Finally...Deer Season

Arlene and I missed hunting opening day of Michigan's Firearm deer season for the first time since we started deer hunting at Camp Chicken.

Opening Day was Monday and it was just too difficult for either of us to get off for the day so we decided to take off Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday to give us a good long weekend of hunting.

We are both getting antsy tonight knowing that we are leaving at noon tomorrow. We have all our stuff piled all over the kitchen and dining room.

The weather is still mild here for mid-November. It was almost 50 degrees today but a cold front is supposed to move in for later this week with some snow in the forecast.

But, the weather doesn't really matter. It is the relaxation of being at camp and the anticipation that at any moment, some big buck will walk out in front of one of us.

Rumor has it that there is a nice 12-point running around up there.

Deer season is always a bitter-sweet time at Camp Chicken, especially Thanksgiving weekend because we know that it is our last time at camp until spring.

I find that with age 60 staring me in the face, time at camp becomes more and more precious. I savor every minute that I am there. I find myself just sitting at looking at the woods and trying to memorize how it all looks.

Last Saturday, we went to camp just for the day to take down our feeders and cameras. When we got home I looked at our photos. We had another buck in our photos.



He has kind of goofy horns. He has three nice points on one side and a long spike on the other. He was in camp a couple of times and once he was in with a doe so maybe the rut is getting going. The full moon isn't until Monday so everyone is saying that the rut is late this year.

But we have 5 days this week and 3 days next week to hunt so maybe one of us will get lucky.

Only 15 hours and 25 minutes and I'm off work and headed to camp.

Wish us luck!

Getting Ready!

We have been working very hard getting everything ready at Camp Chicken for Deer Season 2010.

Last spring, we purchased two new deer feeders from Moultrie that feed automatically on times that you can set yourself. It has been so much easier to put out feed for the deer than in the past.

We have been encouraged by the number of deer that have been taking advantage of the regular feeding schedule.

Last Saturday night we actually had 5 deer at the camp feeder at once. It is so much fun watching them.

We have been hearing a coyote pack pretty regularly so we think that the wolves that have been inhabiting our property have moved on. Conversations with some folks who are pretty knowledgeable about these things have told us that wolves won't tolerate any other canines in their territory so the fact that we hear the coyotes is a good thing.

For the first time last weekend, we had deer cam photo of a buck. He is only a 4-point but right now any buck sighting is pretty encouraging.



The raccoons are still pestering us but that is to be expected when you feed with corn. The little buggers just love corn. We even put out tuna fish and cat food and watched them totally ignore it in favor of the corn on the ground.



This guy is trying to figure out how to get more corn out of the feeder.

This past Saturday started out very cold, 14 degrees, but warmed up into the 50's by afternoon so we hopped on the 4-wheelers and just rode around to various areas checking for deer sign and looking at the wind damage.

We've had five or six major wind storms in the past few years that have totally changed Camp Chicken. We have so many huge trees uprooted and blown down that what used to be some of the most beautiful parts of our property are unrecognizable. It is sad to see what the wind has done.

We are scouting a spot to move the Skyview Shack to. It is in a nice spot but when we built it, the area was in a drought. Since then we have had very rainy times and the road to the shack has been very wet and at times under water. We plan on totally dismantling it and moving it in pieces. We'll have to see in the spring how that all turns out.

All in all, we are getting excited for the coming deer season. Hopefully, it will be better than last season when we saw so few deer.

We plan on going to camp this weekend to finish up our preparations. Our shacks are ready.

We checked out "The Cube" on Saturday. It is the first hunting shack we built on the property. It is just a 4 x 4 foot cube built on a wooden pallet. We eventually attached it to the old pair of skis that my Dad's old ice-fishing shack was on so that we could tow it around the property.

It is in a really good location on a hillside overlooking the balsam swamp area on the north forty. It hasn't been used since we moved it there three years ago. When I got into it, I found that the front end of the shack had sunk and the windows were looking at the ground about twenty feet in front of the shack.

