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September 2007 Archives
September 2, 2007
Congratulations Bud!!
New hunting record for our party. The first time that anyone in our hunting group since we started bear hunting has ever shot a bear on opening day! Good job Bud! Brian had a bear come into his site and looked right at him and went running into the woods. The rest of us didn't see anything. Hopefully our second day will bring more good news.
No, this is not a cub, and perfectly legal so quit your wisecracks. He's heard all of them already!
September 3, 2007
My tag is filled.
I got a bear last night at 7pm. Jeromy, Brian, and Bob are still working on theirs. This is the first time I shot a bear opening weekend, and the first time I shot a bore. Bears are truly amazing animals. I know that may sound crazy to those who do not hunt animals. But it is possible to enjoy hunting and have absolute respect for the animals you are hunting.
Brian had a bear about the same size as mine come into his bait. He saw a bigger one the day before and decided to wait to see if he would come again. He said it was so awesome just to sit and watch.
Hopefully, everybody will fill their tag this year, but if they don't, at least we are having a good time trying.
September 4, 2007
deer track in the mud with a worm trail.
Seasons changing.
Stinky roadkill. Jackson asked if we could bring it home and skin it and feed the guts to the ravens. Boys. We let it lay there so the animals of the forest good enjoy a good meal and took pictures of it instead.
September 5, 2007
Crumbling rock in the woods.
Fragments of wildflowers. What's left of the Indian paintbrushes amoung the forest.
A giant mushroom growing out of the gravel road.
I SPY A...........
The kids and I had, "An adventure!", as Charly cheers. Today while bear baiting we were able to snap some shots of things we found along our trail. These are what we spotted.
Not long after this shot, Jackson said, "Oh she is so heavy. My arms are starting to hurt!"
Queen bee (cat) on '57 Chevy
We've been letting Ashley's cat go outside every now and then. For some reason, the last couple of times, she has plopped herself on top of the neighbor's '57 Chevy "lawn ornament". She must have a good visual of her hunting grounds from there. Or likes '57 Chevy's!
Today I spy a painted turtle!
Jeromy took the kids today and I made him bring the camera. They found this painted turtle crossing their trail and had to jump out and say hi.
Jackson had his orientation for preschool today. He was gung ho on being there by himself, until we showed up. His shyness came back and his seperation anxiety kicked in. My poor little guy. I have a hunch that will pass very soon. He has matured so much this past year and really tries to be strong and tackle things all on his own. Even if you can tell it is absolutely killing him not to have someone hold his hand all the way through it.
Tonight the kids and I were sitting at the table. I was reading the local realestate ads while the kids played with their playdough. I was reading an ad for a home on the lake by our home. The owners are asking $699,000.00 for their home. And it was just another stupid rambler. I say stupid because that is the home we live in. We bought the place for the land, not the home thinking we would be improving the home immediately, but hasn't happened yet. Anyway,I blurted outloud, "Oh my gosh! Six hundred and ninetynine thousand dollars?! Wheewwww." Two seconds later, Jackson replies, "Mom. You are annorring me." I said , "Do you mean I am annoying you?" He said, "No. You are annorring me." So of course I explain what the definition of ignore and annoy is and ask him if I was bugging him. He nodded yes. So I then told him I was annoying him. His reply, "No. You are annorring me." He'll get one day.
September 6, 2007
We want YOU. To have a very happy day. We love you!! Mom, Dad, Ashley, Jessica, Charly, Moose, Cally, Boo-boo.
Happy 5th Birthday Jack!!
September 10, 2007
Either he felt bad for her or just couldn't take her crying about it and said, "Here Charly, you can open my last present for me."
Harsh reality for a three year old child I guess. Charly was so sad that it wasn't her birthday too. Especially when it was time for Jackson to open his presents.
Happy Birthday Jack
What a day!! Jackson was quite a trooper about the events that happened on his birthday. He had told me he wanted a blue cake this year with blue frosting. He settled for a chocolate cake and told me to surprise him.
It started when we went into the woods that morning to bear bait. We got stuck in a pretty bad storm that scared us pretty good. After we made it home, we found the ground flooded around the house and the power out. No power, no running water. I forgot about the no running water part and hopped in the shower and soaped up real good, put the conditioner in my hair, and then the water stopped.
