5 November, 2010 Caught my first ....

Had a beaver in one of my muskrat traps today.  It's the first one I ever caught and was totally unexpected.  It got it's front foot in one of the #1 longspring traps I had set for muskrats.  It may have been the second time for this beaver because the trap was sprung Thursday with nothing in it.  A trap this small shouldn't hold a beaver nor should it be able to get it's foot inside the small jaw spread of a trap this size but this one evidentally didn't put up much fight.  It was sitting on the "ground" when we came up in the canoe.  It wasn't a large one and I'd have preferred to release it but that wasn't going to happen.  You can use a catch stick to hold them while you release the trap but we were in a canoe in ten feet of water and the critter was on a floating mat of cattails which wouldn't have held a person's weight ... especially this person's weight!  So rather than go swimming I shot it.  I'll be skinning it today.

This is the catch for the day.

This is a floating mat of cattails that's drifted into the "shore" (which is more cattails floating on the water but anchored ... somewhat ... to the bank).  The next time the wind comes up there's no telling where it will drift off to.

This is another floating mat that's drifting around the lagoon.

Susan took advantage of the sunshine to caulk the screws in the roof before winter to keep it from leaking.

I put up the first panel on the rear of the Uhaul.

The second one installed...

And now the door.  Susan caulked around the edges with silicone caulk.

Late in the afternoon we went over to the lake to check the muskrat traps. See, at the far end toward the front left corner of the hood of the car?  There's a carrot there that must have been in the canoe. It felt onto the hood while we were driving. Being somewhat tapered it rolled back and forth in a bit of an arch and worked it's way toward the edge, but never quite fell off.  We were watching it, enthralled, and started laughing at ourselves! Funny what you find for entertainment! Half a mile later it finally rolled over the edge and was gone!

3-4 November, 2010 Sunny days

Good weather the last couple of days.  Set out a few more traps and got more done on the Uhaul and around the house.  Susan and I went for a quick walk this morning .  When we went past the buffalo feeing area the hay we put out yesterday was still there.  We were more than just a little concerned that maybe a tree had fallen on the fence and they had escaped so we walked the fenceline around the 40 acre pasture.  Most of it is timbered so visibility was limited.  We made it about 3/4 of the way around when we spotted them feeding on hay the owner had set out either yesterday afternoon or earlier this morning.  He usually emails or calls when he's going to be up.  It was a relief to see them inside the pen.  I wasn't looking forward to a buffalo round-up.
We've been checking traps about mid-day but will probably start doing them in late afternoon beginning tomorrow.  I skinned and stretched the previous two day's catches this afternoon.  They're wet when I pull them out of the traps so I take them to the shack and dry them with paper towels and hang them to dry overnight before skinning them.  It takes several days for the pelt to dry once I get them on the stretchers.  I bought another dozen stretchers earlier in the fall and will order another dozen tomorrow.  Last year I only had six stretchers and had quite a back log waiting to get skinned and dried for shipping.

We're supposed to have one more good day for weather then back to rain again starting Saturday.  I'm hoping for snow instead of rain.

Susan made a venison pot pie for supper last night.  It was very good!

Tristan cleaned the chimney yesterday afternoon so I'm getting the fire ready to go in this picture.  I have a bunch of short 2X2 ends cut off from working on the Uhaul so I'm splitting one into kindling.

A bunch of crows and ravens were squaking up a storm yesterday so I went looking to see what had died. This is a young deer I found about 200 yards from the cabin.  It didn't look like it had been shot so I don't know what killed it.  We have a lot of wolves, coyotes, mountain lions and bears around or it may have died from disease.  At any rate it is being recycled nature's way.

A neighbor called last evening.  He had plucked a deer out of his pasture fence (the deer got tangled in the fence and died) and put it in the back of the pickup for dog food.  During the night a mountain lion had taken it out of the truck and dragged it about 100 yards back into the woods.  They keep their goat in a cage type shipping module at night.  It's made out of 1/2 inch steel rods.  It's probably the main reason their milk goat is still alive.

I'm down at the boat landing taking the canoe off the Cherokee so we can check traps.

A little closer view.

This is a floating mat of cattails.  I have a trap set on it but we have to look close because every time we check traps it's drifted to a new location.

A stop-loss long spring trap waiting for a muskrat to step into it.  Hopefully the water won't freeze and make it inoperable in something steps in the pan.

The insulation is going into the Uhaul.

Susan made donuts today.  They were ready when I got back to the cabin from peeling muskrats. 

She did some experimenting with a new recipe and they are the best donuts I've ever had.

Fresh dinner rolls tonight!

31 October - 2 November 2010 Trapping season begins.

Susan is vacuum packing shortening for long term storage.

Two down ... more to go!

If the socks have small holes we often repair them (under the cat's supervision, of course!).

