Northwest Podcast

Falconry and Hawk Hunting

2012-02-06T12:19:00.001-08:00

We caught wind of the Oregon Falconers Association's Winter meeting, and had a great time crashing the party.

There were 8 birds there, and alot of great people who love the sport - they were patient and willing to answer all of our crazy questions.

Here is a young red-tail hawk that was trapped 5 days earlier.

The birds were also very cooperative - always willing to show off and pose for the camera!

The group was slow-roasting a pig in a make-shift oven.

Pretty slick idea... we'll have to give this one a try.

Unfortunately, we had to leave before the pig was done. Next time, though.

This was definitely a "hands on" event.

Several groups with larger birds went rabbit hunting, and two birds were successful.

This falcon warmed up easily with so many admirers.

In the afternoon, the highlight was a pigeon derby - one-by-one the birds took to the field and hunted homing pigeons as they were released.

The pigeons were pretty cagey - only 2 of the 8 or 9 released was caught by the raptors. One flew into the crowd in its effor to escape, with this hawk hot on its heels.

Here is the video link of the hunt- the birds were right in among us, and we could almost reach up and grab them! If you dare - they were moving along fast, and pretty serious!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oolovi35Ws

These birds were all business!

A fantastic day - both the birds and the weather were perfect.

New Year, Fewer Posts

2012-02-06T11:57:00.000-08:00

This time of year we should be hovering around the Cowlitz river, waiting for smelt to show up for dipping. However, smelt are no longer 'dip-able' in the Pacific NorthWest, so we've been busy with other things...

We still have lots of trees here in the PNW... so we've been cutting alot of them down to make room for a larger garden.

We've also planted alot of fruit trees, too.

Too many pines and firs!

With the old backhoe fired up, we pulled a few stumps and an old pole, to make room for fruit.

We had a GREAT snowstorm, with lots of sledding, and big snow-ball fights!

Mom and the kids have been baking lots of donuts in the new cookbook she got for Christmas.

These blackberry fritters turned out AWESOME! Good thing they made 36 of them!

Some travel already this year, out to sunny Texas this time.

Beautiful weather, but their drought is bad.

We still have plenty of wet in the PNW...

While in Texas, I made it out to Galviston to see some water. No fishing this trip, but we scouted it out.

With all the donuts, we also made the biggest snow-cone in the PNW.

That didn't last long, either!

Taste the rainbow!

The last few days of nice weather were great to plow the garden up, working in all the leaves from last fall.

We also broke ground on the new garden area cleared of trees.

For projects, we are still using the rawhide, and working out the leather.

We mixed up a batch of Vinegarrete dye by washing off steel wool with acetone, then mixing the wool with Apple cider vinegar. In a few weeks it will be a good, black dye.

The leather has turned out beautiful - a very nice white.

It is dried well, and now we are stretching and breaking it in to be extra soft and supple.

The black dye will look great with blue-glass beads and the white leather...

We won't be posting as frequently these next few weeks, but rest assured there are lots of new projects going on.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-26T11:28:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas from us to you!

Guns on the holiday? Yep - its one of our family traditions each year to get out and keep busy.

No sense sitting around when there are things to do, see, and explore. Traditions make any holiday better.

The night we first put up our Christmas Tree, the kids sleep in the living room with the tree.

Well, most of them sleep, many of them can't. Too excited!

This boy had no trouble knocking off.

Church Christmas programs are another fun way we always celebrate.

Of course there are lots of other projects to do while the kids are off of school, but you've already been watching those.

We have an annual family party together, too.

Grandma loves getting swamped with little kids... and gives them a new ornament every year.

Lots of baking is another tradition - and its not just Mom doing the baking. All the kids do alot of it, making goodies from scratch.

Dad takes care of the testing and volume work...

Barbarian feast is another Christmas holiday favorite - no manners, no utensils, no plates... just lots of good finger food!

This year we added another Tradition that was a BIG hit - one evening each of us picked a song and did an ENERGETIC lipsync to it!

It was a nice chance for the rest of us (boys) who didn't have musical talents to perform at the Talent Show.

Here she is lipsync'ing to her favorite - Harry Connick Jr.

Of course Dad has his work projects, and I have to work hard to keep the kids busy each day with stuff to make their vacation days "meaningful"!

Stacking branches in the winter is a favorite project... for Dad.

Mom gets new puzzles each year, and the kids love working on them and reading.

Lots of reading.

We rent movies for the holiday, too, and on New Years we'll watch Ben Hur or Fiddler on the Roof again.

Making meaningful Traditions is important to us, and valued by the kids.

Of course, the greatest Tradition is celebrating the birth and gift of the Son of God to the world, and all of our family Traditions tie into that greatest event.

Merry Christmas!

Rawhide to Leather

2011-12-26T11:22:00.000-08:00

We decided to make the last two deer hides into leather instead of just rawhide.

Using wood ash was much better at taking off the membranes and hair, though we did leave the hides soaking for almost 3 weeks.

They started to stink, but the hair and fat came off FAST!

After rincing the hide, we have started to pickle them.

The hides are small enough to do in a 5 gal bucket - with 4 gal water we added 2 oz "safety-acid" from VanDyke's Taxidermy, and added 3 lbs salt.

Now the hides are in to soak for at least a week, probably 2.

We have some cool gift ideas for Mom, so stay tuned on how the leather work comes along.