So Arlene and I attempted to pull it forward up onto a rocky knoll by hand. That didn't work very well as we aren't as strong as we used to be. So Arlene thought that she could pull it with her 4-wheeler. I headed back to camp for a tow rope and she maneuvered her big 4-wheeler into position. She found that she couldn't just pull it, she had to back up and jerk it to get it moving. So she pulled and I pushed from behind and we managed to move it three feet up onto the knoll.

We swept it all out and I think I'll try to hunt out of it in the afternoons.

Of course, Arlene is hunting out of the "Cadillac II" and has all the comforts of home in there.

I'm going to alternate between "The Cube" and the new popup blind that Arlene bought me for my birthday.

Only 8 days until we get to go hunting!

My First Wild Turkey

He wasn't the biggest gobbler I've seen at camp but I was pretty proud of him in any case.

He and two other gobblers and one hen came walking right into camp on a beautiful sunny morning October 3rd, while Arlene, Mary and I were sitting having coffee.

I was so excited that I ran around the trailer looking for my shotgun and shells like a crazy person.

I made so much noise that I scared them and they ran to the end of the clearing. I had to sneak out of the trailer and stalk them. They were about 80 yards away and I had to keep a small grove of birch in between me and them.

I managed to get within about 25 yards and when the gobbler closet to me lifted his head way up to look around, I shot. He immediately went down and I thought I got him.

Much to my surprise, he got up and flew away. I took a shot at him on the wing and was sure that I had hit him.

Mary came out to help me and we started to look for him. Mary spotted him on the ground with another gobbler perched on a log watching him. I had to walk up and finish him off.

It made me feel a little sad that the other bird was staying with him. Mary thought that it was his brother, which of course made me feel even worse.

Arlene thought that he was the lead or head bird and that's why the other bird stayed there.

In any case, I found out two important things about wild turkeys, well, actually three things: 1. they are really big birds, 2. they are really hard to kill, and 3. I don't know enough about wild turkey behavior and need to study them more if I'm going to hunt them.





I think that he may be a younger bird but since I don't know how to age a wild turkey, I'm just guessing.

But, I'm still pretty proud of my first Wild Turkey!

...More Candles

Friday was a repeat of the Labor Day Storm. We had 4 inches of rain in less than 24 hours and very high winds. We decided to wait until Saturday morning to go to camp.

Saturday was cloudy and rainy but we decided to go anyway. We got to camp about 9:30 AM and got camp open and the heat on. Arlene wanted to put together her deer feeder so we put the kerosene heater on in our shed and soon it was warm and cozy in there. She and Mary and Tiny stayed in the shed putting together the feeder.

We spent the day getting our feeders positioned and loaded with corn and put up our deer cams. The rain finally quit, thank goodness.

We ate the rest of Mary's chili for dinner, that we had frozen from last weekend. Boy, was it good. Cindy came up just as we finished eating so we gave her the rest of the chili.

We decided to go for a ride to look at the deer. It is our favorite thing to do this time of the year. The bucks are still out in the fields so there's a good chance of seeing some good ones.

We weren't disappointed. There was a huge 8-point laying out in the river field chewing his cud. He was perfectly symmetrical and really gorgeous.

We went on to the Moore hill fields but there wasn't much there so we went on to the Town Line road. There were four really nice bucks there. While we were watching them, two of the bucks started sparring with each other. It isn't too often that you get to see a fight like that. It was a rare treat.

After watching for a while, we headed back to the river fields and in the little field by the Moore Hill, we spotted this little four point about 50 yards away. He posed for a couple of photos for us. He was still in the velvet.





We stopped at the river fields again but the big buck was gone. I took a nice photo of the sunset on the trees with the deer feeding in the fields.



On the way home, we decided to go down to the big field at the end of the road. There were no deer there, but the sunset was incredible. Arlene took some really pretty photos of it.





