More TV than Movies

Rogue  season 1

Staring Thandie Newton, this Movie Channel original held its own. It took most of the first episode to wrap my head around the sultry Dame Vaco as a "gritty undercover cop", really wanted to see her smoldering eye liner...  ...that said, characters are set up quickly, and the story draws you in to care about what will happen next. 

One or two strong supporting roles, at least as many really flimsy ones too. Kavan Smith plays the non dimensional pointless husband of Newton's Grace Travis. Wow, not only is he as convincing as a bag of crap, he manages to draw out the worst acting/over acting from everyone around him. 

Conversely, anyone playing a character with the last name Laszlo does a pretty convincing job of it. Not afraid to whack an important player just to twist the plot, Rogue is worth a look. The fix is in place for season 2, should be great. 

Rome  season 2

Free to take even more liberties now the play "Caesar" is over, season two carries us toward a series wrap up that doesn't disappoint. Characters from season one are slightly more flawed, believable, and endearing. 

SoA  season 6

Man, please.  Can we possibly cram more montage scenes into so few shows?  Did you just get tired of writing the monotonous dialog and decide to go without?  Go make a friggin rock opra - like Cop Rock maybe. 

If anyone knows where I can find a by-episode or by-character body count for SOA, I'd love to see it. I'm sorry, I know there are people who live outside the law - but leaving a trail of corpses this wide is going to get on someone's radar. 

The best thing about season 6?  They finally killed off the most (one of the most) annoying cast members. Halalooya.

Dead Set

You'll be surprised to learn that I have a ridiculously extensive collection of zombie movies and TV shows. Zombie movies were the only thing that ever gave me bad dreams as a kid - well, the only form of entertainment to do so anyway. So there is a tendency to gut one out now and then just to see if I can handle it. 

They say that zombie movies reflect the "political mood of the nation", I think the allure is much simpler. In many movies you see extraordinary people in extraordinary situations (action heros, super cops, the unselfish unrequited love, etc...). In zombie flicks you see basically ordinary people (with defined roles and no back story needed) in horrific situations. It's easy to think "I would do this", and "I'd find one of those", and put yourself into the picture. There are always characters who do stupid stuff (and get eaten) so you can think "that was stupid, I wouldn't have done that".

So the premise of Dead Set is that a typical inexplicable zombie outbreak engulfs the UK - while the cast of the Big Brother reality show goes on unknowingly. So they make the basis of the survivors cadre. 

This is 5 shows about 23 min each, and plays like a made for TV movie. No huge surprises, though it ends predictably it also ends very abruptly. 

Enemies Closer

After "6 Bullets" I thought "I must have judged JCVD unfairly, maybe his movies are worth while". 10 minutes into "Enemies Closer" and I was sure my original hypothesis was correct. This guy is the ultimate magnet for craptastic writing and mediocre acting. 

BINGE WATCH!!   Seasons 1, 2, and 3 of Entourage

Too much time at the lake house. 

Dinner Time

Pork loin, deer loin, peas with bacon fat, and diced potatoes, carrots, and celery with butter and season salt in the foil pouch.

We hiked a couple miles around the property today and need the calories!

A few turkeys in the snow

have had as many as 18 at once, but can't find that video at the moment...

They are hilarious to watch.

Water Works

Back at the cabin, and the water works. Reassembled the filter, pumped about 100 gallons over to the main tank, and it looks like we're good to go.

Genny fired too. Looks like it was just cold enough long enough to freeze the propane line feeding the genny.  Still runs like crap, but at least we have it if we need it.

Things will be in motion tomorrow, and should be getting the new roof on during the following two or three days.

Getting back

Ran up to the cabin Thursday for a 24 hour hunting expedition. Didn't want to deal with water and power, broken this and fixing that.

It was sunny and chilly when I arrived, temp on the left is the INSIDE temp. Fired up the pellet stove and propane heater, bundled up and headed to the blind. Sat out there for 4+ hours waiting on turkey. No go.

Went inside to warm up and eat some hot food. Back out around 6:30 in hopes of getting a deer. Had about a half moon on snow covered ground. Should be good enough to see.

