Deer Season 2008 Preparation

Well, opening day is only SEVEN days away now and the countdown is on! It is raining and very cold here in the old U.P. this weekend. Arlene and I were going to go up to Camp to stay the weekend but the weather put a damper on that idea, literally.

So today we went out to Pickford and got the trailer from Camp and went to town for our load of sugar beets. We parked the trailer at camp and got out the "buggies" and loaded up our beets and some carrots for the deer.

We went to Skyview first and dropped off bait and picked up my deer cam from back there. It is really really wet back there and hard for my little buggie to negotiate the trail so I have decided to hunt with Arlene at Cadillac Shack opening day. Dan has a big 4-wheel drive 4-wheeler so the mud and water is no problem for him to get back to Skyview. I hate to abandon him but I don't want to take a chance on trying to get back there with my gun on my buggie and tipping over or something.

On our way back to Skyview, we surprised the little twin fawns who were at Cadillac shack having a snack. They are so used to us that the one fawn didn't even leave the feeding station. I talked to him as I went by and he just stood and looked at me. They are getting very independent and aren't always close to Mom.

Here they are with Mom three weeks ago. They were much smaller then. But they have been eating alot of corn since then and are really growing.



This photo was taken this past week and though you can't really tell from the picture, they are much bigger now.



We went back to Camp and got another load of beets and dumped it at Cadillac. We needed to take down the corn feeder and the camera. I also had to take down my doghouse blind and get it put away. Of course, the weather picked that moment to rain really hard and Arlene and I were soaked to the skin by the time we were done. Luckily, I had hooked up the battery, turned on the propane and started the furnace in our trailer so we had a warm place to go when we were done. I always keep extra clothes in the trailer so I was able to change into dry clothes for the ride home. Arlene wasn't as lucky and had to ride home in wet clothes.

I had to pack up my bow and bowhunting gear and take it home. I hate doing that because bowhunting is definitely my favorite over rifle hunting. We do have late bow season from Dec. 1 to Dec. 31 but usually there is so much snow that it isn't practical to bowhunt that late up here.

We just need to get our clothes ready, decide on our dinner menus, and most importantly of all, buy SNACKS. Good snacks for your deer shack are a must and great care must be taken to get just the right selection. They have to be easy to transport, not make alot of noise when you open them and taste really good.

I am starting to get excited now as I look forward to the opener next Saturday.

Bowhunting Success at Camp Chicken!

Congratulations to Dan, Arlene's son-in-law, who bagged his first deer with a bow on Saturday afternoon. He made a really great shot from about 40 yards away while just sitting on a milk crate on the ground. He was really excited and so were we.

We had an extremely busy weekend. We stayed home for Halloween and had a housefull of guests and had a great time. Saturday morning we left early for camp and while on the way up there saw 3 wolves right out in the open field about 100 yards from the road. They weren't very afraid of us and finally ran away. They were only about a mile from my parent's house. I won't tell you my opinion of the planting of wolves in our area by the DNR as I don't swear on my blog!

We got to camp and got unloaded and get the furnace going as it was 27 degrees. We went back to town and picked up corn and sugar beets and went back to camp. As we were unloading the stuff into our old red trailer, a very large spikehorn came walking right into camp. He could see us and knew we were there! He was only about 30 yards away. He walked down our cart path to the Taj Mahal feeding spot, looked around and walked back to the start of the path and then walked back to the feeding spot again. Finally, he walked back to the start of the path and looking right at us took a few steps toward us, stopped and switched his tail and walked away toward the road. We were just amazed at him.

We loaded up the 4-wheelers and went out to check out Arlene's spot. When we got back to camp, one of my student workers from work, Theresa and her boyfriend Chris, were at camp. I invited them out to hunt racoons later that night and they were getting the "lay of the land" at the spot they would be hunting.

Arlene's brother came out again and we helped him load a trailer load of downed and dead maple for his wood burner. After that we set up our target and sighted in our deer rifles. We then loaded my trailer full of wood for Mom and Dad's fireplace and took it down to their house. While I unloaded the wood and stacked it in the woodshed, Arlene and Dan climbed up on the garage roof to fix the leak around Dad's new stovepipe. They managed to dink around until I had most of the wood in the woodshed.