We headed back to camp and played cards until after 11:00.

Sunday turned out to be as beautiful as Friday had been lousy. Plenty of sunshine. The moon was still high in the sky at 10:00 AM.





Mom, Dad and Cindy were coming up for my birthday celebration at 12:30 PM. Arlene was cooking steaks, boiled red potatoes, and baked carrots on the grill with cheesecake for dessert.

While she prepped lunch, Mary helped me cut up the ironwood that we had pulled down last weekend.

My birthday lunch was the best ever. Mom said that she had never had a steak that good in her life.



Dad had brought the pickup so he left after lunch to go watch the Lions game and Mom stayed until almost 3:00 PM visiting with us. It was a perfect day.

After she left, we decided to go for a 4-wheeler ride. I rode with Arlene and Mary and Tiny took my 4-wheeler. We rode through all of our trails. The woods are so beautiful this time of year. The yellow and orange leaves give the light in the woods a golden glow. It is like being in a fantasy land.

When we got back to camp, Arlene decided to take a ride down to the big field. She punched the big 4-wheeler and had me screaming on the back and we raced out of camp. Mary and Tiny followed at a more sedate pace and caught up with us at the field.

Tiny was warm and cozy tucked in Mary's jacket and seemed to be enjoying her ride.



Sadly, our time at camp was over and we had to close up everything and head home. We decided to check out the fields on the way home. The big buck wasn't in the river field but the four bucks we had seen the previous night were in the same field on the Town Line.

We watched for a while and then headed on home.

Wood and Candles

Another big wood cutting weekend at Camp Chicken!

Friday night, Arlene, Mary and Tiny, and I got to camp about 5:15 pm and hustled around opening up camp. Ronnie Leach was supposed to drop off the wood splitter at 5:30 pm. When 5:30 came and went, we decided to load up the chain saw and start cutting up the big logs into 14 inch blocks to get a head start on the wood splitting crew.

We cut up one good sized pile of logs and as it was getting pretty dark, we called it a night. Back at camp, Arlene cooked us up some polish sausage and just as we finished dinner, Ronnie and his wife Wava pulled in with the splitter.

I had a nice chat with them and after they left, we decided to take a run to Hessel for the rest of the evening. We were home by 10:30 PM and hit our beds.

The next morning we were up bright and early. We were just finishing our second cup of coffee, when the rest of our "crew" pulled in. Arlene's daughter Janet drove out from the Soo to give us a hand.

It was raining but not too hard so we headed for the woods. Mary and Janet were the wood splitters, Arlene was the measurer and I was the cutter. We had our system down just like a factory.



The sun came out around 11:00 and it turned into a really nice day. We hauled our first trailer load down to Mom and Dad's around noon. We all had to stop at the trailer to take Tylenol and Motrin before we headed out again.

We cut wood all afternoon. When Arlene and I finished cutting up the blocks we helped Mary and Janet with the splitter. Cindy came up just after noon and gave us a hand.

We had a huge load on the trailer by 4:00 pm and loaded the rest onto Arlene's small trailer that was hooked to her 4-wheeler. Then we all headed to Mom and Dad's.

Apparently, we overloaded the trailer and the tires began to smoke half-way to Mom's. I had to ride the 4-wheeler the rest of the way and have Mom bring the pickup back.

We unloaded half the trailer onto the pickup and the whole convoy went to Mom's to unload. We finally got most of it into the woodshed and left some on the pickup for Dad to unload into the new garage.

Arlene headed out early to ride the 4-wheeler back to camp to get the chili on. Mary, Janet, Cindy and I went back to camp for dinner. Boy, were we tired.

Mary had made chili for us and it was really delicious. We were starved. Janet had to eat and then head to the Soo to babysit Chayse for the evening. The rest of us stayed at camp and played cards.

After I smoked everyone at Phase 10, we headed to bed.