I was supposed to pick Ash up from school and take her to a Dr appoint 45 minutes out of town.
I call my aunt and ask if she has power if I can come over and rinse the conditioner out of my hair. She said no problem, the kids and I pack it up and hop in the car to see we are on empty. I had forgotton to gas up in the morning and figured I'd hit the station on our way out.
We get to town. The whole town is out of power, therefore nobody is getting gas. I drove home and filled a gallon and a half in the tank that we had on reserve for the International as that gas gage doesn't work. Wheehu! We made it. We were a little late picking up Ash, and she missed her appointment but we were able to take Jackson out for dinner and pick up a cake and some ice cream.
We came home and lit candles and wished him happy birthday in the dark. I am just so thankful that I didn't have a cake in the oven or company coming. It is really nice to have a toilet that flushes if you have company!
He was so good about everything, and really didn't even seem to care about running around so much. If anything, I think he liked the fact that there wasn't a big hoowah for him.
My little man is at preschool today for the first time. He feels so good to grab a backpack and head into the school and say goodbye to Charly and myself. I, of course, am trying not to well up in tears when I think about him and how big he is now. I'm getting beter though, fourteen years ago when Jessica set off to preschool I blubbered like a big baby! Darn kids. My cup runneth over!
See the little tree coming out of the rock?
That's where the kids sat for our Christmas card a couple of years ago. The river is so high from the bad storm we had last week on Jackson's birthday.
It hit about 1:21pm and the kids and I were driving through the woods with trees falling down all around us, water flying everywhere as if we were in a hurricane. At one point I couldn't see the end of my hood and the road was washing away. I pulled to the right a little and stopped and prayed and prayed and prayed! One minute later after being thankful that our vehicle didn't get swooped up into the air, I am able to see in front of my car and see a tree fell one foot in front of us!
Ten minutes of sheer terror and then praying the road stays in tact until I get us home. I had a kids movie going for the kids and tried to be strong and calm so they wouldn't freak. But I definitely felt like we were on our way to heaven that day. I am so thankful we made it home safe and sound!
I didn't check the weather that morning, and the sun was shining when I left home otherwise I would've never gone.
The power ended up being out until the next morning just before 5am. I was told that lightening struck a substation near our home and that's why everyone was out of power.
Our basement leaked a little, okay, maybe a little more than a little. One television fried, and there was a little bit of a mess in storage and our room, but we will survive!
September 11, 2007
This shot was after class. I asked to take a picture but he had to tell me everything that happened right away. He made a gumball machine for his first project.
It was so darn cute to watch him stand in line and wait for his teacher to instruct him to come and greet me. Big school boy now!
Gung-ho and ready to get to class! Chilly Charly wishing she would have put a jacket on when her mom instructed her to. As the rangers say around here, "That'll learn ya."
"One more shot by the school!" Jackson was like come on mom, I just want to go to school.
First day of preschool
Can you tell his lips are turning purple? I had told him to get his jacket on right before we headed out to the car and he said he didn't want to wear it. So I thought, whatever, we'll just put it in his backpack thinking it was going to be a warm day and the sun was just starting to come up.
We get outside to the morning chill and I said, "Let's take some shots real quick before you buckle up." He stood there, started to shiver, said he was cold as I'm saying just say cheese and we'll go. Poor guy. Took a couple of shots and put the jacket on and off we went.
On our way to school he asked me to help him find the coat hook with his name on it. During orientation day, the teacher had all the kids find their hook so they know where to put their things when they arrive. All of the kids were already in the coat room as the teacher had called Jackson in and put him on the spot to find his name in front of everybody. He found it but I could tell he was extremely shy. So it was cute that he was worried about it.
We got to class, he hung his stuff up, washed his hands, the teacher told him of the special order of cherry playdough she had made knowing how much he likes playdough. He stood there and looked around at all of the kids playing and I said to him, "Well Jackson, I think we are going to be leaving now. Are you going to be okay?" He shook his head yes, like no problem, and reached his arms out to give me a hug and a kiss. What a big boy, a total 180 from orientation day when the teacher had told us we will work with the seperation anxiety thing! Guess we smoked her yesterday!
