chair and opened the memory disk from the stray trail camera. I was only moderately surprised to confirm, it is my camera. I had hung it next to a likely trail two years ago, and completely forgot about it. This trail is not well traveled as it took almost a year to fill the memory card with a thousand pictures. There was an interesting collection of pictures showing the seasons changing with wildlife passing by. Though most pictures were of does, there were a number of bucks, a few raccoons, several turkeys, a coyote, and one picture of our grandson grinning into the camera as he happened to be walking by. Whenever he spots one of my cameras in the woods, he feels obligated to pose for a picture.

   After leaving a camera in the timber for two years and forgetting about it like I never owned the thing, it is safe to say, I can probably hide my own Easter eggs and have a good time hunting for them.

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