17 November, 2010 Snow!!!!

Finally got enough snow to conver the ground well.  I've been out hunting much of the day for the last couple of days.  I've seen does but only one buck and he was going full speed away from me.  I carry a grunt tube and if I blew it he would have stopped but the trees were pretty thick and I thought he might have a bunch of them between us when he stopped.  There was a clearing ahead I thought he'd cros so I took out after him but he turned before the clearing and I never caught up with him again for a shot.  If you give a quick call on a grunt tube when you jump a deer it will stop for a few seconds.  The problem is that it only works once so if they stop with a tree (or trees) between you then start moving off again they won't stop again if you blow the call.  This was a decent buck and I didn't want to educate him when the chances of geting a shot were slim even if he did stop.

The view from our window this morning.  There's between 1-2 inches of snow on the ground.  When I went out hunting today I took a break to build a fire.  Not so much to get warm as it was for practice reasons.  The snow has everything wet so I had to shave the outer part of some sticks to get to dry wood then I made a pile of shavings for tinder to get the fire hot enough to dry the wood as it was put on.

I'm assuming that this is some type of fungi on this dead Birch limb.

Ran across some tracks in the now that I believe are fox tracks.  I haven't got my books out to check though.  They are much smaller than coyote tracks but the claws are clearly visible so that rules out anything in the cat family.  There were two of them travelling together.

A closer view.

Bobcat track.  The trapping season for bobcats opens Dec. first.

I ordered more stretchers and traps last week and here they are.  That's $100.00 in that box.

We've been dehydrating tomatoes as they ripen.  The first pan was in the last blog a few days ago.  I took the bottom photo just before posting today.

The spaghetti squash by the blue plate is left over from last year's harvest.  Susan found three more of them recently.  It's still good even though it's been stored for over a year now.  The squash chunks will be boiled.  When they're done Susan will cut the skin away and can or dry the squash for later use.

Seeds from the squash.  We saved some for planting next year and will roast the rest of them for snacks.

Susan is threshing wheat by hand in front of the wood stove.

We bought some cooking oil on sale so we'll preserve it for long term storage.  Susan vacuum packed the bottle after we wapped it with old newspaper to keep light out.

We're doing the same thing here only the bottles are smaller.

The oil was put in the bucket with some other things for storage.  We've never stored cooking oil this way before so we'll open one of the bottles in a year to see if it has gone rancid.

When the weather is bad outside we often wash clothes in a five gallon bucket in teh shower.

I'm sewing a tear in my internal frame back pack

I get my exercise outside trapping and hunting in inclement weather.  Susan uses her stair stepper to keep in shape over the winter.