6-8 November 2010 Beaver skinning

Susan's been transplanting raspberries from the garden to various locations on the property.  We did a bunch of plants last pring and are doing more this fall.  They keep spreading into areas we don't want them to be in the garden.  Hopefully they'll do well outside the garden.  Other than that it's been business as usual.  The routine stuff is to take the goat and tether him out every day for a few hours to eat.  I have to keep finding new places to tie him out.  The chickens are fed in the morning and in the afternoon the eggs are gathered and we let them out to roam and find insects and seeds to eat.  We take the Cherokee and canoe down to the lake every day to check traps.  The catch is taken to the shack where I wipe the water off them with paper towels and hang them to dry overnight.  In the mornings I fire up the barrel stove in the shack and warm it up and skin and place the previous day's catch on fur stretchers.  I leave the stove burning all day to dry the pelts.  The dog and cat are fed twice a day.  We go for  a three mile walk almost every day usually feeding the buffalo at that time.

When you prepare meals from scratch every day there are always dishes, pots and pans getting used.  We save them up until we have a load then wash them. (About every third day.)  It conserves water that way.  We keep a kettle of water on the wood stove to have hot water when we need it and also to add humidity to the air.  We've had plenty of rain so we use rain water in the kettle for bathing and washing dishes.  It's always brought to a boil while on the wood stove so we don't worry about any critters growing in it that might cause problems for us.

That's our daily routine.  Other projects are in addition to that.

Some of the raspberry plants Susan transplanted.

The goatling doing his best to eat everything he can reach.

Susan drained the puddles on the road coming in to our cabin.  This is just one of them along the mile she walked.

Some of the muskrat pelts drying on the stretchers.  I drive nails into the ceiling joists and hang the pelts high to dry.  I ordered more stretchers and traps today.  Total came to just under $100.00.

The beaver and muskrat hanging to dry overnight.  When I bring them in from the lake they're soaking wet so I dry them the best I can using paper towels then let them hang overnight to dry the rest of the way.  I hang the paper towels to dry them and re-use them again (and again and again and again ...).

The beaver pelt fleshed and stretched.  The measurement is 48 inches ... about medium size according to the books I have.  This is the first one I've ever done and it took me three hours.  I need to do a little touch-up in places but it's mostly done.  I can't imagine trapping them on purpose unless they were bringing a bunch of money.

Tristan and I taking the doors off the Uhaul.  The center pin on this hinge is siezed up so we unbolted the door from the hinge instead of just removing the pins.

Me putting screws into the cieling panels.  We decided t use masonite sheeting instead of panelling sonce we are going to paint it white anyway.

Breaksfast in the skillet and supper in the cast iron pot.  I had to take off the kettle of water to make room.

Susan painting the ceiling of the Uhaul.  Tomorrow we can do the panelling on the walls.

I went out for an hour loking for deer after checking traps this afternoon.  Didn't find any.