We are so proud of you Jackson!! You are growing up so fast and becoming so smart and such a nice young man. Excuse me, you're right, you're not a man, a nice young kid!
September 12, 2007
Hope you feel special today because you are so special to us! We love you so much!
Where has the time gone?
Happy 18th Birthday Jessica!
Doesn't seem like too long ago that you were only this big.
Happy Birthday Uncle John!!
We hope you have a wonderful day today Mr john Law because we think you are pretty wonderful too!!
Jessica's birthday
I still can't for the life of me believe that I have a child that is 18 years old! I feel old.
Anyway, Jessica's "cake" this year was chocolate dipped strawberries in the shape of a cake. Last year was a pineapple. She keeps me on my toes..ALL OF THE TIME!
I stopped by Jessica's today to drop off her cake and wish her a happy birthday. Here are shots of her and cake and boyfriend, Eddy. Finally I got a shot of them together.
I asked Eddy and his friend to sing happy birthday with me but they really weren't kean on the idea. A gave Eddy a tap on the arm while singing happy birthday and got him to say Jessica at least. What a trooper.
They are going to the casino tonight and celebrating with Jessica. Hope she has a good day.
September 14, 2007
This is the direction I found the camera dangling from one of the two wires still on the tree, cover of the box opened, and a scratch on the front of the cover, not sure if scratch is from bear or wire used to hang camera to tree.
I think this shot was taken as the camera swung from it's position, assuming this is where the bear came after it.
You can't see anything in the shot but I'm pretty sure the bear was in front of the censor and was coming after the camera after the flash went and took a picture of him. He also might have smelled a little scent of bear bait as I had a little mollasis and fry oil on my hands from baiting Jeromy's site when he was climbing in his stand.
Trail cam action
More trail cam shots. I put the camera in a diffirent spot this time, same bait but diffirent tree. I had just come from baiting Jeromy's site as he climbed in his stand.
Now I've heard stories about bears smelling bait scent on trail cameras before and coming after them and destroying the camera, but didn't think much about it because I hear a lot of things. And if I lived my life according to all of the freak stories I hear from people, I would probably never leave the house. And that's not a way to live, even though on occassion it is a good thing to once in a blue moon curl up and snuggle in a cozy bed with a good movie and just take a break. Been years since I was able to to do so, but I'm sure it'll happen again before I die. I love you family.
Anywho, I came to the bear site the next day and found the camera was only attached to the tree by one wire and the cover on the box was opened. My first thought was maybe the weather had been bad during the night, and then I thought again on how secure I wrapped the wire and realized it was hanging due to a bear. Not just bumping it by walking by too close, but probably coming after it.
When I got home and uploaded the pictures, I saw this. The first shot of the bear eating the bait. The camera took a picture. A minute or so later, the camera took another picture and the bear was probably in front of it but didn't get in the shot.
The third picture I think is from mid-swing of the camera being flung from part of the tree.
Last shot is showing the direction the camera was facing when I arrived the next day.
Please excuse my french
My husband, god rest his soul, at times, tends to speak before he thinks. Sometimes, it's a good thing. And sometimes, well....., not so good. Like this morning.
Is he in fact due for an ass whoop'n? I have a hunch at least two other people than myself would agree.
He called home to say hi and goodmorning as he's on the road to work. He aked what I was up to and I had told him how I was putting the bear trail cam shots on the blog and how I like to add stuff often to change things up a bit, if given the time. His reply? Mind you he has just become addicted to reading three blogs every morning while he drinks his coffee. Our blog, and his sister's family, lifeupnorth.com. And his brother's family, zabud.com. Which are usually posted by myself, his sister, and sister-in-law.
His reply? " Yeah, you need to get on that because I like to see something diffirent. Like this morning I hopped on to enjoy my cup of coffee and see that there's still the same stuff on there, you guys are getting lazy." my reply, "EXCUSE ME?!" my thought, post your own damn blog if you want more variety. Like to see that happen. No really, we were half kidding, at least I was.
You be the judge, is he due for an ass whoop'n or does this fall into the "poor Jeromy" senario?
Snow already?
Our poor garden. Jeromy said it snowed a little last night. And our weather report claims we will have another chance of snow showers today. It is cold enough! I'm not ready for winter.
