272- Cutting and Moms Bday

Sunday I was off work. It was fabulous! I took it off for the hunt. We went down at 9am to help Mom, Dad, Dennis and Kathy cut up 2 pigs. Dennis's brother raised them and we made them into steaks, chops, roasts, country sausage and hot Italian sausage 

Chris had never cut a pig before sot his was a new one for him!

Chris and Dennis

Dad cutting roasts

Mom and Kathy wrapping

Dennis trimming the pork

Chris making pork chops

Kathy makes an amazing cream cheese dip.. I love it. She brought that, some salami, crackers and cheese for snacks. We brought a cooler full of drinks

 Dennis making ground sausage

After we finished up the pork we cleaned up and started on Chris's deer. It had a good layer of fat on it which usually means a good winter is coming! We can only hope!!!

My little brother (not really but is) who shot the elk wanted to come down and help us cut. I still cant get used to him all bearded up! I still think of him as little baby faced Kyle

I think he kind of missed us and wanted to come play!

 After a while his dad wife and two kids came down to help. Kennedy had a blast playing with Domink and Kesleigh

 Goofy kids!

 We were done cutting by 1! Not bad at all. We went home. Cleaned. Made lunch. Baked cornbread and Mom a camo birthday cake

While I was doing this Chris went on a call for Willard. 

When he got home we headed up to his parents house. As we were passing the Perry station they paged for a rollover in Perry canyon. Willard and Perry departments are combined. If you're on one you are on both. We do drills and train together but there is a station in Willard and one in Perry. Perry is first responder only though. They don't have fire equipment. So we dropped Chris off at the station and went to his parents house. 

Rylee missed Kennedy. She loves her so much and gets so excited when she gets to see her. She wasnt letting go!

Chris got back to the station just as dinner was getting done. I went and picked him up. Moms birthday was that Monday so it was fitting to do her dinner Sunday night while everyone was together. I made a 55 out of candles.. Chris grabbed the fire extinguisher after we lit them and brought it out. 

Her camo cake

She got her favorite presents.. blue fuzzy boxes.. She LOVES blue fuzzy boxes because inside them is Montana Silversmith jewelry. Chris and I got her the earrings and Dad got her the necklace to match.

Happy Birthday Mom! After dinner we went and visited Miss Macee. Isnt she adorable!

271- Second day of the hunt

Saturday morning Chris and Hunter went out bright and early to see if they could find him a good deer. They ended up seeing a nice buck that would be a good one. They couldnt get to him in time and he went to an area on the land. Hunter and I went around one point while Todd and Chris were going to flush him out down to us

I had all the necessities for the hunt..

We sat in a spot where the deer were either going to come down the hill towards us or out on the flat

 Well the big buck came out with a few does and a spike. Hunter didnt take a shot and they ran off around the side of the hill into the tree line by the cabin. So we got on the wheeler and headed to a spot to sit while Todd and Chris flushed them out towards us again. We were sitting in a pile of rocks waiting

 This moose was actually about 100 yard from us.. it looks further than she was. She is the same one who was hanging out in camp before.  We think she was with the bull that was shot but arent sure. Once moose pair up they stay that way for the rest of the time. It was pretty sad to see her just hanging around 

 They pushed out two doe and a spike but the buck turned around, snuck behind them and went up over the mountain again. We called it good and headed back to camp. The sun was shinning.. it was bright and beautiful.. of course on the day we are going home!

 Todd cooked us breakfast.. bacon, eggs, french toast.. 

Chris cut up some fire wood Todd hauled in

 We packed up camp and headed home. Stopped by to show Kennedy the deer. They were surprised to see us so early. They weren't expecting us til the next day. Kennedy was so excited about Daddys deer! The first thing she said to him was good job and gave him a big hug.. then she said "Dad did you remember to cut his balls off?? thats the first thing you do when you skin a deer so that the meat doesnt stink" 

Sometimes I dont know what to do with her! She was right though

270-Deer Camp

Friday morning after we dropped Kennedy off to school we headed for the mountains. My mom had talked me into letting Kennedy spend the weekend with her since it was going to be cold and wet in the mountains. Kennedy was pretty excited to get some one on one time with Grandma and Grandpa.

I told Shalon this was going to be my new lucky hunting hat.

Just as we were pulling into our camp we saw a small fire burning.. as we came down the hill a little more we saw a truck.. and then some guys off the side of our road skinning a moose! Where the cabin is located is private. Its in a big 'subdivision' thats in 40 acre lots. You have to have a key to get through the gate and cant hunt in that area with out a landowner with you. Some people have their lots posted some dont. Chris's Grandpa was one of the original 13 buyers in the land and that gave him and his posterity hunting rights on the entire land. Not just their 40 acres. Its kind of a unsaid rule if you arent IN there ..aka camping or hunting at the time its free game. If you are then its kind of off limits. We stopped and talked to the guys and were excited about their moose. The guy was with one of the landowners and had an out of state tag ($1400!) for a moose. They had been watching this one for the last two days and had a chance at him that morning. They were super nice and cleaned up their spot really well before they left. Chris keeps hoping one year to get a tag! They only put out 3 this year. Two for residents and one for a non resident.

