Reluctantly Returning From Moose Hunting

This is the view from the vantage point where my hunting party spots moose. It is my favorite place in the world. I look forward to moose hunting more than any other time of the year. But I no longer care if I'm the one shooting the moose, I go for the long autumn days above this incredible valley. For the last 12 to 14 years I have spend from 10 days to 2 weeks in moose hunting camp. However this year, for the first time in a long time, my supervisor was not accommodating, and I was only able to spend six days in camp. I feel cheated and angry for the loss of my healing week in the wild. It was completely avoidable if others did their work in a timely fashion.  

About the Foxes...

In an earlier post I suggested that foxes were the likely preditors of my daughter's chickens. Well, maybe. But this weekend I was looking around in the woods 20 yards east of my garage at found what appears to be relatively fresh bear scat. I'm guessing a black bear by the size. Also there were no little bells in it and it didn't smell like pepper spray.

Kenai River Reds

I did my usual 2 weeks on the Kenai River fishing for Reds. It was a record breaking year for the red run. I limited every single day with my fly rod, usually in less than an hour, even after they raised the limit to 6 fish daily. Family and friends were equally successful dip netting at the mouth of the river. I probably filleted 120 fish in the 2 weeks. I broke 2 cheap flyrods and stripped the drag out of  2 equally cheap reels. So I finally invested in better equipment. I lot of sticker shock! I did a lot of sitting around in the sunshine with my old dog sleeping at my feet.

Getting ready for Dipnetting

Foxes

Recently we seem to be having a bit of a fox infestation. My sister has been steadily losing chickens to a fox or pair of foxes. She and her family have seen fox/foxes casing the joint but so far have not been able to remedy the situation. Over at Trippingovermoose Ranch my daughter lost two chickens at the same time. Even though we didn't actually see the culprits I suspect a pair of foxes.

This morning, while driving to work, I saw a young fox in the road ahead. He was hunting the road edge until I got about 75 yards away. He looked up at me gave a little jump into the air and scampered across the road and into the brush. Except for the whitetip of his tail he was completely black in color. I've seen a lot of different color phases before but this was a first. Very striking.

Chickens In The Rhubarb

My old dog.

Above Freezing

When I got home from work and took the dog for a walk it was slightly above freezing. I didn't need my Russian beaver hat. So I wore my, recently acquired, favorite baseball cap.

Katherine June Hale

February 28, 1955 to September 16, 2008

Kiska

The end of the line...

I picked her out of a litter of puppies almost 15 years ago
because she was the only one with the pale blue eyes.

R.I.P.

Unsettling

The tricks your mind plays on you...

Dozens of times in the last couple of years I have glimpsed a face, or a blond head of hair, in a grocery store  or through the windshield of an oncoming car on a neighborhood street. Just for the tiniest micro second I see Kate. The blast of adrenalin feels like a thump to my chest. My mind goes, "Oh my God it's her!" to "No that's not her." to "You ass, she's not missing, she's dead. You were with her, she's not coming back!" The first year it happened a lot. Now, not as much thankfully. Because when it does happen it puts me into a spin that lasts for hours or sometimes days. Today was a bad one.

You'd be surprised how many middle aged, blond women wear yellow coats similar to the coat that Kate wore a lot the last couple years. In Wal-Mart this afternoon I came around a corner and a blond woman was standing  before me with her back to me wearing the coat. I got caught completely off guard because it's been weeks or maybe months since this has happened. The adrenalin rushed, my heart missed a beat and although I could hear one voice in my head saying it wasn't her, I slammed to a stop and stared at the woman. Another voice in my head was saying "Please be her." She turned her head so that I could see her face and it wasn't my Kate. It's never going to be Kate. I wonder how long before I stop reacting to women in yellow coats like this one.

First Snowfall

This year's neighbors.
We had the first significant snow fall yesterday, about 3 inches of very wet snow that has covered everything with a crunchy coat of "icy snow crystals". I took the dogs for a walk after daylight arrived and saw tracks in the driveway from the cow and calf that have taken up residence here this fall. The last time I saw them they wandered through the front yard in the evening while all the chickens, ducks, dogs and 5 people were standing around. The young cow was unconcerned about all of us, and her calf was only a little skittish. When my daughter's wiener dog stupidly charged him barking, the baby bull moose tried to stomp the wiener dog. He nearly got him too! I was thawing out the cars after the dog walk this morning when the moose walked through the yard with me and all the running vehicles. I zoomed in on the calf to get a shot of his antler bumps.