Christmas Bargains

With all the rush to put a good Christmas together in a somewhat belt-tightening economy, I thought--a little late in the month, perhaps, but why break tradition?--I'd share a few money-saving ideas I've come across recently.

1) Buy your Christmas tree from BLM land. Ryan and I did, and you can see how cute our tree is in the previous Christmas post. The permit (in Pocatello, ID) is $5.00 and you can get a simple saw from your local hardware store for about the same price. Make it a family outing. You'll have a great time.

2) Into crafting? You can get a mini glue gun and a package of glue sticks from the Family Dollar, or occasionally the Dollar Tree, for around $3.00. They're cheap, but they work just as well as the more expensive ones you can purchase at name-brand craft stores. Also, check out your local Goodwill or resale shop. They sometimes get donations of new fabric. Some of it can be kind of cheap looking, but I've actually found some very nice fabric there as well. I usually find the fabric in the same section as the drapes and bed sheets. You just have to dig through the whole rack to see what's there.

3) Want to make someone a CD for Christmas? Amazon has a free & special deals music download selection. Some of the artists offered are well known and some aren't. Go expand your musical horizons!

That's all I've come up with so far. Anyone else have anything to add to the list?

Beginning to look like Christmas

Ryan and I had a busy weekend this past week. We also reached, what I think, is something of a milestone. We have been married for 7 years, and this year we got our very first Christmas tree.

Saturday started with a trek up into the hills with Chad and Angela for some Christmas pictures. In spite of the snow that kept sticking to hair and getting in eyes, we got some great pictures.


Then Ryan and I went over to BLM land to harvest our tree. Finding the BLM office in Pocatello in order to buy a tree permit was an adventure all on it's own. I was by myself and it took me 1 stop to ask directions and 2 phone calls to Ryan to finally locate the place!

Anyway, back to tree hunting! I think the first one we found ended up being the keeper. We knocked the snow off of it to see how it looked, and were pretty happy with what we found, but we had just arrived and wanted to look around a little more. So we moseyed up the trail, searching for anything under 10 feet that looked moderately symmetrical, and always saying, "maybe the next one, maybe the next one." After a short while of this--it was cold and we had to be home by a certain time anyway because of out-of-town visitors--we went back to our first tree and decided that it was the best we'd seen.

Idn't it a pretty tree?

The mighty hunter with his kill.

We had to chop off a few of the base branches, and a bit off the top (the top spindly branch was about a foot too high) and it fit perfectly.

Decorating had to wait though, I had a carrot cake to make and we had my Dad, brother-in-law, and brother-in-law's high school buddy, stopping by to say, "Hi," on their way back from Spokane. That was a whirlwind visit!

Here's the cake.

They stayed only long enough to rest a moment, tell us how the drive has been, admire the antlers from Ryan's September bull, and then they left.

The carrot cake is for Ryan's birthday, which was put on hold for his comprehensive exams. There was no way we were celebrating a birthday while he was so busy studying for those tests. So, we had the cake last Saturday, and we still have it now, actually. It's a big cake, and so dense!

Sat. night, or maybe Sun. we decorated the tree. That was so much fun. I thought we might have enough ornaments, but that we might need to go to the Dollar Tree for a few extra. I was surprised to find that we had the perfect amount. The slightly scrawny nature of the tree saved us from having too many branches to decorate. I love Charlie Brown Christmas Trees!

Needless to say, since we'd never had a tree before, we also had never bought Christmas lights before. We didn't get those until Tuesday. This entire acquiring and decorating of the tree business has been kind of a step by step process, but so much fun!

Here's the tree with lights.

The tree skirt is actually about two yards of unsewn fabric that came from a whole pile of fabrics that Mom gave me. I had completely forgotten that some of that stuff was Christmasy. So when I started digging through my fabric Rubbermaid I was looking for something green; anything that might be appropriately-ish colored. And I found this:

Perfect!

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a very good Thanksgiving this year. We weren't able to celebrate the day with family this year, but some good friends invited us over, and we all had a wonderful potluck-type dinner, played boardgames and ate way too much.