We rushed back to camp as we still had to pull a big tarp over Dan's motorhome and get ready for the afternoon hunt. Arlene had ordered her electronic deer call and wanted to try it out. It has the sounds of rattling horns, a doe bleat, a doe-in-heat bleat, a buck grunt, and a buck snort/wheeze. She drove me nuts with that thing until Dan called her to tell her he had a doe down with his bow and we called it a day to go help him load her up and bring her out.

Theresa and Chris came about 9:30 and went out to wait for the midnight racoon raiders and we played Phase 10 until about 11 and hit the hay.

It was a very full day.

Sunday, I slept in and didn't hunt as I went to church with my family. It was remembrance Sunday and we had lost my Aunt Flora, my Dad's sister-in-law this year. My aunt Mary Hessel(my Dad's only sister) was coming and my cousin Judy and her husband Bob. After church we all went to brunch.

While I was away, Dan and Arlene made their first attempt at butchering. Dan had ordered this DVD on the internet and they had watched it and decided that they could butcher Dan's doe themselves. I advised them to let her "season" for a few days but they figured they would go ahead and do it that day. Much to my amazement, they were all done with her by the time I got back at 1:00 PM.



The new shed is perfect for butchering and with the salamander Arlene's sister lent us, we can work out there in comfort. Hopefully, we will have another nice deer to butcher next weekend.

Arlene's New "Buggie"

Arlene has a new 4-wheeler, actually she bought it in July but I forgot to write about it. She has a really bad hip and knee and it has kept her from being very mobile at Camp Chicken. She used to love to go for long walks around our trails and roads but for the past couple of years has been stuck at camp. Now with her new wheels she can go all over and she is having so much fun.

Saturday, we loaded up the buggies with sugar beets, carrots and corn for our deer feeding stations and went out to check out our spots. This is my favorite activity for the fall; getting everything ready for rifle hunting season. Even though I bowhunt, I still enjoy getting the other hunting spots baited so that the deer know where to find food.

I love checking out the sites to look at tracks and seeing what new trails they have made to come in to eat. I try to combine that with the camera photos to get an idea of when they come in and what trails they are using. Arlene has missed out on much of this until this year and she is really enjoying it.

We worked on cleaning up some of our old roads in the afternoon and took the new camera to take some photos.



She thought this view of one of our beech trees was pretty neat.

The fall leaves were at their near peak last weekend and of course, we had 50 mph winds on Monday and they are almost all knocked off the trees. But, there were still some really pretty ones left on Saturday.



All in all, it was a great day. I went bowhunting about 5 pm and two nice does came in to check out the new food we put out. We don't usually use carrots but Arlene thought it would bring more deer in to the spot where I have the outhouse blind set up. After watching that doe stay at the feeding spot for almost an hour eating carrots, I have to agree it was a good move. Except we are going to need lots more carrots to feed her LOL. She must have eaten a half-bag full. She didn't eat much corn or sugar beets but really went for those carrots. In the deer cam photos we looked at the next day, she came back at midnight to fight off the raccoons and get the rest of her carrots.



I can't wait to get to camp next weekend and check out the photos. We have to figure out something to deal with those pesky raccoons before they actually damage the corn feeder.

Dinner Guests at Camp Chicken

"Ok Ratso, the coast is clear"

"Come on, hurry it up"

"Wait for me, Bugsy, I can't quite reach it"

"Mom, I thought you said dinner was at 6:30?"

Bow Season Begins at Camp Chicken

Sorry I haven't had much time to blog lately. Arlene's sister Judy is getting rid of her old trailer and getting a modular put in. We have been very busy helping her pack and move all her stuff out of the trailer so it has been a very very busy time.

But, Dan and I have been bowhunting. The weather has been very warm and the deer aren't really moving during the day very much so I haven't seen anything to speak of. One big doe by herself and one big doe with twin fawns.

Arlene and I bought ourselves a new megazoom digital camera and it takes pretty good pictures. It is nice for wildlife.

I put a one of those outhouse blinds down by the Cadillac shack spot and have been using it for the afternoon hunts. This partridge came right up in front of my pop-up blind yesterday. I managed to get the camera on him and take this shot. He blends in so well with his surroundings that he is hard to even see in the fall leaves.

This is my new friend "Chip". He gets under my feet as I try and fill up the corn feeder at the Cadillac shack spot. He is so darn cute as he waits for me to drop corn so that he can stuff his little cheeks full.



