Snow Girls

After going back over my last post, I realized that 1st, I need to proof read them a bit better before I post them and 2nd, unless you have a Facebook account and me as a friend, you probably have no idea what I was talking about when referring to the pile of snow in my yard and the 'Snowgirls."

We got snow! a few inches and all before Thanksgiving; kind of odd, therefore, its completely normal for Nevada. Home sweet home! These two are definitely 'snowgirls' when there is snow to be had-even in their pj's!(note Jessie's pants)

The pump house looks almost haunting with the juniper bushes all draping down under the snow and ice.

The driveway-things look so desolate and yet peaceful.

Up a sleeping tree

Out back and beyond its a winter wonderland.

Jessie, now in a snowsuit, is playing Lee's favorite game in the snow-'catch and crush the snowballs'. A couple things come to mind: do dogs gets 'brain freezes' like people do or maybe he doesn't have a brain to freeze therefore he can play this game forever, hmmmm.........

They are each holding a snowball, plotting.......

Ta-da! "Can't get a brain-freeze with a hat"

When it snows, you have to make a snowman-the girls did most of it but I added my touch-it was going to be a snowMAN.

They were kind enough to 'pose' for the picture and show me some sort of support for my idea, but as soon as I was back in the house.........

off came the antlers...........

and 'it' developed hair, a bouquet of flowers and a friend, who also has long, flowing, burnett hair............Snowgirls!

Around the House

Well, once again,its been a while since I've posted anything on here and I have no 'good' excuse. I have lots of good pictures to share but just haven't put them on here yet.

Since the weather got cold, Lee has decided that he is a house dog. I honestly couldn't ask for a better to dog to have in the house. He likes to come in and either lay in front of the wood stove or, as you can see, he is certain that the bean-bag was meant for him. If it wasn't for the fact that he weighs around 85lbs and has the body for it, I wouldn't even notice him inside. There have actually been a few times that he went into one of the bedrooms and i didn't know he was in-he's getting sneaky and smarter in his 'old' age. He's also getting 'selective' in his hearing abilities but that's another topic.

Today, we've had clouds, clouds, a little rain, clouds and the mountains have clouds or if you were up in them, you would say fog. The temperature has warmed up quite a bit too from a week ago; we're in the 40's now and all of the snow has melted to leave us with mud! Not just a little bit either. Oh well, the moisture is good and its not below O-think positive!

The poor snowgirls. They haven't handled the warmer temps well at all.

The new pens in the mud. The panels have proven to be worth their weight in gold as far as I'm concerned. With chain attachments on the gates, I've been able to open them just fine even when they were covered in ice; no more going out there with a lighter to melt the ice off of the latches-that's hard to do when you have gloves on! A few of my gloves started to get a little 'warm' a few times. They have also proven themselves when it comes to the weight of a tangled up horse. Last night, one of the horses decided that she needed to kick one of the others-this is perfectly normal for horses; they can't stand to be apart but when they are together, they can't stand to be to close to each other.(makes no sense, I know). Anyhow, her kick went through the fence but one leg didn't come out, it was stuck. This particular horse has done this quite a few times and thankfully she is one that doesn't panic. On the other hand, she completely relaxes! She decided that she one hind leg was off the ground, the other one should be too and the way to accomplish this is to sit on the fence! Thankfully, after a lot of pushing on my part and coaxing, yelling, poking, etc......I finally got her to 'get-up' on 3 legs long enough that the tension was off the panel so that I could get the chain's unhooked and then let the panel down so she could walk out. Oh, I love her!! (sarcasm!) On the upside, the panel has a little ding in it, her leg has a little dent in it and was a bit swollen this morning and sore but all things considering, it could of been worse-my fence could of been 'pretzeled!'

To make you smile! A promise of warmer days to come and even more than that, one of God's promises to us that He will never destroy the earth by flood again, so while your out there wading in the water and mud, remember it could be worse.

When it was Warm

A couple weeks ago my sweetie surprised me with a project that was going to be my Christmas present but a gift to him, in a way. It was going to mean less work and money in the long run-always a good thing but maintenance gets expensive on time and the checkbook-less is better!!
So back to the surprise. Year after year it has been a 'dream' of mine to have the horse pens done in panels but something always has managed to come up that prevented this from happening. Example; this spring I was hoping to get this done but we had a barrage of medical ailments come up and that zapped the funds! On a good note, we have all healed and are moving on quite well; Jessie is the only one that escaped a calamity this year-praise the Lord!!! Okay, the surprise, I'm sure you have guessed now..........Yes! Bryan said that I could get my panels to re-do the pens that have been re-done many times. Horses are hard on fences!! Needless to say, I was a bit excited!!! The guy that we bought them from made us a sweet deal too so that was the cherry on the cake!

The girls like the idea that they can climb these fences without splinters and creosote getting on them!

