The End of Deer Season

Well, another hunting season has come and gone without my even seeing anything that I could shoot at, let alone shoot at something.  It seems that it has been a fairly poor season for everyone concerned...except the deer.  Our neighbors were complaining that they didn't get anything, and my dad only got one doe during the senior season in October.  Oh well, as long as I don't hit any deer with my car this winter, I'll be ok.

JP and I took advantage of a hunting-free day today, and hauled more wood to store under the barn lean-to near the wood burner.  We also cleaned out the hen house, since the hens have been treated twice with wormer and have about 4 more days until we can keep their eggs again.

In the meantime, I have collected 5 feed buckets of eggs in the garage. 

JP, the girls, and I took them down by the creek and threw them across into the field.  We didn't want to dispose of them anywhere near the house or the chickens.  The girls and I took advantage of a tree and practiced our aim.  It looked pretty gross by the end of our session!

We finally got our trees decorated.  Our main one is in the family room downstairs, and the girls have a small one in their room.  It looks so festive!

J decided to get her hair chopped off.  It looks cute.  I'll post a picture when she lets me take one.  L decided to have a couple more inches cut off her tresses once she saw her sister.

Next weekend, I am hoping to finish up Christmas shopping and bake our Christmas cookies.  I only have 11 days until my Holiday Surgery, so I need to have things done ahead of time.

This week is L's Christmas Chorus Concert, and J's is next week.  There will also be one or two Basketball practices and some voice/guitar lessons thrown in as well.

I hope that all of your Holiday preparations are going smoothly!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

It has been longer than normal since I last posted.  That is because there has been no end to the activity going on around here.

L started Basketball practice the week of Thanksgiving.  It appears that her team is quite small, so she will have LOTS of playing time.

We had a wonderful visit with a lot of JP's family over Thanksgiving weekend.  My parents were kind enough to allow us to use their house for sleeping a couple of the families.  We had SO MUCH to eat, so my nightmares where we ran out of food were moot.

 

On Sunday, JP, the girls and I went to see the newest "Thor" movie.  It was J's request, since her birthday was the previous weekend, and we really didn't do much, and it was quite enjoyable.

The following weekend was the premier of J's first ever HS show.  She had a nice little part, and even had a song or two that she sang with just 2 other girls.  The school put on "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever," and she played Alice (the Sunday School student that ALWAYS plays Mary.)

 

L and I went both nights, and both shows were equally well done and fun to watch.  J had a cast party and sleep over Saturday night, so she was a tired girl when cast and crew were called back on Sunday afternoon to strike the set!  The director is not letting any time slip by before embarking on the Spring show - auditions are December 20th.



 

On Saturday afternoon, L had a presentation of her own.  She and another girl sang a few solos of Christmas songs at our local Historical Museum during their Holiday Open House.

 

This week hasn't been a cake-walk either!  On Monday, J's soccer coach called a practice "just for fun."  It seemed a bit sadistic to me, especially since L had basketball practice at the same time, and I was stuck in a Board Meeting.  J also restarted voice/guitar lessons, L had voice, and J had an appointment.

L also picked up her new glasses this week.  The school sent a letter home before Thanksgiving that she failed her vision screen at school, so I took her in to our Optometrist for an evaluation.  L requested that I cut her hair, so on Wednesday, she went in to school, sporting her new look - glasses and hair about 6-7 inches shorter.

This afternoon is L's rescheduled voice lessons, and now J wants a haircut too.  Both girls also want to go Christmas shopping.

I managed to get the Christmas trees up (but not decorated), and most of the other decorations up this week in between activities, so that is on the docket this weekend as well.  I had time to sit out for rifle season for 2 mornings, but didn't see anything that I could have safely taken.  I plan to go out one more time tomorrow morning.

We had a bit of blowing snow yesterday, and things were almost white up here on the hill for a brief time.  They are calling for more snow tomorrow - a coating to an inch.  It's about time that it starts acting like the Holidays around here!

