Jesse the Wonderpoodle, Chapter 10

Three days before leaving for Colorado I hit a deer with my truck doing $1800 dollars in damage.

This year I got a couple of friends to go to Colorado with us. Dennis thought I was pulling his leg when I told him that I averaged ten miles a day. But he soon found I wasn’t, he averaged eight miles a day and on the last day (the day we packed up and left) he walked seventeen miles before we loaded the truck for our nonstop trip home (1200 miles).

Luckily we got to cross Nebraska in the dark.

Because of the drought most of the elk had moved down to the farmers fields looking for food making the hunt iffy at best. The day before opening I showed Dennis and Darin a couple of places to hunt (being that we got out there so late they had to rely on my advice). Darin sat down the fork of the stream were I seen the seven mulies the year before. Dennis was in a meadow just over the ridge were a herd of elk had been seen feeding a few days earlier. Their dad (Joel) was in the meadow behind camp (don’t think this is a bad spot because in years past we’ve taken several elk and mulies off this meadow).

I had bought a new pair of boots just a couple of weeks before leaving and they still weren’t broke in. Like every year I climbed the mountain across the stream where I would stay until about an hour after sun up. Then I’d slowly start working the ridges (if there was any elk up there I’d either hear them running off or see them and if the wind was right I’d be able to smell them) trying to get the elk moving. After a couple of hours my feet were killing me (I vowed to never again buy that brand of boot).

While stalking I ran into another hunter who was heading out for lunch. It had been a miserable day for hunting (I don’t think the temp. dropped below 80 degrees while the sun was up). The only thing he had seen was a 4x4 mulie (count the points per-side, /while the animal is facing you left to right)and that was it (it was better than what I had seen). I left him after hearing his story and with the lack of gun shots I could tell that every body else was having just as much luck. YEE Ha I’ve got a day to play with and off to the gulch I headed which turned out to be both my nightmare and obsession.

That night, just before sundown I heard a shot. When I got back to camp it was well after dark (I had six miles to go when I heard the shot). It had been Dennis who shot and believed he got it but didn’t want to try tracking it in the dark. I said that I’d help track it at noon the next day (that would give me the morning to slowly make my way there). The next day I was up on the ridge making my way down to a meadow on the north side when I heard a noise and slowly went to check it out (there was no quietly with all the dry pin needles). As I got closer to where the sound had come from I heard another noise (like quick moving feet). I slowed my movement down even more, to the point were I was giving myself cramps trying to not make any noise. The next thing I know there’s a noise to my right, I looked over and seen an elk running across a clear-cut (old logging site) and it’s a bull, and it’s legal (the first legal bull elk I’ve seen during season). Buck fever set in, I calmed myself and pulled up (I was 30 yards in the trees, so window’s of opportunity were limited) put the cross hairs on his shoulder and touched one off. The elk spun around trying to find where the shot had come from. In my excitement I only pulled the bolt up half way while trying to eject the spent round making a very frustrating few moments. I got a new round in the chamber and pulled up to take aim but the elk had moved to a spot were I had a pine tree blocking my view. I dropped to my knee to get under the branches only to have the roll of the hillside make the elk disappear. I quickly got to my feet and started running for the tree line, throwing my shoulder into a small pine to stop my momentum, pulled up, put the cross hairs on its shoulder one more time and touched it off. The elk started running, I bolted in another round and again with the cross hairs on its shoulder touched it off (to give you an idea on my frustration, with this gun I can put three shots into the size of my thumb nail at a 100 yards and now to miss three times at 75 yards). I bolted in my last shot and took aim, I touched it off just as he was entering the tree line on the other side and was gone.

While looking for blood my uncle showed up (the reason the elk came around that side is because my uncle was coming up the draw. So when I pushed him out he ran into my uncle and came back around) and we spent close to half an hour looking for blood. Hell we’d been happy to find a track in the hard ground. We didn’t so I headed off to meet up with Dennis to help track. While crossing over a mountain (hill) I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, stopped and pulled my gun up. I looked at it through the scope but because of the brush behind it I wasn’t able to make out its antlers. So I lowered my gun saying “its just a damn cow (female elk)” then it started running with the sun glisting off its antlers. I sent a whole herd of profanity chasing him off the hill, I may not have got to shoot him but I’m pretty sure I hurt his feelings. A short time later I arrived at the meadow were Dennis was supposed to be (Dennis had got his elk, it had gone just past the tree line before dieing). I waited there for about half an hour before heading out.

