I'm Blogging Here

I was lucky enough to kill a couple deer in the meantime, and they pretty much flash-froze before I could get them skinned out. So there they hang until I can get them into Betsy's basement and thaw them out one at a time enough to handle them, get them quartered and head on down to Ricky's in Schroeder for the big cuttin' party. That was exciting, especially when I had the second doe in my sights, the fork horn came out and I shot him, but only after I remembered to pull the hammer back, click, then put a shell in the chamber, then shoot the deer, and while he's breathing his last, this bigger buck comes out and does a lap around the stand 35 yards out the whole way around. I was just too amazed to do anything but sit there and watch him. He even stopped on the hill above my stand and looked right at me, then just strolled away. I didn't think about shooting him for Mike or Jim to fill out their tags. Next time for sure.

Thanksgiving tomorrow. To Duluth and back on Friday. Time's running out and I have two more loads of hay to haul before snow comes in a serious way.

Freeze-Up at the Farm

Well, sir, it sure is freezing now. Not even close to zero, except one night when it got down to single digits over a week ago. I almost have my excavations completed for the electric lines underground to the waterer, and the underground fence wire on the other side of Elisa's garden, so I can let the horses in to feed in the garden again. There's still a lot to do before the snow piles up, like move 4-500 little round bales from Bloomquist Ranch, now that the field has set up enough for my bald tires not to get the whole damn deal stuck again. I broke the trailer coupler, dont'cha know, but after looking all over hell for a new cast-iron piece, ol' Farmer Don came along and welded a stainless nut on there where it broke, so after hunting in the morning I'm fixin' to go out to the field and put it back together for some hauling.

Does this Bus go to Duluth?

Trip with Davey to Duluth yesterday. We left the farm at noon. Betsy fed us a great lunch of herring and potatoes and Mike's homemade applesauce, we got the hay out to the horse-asses, and we blasted off in the Stealth Schnaab for shopping for garbage cans and dog food and light bubs and such, where I had hoped to spend a dollar less on each purchase, and maybe save enough to buy gas. I'm a fool, I know. I should have hauled hay instead, because it's raining today. I wanted to burn the burn-piles at the farm today.

Anyhow it was fun bumming around with Dr. Grin. I got a mouse for my laptop. We ate at Arby's in Cloquet near the Farm Store, couldn't find even one wool shirt (that's dumb), tried out some orifice chairs at OfficeMax, and then went into Home Depot twice, because I forgot stuff right there on my list, and then Menard's once for the caulk I forgot on both trips into HD. They even have the Miller Hill Menard's closed for expansion, so we had to go 'way back down to West Duluth. The price of gas was 2.09 in Two Harbors on the way down, 2.07 in Cloquet, 2.29 all over Duluth in the evening, which I paid to fill up, then 2.19 on the way home in Two Harbors.
What the hell?

Dare I divulge David's constant agitation to go to Best Buy (whom I have pledged myself to boycott, onnacounta the bad service Marce got on this puter here) where we finally went anyway, which resulted in him buying a teeny little laptop that has amnesia, but is supposed to work on the internet. I told him not to do it.

We finally made it to Beijing for my favorite General Tso's Chicken with Chinese Vegetables. Washed it all down with a quart of Root Beer from the TH gas station. What a day. We got home after midnight. Now it's raining. It hasn't rained a lot this fall. It never warms up enough, and the days are not long enough to dry out when it does. This is pretty much of a soaker.

Movie Night at Betsy's

We watched a movie on the big screen arranged by Davey with his puter. Bobby brought the DVD to share with a few of us. The movie was called "Why We Fight" and it reviewed the development of the military industrial complex since the Bomb fell on Hiroshima, in spite of Eisenhower's admonishments. It was a very graphic review of the carnage caused by Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Ashcroft and Wolfowitz's demonization of their former puppet Saddam Hussein. I got rid of the TV in the cabin shortly after 911, so I had never seen a lot of that video. It made me sick. It made me cry. The military made it happen, because they have to do something, just like Homeland Security, even if it is wrong. And most of it is.

Hey! Rides!

Yesterday Bessie and Julie took some little kids and their folks for a big ol' wagon ride down the Cardinal Road west through some muddy tracks (it was quite bouncy) and came out the North-South road by Surbaugh's driveway, and back on the Pike Lake road. The horses, who have not done much work yet this season, needed about a fifteen minute breather at the top of the hill on the undeveloped part of the Cardinal Road. It was a bit of an adventure. Thanks to Ray for his help all afternoon starting to frame up the wagon benches, and to the lovely Surbaugh family for booking a wagon ride, giving me a deadline to get that up and running for Will's birthday party on Saturday, the day before. Thanks to Don Noyce for the trailer we turned into a wagon, as well as the forecart he framed up for me this spring/early summer.

The Oars Are Here--Yay!

After a pretty long wait--you can't rush an artist--the 9'6" Sitka spruce spoons arrived in Thunder Bay at the DHL terminal. All the folks I talked to on the phone there couldn't have been nicer, more on the ball, or more helpful. But their 800 number and their email communication couldn't have been less helpful, slower to respond or more discombobulated. it took me seven calls over two weeks to get the address and the phone number, one from some dude in Vancouver and one from some chick in Texas...aaarghhh! And then there was the email guy or whatever he or she was--Sumair Ashraf. Write me back after seven days apologizing on behalf of DHL. Paul Bagshaw at least kept me posted on the progress of the oar making.

So Davey and I took the oars out on the big Norse pram, and they are actually about a foot too long for that deal. Hands crossed over, but I really liked the way they pulled. Now I need to get my boat away from its eternal residency at the motor-repair shop, so I can at least row that around a little bit before it gets nasty out. A little fall fishing would be great.

Row, Row, Row Some More

Last evening I took the smaller of the two Norse prams out for a bit, just out to the end of Artist's Point and back. I liked the fact that I could place my feet just right for pushing off of the stern seat. After about 35 or 40 minutes out, however, there was about two or three inches of water amidships. Since we have gotten no rain now for a month or so, the boats have been high and dry on the boat-slides there at North House and could probably use a dunking. There were a couple of streams of water pouring back out where the floor planks join the transom when I pulled her up on the beach. Dryers are done. Gotta go.