It was a long wait. I have a great looking buck, maybe 8 points, coming in around 4 am. But I know realistically that I probably won't be able to get up to get after him. So set my sights on the two bigger does coming in a little after 10 pm.

You hear a lot of stuff in the blind, and everything seems amplified. You'll swear there is "big game" coming through the brush. Grunting, snorting, crashing along...  ...usually turns out to be a squirrel. More than once I've thought "oh my god, what the heck is that?" after hearing some god awful noise in the distance. After a couple more times I realize it's just my stomach.

But I checked the time around 9:15 and guessed it was getting to about 10. When I heard a little bleat there was no question.  "Oh, my does are here."  Quick glance out the blind while reaching for the shotgun, they were just walking in.

Now the blind is a bit awkward. The hole they provide to shoot out of is too high to use from a sitting position, and far too low to fire while standing. It's in the middle of the wall (left to right), so you have to move to one side to shoot in the opposite direction.

Add to that, I'm using my beloved Baikal 12 gauge - which I bought as a goose gun. That long barrel needs to be a foot out the window.

I swing around and get a clean bead on the bigger doe, slap the trigger from my hunched over bent leg position. I see her twist and lay on her side as I stumble backward and try not to fall on my ass.

She lifted her head once, and she was done.

I LIKE deer hunting with buckshot. No chasing down animals that can make 50+ yards after a heart shot from a rifle or a crossbow. Literally knock them down. With a good shot, they're not getting back up.

Was up til 2 am dressing her out.  She was somewhere over 150 pounds on the ground, I couldn't counterweight her with my own weight - maybe 170 bundled up. Used the tow strap and the truck to get her in the air.

Sherri is definitely a better butcher than I. I'm too worried about trimming every hint of silver skin and saving every morsel of meat. She gets in there and gets it done.

TV and Movies

Pawn   
     I tried to find more information on the background of this movie. The description said it was about the robbery of a pawn shop gone bad. But it had nothing to do with a pawn shop - it was about robbing a safe in the back of a diner.
     Michael Chiklis with a Manchester accent what's odd, but he pulled it off.   Strange movie, probably worth watching. 

Into the Blue   
     Ok, for guys reading this, I only need to say four words:  JESSICA ALBA UNDER WATER.  Every bit as glorious as you had hoped.     
      For everyone else, it's an interesting story line, sometimes falling into the Hollywood pitfalls you expect. But there are a few good twists, and Jessica Alba under water. 

Idiocracy
     Haven't watched this for years. I love the premise that stupid people breed too much, smart people not enough,  and we end up with a future where we can't solve the basic problems in life. Not too much of a stretch really.    It plays out well enough, the story struggles here or there,  but it gets the job done. 

Star Trek  The Beginning
     As much as I like Star Trek everything,  I always feel a bit cheated when movies (and the Enterprise series) play around with the time line. It makes me feel like I have to go back and watch everything else all over again to see how much it changed.    Just like sex and violence, I like to keep my Star Trek and time travel separate. 

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     Along with original content coming out of the pay cable channels, many of the online streaming companies are putting out some interesting products. Netflix has "Orange is the New Black", Crackle has "Cleaners" and "The Unusuals", Hulu has "The Booth at the End" and others.  These are just samples, each has more than I can list here.
      Most of these have smaller budgets than their network brethren, far smaller budgets than the HBO and Cinemax behemoths - and it shows.   Some feel a bit like "place holders" to fill gaps in the actor's resumes - but that's ok too, because you get to see some medium-large names working on pet projects.     Look out for these "original content" productions. Might find a gem in the mix. A lot of these (like Crackle) are completely free. 

Gravity season 1   
       This is a Starz Channel production centered on Krysten Ritter. Other names listed for the show are "failure to fly" and "suicide for dummies,which are both more appropriate. Light fare that plods along ok, with a season opener and a season ending better than the season itself (just 10 episodes total).    
      Ritter, while good a what she does, seems terminally type cast as "the cute goth" practically reprising her role from Breaking Bad.  Remove heroine, add suicide, same girl. I think she could do more. 