Rawhide Cordage

2011-12-26T11:14:00.001-08:00

The boys are making new bows, and we set out to make new bowstrings and cordage from the recent batch of rawhide.

We took a 10" x 17" piece of rawhide, and using a strip cutter we quickly cut the hide into 1/2" strips.

The strip cutter was invaluable to cut quickly and uniformly.

Wrinkles in the hide made us slow down, but not much.

Round and around, the hide quickly reduced to a pile of strip.

The end.

From that small piece, we cut a strip 21.5 feet long!

We soaked the dry rawhide strip in some rainwater and salt for about a half hour to make it easier to work.

We tied off one end of the strip, and stretched it out while twisting it.

It was easy work and went quick. Careful, though, because a couple of the 'wrinkles' in the strip broke easily.

It worked well to tie the pieces together and stretch it out - in fact after it dried we could hardly feel the bumps.

We stretched and twisted, then tied the hide outside to dry.

It has been really dry this December, so we didn't go out and restretch it.

After a week, we checked the cord, then worked it over a branch to make it more supple and smooth.

Working it back and forth on a wire fence was better - and easier.

After the final workout, the total cord length had grown to almost 30 feet long!

Very cool. It is strong and easy to use. Fun!

Fungus Fight

2011-12-26T11:01:00.000-08:00

The last few years our 'pit' trees have suffered from withered leaves.

Apparently it is caused by a fungus.

The internet is awesome - with Google I could diagnose the root cause, get inputs from strangers all across America, and find several options for fixing it. Oh, and we ordered the chemicals online, too.

Armed with copper sulfate, hydrated lime, and a spray bottle we set out to clear our nectarine and peach trees of their fungal infestation.

The recipe and cost were easy to take. Some care needed to avoid contact.

We sprayed all the trees heavily in December, and will do the same again in Feb and March, just before the new leaves appear.

Obviously the peaches are slow to loose their leaves this year.

The fungiside is easy to see.

Here you can see the withered leaves from summer.

Once the new leaves appear it is too late to treat them for the fungus, so we will hopefully get rid of it before spring.

Too bad a spray won't take care of the other problem the trees face - munching deer.

Busted Backhoe

2011-12-26T10:53:00.001-08:00

It has taken a while to fix the busted hoses on the backhoe steering.

The old fittings were actually a 'quick couple' type fitting - all you need is a length of hose and I can manually make a new hose. Nice to have on hand, though NAPA didn't know what to do with it.

So, we have shiny new compression fittings on the replacement hose.

It turns out the steering hydrolics are on their own circuit, separate from the main hydrolics. That is good.

It took us a while to 'bleed' out the air from the steerage, though, since there are no valves in the steering linkage.

So what we did is elevate the front wheels, and while adding fluid we worked the steering back and forth.

It took about 4 quarts of oil to replace that which was lost, and after about 10 minutes the steering responded quite well.

Messy, though.

While we were working on the steering, we also tackled the dislocated stabilizer.

The pin holding the stabilizer to the hoe was loose, and would damage the back tire often.

Our muscle-man, home before college, gave all the leverage we needed while I pounded the pin into place.

Good to have a strong back helping!

Another son worked the steering so we didn't loose a bit of time.

A Christmas elf also located a new snap-ring to retain the stabilizer pin in place.

With a few prybars and that strong back, we soon had the pin and retention ring in place.

Back in business, just in time for the holidays!

Canned Mushroom Results!

2011-12-05T20:49:00.000-08:00

Back in October we posted about trying to can Chantrelle mushrooms after finding 70# of them.

Well, we are back to report on our results.

They are fantastic! Great texture, and the flavor is awesome - nicely concentrated.

Here they are on a steak sandwich. Yum!

Most of the literature we read warned against canning wild mushrooms, but several folks posted online that they had had good results.

We had good results!

After 2 weeks of frequent usage, we are happy to report no 'side effects.'

The only downside is that with all the freezing temperatures outside, it isn't such a good time to hunt Chantrelles anymore, and we want more!

Oh well... next time we will can a bunch.

Kicked By The MULE

2011-12-05T20:37:00.000-08:00

Ok, too many projects, and not enough "gettin' out."

Our oldest son just picked up his first hunting rifle, and we had a beautiful day on Saturday to get out and sight it in.

Shooting and reloading are very social activities, and in that spirit we invited a friend along.

He brought some fun items! You know its going to be fun shooting when it we have to work hard to make sure all the proper "paperwork" is along for the trip...

There are plenty of available areas to shoot at out in our neck of the woods.

We brought pumpkins along because they make great targets, they explode in a grandious, satisfying way; and we had lots of them when Mom took down all the fall decorations.

Even though the hunting rifle was not bore-sighted, it only took us about 30 rounds to walk the crosshairs up onto the pumpkin at 100 yards.

Quite a few adjustments were required to bring the bullet up, but fortunately no adjustments were needed for windage. That can always be a bit more tricky.

Third world meets First World... and they were really fun together!

The hardest part of the day was finding a stable platform for sighting the rifle in.

With the "work" taken care of, it was time to ride the MULE!

This bad boy was the icing on the cake...

A great day of shooting always is better with a wide variety of calibers.

30 cal really seemed big at first...

One after another... to clear out the brush in the way of the targets.

The bullet here is bigger than the bolt of the weapon!

Some fun competition at 100 yards.

It was tough to see when the handgun hit the target...

... but easy to see the deer rifle's results.