The leaves were really spectacular yesterday and today. Arlene was still helping her sister so I went to camp late Saturday. Dan and I hunted all morning and then spent the rest of the day riding around on our 4-wheelers taking pictures.






The camera just can't seem to capture how really beautiful the leaves are. I'm sure that by next weekend, they will be all on the ground. We were very lucky to have this day and it's beautiful colors.


And that is my Mother's little piece of heaven in the good old U.P.

The Storage Shed is Finished

Family--I'll try to get the rest of the pictures on Flickr tonight.

Actually, the shed was finished two weekends ago. We were darn tired and sore but managed to complete our project with some help from Arlene's daughter Janet.

Last weekend we tore off the old siding from Mom and Dad's old garage/woodshed and replaced it with plywood. What a chore! We managed to get it all done almost.

Monday, Arlene, Mary, Tiny and I went out to Mom's and began to apply the stain. We managed to get alot done but didn't have enough to completely cover it so had to quit for the night. Yesterday, the weather was very warm here for September, so we were going to go out and stain again. Arlene came down with a horrible cold and Mary and smashed her hand in a door at work so just Mary and I went and we got quite a bit done. We still have to finish up and I think we'll need about 5 or 6 hours to do it.

We plan on going to camp this weekend and finishing up at Mom and Dad's and then we have to stain the Camp Chicken "Poop Coop" (our outhouse). With our leftover shingles and OSB board we put a new roof on the outhouse and it badly needs a new coat of stain.

Getting ready for bow season and there isn't much time left as it starts a week from today. I got some "Buck Jam" out at the Taj Mahal and got my deer cam up so we'll see what deer are visiting that spot. Hope to have some pictures for everyone next time.

Busy August at Camp Chicken

It has been a very busy time at the old Camp Chicken. My brother Chris, sister-in-law Judy and nephew Ross were here for a 10 day visit in late July-early August. They were able to spend 3 great days at camp and we had a lot of fun. Arlene, Mary Sue and Tiny joined us all this year and Tiny had even more people to spoil her.

We took a day-trip while they were here to Munising and went on the glass-bottom boat shipwreck tour. It is a definite must-see. Here's a photo of nephew Ross and his old auntie Cathy on the deck of the glass-bottom boat in beautiful Munising bay. We viewed three shipwrecks and saw an bald eagle's nest with 3 adolescent eagles in it and the Mom or Dad on guard very close by. Visit my sister-in-laws blog for some really great photos.

We also went to Miner's Castle that day and then a long drive to Grand Marais for some of the best freshly caught lake perch I have ever eaten at a very Yooper-ish restaurant called The Sportsman's Club.

As a special treat for Ross, his Auntie Arlene made him a "Marshmallow Gun". It is a blow-gun made of PVC pipe and you insert a mini-marshmallow into the mouthpiece end and blow really hard and the little marshmallow flies about 30 to 50 feet depending on your lung power. Here's a photo of Ross with his.

We all took turns with our guns trying to shoot the marshmallows into the fire and trying to shoot each other. The guns are really alot of good clean fun and the directions for making them can be found on the internet.

Of course, we had to play croquet and had several cut-throat badminton matches. We did manage to play a good many games of Attack Uno too. Tiny looks on intently as the badminton action really heats up.

That following Monday we started our most ambitious project in the history of the Camp Chicken Construction Company. We built a 12 x 12 storage shed. We had no blue-prints and no shed kit, just an idea and some drawings on legal paper. I sure wish my Grandpa Elmer was still alive to help us out. He was a master carpenter and could have drawn up the plans for it.

We used patio blocks and treated 4 x 4's for the foundation and trying to get that level and square took about 6 hours LOL.

The next weekend we brought all the 2 x 4's and OSB siding to Camp and started building the walls. We were three tired women after that chore.

I was smart enough to know that we weren't up to building rafters yet, so I ordered them made for us. It was good and bad, as pre-made trusses come with 2 foot long tails so that you can cut them off to suit your project. However, you have to cut them all the same length and perfectly level so that you can attach a board to close them in if you want to make a soffit. Arlene read up on how to make soffits on the internet. Oh my gosh, what a difficult thing that little part was.

tune in next time for more pictures of our building.