Entourage season 8   
     The series ends eith a weepy eyed everything happy flare. You'll be "happy for them" as the cast heads off to the next part of their lives. 

Nikita season 1   
     Seems everything cool I remember from 3 seasons of Nikita happened in season 1.  I wanted to run through the series again before starting in on season 4, but now am wondering if it's worth the bother. 

Firefly   
     I watch this series once or twice a year, capped off with Serenity the movie. 

Riding the storm out. (Or not... )

Friday night I was able to get someone out to fix the generator. I had been after the authorized service dealer for months, but to no avail. So Friday morning, the genny took three tries to fire, then blew the air cleaner off and backfired 20-odd times.

I wrote the service dealer a letter, thanking them for nothing - around noon. Shock of shocks, they called me back and wanted to get a tech out the same day.

Sure enough, about 8pm, plowing up my hill - a heavy Chevy 4x4 with chains. Tech didn't have the info needed to take care of everything I needed, but he got the genny running smooth. We let it charge the batteries and wrapped things up for the night.

Saturday morning however, no water, frozen pipes. And the genny cranks but won't fire. 

Heater in the shed (where the water lives) is broke - well, propane line to it is broke and frozen...  ...same result. 

Though a bit smokey and delicious smelling, I fired the little propane grill hoping to gen enough heat to thaw things out. It was 48 in the shed at one point. Don't know if thawing out the shed will unfreeze all that needs to be, but might help keep fittings from breaking - and 400 gallons of water from dumping out. 

I was able to run my Raider all the way down and then make the mad dash back up with a running start. A very MAD dash.  But no way could I let it be known that a Chevy truck made it up the hill, and the Raider couldn't.

Stuff never really did thaw in the shed. Never did get the genny to fire.

Oh, the biggest ray of sunshine Saturday? Yeah, the sun was actually shining. Very unexpected, but very welcome.  Dug,  brushed, and scraped as much of the snow and ice as I could off the solar panels. Lo and behold we're charging batteries. 

Siphoned water for flushing and drinking.
Scraped more ice off the panels, but looks like the sun is done for the day.

Sunday morning, no running water, still no genny.  Really wishing I had stuck to the plan of dumping the pellet stove and putting in a wood burner. The stove is useless without backup power.  We're pretty much dead in the water up here.

I removed and drained the water filter, and used a small torch to melt the ice in yhe shutoff valve. Closed the main to the house.

It took some fanagling but I started pumping the 400 gallons out to the transport tank - that should be a nice block of ice when I go back. Probably should have just dumped it on the ground, but thought of that too late. Pumping the water out was the only way to ensure the shed didn't get flooded when things think about thawing out.

We sprung a leak on the low end of the bedroom roof. The snow freezes solid on the eaves, then as the snow above it melts, water is trapped in an ice lake on the roof. An hour or so chopping ice with the ax seemed to remedy most of the problem. I'm sure it froze up again and started leaking as soon as we turned our backs.

Shoveled the snow out of the Nissan and loaded up to leave. Crossed my fingers that the carport roof wouldn't collapse under the weight of the snow (it looks iffy), and that no other catastrophes would hit while we're away. 

One final frustration - while running around messing with hoses and pumps - a dozen (MASSIVE) wild turkeys wandering around. Too far away to shoot.

Today is Wednesday, already bored to death at the lake house. Aching to get back in the blind. Will likely go up tomorrow just to hunt, stay over night, see what happens.

It's official, I'm old.

The local hardware store chased me out yesterday and handed me a couple of calendars on the way out. One was houses and stuff, the other is "building babes".

Unfortunately all these girls look like children to me!  I'm kinda creeped out with these girls that look so young showing all that cleavage and skin. I got BOOTS older than these kids!