A great time to get out and enjoy the freezing cold. A warm barrel (or hot suppressor!) is a great way to take care of cold trigger-fingers.

Indoor Projects While its Cold Out

2011-12-05T20:29:00.000-08:00

It is cold and dark out, and so this time of year we start messing with indoor projects we've put off all year.

I've been doing alot more with Android application programming, and hardware interfacing.

You can see the mess of wires tying these IOIO hardware boards to the tablet while upgrading firmware...

These are great little boards to use for data collection and interaction with an Android Tablet.

Being so little makes them more fun, but it also makes prototyping more difficult... so this little project will help.

It is nice when projects overlap with some of the things I have to do for work.

Breadboarding or wirewrapping are still my preferred prototyping tools to manage all the interface wires and make sure I get good connections.

A little modification to the board helps keep things neat and manageable. That is important when it comes time to spend DEBUGGING.

Breadboards are cheap enough to drill them for mounting the IOIO boards directly to them.

Looks much nicer, and easier to keep the wires straight, doesn't it?

I soldered double-row header pins to the IOIO board, and then pushed one row down into the breadboard.

Now I can wire directly to the IOIO's pins, or use a jumper (got lots of those) to tie the io pin into the breadboard.

Yeah, not alot to do with the Pacific NorthWest, but the resulting projects will probably end up scattered all across the land!

Wood Heat

2011-12-05T20:25:00.001-08:00

Winter time is a great time for clearing out trees and cutting firewood.

Just before Christmas Holidays is an especially good time so Mom and the girls have plenty of boughs for decoration.

We are taking out 6 or 8 of our trees so we have more light on our garden next year, and to expand the garden, too.

Here is the before shot.

While hauling branches, we noticed a well-used rat hole under the chicken fence.

So...

The boys put in a #110 trap to practice their skills.

It is always exciting and nice to clear out trees.

It opens up the place, makes for more 'usable' land, and gives the kids plenty of 'woodstacking' time.

Seed for Feed

2011-12-05T20:18:00.001-08:00

Chicken Feed is one measure of inflation we use... and in the last 17 months it has gone from $10.32 per 40# bag up to $12.98.

So, we found a local farmer with wheat for sale, and loaded up for feeding the chickens.

The wheat is 'withered' and not good enough for bread, but good enough for old hens.

We got 1400 lbs at $0.08 per pound, which is more than 4x less expensive than the store-bought stuff.

The only problem is thats a lot of feed!

We bucket-bailed it into barrels we had available...

And the barrels filled up quickly!

Then we filled up the empty trash cans we had...

... and soon those were full!

One important way to fight inflation is to have storage capacity when you can find goods on sale at a decent price. Stocking up and storing.

The good news is that the chickens love the feed.

We fired up the old backhoe to lift the last 1/3 of the tote out of the truck, to load into the Garden House.

Just minutes after unloading the grain, the backhoe blew a hydrolic hose for the steering.

Much more feed than we expected, which is nice.

I think we'll end up buying a couple pigs to help with all the feed...

It is great having a robust farming community around in the Pacific NorthWest.

Finishing the Rawhide

2011-11-25T20:39:00.000-08:00

It has been very rainy these last few days; fishing has been poor; mushrooms are too gouey to hunt; we pushed through today to finish the latest deer hides into rawhide.

Along the edges and in patches throughout the hide there are still small stubble of hairs. The torch works well to singe the stragglers off.

We rinsed the hide several times in rainwater, to remove the lime as much as possible.

Each hide took 3 rinsings.

The rinse-water discolored less and less as we soaked it, but the hide still had a soapy feel to it.

After rinsing, we added about 1/3 cup of vinegar to another 4 gallons of water to neutralize the hide.

The vinegar took away the soapy feel of the hide, and made it feel very rubbery.

While the hide drip dried, we built a hot fire and used fence posts with some heavy sheep wire to suspend the hide over the fire for smoking.

We used green cedar boughs to make the fire smoke for the hides.

While the hides smoked, we started decorating for Christmas, and cut a bunch of cedar boughs for decoration.

We smoked 2 deer hides for about 4 hours today while we took care of other chores.

The kids found some of the shaving cream cans that hadn't been used up yesterday.

They left creative decorations around of their own.

After about 3 hours, the hides dried out quickly.

The cedar smoke gave a very nice smell to the rawhide, and will preserve it well from bacteria and rot until we need it.

During that last hour of smoking, the hides turned translucent, too.

Here you can see the darker color of the dry hide on the right.

When the rawhide was done, we trimmed a bunch of 1" and 2" strips off the edges to keep in a container of salt water.

These strips will be ready for small tasks, without us having to first soak the rawhide before we can use it.

Some of these strips still had alot of hair on them, and the torch took it off well. Smelled like branding time on the ranch again!

When the heavy patches of hair burned, it quickly insulated the deeper hair from the heat.

We rubbed the scorched hair on the edge of the table to remove the burnt stubble, and torched it again.

Here's the assortment of strips we'll keep wet and ready for use.

A bunch of salt in the water will help keep the hide from rotting.

On the right is the final rawhide folded up.

The hide shrunk to about half the size of the wet hide after smoking.

The hide weighted about 17 lbs when we started, and now after it is dehair'ed, scraped, and smoked, it weighs only about 4 lbs.

There was still fun throughout the day while the rawhide cooked - including shooting the air cannon.

Dried and folded, we will store it in the garden house.

It isn't good to keep it in plastic, but in paper or other 'breathable' containers it will keep indefinitely.

