Insanity

 It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. This, in a nutshell, describes my deer hunting season. Day, after day, after day, I set my alarm for 5:45 and go to bed. But I do not really need the alarm, my body is like a finetuned watch. Sadly, it is not tuned like a Rolex, it is like a 1970's Mickey MouseTimex that has been dropped in the water. Instead of my alarm going off at 5:45, my internal alarm clock goes off at 3:45! I kid you not, 5 out of 7 days a week I wake up within 5 minutes of 3:45, the other two days, if I am lucky, it will be after 5am, but never does my phone alarm actually go off. 

I then sit on the couch, have my caffeine and watch the news as my body wakes up. A half hour or so before sunrise, I walk to my blind sit down and watch the sunrise. Day, after day, after day, after day. Oh, I am not complaining, it is a great way to spend the morning. Okay, maybe I am complaining a little bit as we did have two days where the highs were in the teens. 

Did I see deer? I see deer every day. Did I see bucks? I see bucks every day. Did I shoot a deer? No. With two weeks left in the season, I have come to the conclusion that I probably will not get a deer this season. 

Then came Thursday and our world stopped with a phone call. Our niece Alana, who I have talked about many times had a medical emergency. We dropped everything to rush to Rapid and be with her and Ryan. Alana's sister Tess drove up from Denver, her mom and dad flew in from Minneapolis, and her brother flew in from Paris. 

She is not out of the woods yet, but we are seeing positive signs. It has been almost a week, and it will likely be another week before she can go home, but we are hopeful.  We went to their house and picked up their dogs who will be spending a few days with us. 

And just like that, we went from a 2-dog household to a 4-dog household! Let the chaos begin! Feeding times are the worst, Loki is three years old(ish), but a lab, and they take several years to settle down. Most of the time he is fine and just lays around, but other times the pup in him comes out and the chaos begins. 

Loki thinks he is a lap dog which is often sweet, sometimes annoying. How many pups do you see in this picture?

Barb is reading her iPad, but the dogs want some attention, and Loki gives her a big kiss!

So, just for you Harry, here is a video of the dogs playing. Those little ones have jaws of steel!

Dakota just hangs out, not wanting anything to do with either of the other dogs. She has been having a hard time getting around, as her hips are super weak. We give her injections which seems to help. Her mind is happy, you can see it in her eyes, ears and actions when we go for walks, but the struggle is real for her. 

Life is weird, the world can totally stop for one person, or family, as the rest of the world goes on like it is just a normal day. I know all of you have experienced it, some of us more times than we like to recall. Each time, I just find it surreal; as you watch others going about laughing, working, living life as though nothing has happened at all while you walk around in a stupor barely able to function. But even for us, life goes on and we feel guilty for it. I still work on the garage, Barb still works on the camper, we still watch football. We go up there every other or every few days to visit, but in a nutshell, life really sucks sometimes. 

Speaking of the garage, I am still working on the OSB in the workshop. I borrowed Kevin's sheetrock lift to do the ceiling. Talk about a back saver! I got the last piece up on the ceiling and should have the last of the wall pieces up in the next day or two. 

I have also been wiring the new fuel tank Bob and DeAnne brought down. I had it filled with 250 gallons of gas the other day, so I hope I get it going soon! (Update...I finished this project yesterday and it is all good to go!)

Barb has been trimming the edge of the flooring, tedious work. She struggled on what to do with the rounded corners and after many trial and errors she came up with this solution: a 45° piece sandwiched between two 22° pieces. 

The weather has been a roller roaster, from snow and single digits to mid 50's in just a few days. All of our snow is gone now, but just two days ago it looked like this. So beautiful. 

A couple of you asked for a picture of the Christmas tree after it was all decorated, so here it is. 

It does not look like this anymore, however. Saturday night, Barb and I were having a quiet evening on the couch watching a Hallmark movie, when all of a sudden there was a 15' tree laying on top of us. No warning, no one shouting "timber!". Just a tree on our heads. Barb was trapped under the tree. I was able to get out from under it and lift it off Barb. Water everywhere, broken bulbs everywhere, dogs everywhere barking and confused. I tried standing it up, but with the water, the stand just slid across the floor. Barb came over to help and stepped onto a broken bulb. We finally got it standing back up and started the cleanup. 