The to do list I've been working for the last month

To do

HUNT!
- make stand on top of shed
- sight in PSL with NVS

Find coon daggers - DONE
Find turkey call

DO:
Raider oil change - DONE
Kohler oil change
Paint propane tank - DONE
Clean up barrels and wood in yard - DONE
Fix bathroom ceiling - half DONE
Change door handle
Fix doggie door in battery box - DONE
Close small holes in shed - DONE
       (need screws from fence) - DONE
Calk S skirting

Deal With antifreeze barrel and
Clean out carport - DONE

- <<<<  can antifreeze be used for radiant heat in the shed?  Like a solar water heater??  ???!!  >>>>

Get 2x4s and fix trailer frame and tongue

Assemble chainsaw - DONE
- remove trees
- make smaller pieces
- FIRE

Get
- MORE MINUTES - DONE
- CORN - DONE
- Calk and calking gun for skirting - DONE
    and for holes in steel
- 2 new barrels - DONE

- get/paint/REPLACE SCREEN DOOR

Get rid of
- fridge - DONE
- diesel generator - DONE
- Hot water heater - KEEP
      <<<<  use with solar
       water heater to heat shed?  >>>>

Dismantle more fence - DONE for me!
- Thanks Mike!
17 good and 12 bad
Need at least 20 more

Clean up N side - DONE
- wood and barrels - DONE
- battery box - DONE
- rotten leaves etc - DONE

Skirt N side

WATER/FLUSH SYSTEM ON NORTH SIDE

Roof and potable water system for
   Western portion of cabin

Rig system to drop and secure solar panels

Google's Auto Awesome

I had ignored the auto backup for images when I connected the blog via Google+.  While trying to figure out how to turn off all the stupid email notifications, I stumbled across Auto Awesome.

It will take backed up pics with matching backgrounds and put them together in succession, and connect overlapping pictures into panoramas (amongst other things).  ...without being asked to do so!

Pretty cool.

Ridin' the Storm Out

Winter storm warning in effect, tonight's low is about the warmest we'll see for the next week or so.

We have guests coming in Friday, and I think we've convinced Sherri to ride out the storm here. Making a "challenge" of it.

Today we topped off the 400 gallon water tank. The hope is that we'll have enough warm mass to keep that end of the shed from freezing up.

Wood pellets and propane are ready to go. I finally got around to making space in the area between the two sheds to park the truck. That should help keep the ice off a little bit.

Will keep you posted on how well we handle the weather. The PPO lived up here full time, so I'm sure we'll be fine.

Back in Sherriland

Sherri caught her first fish ever. Unfortunately, she didn't pull in her jug line for 10 days...

I trapped my first coon.  If you happen to stumble upon this trap in your travels, possibly with a dried up coon skeleton attached, please mail it back to me.

Don't use your pocket knife when cutting up rat poison, use your dirtiest putty knife. You're less likely to use that for opening a banana or eating an apple.

Denim. Nature's way of ensuring wildlife sees you before you see them.

440 pounds of HEAT.

Just sick...

Whenever I'm in a blind or a stand I always think "what if I was here an hour earlier?" or "Yeah it's ocean dark out here, but if I just stick it out another half hour..."

Well, that one really hit home tonight. More than three hours in the blind, plenty warm enough, but but had to pee so bad I couldn't think straight. Finally decided to pack it in.

There is no quiet way out of the blind. Big plastic zippers holding taught fabric, "zzzrrrrrrowwwwwwzzzzzz" I step out, pull the guns through. "zzzrrrrrrowwwwwwzzzzzz" close it back up, head toward the house.   Hear a noise and freeze.

Just in time to hear clomping hooves and see just a white tail bounding away in the dark. 10 minutes longer in the blind, and I'd be slicing up venison right now.

So listening to coyotes all around respond to a locator howl, sitting on the front porch grilling store bought chicken.

Tastes like defeat. 

New blind is set

I picked up a couple of ground blinds on black Friday specials. One is a small 1-man pop-up, I haven't broken that one out yet. The other is a behemoth branded by Brotherhood. Big enough to stand up in, heck, big enough to live in.

I did my best to camo the blind in - by cutting some LFTs and piling them around the base. I tried to toss some on top too, but will have to tie them together to keep them up there.

Mmmm...

I never knew this thing had a plate warmer?

Cold, Holidays, and the Lake House

We had planned to have a visitor for Thanksgiving, but winter storms had other plans. That along with a serious cold snap, made us decide to bug out for the holiday. So we went to our fallback location at the lake.

