The Hunt

Hunter was able to participate in his first Sandhill Crane hunt last week. Uncle Scott and cousin Cole came up from Utah to join in the fun. The fun of waking up at 5:30 a.m. The fun of sitting out in a cold field until the birds flew in. The fun of having the poor wounded thing come after you to attack. The fun of cleaning and cooking them. :P And of course the fun of missing the first class of the school day. Who could ask for more? They were each able to get their bird and punch those tags. Whoo-hoo!!

Truly the "King" of Something...

Stacie stayed true to her word when she said she would crown Steve "King of Hunters" if he could shoot a bear from a boat and ride it out. I still think the crown should be mandatory hunting gear, right along with the camo and gun. The pheasant doesn't have a special story, I just wanted an animal in the picture and that was "fresh" from this morning.

After thought...

So sorry. Steve read this post and informed me that there was a special story that went with this particular pheasant. It was T.J.'s (the uncontrolable pup) first pheasant that he ever brought back AND on top of it all, he jumped in the water to retrieve it. (the dog, not Steve. Although that would have been a better story had Steve done it!) And now you know...the rest of the story.

Update...Update...Update

Steve and Scott were up until 2 a.m. cleaning the first bear. Why they call it "cleaning the bear" is beyond me. You should see my garage floor! Anything but clean! Then they started on the second bear around 9:30 a.m. I don't know what happened after that because I high-tailed it out of there. When they got down to Mike the Taxidermy Guy, he told them that Scott's sow (female) was about as big as the females ever get, measuring 5'4". And Steve's boar (male) measured in at 6'5". They measure the length and width of the skull, and Mike said that by looks of it, it would make the Boone & Crocket record book. Oh great, now he's comparing himself to Daniel Boone & Davey Crocket...

(Steve has informed me that it's actually not "cleaning the bear" it's "skinning the bear." So sorry to mislead you all in my incorrect terminology!)

Look! It's Yogi and Boo-Boo!

I got the call tonight at about 8:30. "We got 2, but I'm gonna lose reception." Oh my gosh! Holy cow! Tell me more! Tell me more! Dont' worry, I'll hear it again about 12 times. If you're ever wondering how to get 2 GRowN MeN to act as excited as 2 little kids, have them shoot 2 BeaRs within a few hundred yards and minutes of each other...FloaTinG down the river in a drift boat!

Steve's brother-in-law Scott has been coming up to go bear hunting for the past three weekends.

The first weekend he was here, no luck.

The second weekend, they had an AweSomE float trip Friday evening, saw 3 bears along the way, and both decided to check the sights on their guns after they got home. - "Just to make sure" I'm told. Yea, they both missed multiple times. So then, Saturday evening, Steve's Dad joined the event as they set out in the boat again. They decided that walking their one-man-boats down the mile-or-so rough terrain wasn't worth it. They took Scott's pickup, pulling a drift boat behind. Oh, and did I mention it was during a rain/hail storm. Talk about DedIcaTion! (or stupidity) . I don't know how they ever got that pickup out of there in one piece. (I heard it was close...) Oh yea, and they didn't see anything.


So, that brings us to the 3rd weekend. I'm sure I don't tell it right, but I do know it involved two pickups, a 4-wheeler, the boat again, seeing a bear, Scott shooting, getting a hit, having it slowly start walking away, rowing a bit farther, getting another shot, watching the bear roll down the side of the canyon into the water. Whew! And, just after they got the boat over to the side and loaded with their newest passenger, they were coming around a corner and...ta-da...another bear. Steve shot it and now, I have two dead bears in my yard. So ExCitInG! I could "bear"ly type the story fast enough! And I'm sure you just couldn't stop reading.



Good job guys! And like I tell Steve after every hunting trip, "They woke up happy this morning..."

Oh, and Steve remembered Stacie saying something about if they could shoot something from a boat and float it out, she would crown them "King Hunters." Steve asks, "Where's my crown?"

Dude...Something Stinks!

It's here! It's finally here and I am so eXciTed that I could pee my pants!

Last fall, Steve was on his way to work, driving the long way there. By the way, it was hunting season. He stumbled across what he thought was someone's cat on the dirt road just north of our house. The longer he looked, the more he realized it was not a cat. An albino badger maybe? No....it was an AlBinO SkuNK! Yes, skunk! Oh how proud I was. Ha!

So, boom-boom, he shot it and then left it there and headed to work for the day. (Like anyone or anything was going to want to take that.) I didn't give much thought to it until he called me on his way home from work, asking for the phone number to the taxidermist. It finally hit me. HoLy CrAp! He was serious! So, after Snowball's photo shoot, into a garbage bag the skunk went and down to Mike, the taxidermy guy. (I swear, Steve alone keeps him in business.) And then, after many, many months of anticipation, it was done. Whoo-hoo!

I would like to know if anyone, anywhere has an albino skunk in their house. If not, do you want one?

And be sure to check out the side bar for all of Steve's other little buddies. I swore even before I got married that I wouldn't have dead animals all over my house. See where love will get ya?