We planted our whole garden from seed this year and then it rotted from the abundance of rain we recieved in spring. We have such a small amount of time to grow a garden as it is but always manage to get something out of it every year. So we picked up what was left of starter plants late spring and gave it a shot. Things started to come in about a month ago. We are hoping that the weather won't be too cold this week and that our garden can finish it's growth before the frost sets in for good.
The last couple of nights we have put sheets on our plants, what a pain that can be. Every year we take another chunk of our sod out and make our garden bigger and bigger, so you can imagine how many sheets we end up laying on the plants.
Just hold off a little more Mr Winter!
Logs in front of the garden? Jackson and Charly's bear bait pile. Not really, I put the kabosh on that because as it happens every spring if we leave the bird seed in our feeders, I really don't want the bears coming into our yard. The kids will have to be deprived and pretend with pine needles and pinecones and rocks for pretend bait.
September 15, 2007
Congratulations Brian!!
Brian's tag is filled. It weighed in at 62lbs, the exact same weight as my bear this year. And it is also his second bear, weird huh. Now it's just Bob and Jeromy's turn. I think there is only two weeks of hunting season left. Tick tock.
Good luck to Jeromy tomorrow night. Hope he doesn't freeze as much as he did tonight. And hopefully he doesn't get too many grouse hunters walking his trail as it is grouse opener tomorrow too.
Jeromy's delema due to trail cam shots?
Musical stands. Hunters know what I am talking about. Jeromy is torn between where to sit as the sites keep getting hit, and the number of hunters are dwindling down and what should he do next?
I lied the last time I said two weeks left of bear hunting season, brain fart. He does have until Oct 14th. But this weekend started to get a lot of traffic into the woods as it was small game opener. And it will only get worse from here.
The bear in this shot is a nocturnal bear, as he probably only hits the bait in the middle of night not during shooting hours. Jeromy tried a couple of tricks in hopes to pull him out during the daylight, but he's also torn between sitting in which stand now. And if he moves around too much, he just might go a year without a bear. Argh, THE PRESSURE! What will Elmer do next?!
September 21, 2007
smooshed snake
Road Kill, yay!
We just love this time of the year when we find fresh road kill as we venture out and about through the woods. Them good eats! Just kidding. It's more like a science adventure for the kids.
The calm before the storm
We've had some tretcherous storms lately. All over the state in fact. Another 8inches of rain came around our area again. Very strong winds, and a lot of trees down.
No bear for Jeromy yet. Hopefully tomorrow will bring more decent weather and he'll be able to sit without thinking he may get hit by a tree. Bob won't be able to hunt until next weekend. Hopefully they will both get a bear this year and we will have a clean sweep of tags filled.
Half eaten mushroom. A good meal for a critter, or not. I have no clue what kind of mushroom it just ate.
Spooky Old Tree
This is one of the trails to one of our bear sites. It has always reminded me of the Dr Suess book Spooky Old Tree.
It would be a very cool place to have a fun Halloween drive through the woods. Who knows, maybe some day we will make that happen. "Witches, get your caldrin's ready!"
Anyway, another fast paced week. More storms, busy school functions, running with kids, and still running the bear baits in between. Bear baiting has slowed down now that we only have two hunters left.
And, no DSL. AGAIN!! Oh yeah, no pwer for another full day! Urgh! I am very convinced that the electric company employees are on STRICT banker's hours only! What a coincidence that the two major occassions our power went out, it miraculously came on at exactly 5am the next morning!!
Friends of ours that come up and visit from the city get a kick out of us telling them how everything shuts down basically around 5 o'clock mon-fri and your lucky if they are open for a short period on the weekend. Even the doctors run on bankers hours, however they will come to work in case of an emergency. It is truly amazing how there is absolutely no convieniance for working people who live in the sticks. That was a culture shock for me, especially since I was a fulltime working single mom when I moved to town. I had to learn to plan ahead, very fast.