We miss all our friends in Colorado, and I really miss all our kids. But the holiday was ok and it's always comfortable here at the lake house.

It was a chance to catch up on yard work at the lake house. One of my big peeves from last season was that there were years of leaves that had to be cleaned up. So hopefully getting a jump on that now will save me some work next spring.

Pellets for the stove are much cheaper here, so we'll load up before heading back to the cabin. I got a couple new blinds on a Black Friday sale, and some buckshot, I look forward to getting back up the hill and trying to put some meat in the freezer.

Should be meeting with a guy this week to get serious about putting a roof on the cabin. Then I can get on with the water catchment system. Always plenty to do, if I have the desire to do it.

Movies and other stuff

A good way to look for movies.   I like to peruse Flixter's "upcoming dvd" list, as those are the movies I am likely to have access to.   To find a movie that I will probably enjoy, I look for anything with a viewer rating higher than the critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. 

If critics love it, I probably hate it. They live to stroke the egos of the Hollywood elite they serve.  Listen to the people,  their reviews tend to amalgamize as they pile up,  and you get a better idea of how real people feel about the flick. 

If the critics rating is higher than the viewers, that's a red flag. There are always exceptions, like when both ratings are very high or very low. But it's a good criteria to get started. 

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Enders Game   
     Two weeks after its release, I finally bit the bullet and went to see this IN A THEATER.  I'm not even sure what the last movie I saw in a theater was - maybe Madagascar 2? - who knows. The house was full of stinky fish smells and Chinese only conversations, so I had to go somewhere.    

It was a great movie, well adapted from one of my top 5 Sci Fi books. I always liked the character a lot, especially when I was young. Strategic and ruthless.  

 Thinking back on it, I could see how those who don't know the book might have found the movie to be flat. I'm sure I was "thinking in" the parts they left out - some big and some small - but memorable enough to me that I subconsciously put them in the story where they belonged.    

I hope they pump out Enders World quick. It'll probably bomb in everyone else's opinion, but I'm sure it'll be great in my mind. 

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The To Do List   
   I really like the star of this picture, Aubrey Plaza (also my favorite strip mall). She was in "Safety Not Guaranteed", which was a brilliant movie. This movie however, maybe less than brilliant.

Girl graduates high school a virgin, and decides she needs to become a complete slut before starting college. Eventually, sort-of realizes the error of her ways, but not really. Ending on the note, "sometimes sex is just sex" which my many years tells me is very rarely true- at least not for both parties.

Aubrey's eye rolling and tongue and cheek demeanor help keep it light and a little better than tolerable. 

Red 2   
     Forced myself halfway through this one. Ugh,if only star power could make a movie. But it doesn't. It really doesn't. 

Killer Joe   
     Phew, where to start on this one. Imagine a spooky and nuanced Matthew McConaughey, a cool and scary character. Surrounded by a a cast you want to fail - except for a cute and cuddly Juno Temple. Very cool movie, check it out. 

The Last Days on Mars   
     Still trying to get back to this one. It looks like a soft scifi:  guy on Mars may have discovered life, falls in a hole. Dat-da-daaa.. skipping along...  He arrives back at the station, takes off his helmet and HOLY CRAP IN A CAN!!!

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Revolution season 1   
     With a couple of Startrek movies under his belt and a new Star Wars flick on the way, I'd like to say that JJ Abrams has the necessary Sci Fi cred to pull off a show like this. But some of his other projects like Lost and Fringe are unwatchable to me - and we can't let him off the hook for Felicity. He does however have a knack for spotting talent (Like Keri Russell, Jennifer Garner, Sonya Walger, and Elizabeth Mitchell), and brings that to Revolution.  

Real quick - because as you know, I hate reviewing the story line - I assume you already have an idea of what that's about. Lights go out, couple people knew it was coming, jump ahead 15 years to the mess we have become.    

