Revealing a Secret Project I've Been Building for a Year (It Will Change Everything)

Folks at home welcome back to the

Crimson Oak Pond and if you're new to

this series we built this 5 acre Pond

over the past year and it took us

several months to get all of the dirt

excavated and we had to bring in several

truckloads of clay and we also built an

island a dock and got all the structure

in place and then it took a couple of

months to get it full of water after

that we stocked it with a bunch of bait

fish including bluegills and thread fin

shad and not long after that we stocked

it with these little 2-in aggressive

bass and we're going to be giving you an

update on them here in just a minute and

showing you how big they've gotten but

spring is in the air and it's my

favorite time of year because the

wildlife is abundant the fish are

spawning and we got the water in our

newest Pond crystal clear so we're going

to be doing a fish feeding feeding our

two youngest bass but the big surprise

is how aggressive the rainbow trout are

I never saw that one coming but as

always the wildlife feeding cams are

carrying the series and I always find it

amazing how entertaining Wildlife can be

just hit the record button and the

animal always find a way to put on a

show so you'll be seeing Flying

Squirrels as well as George Jones The

posum and for those of you that have

been asking about some old school

fishing videos I got something special

for you at the end of this video you're

not going to want to miss it so if you

followed along with this Pond build

series you've seen the wildlife habitat

it created and you've probably noticed

that due to my engineering background

I'm always looking for ways to

incorporate technology at the farm to

monitor the wildlife and see the sides

of nature we don't always get to see for

instance the underwater fish cams eagle

nest camera and our most recent project

of installing antennas in the pond to

track the fish's activity and sometimes

we go a little bit overboard and install

a splash pad and irrigation system for

the duck house but as most of you know

there are plenty of challenges when it

comes to rural Farm areas and technology

and in the past I've even thought about

setting up a live stream on the fish

feeders and letting some of you

subscribers control the fish feedings

throughout the day but I didn't have

power or Cellular Connection at the

feeder and there's been times where I

wanted to automate everyday Pond tasks

like turning on the well water to fill

up the pond and once it reaches a

certain level then automatically turning

itself off but I didn't have that

capability so about a year ago I joined

a company called field micro to build a

product called the field bot and the

field bot is equipped with a solar panel

to provide all of its necessary power

and an HD camera for live viewing but

most importantly it has the ability to

automate tasks like turning on and off

pumps feeders fans as well as opening

and closing Gates and we designed it to

be weatherproof and waterproof and work

in even the most remote locations in the

world it has built-in temperature

humidity and air pressure sensors and

also connects to Wi-Fi or cellular

networks but before we get into any more

details on the field bot I wanted to

give you a quick background on how it

got started so the company field micro

was founded by an Australian cotton

farmer named Mitch and Mitch grew up on

a farm so he designed the original field

bot prototypes with farmers in mind to

help automate those everyday tasks and

save Farmers time and money and Mitch

just happened to be following along the

pond build series and he reached out to

discuss the product he was working on

and after some discussions we both

agreed that field Bots could be used for

multiple scenarios including Pond

management so you could connect a water

Clarity sensor to the field bot and have

it send you a text when the water

visibility is greater than 24 in

so you know it's time to fertilize or

maybe a low-l sensor installed on the

dock so that when the water levels drop

during a drought the field bot receives

the low-level signal and turns on the

well to pump fresh water back in the

pond until it's full So the plan was to

build a universal field bot that can

work with all sensors and bring

automation to even the most remote

locations and the next step was

designing a user interface that we call

Smart farm and smart farm would become

the command and control center for all

the field F Bots once you're in smart

Farm you can see all the connected field

bots on a live satellite feed and you

can view the onboard camera and you can

also turn on their microphone which

turns out to be a really neat feature so

let's say that you command a diesel pump

to turn on if the microphone doesn't

hear the pump turn on then you'll

receive an alert or if you had a field

bot installed on a fish or deer feeder

and the feeder was running if the

microphone didn't hear the feed coming

out it would notify you that the feeders

were empty and I'm personally even going

to set one up here at the waterfall and

use it to control the pumps and control

the amount of water that flows down

through the waterfalls based on when I'm

out here or away so the possibilities

truly are endless but back to the smart

Farm you're able to see all of your

connected sensors right here in the app

the oh board temp humidity or barometric

pressure plus any of the external

sensors are going to be displayed here

in the lower left and if you have

multiple field Bots you can set up

automation between them for example if

you have two field bots on opposite

sides of the farm one could turn the

irrigation water on and once the

moisture probe connected to the second

field bot registered water then it would

turn the irrigation pump off and smart

Farm was also designed to connect to

third party apis like tractors

satellites and weather and that helps

increase the efficiency of your land or

Farm but just like I've done with all of

my previous projects I want to include

you all in this journey and I've gotten

some great ideas from you in the past so

if you have any ideas on how we can make

the field bot or smart Farm better even

if it's going to solve a completely

unrelated problem I'd love to hear your

thoughts so we're finalizing on the

hardware design now and getting ready

for production so any changes or

improvements have to happen now and

we're also going to send about 5 to 10

of our final prototypes out to some of

you that are interested in helping us do

some field testing so if you're

interested in the product or want to

give us some feedback check out field

micro.com where you can join the weit

list or leave us a message and we're

going to be sending out all the pricing

information by email to those of you

that sign up once we've got it finalized

and you know I'm going to add some

discounts to my subscribers that join in

on the launch but if you don't want to

enter your information on the site feel

free to leave a comment down below or

you can email me directly at stenfield

micro.com and we look forward to hearing

your feedback and I'll be giving you

updates on the project in our upcoming

videos so if you missed the last video

we spent a good bit of time cleaning out

the Wetland filter and that fixed all of

our water Clarity issues now we have

Crystal Clear water and I love it

because you can see down in the bottom

and watch all the fish interacting with

the fish

caves we even got one of the little

ninja turtles popping its head out but

the pitcher plants are blooming a

Japanese Maple's putting on its leaves

Little Birdies are stopping by but I'll

have to say that the coolest thing is

watching the two bass we call Johnny and

June so every time I walk up to the

Pond's Edge they come rushing over and

at first I thought they were just trying

to greet me but I really realized it's

because I'm pushing those little minnows

out of the shallow water and as they

start getting out there in the deeper

area the bass begin patrolling them and

looking for those easy meals but I

really like it because since they're

this young they're not scared of human

Presence at all and that reminds me a

lot of Moby We started him out when he

was just a couple inches long and he

grew up with us so he enjoyed it when we

came around because he always knew it

was going to be feeding time and

speaking of feeding time I wanted to add

a few new shiners into this Pond and I

was pretty surprised by the reaction of

the rainbow trout check this out all

righty stocking some fresh golden

shiners in the new

Pond Look Who's down there

eating I don't know if you guys can see

it

man look at there

wow trout are aggressive

man and I've tried to start feeding the

bluegills some pellets because I know

they like them and I caught them right

there at the

feeder but they're still not having it

yet and today's video is brought to you

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and they have over 27 different meal

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for days out here at the pond got to