I was in charge of stuffing, veggies and rolls, and, since I have no "traditional" holiday recipes of my own yet, I used my friends as the guinea pigs for these two recipes that I found at delish.com. Aren't I sweet? Luckily, both went over very well. The stuffing was good (turkey sausage is yummy), but my favorite was the veggies. I'll probably use that one again soon. Ryan needs to eat more veggies anyway. It's for his own good. :)

Seasonal shedding

Guess what I did...
(that is the back of my head, by the way)

Halloween

I hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween this year.


I love handing out candy, though I do wish there had been few enough trick-or-treaters for us to save some of the good candy for ourselves. I'm not very partial to lollipops and tootsie rolls. :)

Lochsa River 2009

What I learned on this camping trip:

1) My nose is a magnet for wispy spiderweb strands
2) The hippie movement for "natural" outdoorsyness is alive and well
3) Mushrooms will do in a pinch for a game of baseball
4) and Fly fishing and hail don't mix

Our yearly camping trip to the Lochsa with Chris and Jeannette went really well this year. It was a lot of fun, the weather was mostly great, and we were able to get in both hiking and fishing almost every day, which made everyone happy. We also camped in this:

It had a stove!
It had BEDS!
It's gonna be hard to go back to a tent after this. :)

On to the ADVENTURE!

The first trail we tried led to a hot spring, which should have been our first clue. It was also more like a road than a trail, which should have been our second clue.


We found a really neat little spot where a spring of hot water was actually draining into a pool beside the river.

It was beautiful.

Here's some crazy tree roots we found while climbing back to the trail. We had only been out for an hour but we had to turn back pretty soon after that.

Question: Does soaking naked in a hot spring that is situated directly beside a trail where anyone and his brother (and their little kids) could walk right up and say, "Hi," sound like a good idea to anyone here? No? No! It doesn't to me either!

For Pete's sake, hippies! Please go and be "natural" where no one else has to see you! Sheesh!

Okay, I'm better now.

Obviously we didn't want to run into any more "nature lovers," so we decided to do a little exploring in the direction away from the water.

Jeannette walks along a log.

Ryan and Chris have fun moving the bridge.

And that was about it for the hike on that day. The guys went fishing after that and we wives went along to take pictures. We found:

A dragonfly

A bunny-shaped rock (I would have packed this thing home if it weren't the size of a basketball)

And a little spider. Yes, I finally took a spider picture like all the rest of you weirdos! Joy. Moving on.

Here's Chris fishing from the comfort of his very own boulder.


I love taking pictures where more than one thing is going on.

And here's one of everyone.

Fascinating as fishing is, the wives do tend to get a tiny bit bored after hours of sitting on the same piece of rocky river-side, so Jeannette started making balancing thingies. I joined in because it looked like too much fun to keep out of.

Zen-like, isn't it?

We got a little elaborate. Jeannette had a lot more patience than I did. She made the rocks balance; I just tried to keep from knocking them down. :)

The next day we drove a little further and found a trail that had no hot spring and was much less "road-ish." It was more of a trail on the side of a hill. I discovered that I have the stamina to hike from breakfast to lunch on one day--very proud of that fact--but I won't be able to move well the next. :)

Found some cute little mushrooms.


Ryan contemplates.
Don't ask me why the horse's skull is tied to a tree. We found it that way.


Hi there.


The view at the top was great, but it meant that 4 miles of downhill were between us and lunch!

We covered around 8 miles on this hike (Go, us!), and only saw two people at a distance. Their big dog came up to say hi, but then left with them. Ryan thought he'd be funny and scare the dog off, but the dog only took this as an invitation to play. I'm not sure which was funnier; Ryan waving his arms and yelling like a maniac or the dog's response. It started bouncing around in the brush so excitedly. Oh, boy; a new bestest friend! Oh, boy. Oh, boy! It was hilarious.

The next day was the day of mushrooms.

We decided to do an easier hike.


See the gentle trail meandering through the woods.


There were a few obstacles to overcome.