At times the plot was a bit tedious, I struggled to stick with it when it was stretched week to week and mired in commercial interruptions. However, sitting and watching episodes rapid fire - it's a great show and flows much better. A big cast where all players are important makes for a more multidimensional experience, and plenty of back story is included to allow you the opportunity to care about the characters (or hate them as the story dictates - hate is a form of caring right?).   

The season wrapped up great, with plenty of surprises. I enjoyed it and will be digging into the next season soon. 

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Banshee  season 1   
     Still not sure where I come down on this one. Ex-con ends up sheriff in a small town (by killing the actual sheriff).  All hell breaks loose from there. Good enough, but some things I struggle with:   
    
One is that every fight lasts 478 minutes during which each contender should have died a dozen or more times. I've seen trained people fight. Fight for their lives. One is always better than the other, even if only a tiny bit. The fight ends quickly, and someone dies horribly.  
    
The other is that every time our protagonist arrives home there is someone waiting in his apartment. As a con and a sheriff, you'd think privacy would be paramount and he'd lock his friggin door. Sometimes it's some misc baddy there to rough him up. More often it's one of three town bimbos come to screw his brains out. Both scenarios seem ridiculous.    That said, they've left us with great set up for season 2, so I'll have 10 or 12 more episodes to decide if I like the show. 

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Modern Family season 4   
     I thought it would be nice to " lounge" a bit and get away from all the serious stuff. You all know the show, and it's 20 minute blurbs will usually evoke a chuckle or two. That held true through the season. Oddly enough, I found myself wanting some intrigue and drama. Will have to be sure to blend candy coated stuff like this with more substantial fare in the future. 

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Caprica   
    It's been a couple years since I've watched Caprica. This BSG prequel is really well done, though a bit laborious mid season. I found that fast forwarding through anything with "Amanda Greystone" Paula Malcolmson for several episodes helped to avoid the mindless tedium of her character wasting time doing nothing. Seriously, she plods along doing nothing that forwards the plot or her character episode after episode -most of that tied to the shows stupidest character "Sister Clarese".    

     More holo-program stuff and a better focus on the Zoe Greystone character would have helped (imho), but it was a cool little spin off. Too bad it never made it past the teaser for season two.

How "off the grid" are you?

We get a lot of suggestions of how to be "off the grid".  My feeling is that off the grid means no government regulated power, water,  or utilities. Other ways to be self sufficient are a bonus, but not a necessity.

We still have cell phones, and actually had to get another since there is only one local company that has service up here. We have satellite internet.  I quit watching TV over a year ago, and don't miss it a bit.

In Oklahoma, some things are bit more difficult. We had planned to plant at least 50 fruit trees on our property. But we've learned that doing so may be more difficult then we thought. What people don't realize is that deer eat everything. Not just the fruit.

We've seen wild persimmon trees better than 20 feet tall and have 3 persimmons at the very top. The tree is reduced to 1 main branch. All of the lower limbs, not just the fruit, but the branches have been eaten by dear. They will stand up on their back legs and eat everything they can reach.

Those trees will bear nothing next season, they may even die.

So planting small trees it's just putting out fresh feed for the deer. Whole trees will disappear overnight. Put a 6 foot fence around each tree? Not out of the question. But eventually they will be big enough to stand on their own, and the deer will trim them back to nothing.

People always say to us you should plant this, or you should plant that, and grow some of this. But they don't understand, we're not just off the grid, we're in the wild. We are competing with raccoons, skunks, dear, birds, and even rats out here. If you plant seeds the seeds are dug up and eaten. Any fruit or vegetable becomes food for the wild animals. One guy we talked to had to put up an electric fence to keep coons out of his strawberries.

So gardening and orchard planting becomes a game of building a fortress to protect your plants.  A game you'll probably loose. The blog is called More Bears than People - but it could be called Thousands More Coons than People.

I also thought that getting meat would be pretty easy.  We're surrounded by tasty critters here. All you need is a gun and you've got meat on the table.  But as I mentioned in earlier posts, that hasn't been as easy as I thought.

I still think there will be successful hunts, when I get the formula right. But we're still eating store-bought meat.

Lots of people turn to livestock to fill the need for protein. Goats for milk and meat. Chickens for eggs and meat. Rabbits, cattle, hogs, and whatever. But then you get into several tough tradeoffs.

