Sunrise and fall hunting memories.

 What a beautiful sunrise this morning.  At about 7:20 a.m. as the sun was rising, I could hear the duck hunters down in Denton Slough.  There must be more ducks in as this is the first time I've heard them shooting at daylight this year. 

Jon, JP and David have had many duck hunting adventures beginning with the one when they had a blind at Pack River.  In their first hunt JP must have been about 12 and David was about 6 years old.  JP had received a .410 shotgun as a gift and it was his first hunting trip.  David wasn't old enough to hunt but he didn't want to be left behind. He did get to take his BB gun on the trip.

I'm sure that part of the enjoyment of hunting is in the planning.  All of the hunting gear and apparel had to be planned and everything laid out the night before.  Trust me, there were many hours of planning the whole trip.  They would need a thermos of hot coffee and another with hot chocolate, plus some sandwiches for breakfast.  Duck hunters in a blind for several hours get hungry! 

I doubt that either JP or David slept much the night before and they got up at 3:00 a.m. to get ready to drive to Pack River.  They put in the canoe in the dark and had flashlights to light the way as they paddled to the blind.  

The blind was built up in some jack pine trees about 10 feet off of the ground.  Jon and cousin Marty Kiebert had built the blind the weekend before. There was a ladder to climb up into it.  They needed to get everything up into the blind before daylight.  There were plenty of ducks that year and geese but the most exciting part was that JP got his first duck that morning. It was a teal that was reportedly flying about a hundred miles and hour and everyone was surprised that he got it.  The trip was a success and they came home with their limit of ducks and one goose.  Somewhere in my collection of 10,000 photos. there's a photo of them with the ducks and the goose, and I spent the better part of an hour searching for it, but I can't find it. 

In later years they would take the canoe from Johnson creek to an island at the mouth of the river and hunt from there.  Sometimes they filled their limit and sometimes not, but they always seemed to enjoy it. 

I could not understand wanting to get up at 3:00 a.m. and go out in the dark, cold morning to hunt, but I will admit that a roast duck dinner is a delicious treat and I have baked a lot of ducks.   I will not say the same for geese.  Over many years I tried every method to roast them and the meat was always tough and disappointing.  It takes a long time to pick all those goose feathers off and eventually it didn't seem worth it.

I hope those duck and goose hunters down at the slough are having fun and staying warm. 

Here's a few photos of the sunrise.  The hunters must have enjoyed it as well.

Sunday is football day.  Have a good one!

Fall 2024 - time's up.

 The last days of the flowers and the garden.  I've been busy getting everything ready for winter.

The flowers on the deck were stunning this year, including all of my volunteer sunflowers. They just kept on bloomin'.

The begonias were beautiful both on the deck and from the view through my window. 

This year our Honeycrisp apple tree finally produced apples.  It was a big surprise.  They're huge and taste really good.  Honeycrisp apple are "keepers" since they will keep almost until spring in the refrigerator in the basement.   

Jon's dahlias had a couple of new varieties.  A stunning red and another one that's a pink blush.   They're our last project in the garden since we wait for a frost before cutting them off.  Then they stay in the ground for about a week before we dig them up to then divide and store for the winter. 

We have a new addition to our house - a robot vacuum.  We're using it to try to keep up with the dog hair on the carpet.  We have a Shark vacuum which is a really great one, but I only use it once a week.  

It took us old folks quite a few tries to figure out how the robot works, but we now have it down.  They say we're supposed to give the robot a name, but we haven't come up with one yet.  Did I mention that it talks to us all the time?  Lady was very suspicious of the thing, but now she's getting used to it.

This little begonia was on our front porch and is still blooming.  It probably only has a couple more days left since we're going to have a hard freeze every night this week.  I might bring it indoors to enjoy the blossoms as long as I can. 

Speaking of robots, this is a robot busboy that son David ran into on a trip to Hong Kong.  I had no idea there was such a thing.  

I've started getting rid of the leaves, but it's a never ending process, at least for the next few weeks.

The deck is empty except for pots stored underneath the picnic table. 

Our rain gauge collected 2 inches of rain yesterday.  Impressive.  

 

Jon and I have sent in our ballots and we're all in for Open Primaries - Prop 1.  We both believe in voting for the best candidate - not the party.  We also don't like the fact that the republican primary is a closed primary and very few voters vote in the primary.  This means that whoever gets elected in the primary on the republican ticket, is sure to win in the general election.   The result is that a very small percentage of voters are deciding who represents us.  It's time to open it all up and let the voters decide and not the party.

We also want elected representatives who support women's health.  Idaho's new laws against that have caused our ob/gyn doctors to leave our area and that is not good news for women who live in Bonner County.  

  

Tree Project

We had a crew here yesterday to cut down a dead white fir that was entwined with a birch tree near the barn.  It had to come down before it fell - either on the barn or our house.

Joe Heisel, along with Jer Lizotte and Mathis Heisel, were the logging/tree-trimming crew.  

Joe had to climb the tree and he sawed off birch tree and fir limbs on his way up the tree.  It spent at least two hours up in the tree sawing, which was amazing.  There's no place to sit down up there.  I'm just saying at my age, I like places to sit down.

You can barely see Joe on the other side of the tree.

                           

Joe, peeking around the tree.





Jer removing limbs and handing to Mathis, who was in the woods the entire time and unfortunately, I did not get a photo of him.  As the branches came down he and Jer worked on cutting them up and stacking them in a burn pile.



They then loaded the chunks into their pickups to take home to make into firewood.  There were some big pieces.  

Now we have a line on the tree from this side, just before cutting off the top third of the tree.

There she goes!

Only blue sky now. 
                              

The stump - after falling the last part of the tree.

Joe - on the ground.

It's a relief to have the tree cut down, especially since we seem to have a lot of wind storms these days. 

Joe and his crew did a great job and they will be back since we still have at least one more near the house that needs to be removed.  

This is an unusual weather year for us in that it's October 6th and we still haven't had a frost here.  As a lifelong gardener I remember when we had to cover plants in our vegetable garden on the 1st of September.  Things have changed.

We have another beautiful day ahead of us with a high temperature of 71.  Plus, the weather forecast says it will continue like that all through the week and maybe into the next.  

Happy Fall!