We hung it up to keep mice and critters from getting interested.

The fence posts and fencing worked great for smoking - the fencing hung onto the wet hides easily and kept them from bunching up.

We laid the posts down to get the last hide closer to the smoke as the day grew old.

And then we went back to the air cannon.

We put in about 3 hours of work on the 2 hides we've completed so far. It would have been quicker in warmer temperatures, but we weren't in too big of a hurry.

It will be really nice to have it on hand for projects now - stay tuned.

Shaving Cream in the Turkey-Bowl

2011-11-24T15:50:00.001-08:00

Festivus has the "airing of grievences", but we have our annual Shaving cream fight.

It amounts to about the same - releasing pent up emotions!

This year we hid the ammo all around the yard. It started out with a scramble!

Before long the white stuff was flying again.

Everyone is pretty good sports with it - and they all expect to get covered, so there is less running and more of the "Thanksgiving Stand-off!"

The dog was busy cleaning up the whipping cream...

... and didn't avoid the shaving cream action.

The stuff was flying faster than a blizzard in Wyoming...

Good clean fun.

Some of those sweatshirts hadn't been cleaned since the last fight...

Our favorite way START to celebrate the Thanksgiving Holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving from us!

Rawhide in the Rain

2011-11-23T21:15:00.001-08:00

Wow. When it rains, it pours.

Grey and rainy for days and days. Winter is setting in.

Rain is good for cutting trees, and scraping rawhide...

We did setup a cover to get out of the worst of it.

We had one day last week when the clouds parted, and took the opportunity to rake up most of our leaves.

We deposited them on the garden, where they are rebuilding soil during the long dark.

After almost 9 days now, the hair is pulling easily from the deerhides.

Time to make more progress.

Scraping hides is much more fun as a team.

The colder air has made the soaking slow, but it has also kept the smell at bay. The hides don't smell bad, or even 'meaty' at all.

The hair pulls off easily, especially in the middle of the hide.

Interestingly, the edges and along the neck of the hide is still difficult to pull the hair - I assume because of the thickness of the hide there?

There are still a few spots where the hair is more stubborn...

We put a bit more time into the hides, and will soak them another day or two.

It is nice that at this point the hides are very forgiving - we can neglect them for weeks if we need to.

The girls built some fun Thanksgiving cookies to help cheer the rainy grey.

They tasted as good as they looked.

The rain did drop the last of the leafy holdovers from their lofty perch.

We have a few more leaves to rake, but they will wait a bit, too.

And alittle sunny light at eventide was welcome, even if short-lived.

Our older daughter also put together a pumkin cheesecake.

This will be a great holiday. We have much to be greatful for.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Rawhide Update

2011-11-18T12:54:00.001-08:00

Stirring the hides this AM, we found that more hair is pulling out easily.

You can see the hides are white from the lime.

They have been soaking for > 4 days in ~45*F. A week at 70*F is best, so are still planning to soak at least another week or two.

I pulled one out anyway to test it.

Here you can see the other fancy tool needed for rawhide - Mr. 2x6.

Patches of the hair pulled out easily.

Carefully scraping with a scraper or draw knife will help keep from gouging the hide.

There are still alot of areas where the hair starts to break off, rather than pull out.

Its starting to look good, but we'll soak it more.

Interestingly, the leg hair doesn't pull at all yet.

The hide is much thinner on the legs, and the hair finer. I would have expected the hair here to lessen first.

Hmmm. Back into the can with it.

Horn Soup

2011-11-18T12:49:00.001-08:00

The kids have been pining for their antlers... so while they are at school, we made horn soup to clean off the extra... "meat".

With the water starting to boil, we added some dishsoap - it really helps loosen the meat.

Helps with the smell, too.

Thats a nice big batch of soup!

Got alittle excited with the knife, and it went in deep.

Superglue sealed it right up, fast!

A year or so ago we picked up 60 or 70 tubes of the stuff on eBay for less than $7.

We use it all the time now, too.

Waterproof, I was able to get back to cutting without missing a beat.

I trimmed most of the 'meat' off, and the dog cleaned up the porch.

Now, Mom is willing to let them in the house where they will dry by the woodstove.

After they dry, the smaller flakes will peel right off.

Now I'll just add a few potatoes to the pot, and dinner is ready too!

Grape Cutting

2011-11-18T12:42:00.000-08:00

The sun peeked out today while cooking horn soup, and so it was a good time to dive into pruning the grapes.

Usually we wait until Feb, but it was so cluttered and shabby, it needed done sooner.

As soon as the leaves are off, the vines are ready to be cut.

We pruned back to just the main vine.

Much tidier and clean looking. Never mind all the leaves in the background...

Interestingly, the vine starts out in the garden house are still green - and they've been dry for weeks while we were out in Wyoming...

The porch is much better looking, too.

All ready for winter.

Hard to believe it was like this just a few weeks ago...

Well, the grapes are green so it was a few months back.

Oh, those good ole summer days...

Drying Shaggy Mane Mushrooms

2011-11-17T10:16:00.001-08:00

Alot of Shaggy Mane mushrooms around lately in the neighborhoods we walk.

They are mild tasting and can become very mushy quickly.

So, we dried a bunch of them, and they turned out great!

Just cutting them up quickly on the dryer board filled it up fast.

The mushrooms shrunk considerably in less than 1 hour of drying.

They are much more durable and usable now, and taste great. The drying helped concerntrate the flavor more.

