I'd use washers between the wood and the mount, probably not between the tree and block of wood. Between the tree and block of wood I'd try to shape the block of wood (chisel, rasp, belt sander...) I suppose you could use some composite shims if needed.
Good point Ford. There are lots of squirrels too that might chew on the exposed wires, i didn't even bury them. I'll have to come back in the spring and add conduit and secure the wiring better. I'm going to leave the wire as is and cross my fingersThere is a beaver here that has been chewing on the dock pretty good.
1. I've been scratching my head on the channel layout and played with every menu available. Finally I reluctantly pressed the menu>system>default>camera button. I was afraid it might wipe out all the progress I have made customizing. But low and behold it lined up all the cameras sequentially. Now they are channel 1-4 thank goodness. Much easier to view."
I messed with the same issue about 2 hours yesterday on my Dahua 5216 16 POE...once it assigned a channel you could unplug camera power..power up and it would assign the same wrong channel again when I connected to the NVR. Will try the default button.
Know it's a long time ago...when you say set up the IP range to be 192.168.17 or 55 do you mean the NVR IP address or something with the VPN? Just looking into VPN and have no idea.
I was referring to your whole private LAN ip range. For example if you go to the store and buy a Linksys (Cisco) router and set it up on your Internet connection at home it will, by default, make your home private network the 192.168.1.x network. So your devices that are setup for dynamic addressing such as your desktop at home might get the ip address of 192.168.1.100 and your NVR might get 192.168.1.105.
If I undertand, you see your choices as:
Point to point Ubiquity Wifi gets good reviews here. No wire needed to top of driveway.
The pole with the reflectors in this image:
Ya, the Touaregs are nice. Especially the V10 diesel. But the service is pretty bad around here. I got rid of it.
The mounted Big black face Dahua has done great in the snow though, and the snow does not stick to it, it melts when it hits it. 
Being in the business, I can tell you first hand it is a not okay to mount on the pole for an extended amount of time... when I have to climb them anything is torn off a pole... bird house, wire, lights, signs, anything not owned by the utility.... for repeat issues with certain utilities, they will even call the cops since it is tresspassing. It is a roll of the dice though of when they come out to do work on it. Could be next month, could be 10 years.
throw an @ before someones username and it will help get their attention and helps with any typos like this: @CaliGirlYa, the Touaregs are nice. Especially the V10 diesel. But the service is pretty bad around here. I got rid of it.
Thanks Kawboy12R better to ask for forgiveness then permission. I won't risk mounting to it, bc I don't live close and that would be a headache to get a notice to remove it. Tempted to make it noticeable except that the cable line is flying through the air, and anyone that knows what they are doing and wants to cause trouble, can simply cut the cable line and we'd never get notification. Figured it was better to be discrete and catch someone wondering the property trespassing and call the cops before there is a problem. It is a dead end road in and out, so as soon as you call the cops, there is no getting away down a 2 mile dead end road. Bird house would be a good idea, but would need to be 10 ft. + in the air, but maybe that will do. Just need the snow blower guy to not knock it over with the blowing snow, also the snow tends to build up on bird houses and cover them. Needs to have enough overhang. Basically the snow makes everything much much harder
The pole in the image tangent is a snow marker for the plows to not go off the edge of the driveway. They install them in the fall and remove them after the melt. They are not really high enough to prevent someone from covering or stealing the camera. Lots of people walk by the driveway during the day. It is the only road around and everyone goes on their daily walks right be here. So lots of foot traffic (relatively speaking).
I am really tempted to put up a metal pole (painted all black) with a black painted starlight big black face dahua, and a small street light and be done with it. Do you think I could handle doing that myself? Digg a deep hole, feed the cat 5 through the pole, dump quick mix cement into hole, put pole in hole, anchor to remain level, let it dry, mount camera to it?
Does Dahua have any other outdoor cameras that are smaller then the big black face dahua? That thing is a monster and I don't need more then 5x zoom or even less. Just need to pivot around really. Or mount to static cameras at different angles. But that would look security cameras for a compound. Want to make it look nice and clean and discrete and classy.
Thanks @tangent all valid points I hadn't thought of. I was up there yesterday and walked the property. Looking at all the angles that might work. Top of the guest house would be pretty good, but also looks complex for me to install on a tall ladder. My biggest concern securing the cat 5 cable in a conduit so that you can't simply snip the wire, but maybe that shouldn't matter much. I guess anyone can do that and the next camera angle would pick them up. Or they can simply snip the cable line to the telephone pole and I loose all notifications and the live feed.