Chickens, rabbits, ducks, turkeys and other small defenseless animals out here are BAIT. So you build them fences and fortresses and they get snatched and eaten a little slower.

Coons are near impossible to keep out, and you'll contend with fox, coyote, bob cat, owls and hawks, and potentially even bear and mountain lion.

Bigger livestock LEAVES. So again you're constantly fencing and fortifying - only now to keep them in. And with any of them, you're now trading your time and the cost of feed, medicine, and vet bills for meat. On the small scale, your hand raised meat will cost more than store bought.

The biggest drawback of livestock is that you can never leave. You can't just lock the chickens in the coop for two weeks with a bag of feed and a bucket of water.

Heck even fruit trees require year round watering for the first year or two.

Who wants to be chained to one place for a whole year?  Forget it.

Now and then someone will ask something like "how are you going to be really self sufficient?  You still have to buy clothes and stuff."  Yeah, no shit, what am I going to do - grow cotton, comb it spin it, weave it, and sew clothes out of it?  Screw that, I'll go to Walmart.

So the goal is to be reasonably sufficient on electricity, but we'll still need to supplement with propane. Though the pellet stove requires the purchase of pellets, and wood would be more abundant and free, it's also a hell of a lot of work. Wood piles have also proven to be homes for "special friends" like rattlers, scorpions, and spiders - near the house is bad enough - but carrying them in with the fire wood on a cold night is a bad thing.

I think we can get there on water, but there is more work to be done. If we can get the roof on, than a catchment system follows. If done before Spring, we could conceivably gather enough water for a year.

Getting back to Roots

Roots music, in my understanding, is that early Country and very early Rockabilly which in time became the pop-country and rock and roll we hear on the radio today.

I've never been a fan of modern country music. Some of it's ok, but it's tough to listen to the radio for hours on a country station. Same formulaic composition you find in pop music.

Here in Oklahoma/Arklahoma we have Big Country 107.3.  It's kind of the "oldies" station for country music ('cause there's already 9 generic country channels).  Big Country is awesome. 

I'm hearing songs I remember from when I was a kid, and yeah, I'm singing along - loud!

Hunting and the Howling Winds

At the top of my to do list is always the word "HUNT".  It's too easy to get caught up in projects and laziness and forget the biggest reason we're up here. I've been sighting in rifles, sitting in stands, checking cameras, and delivering corn. For the record, nothing yet. We have about 5 deer coming through the upper stand, though not on a schedule. As many as 11 turkey at a time at the lower stand. I just haven't managed to be at the right place at the right time.

It's a dark and fuzzy photo, but this guy has a decent rack on him.  

The turkey vids are pretty funny - it's like a damn stampede.  These guys come charging in, trying to beat each other out for the corn.

They're all scratching and digging around - I wish the trail cam videos had sound.







We've had the wind just blasting the cabin for the last few days. At the bottom of the hill, the South end of our property, it's calmer and warmer (when chilly).  But our beautiful view comes with a price. Fortunately it's 70 degrees today, and will be warm over the next week.


The rain barrel is almost empty, could definitely use more water.  But we'll get by either way.

Mini projects, and working my way down the list

Haven't exactly been knocking out the projects over the last few days.  With time spent in stands, and trying hard not to start anything I can't finish, I've been picking away at the edges.

Traded away the old diesel generator, I have no idea how to fire it up anyway. That left me with more space in the shed, and I patched the holes used for hoses and exhaust.


Cleaned and swept the shed and decided to get serious about getting the rat out of our lives. He ceased being cute and cuddly when he started crapping on everything.

Sorry for the graphic pic, but I wanted to show the winning combination. I wrapped the "trigger" with fabric and slathered it with peanut butter. Last time he just ate the peanut butter off the trigger without tripping the trap. Then used a lag bolt to fasten the trap to the floor. This made him have to gnaw and pull on the fabric - and die. Pretty good sized bugger too - at least twice as big as any squirrel I've seen in Oklahoma.