Ashley is at a friend's cabin for the weekend. And we don't have any company. So, that means time to hit some household projects. I'm hoping to be able to get out and do a little grouse hunting on my own if my hubby wouldn't mind hanging out with the kids for a while. We'll see. I don't think it's too much to ask if he can squeeze in some babysitting time between beauty parlor and bear hunting, do you? :)
September 24, 2007
Redneck log slicer, made by Jeromy, who says, "Get's it done QUICKER!"
Got Wood?
We do! It's that time of the year again. We gather wood, saw it, stack it, and get ready for those cold winter nights. Makes a difference on our energy costs.
Hunting Season Is Coming
At least for Jackson anyway. He was hard at work yesterday pounding nails, (really screws), into the tree to make himself tree steps up the tree so he could sit on the branch and overlook the backyard to hunt. After a half hour of trying to build by himself, we jumped in and said Daddy would help him build something more sturdy. And we can't forget our Charly girl too. So, this week we are going to use a little creativity and build a couple of SAFE treestands for our little hunters.
"But I don't want to smile."
Happy First Day of School Charly!
She has been waiting and waiting and waiting forever for school to start up again! Today was also special because her daddy came to class today because I was a parent helper in Jackson's class. You are a trooper Jeromy! I know it must have been a little intimidating/flattering surrounded by all of the other mommies. :)
I had an awesome time helping out in Jackson's class. Last week his class took their first field trip and walked a couple of blocks or so to pick apples from an apple tree. Each kid got to pick three apples. Today they got to make little apple pies with them.
And they had a special musical guest, Fruitland Jackson came with his guitar and sang us the blues! It was SO cool. Jackson thought it was pretty neat too because he had the same name. Mr Jackson told the teachers it was easier to go on stage in New York than trying to entertain preschoolers and answer the questions they came up with.
That old Cosby show comes to mind, Kid's Say The Darndest Things!" It was pretty comical for me to hear everything the children felt the need to share with the teacher. I almost plugged my ears after I heard one boy call for the teacher and say, "Wanna know what my daddy did in the shower?" I was thinking, oh boy, don't say it, please don't say it, then whew! He didn't. He told us how the shower head broke and only the cold water would work, and then only the hot. When another parent helper asked him if he got burned from the water, he said, "Yeah, I got Hotted."
I love this age! They are so much fun!
September 25, 2007
Accidental Freak
Okay, so I didn't mean to get Jeromy's undies in a bunch. So I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to math. After all of my fingers and toes are accounted for, I'll eventually get the answer! Thank God so far the kids don't take after me when it comes to math.
I freaked Jeromy out by uploading these trail cam pictures the day after he sat in a stand. Let me rewind for a minute. He was heading out to hunt the other night and decided to check on the logging site where Brian shot his bear and see if the site had been hit. It was slammed! So, he headed to the Rodney site next, where he's been sitting lately, and the site was not hit.
Let the musical stands begin! He decided to sit at the logging site. Now back to uploading the trail cam that was set up at the site Jeromy decided not to sit at for the fist time in over a week.
When I pulled this picture up, my math savy kicked in and I told Jeromy that while he was sitting at the logging site, this bear came in at 7:50pm at the Rodney site. He freaked out, thinking he missed out on the bear, and then pondered what to do and where to sit next. SORRY! Hours later, he pulled the picture up and found that I was off a bit on my time. But in all fairness, the only time I had to know military time was working for the hotel almost over ten years ago. What can you do? Oopsie.
Now what will he do?!
Peeping Tom. Toad. Frog.
We had a peeping frog last night at our livingroom door.
The little ones were already asleep but I think they would've gotten a kick out of this, I sure did! I walked past the livingroom and saw something in the window out of the corner of my eye. I called Ashley and Jeromy to come and see. Jeromy walked up to the window and says, "That's a real frog." He is so quick.
It was kind of raining out, maybe he climbed up to save himself from the frog flood.
SHORTLY Unsupervised Children
What did I say yesterday? I love this age of the little ones? I do, but with it comes a constant race of trying to stay ahead of the game. Or the damage they can do while unspervised for just minutes.
Within in the last couple of days, we managed to get two unfortunate mishaps of shortly unsupervised 3yr old and 5yr old.
Mishap #1. Jackson. A constant battle to try and teach him to be careful with animals. He likes to chase the cat around and laughs if she hisses. He is definately not allowed to be alone with her if he's in the mood to play wild like.