Sunday, we didn't get up until 8:00 am and with no work to do, took our time having coffee. Mary and I built a fire and we just sat and rested.

Mom, Dad, and Cindy were coming up at 12:30 pm for lunch and cake for Cindy's birthday.

Arlene cooked her famous burgers on the grill and we had cole slaw, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers and chips. It was so good.

We surprised Cindy with a cake and sang Happy Birthday to her. It was a really great day.







Mom and Dad headed home and the four of us just sat and relaxed.

Of course, we aren't much for sitting. I decided to take the 4-wheeler and trailer and pick up the good scraps that were left from the wood splitter. When I got back to camp, Cindy was holding Tiny and Mary and Arlene were over in the woods by my bow shack. There has been an ironwood tree hung up over there for about three years and they decided they would throw a rope over it and try to pull it down.

After several attempts involving a ladder, clippers and a long pole, we decided to tie the rope to my 4-wheeler and yank the thing down. Finally, success. Next weekend, I'll cut it up for Mom and Dad's stove.

We puttered around camp until about 4:00 pm and closed up camp and headed home.

Arlene has to have a lump removed this week so we aren't planning any projects for next weekend that would involve heavy lifting.

We'll put together Arlene's new deer feeder and get our cameras ready and up. I want to take the saw down to her shack and trim up trees and get her area ready for hunting.

Woodchucks at Camp Chicken

The weekend weather looked pretty iffy. A front bringing lots of rain was supposed to roll through the area about noon on Saturday. We needed to get Mom and Dad's winter wood cut, so we decided to go to camp anyway.

Friday was really nice, sunny but cool. We made it to camp about 5:15 and got our woodcutting gear ready and the big trailer hooked up to the car. We headed to the area near Arlene's deer shack where we had a pile of wood that we had gathered the spring before.

About 3/4th of it was still good, so we managed to get it cut up before dusk. We went back to the trailer and decided to go see if the big buck was out in the field again. We saw does with fawns (a good sign) and two small 4-points but no big bucks. So we headed back to camp for dinner.

Arlene made our Friday night favorite: sliced polish sausage, baked beans and fried potatoes all mixed together. It was delicious! We ate it out of our new "cowboy" bowls that Arlene's sister Judy bought for us in Ohio. They are made from metal with a white enamel coating and remind us of the kind of bowls that cowboys use around the campfire.

Saturday morning we were up at 6:10 AM having our coffee and we were out in the woods by 7:30 AM. We knew that we had to beat the rain that was coming by noon. We were really hustling. I think we only took one break. We cut up all the piles of wood that we had collected and loaded them in the utility trailer.

The rain had held off so far. Mom came up for a visit just as we finished and we headed to her house to unload our trailer. We finished up about 2:00 pm and headed back to camp. We just got in the trailer and changed our clothes when the rain came down. After a warm cup of coffee, we opted for a nap. We were pooped!

Cindy came up for supper and we had Arlene's famous hamburgers. Wow, were we hungry. After dinner, we played Phase 10 until 10:00 PM and hit our beds.

Sunday we slept in until 8:00 AM. We had our coffee and headed out for Phase Two of our woodcutting weekend. There were about six large, dead, peeled, maple trees near Arlene's shack that we thought we could cut down.

Now we have a new Husqvarna chain saw and it is a really good saw, but I've never taken down a tree bigger than eight inches and these babies were over a foot in diameter. But, we figured we could try it. I cut it just the way the manual that came with the saw had described and it fell exactly where I wanted it to. I was pretty proud of myself.

We felled at least eight or nine of those big trees and cut them into lengths of four blocks. Then we had to move those big logs. They were to heavy to carry so we flipped them end for end. What a lot of work.

Cindy came up just as we were about half-done and helped us move logs. We put them in piles near our trails and the road so that we can cut them up and split them. Our neighbor at camp, Ronnie Leach, is kind enough to let us use his wood-splitter to split them up.