love it now let's check in on the pair

of eagles that we call Sam and Dixie but

it's tough to explain to you how happy I

was when I saw the eagle land right here

on the perch by Cedar Falls so back in

November when the Aquascape guys were in

town I was telling him about the eagle

Tower I built and Greg told me he was

going to put this particular piece of

wood here for the eagle so it's just

really cool to see that when you design

something specifically for a rare bird

like the eagle and when they actually

come in and use it just like planned

it's tough to beat that but I want to

tell you guys a story about the eagle

and its Nemesis the crow so there's an

old tail out there that I'm not sure if

it's true or not but the story basically

says that there's only one bird out

there brave enough to mess with an eagle

and that's the crow and as you'll see

throughout these videos the Eagle's

content and peaceful but the crow is

always pestering him and the story says

that the crow will land on the Eagle's

back and Peck at his neck but the eagle

doesn't attempt to shake it off or fight

it or spend its time or energy on the

small nuisance but it just opens its

wings and continues to rise higher into

the sky and the higher the flight the

harder it is for the crow to breathe and

hold on until it eventually falls off

due to a lack of oxygen so the moral of

the story is don't spend your time

fighting crows just keep ascending so

I'm not sure if there's any truth to

that story at all but I can confirm the

crows are the only ones brave enough to

mess with the eagle but I love watching

the eagle tower cam because you never

know what you're going to see pay close

attention to the bass splashing right

beside alcatra Island and the eagle

notices that the bass actually knocked a

little Blu Gill up onto the island and

watch him fly down there and grab that

little Blu Gill off the bank that is

just wild it's incredible to see how

good their eyesight

is and the bass got the assist on that

one and we got Dixie here giving Sam an

ear full and they're just like an old

marry couple that's that if you got

something to say just go ahead and say

it

look and I'm not sure whose doggo this

is but he found the pond and has been

stopping by to take a quick bath and I

was down there looking at the animal

tracks in the sand and had no clue what

it was and it's because this pup loves

Rolling In The Sand he's got a lot of

spunk so about twice a year I'll sink

some brush piles and in the summertime

I'll sink them out deep cuz that's where

all the fish are hanging out but this

time of year you can see we got all

these little small Bait fish hanging out

right right here in the shallow parts

and they don't have a ton of places to

hide you can see where I've added some

tops there and there's some more brush

piles we sank last year but the key is

to get that leafy brush in there kind of

like this brush right here and if you

can see we got a couple tilapia sitting

right there up under it I had no idea

any of the tilapia survived last year

but that leafy stuff gives all those

little small Bait fish that are cruising

these Banks right here it gives them a

place to hide and grow up a little bit

and you don't want all the bluegills and

smaller Bait fish getting eaten right

after the spawn so we're going to go

build them a new

home and sinking the tops are pretty

simple just get you a block some wire

and I like to lay some of the bushy ends

on each side and then wrap that wire and

block right there in the center there's

a look at the final product let's go

drop it off and you want to Target those

spawning areas so if you remember we put

pea gravel all around the island right

here so a lot of Blu gills are going to

spawn and when those little fry hatch

out they can come and swim right over

here to this and be protected all right

see if I can do this with one

hand perfect little setup for them all

right just sank another one right over

here by where we pump the water in this

little

cve that's usually a good spawning

ground right over there all right just

think the last one over here by the

Cedar Falls feeder it's right there you

can barely see the top of it but if you

remember we have a road bed that comes

out right here that we put a lot of

gravel out on and there's always a bunch

of beds right

[Music]