They are best picked before they start openning up and become 'inky", but even when starting to darken, they taste quite good.

We're using these on soup, eggs, and a casserole.

They are a common, easy to ID, tasty mushroom.

Rawhide!

2011-11-17T09:28:00.000-08:00

One of the best, all around usable items on a place is rawhide. It is even more useful than leather, and so much easier to make.

This time of year we have lots of hides around - deer, elk, even cow hides when we are butchering.

Usually we just get rid of them, but last year we made rawhide, and we used it up so fast, we are keeping all of our deerhides just for that!

Here's what we do.

All of the hides we folded and hung out to dry in the WYoming air, after we scrapped off the biggest chunks of fat and meat.

Don't put more than 5 minutes into the hide. Its that easy!

In wetter climates, I suggest salting the hide before it dries - it will keep bacteria and smell down.

The next step is taking off the hair.

We soaked a hide in Wyoming while hunting in water - in the summer this is usually enough to loosen the hair and make it "slip" or come out easily when pulled.

The cold air slowed the process down in WY - some hair started to pull out, but not much after 3 days. So... we simply dried out the hide again and brought it home. Easy.

The best way of slipping the hair out is to lower the pH of the hide.

We have a bunch of hydrated lime on hand for the garden, so we added a quart of lime to every 15 gallons of water to soak the hides.

They will need to soak a week.

Wood ash or lye can also be used. We haven't tried those because we will be trying to make soap instead.

The only other tool needed is a plastic garbage can or barrel. Easy!

Oh, and a good stick for sturring.

You can see the untreated hides are just fine sitting around. We have left hides sitting for a year with minor damage or rotting. Besides - its just rawhide so if we have to throw it out, no problem.

Here we have 2 hides soaking - you can see the milky water from the lime. Some pink from blood on the hide - no problem!

While they sit this week we stur them as often as we think of it. Good chore for the kids.

Wear rubber gloves or avoid the water though - it will dry your skin.

We also put a bucket on top of the hides to help keep them in the solution instead of floating.

Easy!

After being in this solution for 3 days, the hair is already starting to slip. We can pull pinches of it our without too much trouble.

Stay tuned, we'll soon start scraping the hair off and show more of the process.

Rawhide really is nature's solution to plastic. It is really easy to work with when it is wet - it softens right up. Minimal processing and scraping are needed, and it is very versatile and tough, especially when it dries.

Indians used it for drums and even shields that were reportedly bulletproof (we're going to test that one in the future). It makes the best cordage, and can make custom knife sheaths, containers, and . It can be worked to be more transparent to even work as a replacement pane for a broken window.

Early pioneers used it instead of nails to make carts (google Red River Cart). When it dries out it is tough and durable. Many hungry pioneers also trimmed pieces of it to boil off of their wagons and carts when starving. We don't plan to go that far.

Best of all, you can set it aside for when it is needed. A little salt to keep off smell and bacteria, and a deer hide can fold up and fit in a shoebox for later use.

Wyoming Style

2011-11-14T15:15:00.001-08:00

Those good ol' boys in Wyoming sure know how to take care of animals.

It used to take more than an hour to skin a deer- pulling, tugging, and cutting off the hide a few inches at a time.

This hunt the family showed us a better way.

We hung the deer up by the neck, and just pulled off the hide.

A few cuts around the neck and legs (at the knees), and then we looped the chain around a rock in the cape of the hide.

Pulled right off.

There are lots of videos and pictures on the web showing details on how to do it...

... and now we're all believers.

Slick as pie.

Definitely one of the best new tricks we've learned in a while.

After a quick rinse inside and out, the deer is ready for hanging to chill.

This technique even pulled the hide off the tail.

Weird, but cool.

Deer Hunt 2011

2011-11-14T15:03:00.000-08:00

The main activity of our vacation was deer hunting.

Wyoming is full of deer, and beautiful country. Great people, too.

We had many spectacular morning sunrises...

Many close encounters with wildlife, too.

A herd of elk moved through the ranch... fortunately they didn't stick around.

A few days later a lone calf ran through our hunt - very lost and frantic.

Good thing the kids could tell an elk from a deer...

We also had some fantastic moonrises, too.

The weather was beautiful most of the time. We did get some nice snow early in the hunt, but it never stays long in northern WY.

After many encounters with big deer, the hunting princess got her first buck - a nice spike.

Many lessons were learned this hunt - and a big one was how great it is to get any deer.

She was very excited about this spike, even after missing chances on bigger deer. That is a great lesson.

This dude was keeping an eye out.

Some of the hunt was up in the Sunlight area near Yellowstone.

Much more hunting pressure up there than we've seen ever before, but it was the last 2 days of the month-long hunt.

Not many deer, either , but LOTS of wolves.

We did get into a few deer in the mountains here and there, and even a few nice bucks.

Spending any amount of time in WYomings mountains makes it painfully obvious how few deer and elk are left up high with all the wolves running around.

Hopefully the wolves will leave soon when all the game is gone.

There were still plenty of bucks down low in the flats, though.

Openning morning Dad took this nice 3pt. There were bigger ones around, but with the kids coming later it was better to get one hanging so we could get on with vacation and putting the kids onto deer.

You know your kids are hill-billy when they forget to put on shoes when excited to see Dad's deer... but she'll be one heck of a hunter some day!

Here's another nice buck we spotted at the Taxidermist's place down the road.

