It’s 2:37 EST, the temperature is 2º and the wind is out of the west at 20mph. The Barometric pressure is 29.90 and it’s snowing like hell. M32 and M66 are open but all roads leading to them aren’t. The State Police has issued an advisory to not travel, and to call 911 in an emergency. 25 miles from here in any direction and the sun’s probably shining and people can see where they’re going. If ANYONE out there, really wants to live in a place custom built for snow lovers, this is it. Antrim/Charlevoix County’s, find a Realtor now.
Archive for January, 2008
Seasonal changes 01/30/08
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008Just something I have to say…..
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008I received an email from someone who had received it from someone else, and they from someone else, and in it, they portrayed a politician who’s actions were almost treasonous. People seem to think that they can pass on slanderous information that breaks the commandment that says not to “Bare false whitness against thy neighbor”. I would suggest to anyone reading this that the next time one gets one of these to delete it, rather than punch the “Forward” button. You will be held accountable and should act accordingly.
Squirrel Stew
Sunday, January 13th, 2008Back in September, when Doug and I were on the “Hill too high” we were fortunate enough to find a population of squirrels that hadn’t been hunted in a long time.
It was almost like sitting in a city park with a bag of peanuts between your feet. Fluffy tailed little critters frollicking about here and there, gathering up all the peanuts you’d thrown out. It was warm and sunny with a nice breeze, the bees were butt-hole up, eating their way to oblivion when we walked by the arbors. Once we entered the woodline, the huge oaks were alive with squirrels and if I hadn’t been laughing so hard, I would have had 10 in the stew rather than 7. Even then I was thinking about the dinner I was going to make and hoped I could get a few more before starting. I went back out there four more times after that first day, and never again did I see such a populus. While this was going on, I read an article in the Free Press about this beloved activity and the guy caught all kinds of hell for it. All these city dwellers were giving the reporter crap because of his murderous activity against such a peacefull creature. “Any moron can shoot a squirrel, why don’t you go hunt something that’s hard to get?” was a common line of advice. I thought about those butt heads while I was trying to climb that damned hill to get up to where they lived. I wish they’d been there as they played hide and seek and throw stuff at you from the tree tops. I also wish they’d been here last night when I served them up in a stew.
After parboiling them, they spent the rest of the day, and that night, soaking in a pool of wine that came from that same arbor we’d earlier walked by. Yesterday, I used one cup of the juice they boiled in, added two beef boulions, carrot’s, an onion, the squirrels, and as many ‘taters as I could get in the pot.
No sooner had the stew started stewing, Annie started acting somewhat abnormally. It would have been normal behavoir if we had been in the middle of an oak grove, but not in a living room. The moment that first molecule passed over Annie’s receptors, she was after it. She followed me around like stink on a skunk and if I sat down, she wanted to know why. All day long there would be periods where she’d give up on me and go lay down, but if the draft changed she’d start all over.
It cooked down for 3 hours and then I dropped spoonfulls of Bisquick into it and a half hour later, it was good to go. I had been dreading this moment since the walk back by the bees in the arbor and it turned out a hellava lot better than I figured. When I heard “This is very good Mike!”, I was thrilled. I hadn’t had squirrel since I was 10 years old and I really didn’t remember if I’d liked it or not. The other thing was, I’d never made a stew before, or dumplings either. Stew’s are a heck of a lot easier to make than I thought, and squirrel hunting is a lot harder than they thought. I wish some of those buttheads had been here for dinner last night.
Habitat Observation ‘08
Friday, January 4th, 200801/04/08
Mark and I took Annie out to Dougs today and helped him mount another trailcam to a spot that’ll add additional data to the study. It’s 30′ off a major thoroughfare on the creek side of his property, and within visual surveillance from his living room. The camera is orientated to aim in the general direction of the house, so every time it flash’s after dark, he’ll know it. I hope it looks like a rock concert down there for the next week. I’ll be bringing both cameras here to directly download the images and will post anything unusual, and I’ll start to identify the various subjects.
Annie was laying in her chair, sound asleep snoring when I gently lifted her leash off the hook. One small tick, as the plastic hit that hook, and she was at my feet. She sat patiently in the back seat, watching straight out the front window until we passed Websters bridge Rd, and she was on her feet. By the time I pulled into Dougs driveway, I could feel her breathing down my neck. After hooking her leash back up, I flipped the seat forward and she jumped out my side almost pulling the handle out of my hand. Reluctantly, she came in the house but she hardly left my side. Doug and I sat there and shot the bull for a while and every four or five minutes, Annie’d get up, go to the door, come to me, walk back to the door, and then go lay down again. Half way through the second cup of coffee, Annie’d had enough and she came over and stared at me. Doug took the cups upstairs and while he was doing that, I nonchalantly started to put on my snow pants. It didn’t work. We continued to dress like we were in NO HURRY and said nothing at all to her; we both know how loud she howls. Everything was coming along fine until I laced up my boots and she let loose. I quickly hooked her up and got the hell out of there and headed for the Mule. She’d never ridden in it before so I just picked her sorry hound ass up and climbed in. She was a little jumpy until we got across the street and she recognized where she was. We stopped first to mount the camera, and I tied her up to the hitch without any problem at all. I had one hellava time getting her to get back in the cab, so I picked her up again. After getting down the trail a ways we stopped and let her off. As soon as the hook cleared her collar she was gone. Literally. It’s all physics actually..gravity I’d say, that causes a 12″ beagle to disappear into 24″ of snow. I wish I could have had a video camera going when she erupted from beneath. After that she was just a tri-colored figure running through the snow. Annie’s had it good here for the last two months and I’d hoped the deep snow would give her a workout. It gave all of us a good workout and she had no luck in finding any bunnies. We did learn however, that she enjoys chasing the Mule as much as she does squirrels, and almost as loudly.