The next couple of days were very uneventful. A couple of us decided to walk from the road in and push the gulch. It turned out to be the most god-awful three miles of the area. First, I was walking on broken slag along a steep slop holding onto sage brush and praying that their roots would hold until I could grab the next one. Then the terrain changed to jagged rock with treacherous footing before turning into a plato with no trees to block the sun (I drank two canteens of water before I got to the top of the gulch). When I got to the gulch I found a spot and started climbing, I was almost to the top when I ran into another hunter who told me that the only thing he’d seen was a couple of mulies. I turned around and went back to the bottom, once there I fired a shot into a stump to get any animals in the area moving.

I walked along the bottom for a ways until I found a spot that looked climbable and headed up once again. Shortly after starting up I heard what sounded like a war up on top the ridge. By the time I got to the top all the shooting was done and Joel had got his first elk (like father, like son they both shot there elk in the hind quarters making them members of the not so popular club of “ASS SHOOTERS”). All the rest of the shooting was because a bull had ran across and just about every body opened up on it (fifteen shots) and only wounded it. When I got to where everybody was they pointed to where the bull had entered the trees. The Sawyer boys, Dustin and myself went to go track it. The wound was so slight that the elk had walked into the woods about twenty yards, licked the wound clean and headed for the high mountain.

I was told later when they came out that one of the hunters from our camp was in the woods relieving himself (taken a crap) when Dave yelled to him saying “if you want to get some shooting in you’d better get out here”. The guy came waddling out, his rifle in one hand and his pants in the other. Took two shots and quickly waddled back into the trees.

The last day of the season Mike shot a beauty of a 6x6 elk. While we were getting it deboned we were trying to decide if we wanted to walk back the five and a half miles to camp along the stream or go two miles to the road down a vary steep mountain side. By unanimous vote we choose the slope. Every body had blisters of one degree or another and walking down this slope with about an extra sixty pounds of meat on our backs (per person). Every step made your feet slide forward in your boots ripping open the blisters and my knee was really starting to act up (two days before I had stepped on a branch that catapulted up into my knee, it wasn’t the hurt right away deal. NO! it didn’t start hurting until I stopped moving giving it time to swell). By the time we got to the road no one was lifting their legs to walk.

After we got back to Minnesota we had a couple of weeks before rifle season started. Being that I wasn’t rifle hunting this year I volunteered to skin deer at the locker. This gave me something to do and a little spending cash.

On one morning after skinning I got up to do chores and had this incredible pain in my side. At first I though it was a pulled muscle or that I had ran my ribs into something that seemed minor at the time. It wasn’t until later that day when I took my shirt off to take a shower that dad noticed the bruise on my side and asked “what the hell did you do to your side”. I looked down at it (I hadn’t figured it was worth the time to check out). And noticed what looked like hairs sticking out of what looked like a puncher wound and my only thought was “how’d I get deer hair in there”, as I looked closer I noticed that what look like hairs were attached to a body. I had to use both hands to pull the tick off.

Once the tick was off we were able to get a good look at it. It was a deer tick and the dimes size bulls eye bruise around the bitten area was the tell tale sign for lime disease. I grabbed my shirt and quickly drove into the clinic to get it checked out (now don’t start thinken that I run into the hospital every time I get a boo boo. But this lime disease is one thing you don’t want. Once the damage is done its permanent–it attacks your joints and lower back. Being that I didn’t have insurance the nurse’s didn’t do the test (witch is only 30% accurate). They just gave the cure. I had to take enough antibiotics to kill a horse for two weeks and I still have a little red scar were it had bite me.

I Want!

Linky

Netflix

So, Netflix removed the link to "Movies releasing this week."

I found the link.

No need to thank me, me. It's all part of the service I provide to myself.

The Primaries and Candidates, in a Nutshell

P.J. O'Rourke explains our primary system and the current crop of candidates.

Hillary Clinton is "America's ex-wife." A man can be a Democrat to the core, going into the voting booth to pull the lever with the donkey label no matter what. Then he sees Hillary's name on the ballot. And it all comes back to him .  .  . the first marriage .  .  . the time he came home a little late, it wasn't even midnight, and he'd only had four or five beers, and she threw his bowling ball down the storm sewer.

Via Cold Fury

You Decide 2008

I can't decide who to vote against next week. On either side of the aisle.

I think it would be wonderful to have a debate with ALL of the front-runners from both major parties. We could get all of them on the same stage, discussing the issues and their pseudo-opinions and quasi-positions.

Then, when they are all red-faced and screaming, a meteor could hit, obliterating them all. That much evil and otherwise not-good in one room....god would have to wipe them out, wouldn't he? If I were an all-powerful imaginary friend, I would.

Deep-fried, cheese-stuffed, 100% bacon burger

No beef included.

Jesse the Wonderpoodle, Chapter 9

I haven't posted any of the chapters in a while, so here is the next installment.

Previous chapters available here.

