Spring ??

Well, spring is not here yet. We had more snow last night and today, probably about 2 inches instead of the forecast of 6 - 8 inches. Yuckkkkkkk.

So I went to the basement to clean our deer rifles, that I am ashamed to say, I didn't do the week after deer season. Maybe because deer season left me feeling kind of sad.

We didn't see hardly any deer and we had wolves howling right in camp on two consecutive weekends. Add that to the fact that someone shot the mother of our twin fawns and it just put me in a real crappy mood.

We can't figure out why we have so few deer on the property any more. I expect it has to do with our neighbors huge food plots to the north of us, WOLVES, and the after-effects of violent windstorms that have changed the entire property by knocking down many, many trees.

But, I getting off target here. Normally, I really enjoy cleaning our rifles. I love guns, always have.

When I was little, my Dad had a bunch of gun catalogs because he was going to be a gunsmith. I don't know why he never became one but I sure loved those books.

I look at a gun the way some people look in awe at a Picasso or a Da Vinci. To me a gun is a beautiful work of art. I especially love rifles because of the wooden stocks, there is just something really beautiful about the wood and metal together.

Arlene thinks I am nuts, of course. She just doesn't get it. To her a gun is a tool, just like a hammer or a screwdriver. It is an implement used to kill game to put food on the table, period. She doesn't understand when I go babbling on and on about the newest Taurus line of handguns or about the latest gun that Dan, her son-in-law is customizing. Frankly, she thinks we are both nuts! Sigh.

I decided to clean my Ruger 10/22 while I was at it. I had forgotten what a beautiful little rifle it is, so I took some photos of it.

The checkering on the stock is especially beautiful and the photos really don't do it justice.

Our local Chippewa County Shooter's Association Gun Show is this weekend and since it is supposed to snow, again, I may have to sneak off to take a look.

A Saturday Drive To Camp Chicken

We took a nice drive to Camp today and saw partridge, lots and lots of deer and three bald eagles. Unfortunately, the eagles were about three hundred yards away but I did my best to get a shot of at least one of them.

From the Camp Chicken Diary...

In the early days of Camp Chicken, I got the idea of keeping a camp diary. We could record what we did on the weekends we were there and keep a record of our camp adventures.

Here is an excerpt from our Camp Chicken Diary...

When we first began going to Camp Chicken on weekends, our good friend Kathy would go with us.

Kathy had never done any kind of outdoor activites and was a complete novice in the woods. She didn't know how to make a fire or use a hand saw to cut wood.

In those early days, we cut all of our campfire wood by hand with a small camp saw. Arlene and I took turns gathering wood for the fire and cutting up small trees for our wood pile. As you can imagine, it was a lot of work.

We tried to teach Kathy how to use the hand saw, but it took her a very long time to cut up a few small sticks of wood for our fire.

One day, Arlene and I were going to leave camp for a few hours to watch Arlene's grandson, Clifton, run at a cross-country meet. Before we left, she told Kathy that she had to cut some firewood and make a good fire so that Arlene could cook our dinner when we returned.

When we returned, a large fire was burning in the firepit and Kathy was relaxing in her chair by the fire. My Mom and Dad were sitting by the fire visiting with her.

"Wow," Arlene said, "great fire, Kath, how did you do it?"

"Well," Kathy replied, "I cut up the wood and built a fire. I know how to do stuff."

Upon a closer inspection of the fire, Arlene noticed that the logs in the fire were quite large, too large for Kathy to have cut with a hand saw.

A quick check in the back of my Dad's pickup confirmed our suspicions. Dad's chainsaw was in the pickup bed.

"All right, Kathy" Arlene said, "tell the truth. Harry cut up the wood for you with his chainsaw and he was the one who built the fire, right?"

The guilty look on Kathy and my parent's faces told the whole story. They had come up for a visit and when Kathy told them that she was supposed to cut wood and start a fire, my Dad took pity on her and did her chores.

Our good friend Kathy is no longer with us. Sadly, she passed away from stomach cancer several years ago. We miss her at Camp Chicken. In fact, she deserves much of the credit for the Camp Chicken name. But, that's another story.

Gladys Susie Rutledge

On March 5th, my grandma, Gladys Rutledge would have been 105 years old. She passed away at the age of 100 on April 18th, 2004.