He managed to chase the cat around and tried squirting her with wood furniture polish. Yes, the Orange oil Pledge. I was dusting and set the polish on the buffet to run upstairs real quick. Came downstairs minutes later to smell it all over. After denying using the polish for about two minutes, Jackson told me that he was trying to squirt Cally. Well, he missed the cat all together. But did manage to get a couple of good squirts on our WHITE down comforter. Kids will be kids.
Mishap #2. Charly. A warm day the other day so all the windows are opened around the house. The end of the day, I went to close the familyroom windows and stepped on a wet spot on the carpet. I felt, and smelled it, hoping it wasn't an animal, and determined it was from the rain the day before and that I just didn't notice it.
Jeromy told me that he stepped on a wet spot on the other side of the couch as well. We thought a lot of water must have poured in from the storm and how could we have missed it?
This morning, I was opening the windows again and was talking to Charly about the carpet really getting wet. She immediately pipes up. " I am really. really. sorry. It was me. I poured the hose in the windows." At least she is honest. I remember letting her play with the hose while I did stuff in the yard, I guess I missed the short time where she headed to the windows and sprayed the water into the house. Kids will be kids.
September 27, 2007
New Deerstand
Here are some shots of the kid's deer stand. We have to do a couple of more things to make it a little more safe. The kids absolutely love it! We've been planning on making a fort in the backyard since we bought the house six years ago, just a little late. Hopefully Ashley will forgive us as she's getting a little older now.
Jeromy said it was fun making it and he's thinking of making a few of them in the yard. :)
Grandpa Steve made the girls bunkbeds years ago and some of the wood warped a little through the years. So, now Jessica's top bunk has been recycled to a platform for a deer stand in the backyard. Thank you Grandpa Steve!
This has brought back so many memories of my brother and I. We made a treehouse with dad up at the cabin. Our roof was made with that awful fake wood paneling from our bathroom after mom and dad remodeled. Brian and I would fill a picnic basket full of acorns, and pully the basket up into our tree house. Wait for mom or someone to use the out house, and throw acorns at the outhouse. I can still hear my mom yelling at us! Hehe.
Anyway, I think the kids wil have a blast.
September 28, 2007
Yesterday we set up our tent for some friends that are coming up for moose hunting this weekend. The kids were pretty upset that we weren't going to stay and sleep and eat by a camp fire. We didn't have a moose come and check us out this time. I kept my eyes open though. :)
Baby animal blowing out his candles.
Baby Animal's Birthday
The weather wasn't so good yesterday so I cleaned the pantry and gave the kids a ton of food to play cook with. They ended up making a cake for Charly's Baby Animal, her favorite stuffed toy that she named, Baby Animal.
They used toothpicks for candles, and an ice cream cone for a hat.
Notice our kitchen table missing? It's in the garage waiting for me to get a move on and strip it. This gloomy weather makes me move very slow.
Jumbled Junko
This little birdie, "bit the dust" sort of speak. The kids and I were talking in the livingroom when we heard a very loud thud hit the window. We went out the door to check things out.
I found this little guy laying on the grass with his tail feathers folded forward as he started to tip over. I gently moved his feathers back in the direction they should go, and propped her back on to her feet as my uncle showed me one time when a chickadee hit the window. If birdies are propped back on their feet, and given time to get their bearrings back, they could be okay.
A storm was moving in, so we moved her to the deer feeder and gave her a little bird seed. After about 30minutes of hanging out, she finally flew away. The kids thought it was pretty cool that they were able to hold and pet a wild bird. So cute.
September 29, 2007
Musical Stands Again
Jeromy changed his mind. Again. This is also the 2nd night he has used his home made honey burner. He is one step away of trying to stalk a bear in the woods. Is that even possible? Anyway, good news is, we didn't have to call 911 because he didn't start a forest fire again.
Our friends are still out moose hunting. The kids and I will take a drive out to their camp after sundown and see if they had any luck. They did see a HUGE bull moose walking around this morning but he was too far out. The weather hasn't really been good to the hunters this weekend but hopefully we will have a busy night tonight!
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About September 2007
This page contains all entries posted to 6 in the Sticks in September 2007. They are listed from oldest to newest.
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