Yesterday I decided to go out again with Skipper, my faithful four-legged friend. You know him by now. That sweet dog with his thick coat always appears in my blogs with a happy expression. For a change, we went to the forest again. This forest is a 5-minute walk away and we spend quite some time here. Because it is a daily occurrence, I often don't take my camera with me anymore. But yesterday my Nikon P1000 was hanging around my neck. I was ready to capture every photogenic leaf or blade of grass as if I were a National Geographic photographer. I went with the idea of ​​photographing some mushrooms, I knew for sure that I would take Skipper's picture. You can't avoid that. He is so photogenic! And then there is that well-known phenomenon of the trees changing color in the fall. But while I was walking through the forest with Skipper, my eye fell on something completely different. All the felled trees that lay there as beautiful tree trunks. And for someone who normally walks around with her head in the clouds, I had a surprisingly practical thought, "Shit, we need this wood."

Constantly Looking For Wood

I've already told you, that my partner and I both work with wood. He makes beautiful woodworking projects and I'm into pyrography. That all sounds very fancy, but in practice, it mainly means that we are constantly looking for good wood for a decent price. And that part just happens to be a bit impossible these days. In addition, something like a tree trunk, my partner's big dream, is impossible to come by. And certainly not for a price that we can pay for it. As I trudged through the wet forest with Skipper, surrounded by all those beautiful felled tree trunks that were lying there, I kept thinking, "It's just lying there for the taking! But no, I'm not allowed to take it." And that has everything to do with the regulations in the beautiful Netherlands.

Seriously, it almost made me angry. The trees are rotting away there, so to speak. But we have to empty our wallets for a few pieces of wood. I would almost be tempted to go and pick up a small trunk in the evening by car, the only problem is that such a tree trunk is impossible to lift. And you don't just take a chainsaw and cut off a piece. But my god, such a tree trunk would be fantastic for us. My partner could do a lot with it on his lathe. And I certainly wouldn't say "NO" to a few slices of such a tree for a few pyrography projects. The further I walked, the more of those trunks I came across. By the way, they just seemed to laugh at me. "Look, but touch? No way!" Unfortunately, it is impossible to take them with you, and rules are rules, so I just walked on.

Drone Dreams

While I was trying to focus on taking pictures of the beautiful autumn colours, which were not that present yet, another brilliant idea came to me. An idea that I have felt flying through my head before. How cool would it be to have a drone during these kinds of walks? I could already imagine having a drone with me that would hover over the treetops like a bird, and capture everything from a beautiful bird's eye view. Modern drones have a great "Follow Me" function, and I could use that very nicely for that. I could also take pictures where the drone flies low above the ground to look from Skipper's perspective. The omnidirectional obstacle avoidance that is on the DJI Mini 4 Pro drone would make that very possible. Yes, I liked the idea when I thought about it. It would not only produce great images but also be a nice change from the eternal "picture-from-the-side-of-Skipper" album.

So, when I got home, I started up my PC again and dived into the wonderful world of drones. First, I did some preliminary research. That is also necessary because if there is one thing I am good at, it is impulsively wanting to buy things that I have no space or budget for. A drone does not take up much space, so I had already tackled that problem in my mind. The budget? Hmm, yes, that would take a while, but I was motivated to get it done. Until I read on and my dreams flew out of my head again. It turns out that I live in the largest No-Fly zone in the Netherlands. Yes, seriously. The entire area, including those beautiful forests where I always walk, is a forbidden area for drones. And that is not a small part ... no, I am talking about a large area. If I want to get outside of that, I have to travel quite a distance, and since that is not always possible, my drone dreams could fly away again.

I thought for a moment, “Who will ever find out if I just fly my drone low?” But that was a bit of a James Blond idea, it soon turned out. When I continued my search, I was confronted with reality. You have to register your drone anyway if it has a camera to get an operating number. Of course, that is linked to your data. And then it comes, modern drones happily send out all kinds of signals about where they are, and how high they fly. Of course, all of this is linked to the operating number of the drone. The only thing missing is that they also send out signals about whether you have just had coffee. Even if you dare to think that you do not register, and therefore dare to fly completely illegally, there is another trick in the drones. Certainly, the type of drone I had in mind is equipped with geofencing. In other words: they simply refuse to take off in a No-Fly zone. I swear to you, the Netherlands with its regulations and the technology together ... I can curse it, but it does not change reality.

Although it seemed so nice to me, a drone that could accompany Skipper and me on our forest walks, taking beautiful shots from the air while we quietly searched our path below. But no, that plan was immediately scrapped, literally and figuratively. I could already see myself standing there with a brand-new drone that wouldn't even start up because I live in a forbidden area.

Priorities instead of dreams

You could say that I'm just armed with my camera and the company of Skipper, who was at least as disappointed that he didn't get a new toy in the air to run after, and I'm going to continue. Painting and photography will remain my creative outlet for the time being, and my search for affordable wood for our wood projects continues unabated. If we succeed in that, we'll see what happens next. Maybe that drone will come someday. But for now, I have to concentrate on getting our website up and running, get that income, and see that we somehow get all that wood we need.

Maybe I should just hang a banner in the forest: “Longing for wood, fair trade for pictures of trees.” Who knows, it might work!