Hunting Season

The girls had no school today in honor of the first day of rifle season in Pennsylvania.  JP, my dad, and I all sat out for varying amounts of time.  The first week of deer season in our area is buck only, and none of us saw any eligible males!

This guy was hanging around the girls' swing last week, but I never saw him before or after.

I sat in the tree house this morning, and watched the sun come up.

Lizzie joined me after awhile, as she typically does.

This afternoon, I sat out in the old chicken barge, so that I could scan the woods to the east.  It didn't prove to be an advantageous position either.

J went to a movie with friends on Wednesday night, we had a nice Thanksgiving dinner with my parents on Thursday, met up with old friends for Mexican food on Saturday, and had our honorary 3rd daughter, C, out on Sunday.  Our break was packed with comings and goings.

Tomorrow we are going back to school and work after a marvelous 5 1/2 days off.  That thought  makes me want to be independently wealthy so that I can have a manservant and lounge around all day (I have been reading the "Jeeves" books by P.G. Wodehouse.) 

Seeing as I fill the shoes of manservant the best around here, I guess I should get off my butt and pack some lunches for tomorrow.

I hope that your Thanksgiving breaks were equally lovely!

Hunting Season Was a Bust

I went out early yesterday morning for the 3rd morning in a row, looking for deer.  After an hour of sitting in the tree house, with no deer coming to me, I decided to go out looking for them.  I walked the circuit of our property, wearing my proper percentage of blaze orange and carrying my rifle.  I looked pretty tough (tee hee.) 

Movement in the woods on 3 separate occasions turned out to be:  squirrel, squirrel, and Lizzie the cat.

I went out more times this deer season than ever before, and even so the season ended up looking about like JP's tree stand.

Pathetic

My friend and I spent a couple of silent hours up in that tree stand a few years back, until the sound of the trickling spring below made us have to pee so badly that we hurried back up the hill to home in the deepening dusk.  She was kind enough to embellish our sighting of Ernie the cat into me bagging a big buck in her newspaper column anyway.

It's the closest I ever came to becoming the "great white hunter", although I have had the opportunity to field dress my Dad's deer a couple of years ago.  It's the vicarious experience that counts, right?

Now we are off to a Memorial Service for the wife of a friend, and then on to L's Christmas Piano Recital (for which she is not ready) - opposite ends of the spectrum.  How does one dress for this line up of activities?

The girls have one more week of school before their extended Christmas Break begins.  We have been listening to Handel's Messiah in preparation - HALLELUJAH!

Where's the Bear? #2

In honor of the first day of Deer Hunting in PA, I'm putting up a new picture of J's giant bear.

 

I was out in the tree house myself this morning, wearing orange.  It was raining and cool, but not unpleasant to be out there, watching the chickens and cats.  There were 2 large flocks of robins scattered over the grass, cocking their heads and doing their robin-y thing.  Too bad this wasn't a sign of pending Spring, but merely hungry robins, who haven't made their way Southward yet.

No sign of any deer, however, for a solid two hours. 

Another Uneventful Hunting Season

Well, all of the deer safely made it past me for another hunting season.  I went up in the tree house last evening for the last time, and almost had a chance at a doe, but she ran off when I opened the tree house door.

Dad got a button buck though, from his "tree stand" in the cupola of his house.  Consequently, I had the opportunity to field dress my first deer last night.  That is really a nice way of saying "cutting the guts out on the ground in the dark."  I didn't have a problem with it...I cleaned at least half a dozen chickens this Fall, and I know my way around the anatomy pretty well, having worked in General Surgery for 6 or more years...just had a bit of trouble getting the smell off my hands last night.

JP, my intrepid, physician husband, informed me that he would never have done it without wearing gloves.  He purchased Veterinarian grade shoulder length rubber gloves for just such an occasion.  Come to think of it, he was wearing gloves when we did chickens. 