The canoe at the landing loaded with 12 bodygrip traps and 4 foothold traps, a bucket with pliers, gerber multi-tool, wire, hatchet, carrots for bait, muskrat lure, and an assortment of wooden stakes.

Ready to shove off!  It's raining lightly as we head out.

We pull the canoe into the land (in this case they are floating mats of cattails) near a feeding site and I place the traps.

One ot he bodygrip traps set to go.  I set several with the triggers down to see how it worked.  I had several sprung, but empty traps this morning so it didn't work too well!  My carrots were too small also and came off the trigger wires too easy.  I used larger diameter carrots this morning when re-setting them.  I add a little lure at each site to draw in the muskrats.

This morning (2 Nov.) at the lake.  The water is glass calm!

This is one rat caught  in a foot hold trap.  The traps are set with a couple of feet of wire attached tot he anchor stake.  When it snaps shut on the muskrat's foot the rat automatically dives for safety from whatever attacked it.  The weight of the trap holds it underwater where it drowns.

This stake is too large for the spring eye to fit down onto the top so I worked the spring eye up from the bottom. It's the only one I set that way.

Muskrat number two this morning.

Another set waiting for a muskrat to sample the carrot.

Heading back for the landing area.  The 22 Ruger is for dispatching anything caught in the traps that might still be alive.  I've only had that happen once when a rat got the wire tangled up in some cattail stalks and couldn't get to the water.  I kept the rat back with a stick and freed the trap wire.  The rat dived into the lake and I left it there.  I came back after checking the other traps to retrieve the now dead muskrat.

It was raining yesterday afternoon (1 Nov.) when we set the traps out.  We were both wet to the skin and cold.  My legs were cold from kneeling in the water in the bottom of the canoe while making sets.  Susan had the stern position and was soaked as well.  The first thing we did when arriving home was fire up the wood stove, change into dry clothes and have some hot cocoa.

(Nov. 2nd) Susan with the take of the day.  Three muskrats from 15 traps set the night before.  Not a bad start.  I still have about 30 more traps to set out.  I'll take these home and dry them off a little then hang them up to dry completely before skinning and stretching them.

We went home and changed clothes then went out to vote.  We vote in a small town about five miles away as the crow flies.  We used to vote in Fortine but they changed it when they went to GPS addresses and found out they had us in the wrong district.  The problem is that you can't drive to our new location unless you drive through Fortine then back around to Trego.  The route is like a big "C" on the map.  It's about 15 miles each way.  They offered us absentee ballots but we have to go seven miles each way to mail them.  Then you don't get to talk to the people who help with the voting or those coming to vote.  (It's kind of a social event also.)  We looked into changing the voting district boundary but found out the taxes are lower in the district we're now in so we just decided to leave things alone and drive the extra miles every two years.

After we voted we drove out to another lake to scout it out for trapping potential then drove into Eureka to take care of some things there.  After that it was home again.   I checked the muskrats in the shack but they're still too wet to skin.  I guess I'll do it tomorrow after we run the line.  No rain today.  What a change!

27 - 30 October, 2010 Monsoon Season???

Susan got the rest of the chicken food (all 350 lbs. of it) in plastic buckets and stored in various places.  On Wed. Susan made chili, cornbread and dinner rolls for supper.  On Thursday evening it was chicken mixed with gravy and poured over mashed potatoes. Friday we had barbequed hamburgers with home made buns and french fried potatoes. Saturday Susan made cream of potatoe soup using potatoes, turnips, and jerusalem artichokes.  We try to use food we produce at home for most of our meals. 
The weather has been drizzly rain all week long so it's been difficult to get much done outside.  I've been writing and working on the Uhaul and hunting at time and weather permits.  Trapping season opens tomorrow so I've spent a little time getting stuff ready for that too.

Susan made dinner rolls and we were out of bread so one morning I made French toast using dinner rolls.  It came out pretty good.

We've been shelling dried beans as we have time.  These were grown from the seedlings we started indors and transplanted into the garden last spring.

Dried rutabaga, turnip, beet and carrot tops for  use as goat food.

Carrot and potato peelings being dried for goat food.

The cat was feeling "outdoorsey" so it decided to sleep next to my web gear and magazines.

Tomato, parsley, pepper, basil growing in pots on a south facing window.  The tomato was started from a branch trimmed off of another plant.  (Thanks for the idea John and Denise!)

Dried lemon balm.  It makes the best tea (especially mixed with a little honey!).

This is what you do when it's 16 miles round trip over bad roads to the nearest store -- about an hour and 15 minutes of driving time -- when you don't have any miniature marshmallows at home.  You cut up some rgular size marshmallows.

Home made hamburger buns.   Much better than store bought.

French fries using potatoes from the garden.

Susan going through some of the wheat we grew last summer.  The next step was to take it outside and winnow it so the wind could blow away the chaff.

23-26 October, 2010 Big game Rifle Season begins.