In September my sister got married in Sedona Arizona. It was a real treat. We seen the grand canyon along with some of the other sites. Jeremiah (my youngest brother) and myself rented a convertible for the week. While at the grand canyon Jason and Elizabeth (my brother and his wife) arrived (they drove) and had the motorcycle in the back. Being it was a nice day they decided to ride the bike. While mom got it into her head that we were going to be late and took off, Jerry in Elizabeth’s truck, I’m in the convertible (Elizabeth would rather be skun alive before letting me drive her new truck) and Jason and Elizabeth on the bike. As soon as mom hit some open road she put the hammer down and was gone Jerry and myself were hard into the throttle to keep up. Jason was five cars back at the start so we didn’t put much concern on them thinking they would catch up, if not we figured they had a cell phone or if all else failed making the assumption that they knew where to go. Well they didn’t, they didn’t even have a cell phone with them.

If you’ve been down some of those mountain roads during the day light you know how treacherous they can be. Now try it in the dark on a motor cycle when the driver has a heavy foot. We lost contact for almost 24 hours. We didn’t get much sleep that night, having to listen to mom rant and rave to keep her self from going into hysterics. The only saving grace was that for part of the pre-wedding activities was going on a tour of the Sedona area and had set a meeting spot that Elizabeth found after a couple of phone calls (they had gotten stuck behind some Sunday drivers and were not able to get around due to traffic). It was nice but had no leg room. My personal opinion is that they are not a practical vehicle (at least not for me). While riding around in it I sunburned my forehead, you can’t even put on a hat to keep the sun off because the brow ridge is rubbing against it and holding the sweat salt there. But any way back to the wedding.

The ceremony was in the shadow of cathedral rock along the river bank. The wedding party and any who wanted to make the journey had a four mile hike through the desert to the site of the ceremony (the grandparents and photographer only had a half mile hike from the other side). The musician they hired played three different kinds of native American flutes, the music they produced combined with the locusts crying in the back ground was a magical sound. Terra (my sister) was dressed in an Indian sari (India Indian) it was the same dress my mom made and wore on her wedding day. On the hike out I made pretty good time, but Andrew’s (Terra’s husband) dad who is in his seventies passed me up and made it to the end of the trail almost fifteen minutes before I did, talk about impressive. As some of you may know I was not the happiest camper at how Andrew and Terra met. But they’ve been together for almost five years with very few known problems not to mention rubbing me the wrong way (joke) when they went to Europe before I got the chance to.

They're both right

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) - Mitt Romney and John McCain accused each other Monday of being liberals, a charge tantamount to blasphemy in the caustic campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

Link

State of the Union

Apparently, Bush has hired an actual economist.

Just as we trust Americans with their own money, we need to earn their trust by spending their tax dollars wisely. Next week, I'll send you a budget that terminates or substantially reduces 151 wasteful or bloated programs, totaling more than $18 billion. The budget that I will submit will keep America on track for a surplus in 2012. American families have to balance their budgets; so should their government.

The people's trust in their government is undermined by congressional earmarks -- special interest projects that are often snuck in at the last minute, without discussion or debate. Last year, I asked you to voluntarily cut the number and cost of earmarks in half. I also asked you to stop slipping earmarks into committee reports that never even come to a vote. Unfortunately, neither goal was met. So this time, if you send me an appropriations bill that does not cut the number and cost of earmarks in half, I'll send it back to you with my veto. (Applause.)

And tomorrow, I will issue an executive order that directs federal agencies to ignore any future earmark that is not voted on by Congress. If these items are truly worth funding, Congress should debate them in the open and hold a public vote. (Applause.)

Abso-freakin-lutely. This bit here makes the entire speech good. Reign in Congress and let me keep my money.

My favorite quote from the speech:

The best way to achieve that goal is by expanding consumer choice, not government control.

I won't include the context for "that goal", because it is a valid statement, no matter what.


On the other hand, his education and immigration experts are still 'special'. Not short-bus special, they are all the way into hockey-helmet special.

Six years ago, we came together to pass the No Child Left Behind Act, and today no one can deny its results.

That's not exactly true. When the tests get recalibrated to make kids pass, it kind of defeats the purpose.

So we're expanding funding for this type of ethical medical research. And as we explore promising avenues of research, we must also ensure that all life is treated with the dignity it deserves. And so I call on Congress to pass legislation that bans unethical practices such as the buying, selling, patenting, or cloning of human life. (Applause.)

Talk about half a story. Selling the goo that was part of a human at some point, or cloning organs isn't necessarily unethical.

Yet we also need to acknowledge that we will never fully secure our border until we create a lawful way for foreign workers to come here and support our economy.

We have this. It's done through Immigration. There's a legal path, and even a temporary worker program already. Don't offer amnesty. Any new law offering amnesty will get the current Congress thrown out on it's ass.

News Flash

TSA Security Theater doesn't work.