Eh...didn't bother me.  After shampooing my hair, washing dishes, and multiple other scrubs and copious amounts of hand lotion, my hands are finally smelling fresh and clean again, without a trace of deer odor.

So...that was my excitement for the week.  Yay!

Deere Hunting

Saturday morning, my alarm didn't go off, so I got out to the tree house about 20 minutes later than I intended to.  Unfortunately, this is the only Deere that I saw out there:

Does it look broken down?  It is.

This is the excavator that JP arranged to have delivered Friday afternoon so that he and Dad could work this weekend on digging the trench to lay the water pipes and electrical wires for out new outdoor wood burner.  JP went out Friday evening before it got dark to try it out, and one of the treads fell off.  It sat down the hill all weekend, since the rental place had no one available in case of problems.

The girls and I spent the afternoon at the Christmas Parade in town, which was one of the better ones I've been to here.  J left from the parade to see a movie and spend the night with her friend. 

I didn't get another chance to go out hunting this weekend, and probably won't until Wednesday afternoon.  SIGH.

Once More Before the Snow Flies

We actually had a little more frozen precipitation yesterday, nothing sticking or accumulating so far.  Perhaps that is because we have these gorgeous sunny and warmish days in between.  Every morning feels like winter lately, and the chickens' water is frozen, but the sun warms up everything nicely by afternoon.  It won't last forever, but today was absolutely beautiful.

L threw a fit at lunch time because 1) she wanted to eat her lunch outside, then 2) she wanted to change into short sleeves and capris, then 3) she was starving.  Of course the whole time I was dealing with the screaming fits, I was not getting lunch made.  I hope she remembers these days when she has kids of her own!

Some time after lunch and Science lessons, we hopped in the van and drove down the lane to wait for J's bus.  We waited, and waited, and then I finally realized that we were there a full hour early!  An hour later, we tried again, and on the way up the hill we unanimously decided to dress in orange and go for a walk.  We typically save our walks for Sundays during November, but since my Dad was called out of town to attend to some of my Grandfather's estate issues today and tomorrow, no one was hunting on our property this afternoon.

The dogs were thrilled, as there were plenty of new smells to whiff.  Kali looked a bit stiff in her coat with hunter orange stripes.  Stella sported a neck bandanna of the same color.  The three of us wore our orange hats.  We walked and walked, careful to keep inside the boundaries of our own property.  It was amazing!

I am so thankful that we had the chance (and took the opportunity) to take a lovely long walk all around Poplar Ridge during hunting season while the sun was shining today. 

Hunting Buddy

I spent a little over an hour this morning hunting from up in the tree house.  I startled a doe and yearling when I first went outside, but they were the only deer that I saw the whole time.

About 10 minutes after I got settled up there, I heard a commotion on the deck, and noticed Lizzie Kitty knocking on the window.  I let her in, and she kept me company for a while, purring and taking over my chair.  She got bored after half an hour and knocked on the window again to be let back out.  She maneuvered her way down the tree, and a few minutes later, I saw her attacking a pile of dirt down below.

By 8 AM, when JP was due to leave for work, my coffee had run out, and so had my patience.  While the tree house wasn't as cold as JP's tree stand out in the woods, I still wished for my long underwear and more hot coffee.  This morning I am thankful that I don't depend entirely on this meat for food, as we would surely go hungry.  I'm also extremely thankful for my warm house and hot drinks to return to.  Finally, I am looking forward to one bonus day that I can spend with my kids...so let's get the party started!

Sleepless Nights

**SIGH**

Miss L was restless last night. She came to my room complaining of a cough, then tossed and turned in my bed for awhile. Back in her own bed, she cried and asked me to stay, which I did for about 20 minutes. No sooner was I drifting off to sleep in my room, then she appeared at my side, crying about "bad dreams". This time after the tossing and turning, she refused to return to her room, so she slept in a sleeping bag on my floor.