Don't jump, Chris!


What is it about little mushrooms that makes them just so cute?

The mushroom battlefield. Evidence of Chris and Ryan's violent nature against the fungus of the field. See the following videos for true mushroom carnage!

And that's about it, except for the hail.

It kind of interrupted the guys last day of fishing, so we all played cribbage instead, and then we drove home the next day.

Wilderness Elk Hunting in 2009 - What a Year!

Well folks, it's been awhile since the last time I sat down and posted something on our blog, but the time has come, once again, for a Ryan post. And, as you might expect, I'll be sticking to my standard habit of only posting things about hunting or fishing trips (Kathleen pretty much takes care of everything else...). The trips in question this time? Archery elk hunting 2009. Now, normally I do one big elk hunt each year for about 9 days with my dad. This year, however, since I didn't have to teach or take any classes this fall, I decided to do a shorter bonus trip with my good friend from Moscow, Chris Warren. This allowed me the opportunity to hunt elk in two states, and gave Chris the opportunity to see what hard-core wilderness elk hunting is all about. As a result, though, I'll be breaking this post into 2 sections: 1) Idaho elk hunting with Chris; 2) Oregon elk hunting with dad.

Section 1: Idaho elk hunting with Chris

As you'll see a bit later, dad and I opted for a little different type of hunting trip this year then we've done the past several years, which included hunting in Oregon instead of Idaho. So, that opened the door for me to do this bonus trip to the wilderness area in Idaho that dad, myself, and Kathleen's dad have hunted successfully the past two years. Chris has never hunted before, but has been wanting to see what it's all about for awhile, so this seemed like the ideal opportunity for a test run. Now, the past two years when we've done the big trip to this area, we've rented pack llamas (see last year's hunting post around this time). However, for a short, extra trip like this that really wasn't an option due to cost, so we turned it into a strictly backpacking trip. We hiked in on a Sunday afternoon after worship, hunted Monday-Friday, and then hiked out on Saturday. Camp was about 3 miles into the wilderness, and we hunted deeper in from there. The biggest down side to this trip was that the only time we could do it was the first week of season (archery season in both Idaho and Oregon is 4 weeks long). The first week tends to be a bit early for really good hunting, because the weather is very hot and the elk are just beginning their mating season (rut), so they tend not to move around as much or make as much noise as they do later in the season. Nevertheless, we did manage to get one really outstanding, action-packed day in (Monday), mostly because it poured down rain and got cold most of the day before (Sunday, which, of course, made for a very soggy hike in). Weather like that tends to get things moving, when it lasts. So, my plan is to describe the events of that first day, and then just hit a few highlights from the rest of the trip.

Those were some heavy packs!

Some pictures of camp...

Day 1: Monday morning at dawn found us glassing (looking over with binoculars) a hillside on the opposite side of a creek drainage that has produced for us in the past. Within half an hour, we saw 6 different bulls moving around on that hillside, 2 of which appeared to be pretty good 6-points. To make a long story short, we slowly worked our way down to the bottom of the drainage and over to their side in an attempt to get below them and call one of them in. During that process, which took close to an hour, we got to listen to them bugle, and we had the pleasure of watching 2 of them spar with their antlers and push each other around the hillside. That was awesome. Unfortunately, by the time we got over to their side of the drainage, things were starting to get hot, and they all bedded down in the timber and stopped bugling, which left us with no idea where they were. I tried cow-calling for about 15 minutes anyway just to see if I could get something to come in...and something did. Unfortunately it wasn't an elk, but a large, male black bear hungry for elk! Once I knew he was there, Chris and I watched him for several minutes as he attempted to locate the source of the calling. Fortunately, after not hearing anything for awhile, he gave up and moved on. If I had had a bear tag I would have been one happy guy, but bear tags in our unit require a lottery drawing, which isn't something I'm real interested in. Anyway, after he ambled off, we slowly worked our way up through the timber on the hillside hoping to see an elk before it saw us. It didn't work. The closest we came was when I poked my head out of the timber into an open area and spotted a nice bull bedded against a tree 70 yards below me. Unfortunately he had heard us coming and was looking right at me when I saw him. He let me get an arrow nocked and range him (too far of course), but that was it before he took off, along with another bull we hadn't seen bedded further back in the timber. Close, but not quite. We didn't see any more elk that day, but as a bonus, I shot a blue grouse about 30 minutes later up on the same hillside. Later that same day, and much closer to camp, I managed to shoot another grouse, this time a spruce grouse. I shoot grouse whenever I can on elk hunts because they make a great wilderness dinner bonus, but never before have I killed 2 grouse on the same day with 2 arrows. Fresh grouse cooked over open campfire coals is a real wilderness treat, and we both got to eat a grouse for dinner that night!

