Another life

This post will different than my usual posts.  

I told you some years ago when I started my blog that I'd use it to show you photos of our new lives in New Zealand. I've kept that up for 363 posts now, and I have no intention of stopping that project. However, to commemorate the white-tailed deer rifle hunting season in Michigan, which starts on November 15, I felt the need to look back, just for this one post, and show you another life I knew.  

I had intended to concentrate, for obvious reasons, on deer hunting pictures, but I changed my mind. For me, most of the pleasure of deer season came from sitting quietly in the woods and watching the days open and close. Harvesting venison was a bonus that came along now and then.  

There were many other things I enjoyed doing on the acres we owned. One of them was snowshoeing into the frozen swamp and cutting cedar posts by hand. It was slow going, but I didn't care. I was out there for exercise and the beauty of the winter swamp, not for production. There was no chain saw noise. Just the ring of my handsaw blade against wood, the crunch of my boots on the snow and my heavy breathing.  

Here then are some pictures that documents some of my trips out to the Land. 

We had moved one of the cars out of the garage temporarily.  Put it over next to the garden house and, no surprise, it snowed last night.

The is the lower portion of our driveway with 551 at the end.

The view from the area of my pile of posts back toward Birke Lane on a cold winter's day. 

This is the same view, zoomed in a little compared to the first shot, on a cold, but sunny winter's day. 

Here I am in the swamp. Later in the season, when the snow got deeper, I'd keep my snowshoes on all the time. 

I'd usually start by felling a number of trees and limbing them.

and then come back out another day, cut them to length and haul them to the field. 

(trail cam shot) 

The beginning of one of my piles.

One of the trails approaching my cut

Looking at this picture, even now, I can smell that tree. 

This pile has grown, even though the snow has now hidden part of it. 

It wasn't always this nice out. Sometimes it got cold.  

(Thermometer shows Fahrenheit) 

What more could I want? I had the swamp to protect me when it was windy, exercise to keep me warm and a fire when I wanted to sit a bit and rest before walking the half mile back out to my car.   

The deer would come in to nibble on the cedar. Hope it helped get them through the winter. 

(This is another trail cam shot.) 

And this is the sort of meal that warmed me up after I got back. This is one of Fred's Famous Bacon Explosions before it went into the oven. It's full of sausage. With a slice of that inside me, I could go back outside in a t-shirt and melt the snow on the driveway from the waves of heat radiating from me.   (Well, almost anyway) 

 And that's my home made maple syrup going on those pancakes. Winter temperatures were no problem at our house.  

...Okay, okay. I agree. I need to show you a couple of deer pictures. It is Opening Day after all.

This is my trail cam set up at my baiting area in the days leading up to hunting season. 

Look who came by one night...

For anyone not familiar with Michigan wildlife, that's a raccoon the buck is trying to intimidate. 

"Hmmm, lets see. Do I want to have a bite to eat or chase that doe?  She's awful cute."

This is a funny picture. It shows the guy who owns the land just east of here. He was clearly wandering across our hunting forty that day and was caught by my trail cam.  I didn't mind at all. He is the first one I called when I decided to sell the land and he immediately told me he wanted it. Gave me the price I asked for it too.  He obviously knew what it was worth. I hope that he is hunting out of my blind. (Next picture) 

My blind is 100 yards away from my baiting area, and raised about 8 feet high on a knoll.  

"I have now completed the construction of my refuge and it seems to be successful."

-excerpt from The Watcher, and originally from The Burrow, by Franz Kafka. 

In this next picture, you see the blind that Fred and I put up not long after Fred began hunting with me. When we showed this masterpiece of engineering to our ladies, they asked if we had fought about how to build it?  "Of course not," we told them. "It almost built itself. What's to fight about?"  

Tall cedars fell to build Fred's blind, the Butchershop its name.

Fred sat among the tree tops there, on patient watch for game.   

Lesser men would hesitate to shoot the gun Fred shot,

Their bodies would be black and blue, but hunter Fred's was not.  

-excerpt from Fred the Great

Well, that's it. I've done enough reminiscing about the old days. I've had an amazing life...

Summer visits to my Grandfather's farm in southern Minnesota, life on Eddy Street and Castile Road in Wakefield, wonderful years in Marquette, and the long years of adulthood in Carney and Wilson.  All the travelling we did. Spain several times, once with Jeanne's Spanish 2 class, the rest of Europe by train for a month, all over the place in the U. S., adventures in Canada, and even once to Viet Nam. (on business thank God) 

And now these wonderful years in New Zealand, living with our daughter and grandsons. It really doesn't get much better. (When I find myself in eternity, I've got a big thank-you to give.) 

I'll be back to showing you New Zealand with the next post. Maybe another visit to La Cigale morning market in Parnell would be nice.  We haven't been there in ages.                -djf

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I almost forgot...I've got another limerick for you. This one boasts a deer hunting theme. Well, sort of.   

On his lone quest through wild woods for deer,

The wise hunter won't give in to fear.

There is simply no way,
Given only one day, 
Those at camp could drink up all that beer.   

And here is another one, but first the back-story. 

I discovered Laphroaig Scotch after reading about it in Proof, a book by Dick Francis. After finishing the story, I vowed that I would find and taste this single-malt. I did and found out how wonderfully smokey it is. I was hooked. Fred was introduced to it and then Mike and Kim came on board. (McKenzie and Jeanne are not scotch drinkers) It became the drink we used each year to toast success during the deer season.  

Laphroaig, the best Islay Scotch Whiskey
rejuvenates folks, makes them frisky.
They look younger, you see,
(If you saw, you'd agree)
With each dram that they sip. Is that risky? 

(If that were really true, then Mike, Kim, Fred and I would look so young we'd get carded when we tried to buy more Laphroaig)