Of course, this was the morning that I needed to get up early for my first job interview in 8 years. (I was quite pregnant with J at my last one!) Quite surprisingly, I did not feel a bit nervous. (Perhaps because this interview was somewhat of a formality since the position has basically been offered to me already. ) It seemed odd that I was shaking and tearful while introducing my own daughter at her violin recital in the Spring, in front of family and friends, yet I was calm and collected in front of the Hospital CEO. Go figure.



It was probably all the Halloween excitement lately and the Flu shots we got yesterday that had L too high strung to sleep. Wednesday was her Preschool Halloween party.



On Thursday, J's school sponsored a Halloween party in Washington.



Saturday morning, we were awakened just before 8 by a rifle shot very nearby. JP and I looked at each other and said "Dad must have gotten his deer!" He did in fact shoot a large doe on this side of the garden. He said he had been watching it wander around in front of our downstairs french doors for a long time before it wandered far enough away from the house to safely shoot.


Kali and I are having problems with our morning walks. It is getting darker and darker in the mornings, making it difficult to get around, and less likely for our blaze orange gear to show up! We tried it with a flash light one morning, but I tripped and nearly fell about 5 times, so we called it quits early.



I'm thinking that this weekend will not only bring a chance for some much needed R & R, but an end to some of the recent craziness. J's last soccer game is on Sunday afternoon, and Trick-or-Treat is in the evening. Then we will have 2 extra evenings a week free, as well as Sunday afternoons!



T.G.I.F.

Hunting Season

*****SPOILER ALERT*****






**THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS IMAGES WHICH SOME MAY FIND OBJECTIONABLE!**





Rifle season for deer always begins the Monday after Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania. It is a big enough deal in rural areas, that the public schools are usually closed for the first day of deer season, as our were. JP took 2 1/2 days off from work to participate. This is his 8th year of going out, and he was beginning to get despondent after 2 days of sitting in the tree stand and seeing nothing.

I take that back. This morning he saw 3 turkeys, and a bobcat. (Yes, a bobcat!) The deer, however, were avoiding him. The rain started around noon today, and was drenching and cold. JP decided to go out once more this afternoon, but only to the back porch, where he could sit under the roof, out of the rain, and still see the deer that graze in our front lawn every evening. He was there 10 or 15 minutes, when we heard a shot, and he popped into the house to announce that he was finally successful at hunting!



The girls, especially J, were fascinated to watch JP and Dad field dressing the doe. I think that my girl is going to be a scientist in the future! They hung the carcass up from the bucket of the tractor for the night. I'm quite sure that we now have achieved Hick status!!



It is interesting living on the hill during hunting season! We share hunting privileges with the family that owns property on either side of ours, so there have been plenty of men in blaze orange and camouflage walking around for the past 3 days. J, and I took the dog for a long walk on Sunday...the last one that we can safely take for 2 weeks until hunting season is over. I meant to get the girls blaze orange hats this year, but never got around to it.

As for me, I meant to go out hunting this year, but seeing as the last time I shot my rifle (2 years ago) I did this to myself, I thought I should spend some time target shooting first!



There is not much else of interest to report from the hill this week...

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

No one was at the building site today when we snuck up the hill, sleeping child in the van. The footer for the house is nearly complete. This picture reminds me of the story of Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. Mike and Mary Anne dig the basement for the new town hall, and she remains inside to be the furnace since she can't get out. The "digger" (kid term) looks to be in the right position for our storage/furnace room!




The footers look small compared to the image in my head of the house. I'm guessing that is just because it is one dimensional at the moment.

They have also begun drilling the well. There is evidence of mud around, but I don't know if that means they hit water or if they used water in the drilling process. No one was there to ask!



Meanwhile, it is hunting season! I think we have managed to scare the deer away from the top of the hill this year. My Dad is coming tonight to try his luck across the road, down by the stream.


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