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.