Glassing our favorite hillside.

Spruce grouse for dinner!

Unfortunately, the weather got really hot again that first day and stayed that way for the rest of the week. That really quieted things down, and we actually never saw another elk the whole trip. We did, however, have a really good time anyway, so here are a few of the highlights:

• Brook trout fishing on the lake we camped next to. We actually fished every day of the trip, mostly in the afternoons, and caught little brook trout constantly whenever we were out. It was a blast. On a couple of days we actually kept a few and cooked them for dinner in addition to our backpacking food. Like the grouse, fresh fish cooked over coals is a real treat, and something I've never actually done on a hunting trip before. Gotta love it!

Brook trout are both pretty and tasty!

• Some amazing hikes in some really hardcore country. I think Chris would agree with me that not covering enough territory definitely was not the reason for not seeing elk during the remainder of the trip. We covered a lot of ground and saw some really amazing country. On the last day we actually hiked up to a wooden cross that somebody had erected years ago high on a cliff overlooking the whole area. Kind of weird, but a cool place to be.

• Almost getting run over by a deer while taking an afternoon nap in camp. About half-way through the trip a mule deer doe came bounding right into our camp in the middle of the afternoon while we were taking a snooze, and screeched to a halt about 20 yards from our tents (and 5 feet from my bow, which was leaning up against a log). It is legal to kill a doe in this unit, and I had a deer tag, but being that the deer was closer to my bow than I was, it wasn't really an option. Eventually she bounded off, never to be seen again.

Overall it was an excellent trip. We worked hard, got to see and experience some amazing things, and left with a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. I hope we get to do it again in the future. Now, on to part 2!!!

Section 2: Oregon elk hunting with dad

My dad and I have been dedicated wilderness elk hunters for about a decade now, and our annual trip always produces experiences and memories that we'll both cherish the rest of our lives. Every one of our trips has been amazing, and in the past 4 years we've actually started to see some consistent success, having harvested 4 elk and a deer. This year, however, takes the cake. We started out as backpack hunters, and then during past 4 years we've rented pack llamas to enable us to hunt and pack elk out from further into the wilderness. These hunts have always been hard-core, and we typically lose close to 5-10 pounds in 8-9 days of hunting. This year, though, we decided to take it to the next (and what I think is probably the final) level. This year, we arranged to do a bivy-style drop camp in the Eagle Cap wilderness in Oregon. That entails several things that are different from our past hunts. First, rather than hiking 4-5 miles into the wilderness with llamas before setting up camp, we hired an outfitter to take us 10 miles in on horseback and drop us off. Second, rather than hunting each day by leaving and returning to camp, we hunted bivy style. That means setting up a base camp and storing some supplies there, and then putting 3-5 days worth of food, clothes, and sleeping gear into an internal frame pack and heading out after elk. You hunt as hard as you can all day and go wherever you want, and then sleep where you end up at the end of the day. After 3-5 days of this, you return to base camp and re-supply. This is a pretty major difference, because it means that rather than traversing this rugged country all day with a day pack and then coming back to camp at the end of the day, we were traversing it with 45-55 pound frame packs, all day every day. The third major difference from past hunts is that part of the deal with the outfitter was a meat haul for each of us. We go as deep as we want and hunt wherever we want, but we're required to take a satellite phone with us. When we shoot something, we immediately call the outfitter and he brings his horses and mules in to pack it out for us. This type of hunting would have been impossible with rented llamas. The flip side is that it's about as physically challenging as it gets. We decided almost exactly 12 months ago that we wanted to give this type of hunting a try this year, and spent the entire 12 months preparing for it. I've been running 40-50 miles/week all year, and dad has done a variety of cross-training, including hiking in and out of a deep river gorge near his house with a 40-70 pound pack several times each week. It paid off...