What happened? We don't know for sure, but Loki was back there when it happened, and we think he got tangled up in the lights. The dogs went back home two days later. With everyone staying at Ryan and Alana's house there is plenty of people there to take care of them now. 

That was our week, not a good one, but I write this blog as a journal of our life, so I write it as it is so years from now our kids, grandkids or even us, ourselves and look back and read about it and reflect. 

And So It Begins

 What begins you ask?

I'll get to that in a moment, but first, you will be happy to know that we had our first snowfall! 

This means that the woodland creatures have the much-needed moisture they need to survive. We received about 5" which also means something else. It means we can burn some of our slash piles! We need a minimum of 2" to burn anything here, and we have a dozen or so slash piles scattered across the property as a result of cutting down trees and just basically cleaning up the forest. I was able to burn two before the winds picked up and just made it too sketchy to burn any more. 

With Thanksgiving behind us it is time to turn our eyes and focus on Christmas, and so it begins. It's Hallmark movie time! It's Christmas music time! It is Christmas decoration time! And it is Christmas tree time! 

That last one is one I personally look forward and dread all at the same time. The last few years we have been going out to the National Forest and cutting down our own tree. All you have to do is get a $10 permit from the Forest Service, follow a few simple rules and you get a tree at a fraction of the price of one bought at a store or nursery. 

Why dread it then? Barb has to have the "perfect" tree (much like she had to find the perfect husband!) and as such we have to search the woods high and low looking for the perfect tree. I do not care if you find it in the first 5 minutes, you need to spend the next hour looking at every other tree in the area to make sure that first one is "The One". I am just glad she did not follow this same philosophy when selecting me!

Years ago, when the kids were young, mom would say "Let's go pick out a tree". They would groan knowing that it was a multi-mile death march up and down every row of trees at the local tree farm. 

Last year was no different when Forrest, Somer and Lily were here and the girls got to experience it for the first time. Lily tapped out after 30 minutes saying she was cold, Somer 15 minutes later when she said she was going to check on Lily. 

Would this year be any different? 39 years of history tell me no, but off we went on our search. She would approach a tree, study it on all sides and give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. 

15 minutes into our search, she said, "This one looks good". Be still my heart, could she have found one in the first 15 minutes?!?!? But off she went into the forest looking at other trees just to make sure. She returned 5 minutes later to that same tree and said, "This one". You did not have to tell me twice; I had that puppy cut down in 30 seconds afraid she would change her mind. 

Barb drug it down the hill to the base, we loaded it into the truck, and we were back on the road in 30 minutes! This is by far the biggest tree we have gotten so far, coming in at 15' or so. We did not measure it, but Barb is on a 12' ladder, and it extends well above that. That tree would have been well over $200 at a nursery. 

Barb then set about decorating the rest of the house. Her philosophy is "less is more", not going overboard, just enough to bring a touch of Christmas to the house. 

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas! The snow brought a different element to deer hunting as well. Cold and bright. I love it!

The rut is still on with bucks looking for the does that have not been bred yet. This picture show one of those bucks (far left) keeping his eye on a doe laying down (far right) that apparently wants nothing to do with him. 

Be warned that this post does contain a picture of a dead deer. It is a pretty tame one though. No, I did not get one, but our daughter did! As many of you know, Jessica and her daughter Kendall hit the Pennsylvania woods each fall in search of meat to fill the freezer. This year was no different. Even though Kendall (Baby K to us) is a year older, she still falls asleep in the deer woods. 

But Jessica woke her up when this meaty doe walked by and Jessica made a perfect shot! So proud of our baby girl that she is out there enjoying the woods, passing on the hunting culture and providing meat for the family. With the prices of beef recently it helps cut down on the grocery bill too! Although, truth be told, pound for pound deer hunting probably costs a lot more than beef in the store. 

That's it for this week, hope all of you have a great week and a joyous holiday season!

The Rut

 You deer hunters know what I mean with that title. The rut, the one time a year the deer get frisky. It is basically a two-week (+/-) period a year when the does come into heat. But the does do not let just any buck do the job, they wait for the most buckly and virile buck in the woods. Oh, the lesser bucks try, but the does reject their advances waiting for the right buck. 