It is because of her and my grandpa, Elmer Rutledge, that Camp Chicken even exists. It belonged to them and when Gram passed, it was passed on to my mother, Gloria Smith.

Gram lived through many trials and changes. She saw America change in so many ways. The things we take for granted today; cars, telephones, indoor plumbing, electricity, radio, and television were all "new" things in her lifetime.

Gram loved Camp Chicken, only she called it the "Forty". She liked to sit in a chair outside at camp and listen to the birds and the wind in the trees. She loved the sound of the wind in the trees and would always remark that "the trees are really talking today".

Camp brought her peace, I think, and good memories of the times she spent there with Gramp. They had huge gardens at camp and helped Mom and Dad cut wood to heat our house.

I think of her often when I'm at Camp and sometimes, I feel her presence there. Arlene, who has what I call "Native ESP", sometimes actually sees her spirit there. I think she comes to see what we are up to and to just make sure that we are all right. It is a comforting feeling, really.

I miss her and even now, I'll pick up the phone to call her if there is something on TV that I know she would like to see.

Happy Birthday, Gram!

January at Camp Chicken

Well, we hadn't been to camp since deer season. Winter came really early to the UP this year and every weekend it has either stormed or been well below zero. We were very concerned about the amount of snow that could be on the trailers and our new shed. Several years ago we had put up a 12 x 16 metal storage building but a heavy February snowfall collapsed it when we couldn't get into camp to shovel it off.

So, last Sunday Arlene, Mary Sue and I decided that the weather might permit us to get into camp. A call to Dana Galer, who normally plows the road in to camp confirmed that we could get as far as the corner, as people were logging up in the woods but the camp road hadn't been plowed in 2 weeks.

We made it to the camp gate but it was a little deep in spots. My new car, "Little Red" is pretty good in deep snow. We put on our snowshoes and trudged in. Arlene and I took turns breaking the trail. Wow, we decided that we were pretty out of shape. The snow on the trailer must have been four feet deep.






First we had to dig out a spot in front of the shed to get the door open so that we could get out the ladders. Mary volunteered to tackle shoveling off the shed roof and I started on the trailer roof. I didn't want Arlene to help me much as she was still sick with the terrible flu bug that everyone is so ill with up here. But after shoveling off about a 1/4 of the trailer roof, I knew I would need her help.



Mary amazed me by managing to shovel off the 12 x 12 shed in almost the same time it took us to clear off the trailer.



As we were finishing up, Arlene started to get really sick again. She had terrible stomach cramps and kept doubling over. I was really worried as we are back in the woods with a very snowy and difficult road to negotiate to get out of there. The hill that we have to climb to get back to the plowed road is always bad anytime there is snow or ice. But "Little Red" climbed right up it with little trouble. whew!

On our way back to the Soo, we bucked high winds and blowing and drifting snow. We ran into snow squalls bout nine miles out and most of the time couldn't see a thing. It was nerve wracking but we made it back safely.

Unless we get alot of snow in the next month, camp should be safe until spring. I can't wait until spring. It started to snow here the first part of November and just hasn't stopped and the cold has been deep and brutal. The coldest January ever I thought the weatherman said.

Well, that's all from the Frozen North for now. I'll post a Deer Season recap next week. I just didn't seem to get time to do it after November with the holidays and other stuff.

Countdown!!!

Well it is 3:40 pm on the eve of Firearm Deer Season in Michigan. I am home with the car packed waiting on Arlene to get here. She said she'd be home at 4 PM. She is out at her sister Judy's where they are finally putting her new modular house on the foundation. This whole process has been slower than molasses! If any of these people worked for me, I'd of fired the whole bunch weeks ago. Poor Judy! She is so anxious to get into her new house and it seems to have taken forever.

I am so excited for deer camp that I can't hardly stand it and the minutes are ticking by so slowly I had to check three clocks to make sure that they didn't stop or something. Why is it that when you are waiting to do something you just love to do the time goes by so slowly? But it flies by when you are doing something you really love to do.

Arlene just called and they still don't have that thing on the foundation. What the heck.

Well, I'll be gone until Wednesday night and I'll hopefully have a "Big Buck" story to tell. To all our hunting friends out there, best wishes and if you are hunting in Michigan: Good Luck and Be Safe!

14 Hours 10 minutes and counting!!!

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.