Loading up and heading in!

Base camp.

Getting water at base camp.

Elk hunting bivy style!

The first two and half days involved mostly constant hiking. We actually saw very few elk, although we got to see some mountain goats up close and a 16-inch bull trout working his way up a 3-inch deep creek. We brought 3.5 days worth of food with us for our first bivy trip, and so on the third day we found ourselves trying to make it back as close to camp as we could so that we'd be able to get all the way back the following day. We didn't even make it close. At about 4 in the afternoon on that third day we were hiking along a trail 11 miles from and 3,500 vertical feet below our base camp when we were blessed with the opportunity we've been waiting for for 15 years. The trail we were on was on a steep south-facing slope about 100 yards above a creek bottom. As we were hiking, I looked down and noticed a huge (although I had no idea how huge at the time) bull walking down into the creek from the opposite hillside. He had no idea we were there, and he proceeded to walk right into the creek and take a big drink. We waited to see what he would do, and what he did do ended up providing me the perfect opportunity for a stalk to within bow range; after his drink, he spent the next 5 minutes at least thrashing the snot out of a bunch of trees and bushes in the creek bottom with his antlers. Clearly the mating hormones were raging. Anyway, that meant that his hearing was obscured both by the sound of the creek and his activity, his sight was obscured by the bushes he was destroying, and the afternoon wind was blowing uphill from him to us. Perfect. I immediately began to sneak downhill, but about 60 yards from the bottom was met with a 20-foot vertical cliff that I hadn't been able to see from the trail. That presented a problem. After a minute of looking around, I found a narrow crevice in the cliff face that I was pretty sure I could climb down without a big pack on. So, I took my pack off, left it on the steep hillside and worked my way down to the bottom of the cliff. By the time I got into a good position, the bull was still thrashing brush, but now from only 25 yards away. I found a nice gap in the brush that I knew he would walk through when he was done thrashing if he continued on his previous path, knocked an arrow, and waited. Sure enough, a minute later he got bored with his bushes and continued on downstream, right into my shooting lane. Now, at that range the noise of the creek was a lot louder than I had guessed, and I needed him to stop in the right position for a shot, so, when I saw him coming I drew my bow, and when he stepped into my shooting lane...I yelled at him! Hey! No response. Hey! Even louder this time. He finally stopped but had no idea where the sound had come from. No matter. I worked through a couple of nervous shakes, then settled my pins and released. The shot was good, although I was worried at first that it might have been a little far back. Amazingly though, the bull had no idea he was hit. He took about 5 steps and stopped, just out of my view due to a big tree, but in plain view of my dad up on the trail, who got some incredible pictures at that time. After looking around a bit, he did the unbelievable and turned around and walked right back into my shooting lane. So, taking the opportunity, I stopped him the same way as before and delivered another good arrow. He ran up the opposite hill, but made it only 15 yards before running out of steam. A minute later it was over. Now, anyone who reads this needs to understand that although dad and I have taken our share of elk over the years, a big, mature, 6-point bull is something we've been dreaming about since I was a kid, but had never managed to accomplish before. In fact, big, unpressured bulls are the primary reason for going to so much trouble to hunt deep in the wilderness in places that few people are willing to go. So, even if you're not a hunter, imagine something that you've longed for for nearly 2 decades but have never been able to get it...and then the day comes when it finally happens. What an amazing blessing. Walking up to that bull was overwhelming. He was an absolutely amazing animal, likely weighing over 600 pounds and sporting antlers with 51" main beams and a 40" inside spread. For me, the wilderness bull of a lifetime. That bull will provide both Kathleen and myself as well as my dad and step-mom with a year's worth of lean, healthy meat, and his antlers will soon adorn our living room. Despite our awe when we walked up to him, however, a lot of work lay ahead of us. I shot him a little before 5, and it was well after midnight before we were done field dressing him and getting all the meat bagged and laid out near the creek. As instructed, we called our outfitter that night, and at 1 o'clock the next afternoon he arrive at our location with mules to pack out my bull. As a result, despite our position 11 miles from a base camp that was already 10 miles into the wildness, our meat was hanging safely in a cooler 24 hours after the shot.