A little attitude.

The fence project took us a week to get done. The thing about panels is that the ground has to be level to get them to line up right so there was a lot of 'leveling' that had to be done but on a good note, all of the old fences came down easily(imagine that) and the whole project was done without incident.

The old fence posts and the wonderful piece of equipment that made light work of something that would of been quite miserable otherwise!

This year, just like every other year, we get firewood to heat our house. I love wood heat-it seems so much warmer and in the long run, cheaper and more dependable. However, unlike other years, we weren't able to go cut our wood this year-Bryan's elbow and my lungs had other plans and by the time we were mended it was getting way to late and hot in the year to go get it so we ended up buying our wood. It was nice having it delivered and of course was not as labor intensive but its not the same as just going out and cutting it yourself. We are extremely thankful though for the help that was given to us to get it. We ended up with about 10 tons of wood!

Here is about 1/3 of what is left to get in the woodshed. Once again, the bobcat proved very useful in pushing it in closer to the woodshed.

This wood is tamarack. Its a type of pine that burns very hot and 'clean'. There is very little ash to clean out. Our shed ended up being the fullest that it has ever been since we've been here. We are very thankful for the help from family and friends that helped us get it under the shed.

At the same time that we had wood to stack we also had hay to stack; another yearly project. This year there was a total of 18tons. Our hay shed will hold 15 tons so the goal was to get that filled and then feed what was left first and of course I always feel pressured to get it done before the rain comes; we almost made it.

Like the firewood, this was delivered to our house and unlike the firewood, this is the way to do it especially this year since we weren't charged for delivery. Each load is 4 and 1/2 tons; we got 4 loads.

I have also learned this year that one of the best times to stack hay is in the evening of a full moon night. As the bales get heavier the temperature gets cooler therefore making it easier to go longer. Sara, Tony and I worked on it one evening and managed to get almost 8 tons under the shed in just a couple hours. It was actually a lot of fun.

Bryan later took over the stacking and with the help of the bobcat, once again, it made heavy work a bit lighter.

Good news! Only another 8 tons or so to go and then next year, we get to do it again!!! All of it except next year we will be cutting, loading, hauling, unloading and then stacking our firewood so put it on your calendars for anytime between March to June to join in on this most wonderful event-it always weather pending but there are steaks to be had for any and all help!!

Sometimes

Sometimes, in life, you feel like your in the bottom of a bucket and you just can't get out-your stuck!!

And then a good friend comes along, pats you on the back and then you know that you will survive the 'bucket' incident and that despite the choices that you make, you have friends that can laugh with you and your still loved!

Feeling Loved,

Hershey

And then some days you feel like your about to go over the edge, you've had enough, can't take it anymore, your depressed.......

you feel, well, just blah!

And then you realize that while you are are your state of 'blah', someone is taking pictures of you and smiling and laughing; all of a sudden you decide that there are definitely worse things in life; that your plan to 'dwell' on life ended up giving someone else entertainment.-what is this world coming to?? You start thinking, scheming of ways to trip them going down the stairs, hack up a hairball in the middle of the bedroom, scratch the furniture, leave the dead mouse right out the back door.............

Yours Truly,

Distraught Chille

Deer Down!

On Tuesday, the 12th, I was successful on harvesting my deer. Bryan and I had gotten up at 4am and had left the house at 4:50 to head down through Buffalo Valley, into Jersey Valley and then up the Golconda Pass road that goes through the Tobin Mtn Range. When we had gotten to the 'meadows', we unloaded the 4 wheeler, got all of our gear together and headed up.
We had been up hear a few days before and didn't see much except a little fawn and when we had gotten up to the old mines, she was still there, apparently she had been separated from her mother.
Can you see her? Look closely-this is why you can be looking at a deer and never know it-they are really good and blending in and not moving.

Me-we had just got done from hiking up and down a draw trying to find some deer that we had seen-no luck and we were both quite warm when we got back to the quad. We couldn't of asked for a better day; the weather was perfect!

The end of the trail is in sight.

And at the end of the trail is where I found this buck.........at the top! If we had been about 5 minutes later, we probably wouldn't of found him because he bedded down right after I started my stalk. The highest point behind me is Mt. Tobin at just under 10,000ft. He bedded about 250ft below that and to the right.

Not a bad 4 point and I was a very happy hunter!

I hiked up the side of the mountain to the backside, up around the point and then until I was 224ft above the buck. All I could see where his antlers, so after trying to get him to stand up(I was whistling, making noise, throwing rocks and he wouldn't budge), I called Bryan on the radio and told him my dilemma. He decided that he would start walking up the side of the mountain also but would stay in view of the deer. As he got closer to the top, he finally had to start walking towards him( he was hiding some in the brush), throwing some rocks, making noise etc.... When he was only about 200ft away, the buck finally decided to stand up and I made my shot. It was a perfect shot right through the lungs-he dropped about 20ft away.