After our chore was done, Arlene grilled us up some Polish Sausage and we had them on a bun. We were starved. Mom came up for a visit as we were eating.

It was a beautiful sunny day. We took our time closing up camp and left about 4:00 PM. We stopped at Cindy's and put more Round-up on the poplar gads we had cut off. We knocked on her door but when I peeked in, it looked like she was asleep in her chair. So we went to the BP for an ice cream cone and headed home.

We got about two miles when Mary noticed that a large black cloud had come up out of nowhere to the west of us and was moving rapidly toward us. We joked that we had been trying to beat the rain all weekend and now we had to race it home.

As I drove faster the cloud seemed to be gaining on us and by the time we hit 9-mile road it had almost caught us. We hurried to get to the Soo before it hit. We dropped off Mary and Tiny and hustled home. We made it into the house and got everything unloaded as the rain hit.

I was in the shower when the thunder and lightening started. I got out of the shower and went downstairs to check the weather on the Internet because the sky looked really weird. Sure enough, we were under a severe thunderstorm warning.

It was a humdinger too. Some areas near us got baseball sized hail. Mom and Dad had lightening strike so close to the house that it blistered the paint on their back door and the wind was so bad that it blew their storm door open and broke one of the hinges.

Thank goodness we made it home before the thing hit. The storm was pretty severe.

We are hoping for better weather for next weekend.

Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend was a bust! Friday night we had heavy rain and 60 mph winds and it was really scary here in the Soo.

Arlene had gone to Ohio with her sister, so Mary, Cindy and I planned a night at camp for Saturday. But, Saturday's weather wasn't much better than Friday's weather. We had rain and more wind so we canceled our Saturday stay at camp.

Sunday was a little better so when the rain cleared out by 11:30 am, I called the girls and we decided to head to Pickford. Mary, Tiny and I stopped at sister Cindy's trailer first to give her a hand.

We cut away the small poplar trees that had sprouted around her trailer and soaked them with Roundup to see if we can get rid of them. Then we fixed her screen door and back door so that they would latch. Mary fixed her tub faucet so that it would turn on without using pliers. We tried to fix her bathroom door knob but I think it needs a new knob.

Having finished our chores, we all got in the Blazer and headed to camp. It was cool but sunny so we sat outside for awhile and relaxed. I had brought burgers to cook out so I got to try out the new cook shack. My culinary skills are not in Arlene's class but I managed to cook the burgers without burning them.

By then, it had become a little chilly so we decided to eat inside rather than outside. Dinner was pretty good. Burgers, chips, fresh tomatoes and cucumbers.

After dinner, we opted to stay in and play Phase Ten.

I did remember to take some photos of the new tables we had made from the deck lumber leftover from the "Cluck Shack". They look pretty good if I say so myself.





It had begun to get dark so we closed up camp and decided to take a ride down the Three Mile Road toward Moms. Cindy had to drop off some books for Mom. We saw deer out in the fields near the river. Unfortunately, I only had the little binoculars that I keep in the Blazer console. We saw several nice bucks in the river fields.

We continued on toward Mom's and saw two does with fawns out in the fields. We turned around and started back and noticed some good sized deer that had joined the does and fawns. One deer seemed really large to me so I had Mary and Cindy take a look at it with the little binoculars. It was hanging at the edge of the field about 150 yards from us. Suddenly Mary said "Oh my gosh, that is a big buck".

I took the binoculars and sure enough, he was huge. Biggest buck I've ever seem. I had the camera in the car but it was too dark to get a photo. He seemed unconcerned with our presence and proceeded to walk majestically along the edge of the field.

We watched in awe until he disappeared into the brush at the end of the field. Wow! It was really a thrill to see a big buck like that.

We reluctantly headed to Moms and then home.

Hopefully, we'll get nicer weather for this weekend. We have wood to cut and lots of other chores at camp to get done.