The rifle season for big game opened here on Saturday. We didn't hear a lot of success stories. The weather was cloudy and drizzly all day. I went out on a couple of forays into the woods around here and walked probably five miles total. I had the scope on five does but the season is bucks only this year so I didn't fill my tag. In previous years you could shoot does the first week and last weekend but the predator population has grown considerably the last few years. Wolves seem to be the biggest problem. They were introduced in Yellowstone National Park over the objections of the majority of Montanans and have spread like lice throughout Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. They've far exceeded the target population needed to sustain viable populations but the animal rights wackos keep fighting delisting in the courts. So we're stuck with a species that took years to eradicate and few people in the state want. This is just one more intrusion into our way of life by people who don't live here but desire to control what we can and cannot do. To say that there's a lot of anti-federal government animosity in the state would be a severe understatement! One of the side effects has been that big game populations have been decreased and movement patterns have been changed as elk, moose, deer, coyotes, and mountain lions have all been displaced because of the impact of wolves. Many of us here depend upon big game for our annual meat supply and the wolves and their advocates are not appreciated.

Susan spent Saturday in Kalispell at a birthday party for our second youngest grandchild and puicked up more stuff to finish the Uhaul. She went to a salvage yard and bought a door for the Uhaul and loaded it on the roof rack.  She went to the farm supply store and bought our winter's supply of chicken feed while it was on sale.  We decided to use 3-way for most of the winter when they don't lay many eggs anyway then go back to Layer feed in the spring.  The Layer cost about 25 percent more than 3-way.

Sunday it rained steadily most of the day. Susan made waffles for breakfast. Afterwards WE got out some clothes crates and I switched out my summer clothes for the winter wardrobe (although in northwestern Montana there isn't a lot of difference between the two!). Susan went thorough a couple of sewing crates to take inventory of and consolidate her sewing supplies. I went out for awhile in the late afternoon (it quit raining about 3:30) but didn't see anything legal to shoot. I worked on the article for Dirttime in the evening.

Monday I spent most of the day hunting. It was cloudy with light drizzle for the most part. Saw grouse and more does. Buck sign is sparse this year which doesn't make a lof of sense. You'd think the sexes would have close to an equal ratio of bucks/does. I've only found one rub on one very spindly tree. That's way below normal. Not as many deer beds as normal either. Bear sign seems to be about right though which may also explain the lower number of deer. Bears can be hard on the fawn crop but at least we can hunt them.  Susan had most of the day to herself and finished up storing some dried stuff and other odds-n-ends. She made pizza for suppee. It was fantastic and better than any store bought piza we've ever had. We watched a couple more episodes of CSI on the DVD in the evening.

Tuesday was another disaster weatherwise. We got some snow in the morning but not enough to stick on the ground. Snow makes the hunting much easier. First you can see more tracks and second you can see the deer easier. Most of my hunting is in the woods and it's difficult to see the deer before they see you. Snow makes spotting the deer much easier. We went to Eureka to wash my laundry and see about buying half of a hog from the butcher. It turned out that the add he ran a couple of weeks ago was a short term thing and he didn't have any to sell now. We went to the grocery store and bought some pork roast for supper. Susan cooked it in a large skillet on the stove with potatoes, turnips and carrots. It was great! We ran into several people we hadn't seen for awhile and by the time we got done yacking and went to the thrift store it was almost dark when we got home. I fed the buffalo on the way into town and they'd almost eaten the entire bale by the time we got back. I'm beginning to think they're too lazy to go look for food in the pasture. We got a couple of Netflix movies in the mail so we watched one of them on the evening.

A hill top near the cabin.  The view is out over Marl Lake with the mountains off in the distance.  There's some fog in a couple of the valleys before the highest ridge.

A stump pulled apart by a bear looking for vittles.

Monday morning - snow on the mountain tops to the east.

Tuesday morning - snow at home.  Unfortunately it didn't stay!

The cat helping Susan with her sewing stuff.

Sunday morning - a bored Steven tormenting the cat while it sleeps.

The cat had it's head under the lamp and we took it's picture.  REminded us of the hair cutting machine Dick Van Dyke had in Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang.

The back door fo the Uhaul.  The screen needs replaced and the outside needs cleaned up and painted but the price was right and it fits the opening.  (We only have a 71 inch max height for the door.)

Susan took the paper off the windows on the Uhaul.

Ahh!  Cookies!

Sorting sewing stuff ... uhm, where's the cat?

We always laugh about the sign saying "Main Post Office."  We have a saloon, an antique store, grade school and a church in town.  How many post offices does anyone think we have anyway?

They had a fire at the bank last week.

They're routing their customers to the other two financial instituions in town while they put together temporary housing for the bank.

Our winter supply of chicken food will go into plastic buckets and be stored.  We don't have to worry about mice getting into them that way.