there

oh

oh

oh

so in the last couple videos we

installed these pit tag antennas so when

any of the bass that have been tagged in

the pond swim near or through one of the

antennas it scans it back to a Data

Logger and as you can see I found a

really easy way to scan these fish and

see who it is that's hanging out here

around the dock just toss some shiners

out there and they'll swim right through

it but now that we're starting to

collect a lot of data I got a few few

ideas of things I want to do with it and

one of the cool things about the Data

Logger is it logs the exact time that

the fish swam by it so as we compile all

of these successful scans it should

start showing us when these bass are the

most active so it's one of those

questions I've always wanted to know do

bass feed more at night time than they

do during the day or are they really

Territorial and basically stay in one

part of the pond but what I'm starting

to see is dozens of fish swimming

through each of these areas that are

basically Community spots what's really

really interesting is that some fish

will just register one ping every other

day but then you have a couple of bass

for instance simol one of the big

Florida strain females we put in she

actually swims by the oak Throne almost

once every hour some days and it may

just be that Simo is a really active

fish that hadn't found a spot to settle

in but I've already learned a lot from

the couple of weeks of having these

antennas so if you guys have any other

ideas of things we can test out with the

data leave it in a comment below and

here's a quick look at a spread sheet

and you'll have the fish's name and then

the number in parentheses right beside

it is how many times that fish was

scanned and it basically scans once per

second so Lily hung out in that area for

8 seconds but we got a new leader when

it comes to the most successful scans

and that's Excalibur who hung out around

the oak throne for roughly

2,723 seconds but the plan is to start

creating some graphs showing the most

active fish per location and also making

this live and accessible so you guys can

view it anytime and we' got Nate makes

building a squirrel house and last week

I installed a bunch of squirrel feeder

stations around the farm so we could

monitor which areas were the most active

and right out of the gate we had some

installation issues because we didn't

factor in the weight of raccoons but I

left the camera rolling and was

surprised to see the amount of wildlife

that used this big old oak tree as its

home we got George Jones a little field

mice and now that we started seeing some

squirrel activity I decided it was time

to go ahead and properly install the nut

bar and there's a good look at the

massive Oak no telling what all animals

are up there right now we got another

surprise with a big rat and it was

interesting to see that he just grabbed

one nut and got out of there but the

star of this show is the Bandit raccoon

and it's been very entertaining watching

him interact with the nut bar so at

first when there were plenty of nuts no

problem at all but the raccoon was the

only one intrigued enough to try to

break into the nut Vault and access the

full stash and watch him try to learn

how the door slides up and down and he's

working hard and he's pretty

efficient now on the other hand we all

know George Jones has gotten old and

he's doing all he can just to make it up

to the nut bar but he's not as strong as

he once was and down he goes but the

raccoon is determined to figure out this

puzzle and is not going to let it beat

him George is struggling just to even

get close to him but these are my

favorite shots

you can see the raccoon weaving his hand

in and out of the little bar stools

making sure he cleans everything out and

no food left behind so the nut bar was

definitely a success and a possible

location for the squirrel house we just

have to make sure to build the entrance

small enough that the raccoon and George

can't get into it now on to location

number two the peanut picnic table with

the umbrella and I think it's wild that

we've been captured a squirrel on this

table sitting up under an

umbrella but he's very upset bet that

there's not any nuts there and he's got

a special message just for

me and that's more nuts but this little

guy's so mad at me that he's even

starting to chew into the picnic table

so I'm going to need to increase the

capacity of the nuts in this area so we