The boy took a nice 3pt for his first deer too.

Again, he was very excited and grateful for this one, even after having many shots at much bigger deer.

His valuable lesson? Keep extra ammo in your pocket!

It was a fantastic hunt in beautiful country. Good times and teachings that are priceless.

BBQ After the Hunt

2011-11-14T14:58:00.001-08:00

Part of learning to hunt is learning to take care of the animals we take.

The boys had fun shooting rabbits, so it was important to teach them to cook it well.

Wrapping anything in bacon always helps...

There were fresh grizzly tracks around, so we cooked the game out in the open in the daylight.

No guarrentee against bears, but at least we could see better...

First, the boys practiced building fire in the snow.

Lots of questions about squaw-wood, but they learned quickly.

More lessons on building a spit to cook with, too.

Slowly the fire begain...

Before long, we had to be careful about too much fire!

We also got out a pot to melt snow with, so we could have something to wash down the feast.

Amazing how little water is actually in Wyoming snow.

The rabbit turned out great!

The bacon and lots of salt also helped it out immensely.

Lots of snow gave alittle drink... and it was nice and cool.

Rabbit Hunt

2011-11-14T14:53:00.001-08:00

Another great part of visiting family in Wyoming is the hunting.

Grandma has a real problem with bunnies in her garden, so the boys wanted to help.

We found one old retired rabbit hunter under the powerlines.

It seems like every time we went out for deer hunting, rabbits were running about everywhere.

When the boys went out looking for bunnies, few were around.

We looked high and low...

Lots of practice handling and shooting the old 22.

Deer were everywhere, eager to get into the fields.

We did pick up a couple.

The boys had a great time, and learned how to skin them.

Lots of antelope out, too.

Side Hilling

2011-11-14T14:51:00.001-08:00

Besides helping with the cattle, the snow was great for sledding and snowboarding.

Like a pro...

... sort of...

Roundup

2011-11-14T14:39:00.001-08:00

No postings lately as we've been out on vacation, visiting family.

Our visits to family usually end up in helping with cattle and work around the ranch, which is a great way to spend vacation.

We helped with several roundups - sending cattle off to feedlots.

The first was a beautiful morning. Here the team is off to start up the cattle.

In short order the yearlings were on the move.

In no time the stampede was on!

Of course it didn't go as planned, but we did contain them.

This is what's called a Wyoming standoff...

Soon the beefs were moving into the pens.

A few broke through the blockade and were on the loose, but not for long.

Cattle don't like being loners, and quickly wanted to get into the pen.

Work was much slower paced with the beefs behind bars.

The rest of the effort was weighing, counting, and screening them.

Only 6 of the 280 cows had worrisome issues the buyer didn't want.

Then it was pleasure riding.

A few days later we were back at it.

The trucks hadn't been able to get in (because of the snowstorm) so the cattle had been let out for grass.

It was beautiful out, but only 12*F mid-morning.

After a few minutes in the saddle both riders and horses were warmed up.

The cattle knew the routine this time, and were quite cooperative.

Or maybe they knew the pens were warmer...

The queue grew quickly.

Bullseye was a great ride. I had to be careful with my legs, though, because he is a roping horse and responds quickly to any directions.

He was patient with this dude, too.

Bunched up and on the move.

Everything looks differently...

And finally the trucks showed up.

Move 'em out!

Turf Fight

2011-11-14T14:36:00.001-08:00

The latest change in weather has stirred up the local wildlife.

One morning the dog cornered two BIG coons on our back porch.

The big one almost pounced on the dog, and that would have been bad.

We distracted the dog long enough that the two jumped off the 2nd story porch and made their escape.

Hopefully they kept going.

Good dog!

Quick Burn

2011-10-24T12:01:00.001-07:00

With the kids handling the apple press, we were free to tackle the garden and burn pile.

The pile has been sitting a while, with new limbs on top.

In less time it took to run back and grab a hose, the pile was lit and full blast.

We were hoping to enjoy it all day, but in less than a few hours it was gone!

So, we re-lit some firewood when it got dark..

... and played hide-n-seek in the old corn.

We'd been drinking apple cider all day, but the kids were quick to point out a fire without smore's is only a fire.

So, we got out the mallows.

A great ending to a great fall day.

Apple Squeezin's

2011-10-24T11:54:00.001-07:00

We've waited patiently for the weather and schedule to line up just right for making apple cider.

It all lined up so we quickly got setup.

Conveniently located near the freshest source of apples, we got to it.

The grinder was seriously underpowered, but worked ok.

Grinding the pulp started the juices flowing.

Funny thing is that all the kids were eager to help, and stuck with it.

It was a beautiful fall day, with the grape leaves starting to fade into yellow.

We found about 10# of grapes that hadn't been eaten by the birds.

All the rest of the berries were stripped clean.

We added the grapes to one gallon of cider - it turned out great!

We've been saving containers for a while

The leaves and blue spots in the sky were another highlight.

The younger kids got into the festive celebration with their own party.

Every meal this weekend was accompanied with fresh cider.

We even had some dry ice left over from a church party during the week that gave a nice fizz to the drink.

Getting ready for Halloween - even the Salmon Fillets look spooky!

Lots of sugar in the day makes the meals more lively.

Corn Cobbin'

2011-10-23T18:35:00.001-07:00

The sweet corn we picked last has been drying by the fireplace for a week or so, and was dry enough to start rubbing it off the cob.

Most of them were quickly cleared.