 As soon as we got to the cabin I had to have some cream cheese and jalapeno jelly with an ice cold Dr Pepper.. it was heaven! I was hungry!!

Chris and I brought in some fire wood and he got the fire going. It was perfect jalapeno jelly warming up my belly.. toasty fire going! Then he went out to chop up some more wood

and I enjoyed the fire until it was time to help him carry more in

 I feel asleep on the couch next to the fire and he ate some Ramen noodles for lunch. We live it up when we are kidless :) We got to the cabin just before noon. We didnt want to go out hunting before 3:30. Deer are nocturnal for the most part. They feed all night long. Sleep during the day. Then come out at evening time again. But the weather had been so over cast it changes their patterns some. Usually we start seeing them around 5 so we wanted to make sure we were out early enough that we could get up to where we wanted to go and have time to get back down to check out near the cabin at dusk. We planned to go out on the wheeler..however it was snowing. Not only snowing but COLD and BLOWING

You can normally see down into Hardware from here.. there are a few mountains in all those clouds!

 We decided to go out in the truck instead!

 We drove clear up to the top of the mountain and saw nothing. Nothing at all. Right as we were getting about as far as we were going the does started popping out all over the dang place! We saw 10 doe and fawns. Then another 4 more. On the way back down we saw probably 40 more. Chris was so fed up with only seeing doe and no bucks. I was laughing. He said thats it.. you show me one more doe and you're walking back to camp! We were having fun besides seeing everything we didnt wan to to see! Right as we were coming off the upper half headed to the lower we came around a corner at the gate and I spotted a nice buck standing right at the gate. I yelled out "buck!!!" he slammed on the brakes. I could tell it was a nice one. Didnt need binoculars to see it hand antlers above its ears and thats good enough. The deer was 70 yards broadside with his head turned towards Chris. He couldnt see him because he was right at the edge of the treeline. Perfect shot.. nothing in the way.. just standing there. He still couldnt see him so he opened the door of the truck, got his binos, saw the deer, walked to the front of the truck and pulled up the gun. All the while the buck JUST STOOD THERE WATCHING him! BAM!!! He pulled the trigger and the big puff of smoke came out from the muzzle loader. He was shooting 100 grains of powder and 240 grain sabbot. When the big puff of smoke came out we had no idea where the deer ran to. We know he didnt run back.. but he didnt drop either so we were hoping he hit it! We walked over to where the deer was to look for signs it was shot. We looked where the deer was standing and nothing.. We looked a little further back into the trees and found blood spatter a few feet from where the deer was and higher on the tree than it should be.. but it was fresh and bright red. Bright red blood means a vital organ it. So the deer wont be far away hopefully.

We started tracking. I LOVE TRACKING! What you do is start where the blood is. Watch the hoof prints. When a deer runs it makes dig marks in the ground. You have to look on the ground or plants for signs of blood. Chris followed the trail to a spot and lost it. The blood was getting more and more and then it was gone. So I looked at the hoof prints and saw where they went and picked up more blood. We followed it up a little draw then they stopped again. I went back to the last sign of blood and hoof prints and took a turn to the left and found more sign. Then I found the deer! It was only about 200 yards from where he shot it at. 

Hubby's first deer with a muzzle loader ever!

Its a 2x3 and was the biggest deer with antlers we had seen all weekend!

We had to drag it down the hill to the road maybe a whole 100 yards. It was perfect. The deer was gutted and we headed back to camp to hang it. We knew Hunter was coming up for the night and possibly Todd.. He had been sick so we weren't sure if he would come up or not. We got the deer hung and started some water to boil when Todd and Hunter showed up. We showed them the deer and went to see if we could find Hunter one. Hes still a youth so he can hunt all 3 season. We didn't find anything else and went back to start dinner. Someone.. and I'm not saying who... was walking up the stairs and broke the 3rd stair. Both feel right through it and he was standing on the ground in the middle of the staircase.. I about peed myself laughing so hard. I had tears streaming down my face. I turn around and see someone with a what the heck happened look on his face standing flat footed in the middle of the stairs.. I couldn't even stop laughing long enough to remember to take a picture! So the boys had to spend a little bit of time fixing the stairs while I cooked brats 

Hunter brought up this amazing goodness with him. I told him he wasn't allowed to come up unless his mom made us muddy buddies lol! Its my favorite for deer season and it didnt let down! mmmmmm!!

269-Softball

Thursday was a windy yucky day! It was cold, overcast and dark! We had two softball games again that night at 6pm and 8pm and I wasnt too sure how it was going to be! The first game at 6 that night was COLD. The wind was blowing and it was freezing. We played the best team. Theyve been playing together for only 16 years and are undefeated. 

 My JP was there and finally able to play!

 We gave them a run for their money! It was the closest game they've had so far. Theyve not played a game where they didnt score above 25. We lost 9-21

 Ryan up to bat

 He was a LONG ways safe but they called him out.. even 3rd base agreed he was safe..

 JP batting

Between games we ran to 711 for some hot cocoa and mozzarella sticks! They must have done wonders because we played GREAT our second game! We won 34-7. The wind had stopped by game 2 and it was actually warm!