This is looking up from where he was standing to where I shot him from, below the cliff.

A variety of bull pictures...

Now, by the time our outfitter arrived and we got my bull all loaded up and on its way out, it was already late afternoon, and so there was no chance of making it back to anywhere near base camp that night. So, we decided to spend one more night in the spot where I shot him, rest up, and then head back to base camp the following day. Recall, however, that we only brought enough food for 3.5 days...and this was day 4. All we had left was a little bit of snack food. We solved our little problem by having the best wilderness dinner I've ever had that night; fresh elk steaks (cut off just before the outfitter packed the meat out) cooked over an open flame. What an awesome meal! Then we rationed our snack food for the trip back to base camp the next day. Needless to say, when we arrived back at base camp at the end of day 5, we were pretty hungry!

Mmmm...steak dinner...

So, at this point we had 4 days left to hunt, but this post is getting just a tad (OK, so that's a gross understatement) long already, so I'll just hit the highlights:

• Lot's more hiking in some amazing country.

Gotta love the Eagle Cap!

• Almost getting hit by a falcon flying about 5 feet off the ground carrying a grouse it had just killed. He just missed us and then landed on the trail about 20 yards away!

This guy's catch was so heavy that he had trouble taking off after we got this picture. In fact, we never did see him make it into the air again.

• Almost, and I mean almost, getting a bull for dad. On the second to last day, we found a bull with a couple of cows in a basin, and he was super vocal. We worked down into the basin and manged to get within a couple hundred yards or so, and then started cow calling. He loved it, and everything went almost perfectly. Dad set up about 60 yards ahead of me while I did the calling. That bull responded to every call I made with a screaming bugle, and pretty soon he had closed the distance between himself and dad to less than 50 yards. Unfortunately, he hung up in the trees at that distance and only his cows finished the trip. They came right to me at a dead run and screeched to a halt 20 yards away. Once they got to where they had heard the calling and didn't see an elk though, they got suspicious and started circling me. The whole time the bull was still bugling in the trees within bow range of dad, but he just wouldn't present a shot. The cows circled me and eventually winded us. One alarm call from one of the cows and the bull snuck off into the timber. So close!

• Accidentally getting between a black bear sow and her cub. Now that's the one place everyone always tells you not to be in the woods! Like I said though, it was an accident. I was standing in some trees glassing a big basin when something ran by me to my left about 15 yards away. I couldn't see what it was because the trees were too thick, but about 30 seconds later I could hear some kind of baby animal crying for it's mom about 15 yards away to my right. It never occurred to me it might be a bear...until that little cub poked its head out of the trees. Needless to say, I got out of there as quick as I could!

• Being with 20 yards of mountain goats, bighorn sheep rams, black bears, elk, and mule deer all in the same week. That's hard to beat.

• Getting to watch a bull elk spend 10 minutes tearing up huge chunks of dirt and grass in a meadow and then lay down repeatedly and wallow in the creek that ran through the meadow. Unfortunately he was on the other side of a huge canyon and it was too close to the end of the trip to go after him. Fun to watch though!

All the way on the other side of this canyon you can just barely see the little meadow that we watched that bull in through binoculars.

This is the meadow with dad's camera zoomed all the way in, and you can just barely see the bull standing in the middle of it.

All in all, it was an absolutely incredible trip this year. And the best part of all was that I got to share it with one of my best friends and lifelong hunting partners, my dad. So, until the next hunting or fishing trip, this is Ryan Long, signing off of blog duty.