To put it into perspective think about it this way.... There is a bar full of girls sitting at the bar having a good time, minding their own business when in walks two of these lesser bucks. For the purposes of this explanation, we will call these two Dino and Steve. Now Dino and Steve come strutting into the bar like they are God's gift to women. The women, upon first glance know that these two are not the ones they have been waiting all year for and try to ignore them. 

Dino                                                              Steve

But Dino and Steve try anyways, using their best lines on them, trying to impress, but really getting nowhere. They chase the girls around the bar as the girls move from table to table trying to get away from them, but to no avail. Dino and Steve do not get the hint and just keep on trying. This is why you see so many dead deer on the side of the road this time of year, they just are not thinking straight. 

After a bit two more bucks walk in. These two bucks are the buckiest bucks in the woods. They walk in with the confidence of a couple of bucks who have been around the woods a time or two. For the purposes of this example, we will call them Jim and Harry.  I don't know why I chose those names, they just seemed to fit in this scenario. 

(Sidenote on this picture. Barb took it from inside the house while I was out hunting. The doe was inside the dog pen while the buck laid just outside watching her eat the green grass)

Now Jim and Harry walk in and every doe in the bar turn towards the door, and their legs turn to butter. THESE are the two that they have been waiting for! Dino and Steve, sensing their bucksculinity, lower their heads and hide in the corner. But not every doe is ready at the same time, and when they are ready, it is for only 24 hours, so Jim and Harry have to be very astute and very busy. It is going to be a busy two weeks! 24 hours a day for over two weeks these two have to provide a service for their fellow deer making sure that only the strongest genes are passed on to the next generation. There are fights, sometimes to the death, they are determined to be the top bucks.

Notice how some of the bucks are leading with their nose? That is how they tell if a doe is ready. 

Not every doe gets bred this first go around. Those that do not, they come into heat in 28 days later and again in another 28 days if the first two cycles did not work. That is why you see fawns of varying sizes throughout the spring and summer. It is said that even does born this year get bred during this last cycle of the rut. 

By the end of January Jim and Harry are tired, exhausted and satisfied, knowing they did a good job passing on their superior genetics. Steve and Dino are left frustrated, but hopeful that next year will be their year!

That pretty much sums up the rut put into layman's language. I hope that helped. 

Throughout the late summer and early fall I put out cameras trying to pattern the bucks. Where they are during certain times of the day, where they frequent with the hopes of an encounter during hunting season. But, I am afraid that this is more likely what is happening....

I have had plenty of opportunities to harvest a Dino or a Steve, but they are scrawny, inferior and just enjoy the sights and sounds of nature. The older I get the less important the actual harvest gets. I just enjoy being out there. Although now that it is getting chillier the enjoyment level is diminishing. I don't know if those are the words of an aging man, or of a man who has failed to get his deer. 

I worry about the deer and all the woodland creatures this time of year. Freezing temperatures have frozen all the ponds and water tanks. I do not know where they get water. The morning dew perhaps? It has to be a hard time of the year. I see them at the water tanks licking the ice, I suppose that is something. 

But being Thanksgiving week, I have spent week reflecting on Thanksgivings past. Since retiring and hitting the road in 2014, we have continued to spend Thanksgivings with family and friends; Salt Lake City with the kids, Zion National Park, again with the kids and one of my all-time favorites, Pennsylvania and even a Cabela's parking lot. 

2014

The last few have been here in South Dakota with both friends and family.

2023

2024

  This year was no differerent when we spent the holiday with our good friends Bob and DeAnne! 

They arrived late Wednesday afternoon driving through snow and cold to get here. We spent the next two days catching up, watching football, working on a couple of projects and eating, oh the eating, between the appetizers and the main course I think we ate from 1:30-4:30 straight!    So full.....

Zoey was so tired that she crashed in front of the fireplace while the rest of us crashed on the couch. 

Bob and I worked on the windmill, adding a couple of tension wires to keep it upright and taunt. This has been on my list since installing it a couple of year ago. 

They also brought be a fuel tank from the farm. They have replaced their existing fuel tanks with newer larger ones. This one will be perfect for us as we are 20 minutes from the nearest fuel station. 

Thanksgiving also happened to fall on our daughter-in-law's birthday this year. Happy birthday Somer! This picture is from last year, love how the exit sign is framed on top of her head like a little crown!

So much to be thankful for, hopefully everyone had a great Thanksgiving!