The kids had a suprisingly good time with it - doing much more than we expected with little proding.

After removal from the cob, we dry it on the woodstove.

It also gives it a nice roasted taste.

2011-10-23T18:32:00.000-07:00

With all of the HAM radio projects we want to try, we figured we better get a less expensive radio to mess with.

For $40 we picked up a decent 2 Watt dual-band HT. It is small!

It fits in a tin we found along the road, to keep it from damage in our pockets.

It is pretty easy to work, and not nearly as fun or powerful as the Yaesu HT, but it will do the trick.

And it is a good learning HT for the younger HAM in the family.

While on eBay we also picked up some bluetooth headsets for $3.

This one we tore down to splice into the MIC and Speaker lines, to attach to the HT for remote radio operations.

Stay tuned.

Project Cars

2011-10-23T18:25:00.001-07:00

The younger boys have been having fun with some remote control cars they got.

As with every toy, after a while they started wondering things like "how do we make it go faster?"

One idea we tried was to mix-n-match oversized wheels.

Their other idea was to add a bigger power supply. "If four "AA" batteries at 6 Volts were normal power, why don't we add a single
9 Volt battery and get more power!"

It was a good chance to start teaching them basic electrical principles. Soon, their eyes glazed over and they went back to making oversize tires work.

We brought back another project car over the weekend, too.

This one had to be towed.

We stuck a new 12 Volt battery in it, and started cranking on it. It has been sitting under a tree for 5 years, so we figured we'd have lots of work to do...

But, after alittle work on the throttle cable and carburetor, it fired up! Alittle more coaxing and we kept it running, too!

Happy Day!

The throttle cable needs more work, and alot of work or rebuild of the carb, too.

But, it runs quite well and the boys like just sitting in it.

We drove it around a bit, but didn't stray far from home - that would have jinxed it.

The oversize tires on the RC car worked, but the little motor in it was not powerful enough to see the big performance boost.

Maybe if we put bigger tires on the Camaro...

Getting Back on the Water

2011-10-15T18:52:00.001-07:00

Yeah, its fun to be in the woods, in the garden, and all the other places we roam... but after a while we need to get back on the river.

The crew was all for Sturgeon fishing.

Even the weather broke and agreed to cooperate.

Unfortunately the fish didn't want to cooperate at all.

We only got one bite, but it was a fun one!

It tangled us really good, and for a while we thought we'd have one to take home and show Mom.

Nope - a little too little.

Big smiles, though.

Sturgeon are really weird and cool. The girls had fun checking him out before we released him.

The rough skin is ticklish to bare fishing toes...

The breezy weather looked ideal for sailing, and there were a few out trying it.

A great day, even if the fishing was disappointing.

Canning Chantrelles

2011-10-15T17:41:00.000-07:00

With so many prime mushrooms, we were eager to try new things preserving them.

Several suggestions for canning them (and warnings too!) convinced us we have to try.

We loaded about 8 lbs into the steamer for 20 minutes.

In no time the mushrooms dramatically reduced in size.

We filled the jars, added salt and vinegar, then topped them off with the liquid steamed off them.

We canned them at 12 psi for 40 minutes.

We also took one pint and froze it in the liquid to see how that does for the texture.

Stick around and next month we'll crack them open to see how they turned out. Maybe some cream of mushroom soup?

Grape Overload

2011-10-15T17:36:00.000-07:00

The last grapes on the vine are extremely sweet now.

And LOADED with hornets and fruit flies.

This guy was a late riser - it is still cold out and he is nestled in tight.

Picking the berries is only safe in the cool mornings - and watch out for the hornets sleeping in the clumps.

Here is fresh grapes with the seeds removed and tapioca added.

Some lemon juice and sugar are all that is added.

The skins were removed and blended.

The most important part of a pie is the crust.

The most important part of a crust is that everything is COLD when mixed together!

Here the filling has the blended skins added.

Lots of great tricks in building a pie.

The tinfoil around the edges keeps the edge from burning while baking.

A little cream cheese and its ready to eat.

Getting Ready with the Rifle

2011-10-14T21:49:00.001-07:00

Out hunting for mushrooms, we found alot of Salal berries still ready and waiting.

These are quite good, but the texture is a bit mealy for us.

Jam is our favorite way to eat them, but we want to try using them in Pemmican like the originals did.

It was also a good time in the woods making sure the rifles still hit where we think they will, and getting the boy ready to fill his first tag.

Stay tuned on that one...

Now, if he misses we will know it wasn't the rifle ;-)

Fruit of the Forest

2011-10-14T21:39:00.001-07:00

The fall rains aren't all bad - they bring out all kinds of good stuff in the woods!

After the first rain in Oct, the Shaggy Mane mushrooms have begun showing themselves.

Here is an old one after just a couple days, and a new one. They turn inky fast!

The small ones are the best - and snap right off.

This time of year we all start keeping small paper lunchbags in our pockets for gathering.

A great treat easy to find around suburbs and bark dust.

The shaggy manes only wetted our appetite - lets get out and find the GOOD stuff!

Chantrelles are da' bomb!

Its fun to be out picking, too.

The crew hit the open woods and had a blast.

We found the area had been picked over recently, but there were still plenty for all.

Here is a great couple examples of chantrelles - the white ones are less common and ever better than the yellows.

The best ones hiding out under logs and ferns.

A pretty good load for a fun few hours in the day.

The kids were good sports to try them, but they'd rather just pick them.