Here is where Bryan sat with the spotting scope as I made my 'stalk' up the mountain. Its also a view of where we came from.

Another view of the area. This is the looking down into Indian Canyon, across Buffalo Valley, kind of towards Battle Mtn. Some steep country!

The man who helped make the hunt a success getting the deer ready on the 'deer sled' to head back to the truck.

Pulling the deer didn't last to long as the sled got a tear in it so we loaded him onto the front of the quad and really 'cinched' him down. I'm sure we maxed out the weight limit on the quad but it did super!

My view as we are heading out.

This was one of many places that we found or saw water in the area. I was surprised at how much water was around there.

Back at the meadows where we parked the truck.

Loading it all at one time!

Loaded and ready to head home! It was a great day!

Hunting

This year I successfully drew a deer tag; a buck tag to be exact. Its been a couple years since I've hunted so I was quite excited. When you put in for a tag, you are allowed to put in for 5 different areas that you would like to hunt. I put in for 3 areas and drew my 3rd choice-an area that I had never hunted before and was really familiar with it at all but always thought that it might be a good area to try. Unfortunately, due to the events of this summer, I wasn't able to get out and scout very much until a couple weeks before the season opened. However, I have gathered a lot of opinions on where to go and where not to go or 'if you go there you will a good pair of shoes and possibly a horse, etc...... Well, I have scouted on foot, on a-wheeler and on horse and have come to the conclusion that this is a very tough area to hunt!!
My season opened yesterday and my dad and I headed out and decide that we were going to hunt Hoffman Canyon which is in the Tobin Mountain range. We had scouted it before, a little bit, and decided that it had looked the most promising. Before long, actually we were into it a few hours, we were on top of the Tobin's looking down both the east side and the west side-what a view. At this point we had gone about 3-4miles and hadn't seen a thing. There was a lot of sign that there were and are deer in the area(sign meaning poop, beds and tracks) but we had yet to see anything. The weather was crazy; wind blowing really bad at times, rain, hail and sun. One minute you are freezing and then you are hot-the best thing was to simply keep moving.
After making the trip up following the ridge line of the left side of the canyon, zig-zagging back and forth so as not to be a silhouette on the ridge and to be able to 'glass' as much area since there was sign that the deer seemed to be about everywhere, we decided to come back down through Hoffman Canyon, after all, the bottom of the canyon didn't look to bad or to steep compared to what we had been on. Boy, where we wrong!!! We had roughly 3 miles to cover back to the truck through the canyon and it was tough. The vegetation was so thick that without a saw you couldn't get through it and there were many places that extremely steep so, needless, to say it was interesting. We only slipped a few times and thankfully neither of us made a quick trip to the bottom.
We finally made it back to the truck after starting 9hrs before and covering around 6-7miles. We started our hunt and 5700' elevation and went up to 8000'. We arrived back at the truck barely able to move, shaky and sore in ways that I don't think I have ever been sore in. My feet felt like I had been walking with steal boots, my backpack developed steal straps at some point and my gun gained at least 30lbs! Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration but I do have blisters to prove that my boots were not nice to me and my toes and shoulders are very sore to the touch.
We didn't come home empty handed though............

Here is dad taking a much needed break in a nice little grassy spot in the bottom of the canyon. Notice the sunshine-it had just quit raining with hail a few minutes before.

Yep, we were beat and still had about 2 miles to go in what we thought wasn't go to be to bad of terrain to traverse. Our hope was dashed quickly!!

There are big deer in that area though; this is a 6 point shed that we found at the beginning of our hike.

And this is what I'm guessing a lion kill that we found in a drainage in Hoffman Canyon. He has a 25 and1/4" spread-4 point.

The day spent with my dad was great even though we didn't get a deer or even see one. The thought of what we had accomplished is satisfying in and of itself although I would not repeat the part that was in Hoffman Canyon itself; I would consider the area and canyon to the left of Hoffman and I am possibly going to going to the backside where we saw lots of other draws that have water and are not steep at all. Being on top of that range and in the clouds and they were sailing by was really cool. At times you couldn't hardly see a thing and then you could see the sun's rays coming through into the valley-it was beautiful! The hunting will continue!!

Here are some pics of some of out 'finds' when we went scouting a week ago.

A little 2 point found in the Buffalo Mtns. when Sara and I went horseback scouting. This was all that we had seen there-no other sign but we had a fun ride.

Some old traps from a trap line in an area of the Tobin's not far from Golconda Pass that has been washed out due to extreme flash flooding-wish I had pics to show, it was amazing what the water had done to the rocks! I'll get them one of these days.

Oh, this is from hunting yesterday-proof that my boots weren't nice. We have a 'love/hate' relationship.