don't have any more Angry Flying

Squirrels so now that we got crystal

clear water in Cedar Falls we can start

watching some footage from some of the

underwater cams but the first thing I

was really surprised to see was that as

the water cleared up the ction and

patterns on the bass changed so if you

noticed in the past video so if you

noticed in the last video the very back

edge of their tail was black almost like

somebody took a paintbrush and painted

it but now that we have clear water

their lateral line looks a lot more

distinguished and that black tail has

completely disappeared but like I

already mentioned there's a lot of

similarities to these two fish in Moi I

can already see that Johnny and June are

going to have a big personality because

they get into everything they're always

swimming around investigating the

cameras checking every little crack for

a minnow so these guys are going to be a

lot of fun to watch we also had a quick

Glimpse at one of the Blu

gills and a fish cave cam it's

interesting to see that all the fish are

using them and now that the water's

cleared up it's nice to have because of

the Eagles and ospr but so far none of

the birds have messed with them so I was

thinking that this was a rat snake and

just wanted to get your guys opinion on

it n I'm just kidding but this is my

yearly Public Service reminder to all

those turkey hunters out there make sure

to wear some good boots and speaking of

squirrels here's a clip of a whitish

gray fox squirrel and it's interesting

how some of them have that orange look

and others have this white

look now let's check out the pond with

the night lights on we've got everything

lit up you can see all the bait fish

have spread out and are not really

grouped up together at night and I'm

sure there's some fish down there on the

hunt I've thought about adding a few

more lights but I don't want to make it

too bright so that the Predators like

raccoons can come hunt at night so I'm

probably going to leave it like it is

and speaking of nighttime Hunters we got

Hooter the and it's been a little while

since we've seen him but Hooter I got

some big rats out there I may need you

to take care of so hope you guys had a

good Easter Oliver sure was happy that

the Easter Bunny visited him out here at

the farm couldn't quite figure out what

to do with a bucket so he just put it on

his

head and I got Sarah out here working

with me on the tractor but after a while

she made a stop and take a break and go

for a little hay ride around the farm

and that turned out to be a pretty good

idea so all the oak trees are doing good

leaves are starting to fill in even got

a Cypress right there that's budding out

but I have a question about one of these

big oak trees we just planted so we most

recently planted these two and this

one's doing good except for at the very

top it doesn't have any leaves or buds

at the very top I'm thinking that could

be a sign of something wrong with it so

let me know if you guys have seen

anything like that cuz we've had a

couple dozen of that same variety out

here here and hadn't had that issue with

any of them all right folks out here

going to do a little fishing we're right

here in the middle of the spring the

bass should have been spawning in March

and April you should see you know some

Red Tails or maybe even some post spawn

fish but with all the little bass

swimming around the edges I'm very

confused this year but you know how we

do it every time we catch a fish we'll

scan it to see if it's ever been caught

before if not we'll inject a tag and I'm

thinking the water's warm enough we can

try the old

frog

there we

go on the

Frog that's a good one

too that's a nice healthy fish look like

we got spawning activity red tail wow

this fish has never been caught that's

incredible to be that big all right her

Tag's going to be 57

0589 2.57

lb

got it right here sitting right under

that tree this guy's not been caught but

his tag is going to be 57

0499 with a weight of

1.63 look at there we got another red

tail oh right there at the lily pads

good one

too he was sitting there waiting on that

frog all right this fish been called 56

9920 and it weighs

1.74

lb that's too much fun oh this has been

caught

5764 and it weighs

1.38 it's a little light bite

might be a big fish though yeah it is a

big

one lily pads are the hot spot hav't

been caught and it weighs 1. 1.82 and

now it's time to feed

tiger

all right folks that's going to wrap up