Tried again at fishing (not even sure what that thing is).  Used a yoyo on a tree and tried jugging the other side.  I think our smallest hooks are too big for the fish we have.

Cracked open a fresh tin of 54r...


...changed oil in the Raider...

Finished dragging the rotten old battery box away from the house - and the many years of rotten old leaves and sticks...

...it took all night and every drop of used motor oil, but burned all of that stuff to nothing.

Neighbor Mike went crazy with a hand ratchet and took down 30 more sections of fence.  That's 450 sheet metal screws - Thanks Mike!

I hauled it up the hill and sorted it into "clean pieces to use on the roof" and "cruddy pieces to use for skirting".

All neatly stacked on the North side of the house (where the wind shouldn't send it flying like a bunch of giant razor blades).

...and of course, ROCKED THE HOUSE!
(that's funny you see because there are actual ROCKS along the skirting around the house.  Get it?  Oh, never mind. sigh)

Cold days coming

I guess we'll find out soon if all the winter preparations will pay off. The cabin has been holding heat much better over the last few days - but it's been pretty warm.

Sniping from roof tops

I just don't seem to have any luck sitting in a stand and waiting for deer and turkey to wander through. I feel like I should be waiving a flag or something because I'm so visible. Any noise, any movement, any scent - and you're sitting in a tree doing nothing.

Years ago I said that hunting is not very sporting, because shooting an animal is too easy. I would definitely retract that statement now. While shooting a critter may be less "fair" than say "knifing" it, the knowledge, hard work, and talent that go into being ready to take that shot at the moment the shot is there are very real.

I say that as a guy who has been living in a hunter's paradise for over two months. I have more game animals, varmints, and predators here than anyone could hope for.

I have managed to bag exactly ZERO of the ridiculously abundant wildlife running around me every day. No, I haven't hunted every day, not even close to it. But the result is ZERO.

Anyway...  today I tried to site the night vision scope on the PSL - but it's still not close enough to the target to use for game. Too bad, because I can see GREAT with it. But I'm not going to chase away all my deer by throwing bullets all over the place.

The AR is dead on, and I managed to hit the target with open sites putting Ania (my Polish sweetheart) to work for the first time.

Permanent "heebie jeebies"

The sun came out this morning, and I'd guess we got up over 70 degrees. A nice day, and good for the solar power system. This gave bloom to 478 b'zillion LADY BUGS saturating the sunny spots on the outside of the house.

Since lady bugs are pretty much the only thing here that don't bite, sting, poison, or really contaminate in any way, you tell yourself to ignore them. But as they crawl on your neck, land on your eyeball, and crash directly into your ear-hole like a damaged viper coming in to the Galactica - you can't help but to shoo, shush, and swat them away.

I've been back in the house now for over an hour and the heebie jeebies will NOT go away. Would Sherri think I'm nuts if I ask her to smack the hell out of me with the fly swatter?

UPDATE:  Sooo...  ladybugs bloom so they can DIE!
This pic is from the next morning:

You only turn 238 once

Today is the Marine Corps birthday.

I was looking to see if the Sgt Major had issued a statement, and found it odd that I was finding stuff that says "happy birthday Marines" and such.

I don't remember "happy" being a part of it.  All Corps occasions (in my mind) are solemn remembrances.  Even our song is The Marine Corps Hymn. It's not an anthem or a marching tune.

My days in the Corps will not be written in history books. They will not be more than footnotes in dusty files, long since shredded to protect the chain of command.

But we will be part of the collective memories of Marines on days like today.  As I remember my time,  and Marines past and present, I know that even I will be part of that reverence held for our Brothers who came before and since.

Misc Smaller Projects

Though equally important, and often steps on the way to bigger projects, these are some of the other items getting checked off the list...

Sherri installed window kits on all of the interior frames. We've used these for years in Colorado, and they're great for reducing the cold air coming in around the windows. 

Assembled and fired the chainsaw for use on future projects. 

Plugged a big hole in the bathroom ceiling. 

It's ugly, but it's warm. 

Learning to drive offload. 

Replacing water filters. 

Trying to sell the old fridge, hot water heater, and the diesel generator. One down, two to go.