All the better!

We have lots of plans for the 50lbs we brought home, so stay tuned.

Of course the first go right into the butter and garlic.

Awesome!

Besides mushrooms, we had pumpkin bread and pumkin cinnamon roles.

Wow - even though its getting colder and darker out, it is still important to keep in shape with all this good food underfoot.

Chantrelles are full of good stuff for you, and taste fantastic. They are an easy one to find and are quite easily to recognize and ID safely.

A real sweet-spot for us here in the wetter part of the Pacific NorthWest!

Solar Options

2011-10-14T21:30:00.001-07:00

There are so many inexpensive options around for powering gadgets by solar energy.

Here is one of our small solar LED keychains that cost less than $1.

We use them so much, they inevitably wear out or bust. They have plenty of usable parts even when broken, though.

Here you can see I've removed the LEDs and bad battery to add a new one and wires tapping into the voltage used to power the LEDs. In sunlight or off the battery the circuit provides several hundred milliAmps at 3.6V. Plenty for whatever we want to power.

Here are various power sources we've used.

Walmart sells the round ones for $2.50 now with 'AA' size batteries useful for recharging USB devices.

The big square one has several batteries and powers Big Foot's eyes...

Of course they work great as advertised, to light up the area and decorate the drive.

Here you can see the small 'spy' video camera keyfob. An $8 video camera that can record more than 4 hours of video can be quite handy.

Here we are using the solar pack to power the video camera. It is nice the solar cell has an on/off switch.

The $2 microcontroller can turn them all on, start recording video, snap a photo, and even run a couple servo motors to pan/tilt the camera. Small and cheap - just waiting to be put out in the field.

So many options are begging for you to hack and reapply. What ideas to you have?

Wildlife Management

2011-10-14T21:24:00.000-07:00

Fall brings a wandering spirit to domestic and wild animals.

Our neighborhood geese are invading! Seems the "great wall of forms" isn't keeping them in.

The sherriff doesn't want to get involved, and we don't want to shoot them as he suggested, so we've come up with other options.

Remember these? We picked up a bunch of these alarms at the Dollar Store.

They are freakin' loud!

You can see our quick camo painting for use during paintball.

Now they are deployed for goose and deer monitoring.

The geese like to get into the shop, so this will deter them and tell the kids to chase them off.

The deer are in after the sweet grapes, too.

This little buck is just a bit too little - if only he was branched, we would take the sherriff's advice and put him in the freezer.

Voice Record-n-Playback

2011-10-14T21:21:00.001-07:00

We picked up a bunch of these on eBay a few years back for cheap - small, "promo" voice recorders for about $2 each.

You might remember us wiring them up to a fishing alarm...

Now we are going to wire them to the HAM radio. The wires are for Ground and Playback. A few more wires and we can record, playback, and tap directly into the Mic and Speaker lines.

Stay tuned...

HAM Control

2011-10-13T14:22:00.000-07:00

Yeah, its been raining outside alot, so we've been inside doing "nerdy" stuff with the kids.

We've quickly learned that HAM radio is all about messing with gadgets, and NOT talking on the air. No one seems to have anything good to rag about!

Here is our HT, talking to the PC to program its frequencies. In between the two we have a breakout box and Bus Pirate, listening to the commands and data passing between the two.

The Bus Pirate is a VERY COOL TOOL! Highly recommended. The HT talks to the PC with simple RS232 at 19.2kbps. The data has is thinking up all kinds of fun projects!

How about a small uController, programming a new freq into the radio, then listenning for a repeater as it steps through all available frequencies. In the end, we dump a table of all repeaters (and their associated CTCSS).

We hooked up an ADC and captured the PTT and Speaker voltages.

Here, you can see the blue PTT line pulled low, and the yellow Speaker voltage shows the repeater key up in response.

Here is the repeater responding with its verbal callsign after we PTT it.

What if we had a $2 uController that pulled the PTT low, then 'listened' for a response on the Speaker line?

Another idea we are soldering up is a cheap voice recorder ($3) into the setup. Using this and a low-cost HT, we could make a simple repeater: the uController listens on the Speaker and when it detects a signal, it activates the voice recorder to record up to 40 seconds of voice. Then, after it senses the signal completed, the uController commands the radio to switch frequencies and then broadcasts the received signal from the recorder. It waits for a response, and repeats what it hears back on the original frequency to the HAM down in the canyon.

What other ideas can you think of? Come on, its raining outside and we need more projects!

Solar Powered Video Camera

2011-10-13T14:18:00.001-07:00

A great item on eBay are these little solar-powered LED flashlights.

We got a bunch for under $1 each, and love them.

The kids no longer are draining the batteries of our other lights.

They are pretty cheap and bust often, but are full of nerd goodies so we find new uses for them.

This one died - battery OVERcharged when left in the car for 4 hot days...

We have lots of spare 'coin' batteries to fix it.

But wait! Remember all those $8 video 'spy' cameras? They both run off a small 3.6V battery... so why not combine the two!

The FIRST solar powered video camera! Smaller than a credit card!

Stay tuned on this one. We will need a separate battery to power the ucontroller to detect the intruder, turn on the camera, then turn on the video mode and pan the camera. We're about done with it, though!

Seaside Visit

2011-10-13T14:15:00.000-07:00

Another Church assignment out to the coast on Sunday,

so of course we spent a few minutes getting out the wiggles on the beach.

It was a nice day, but gray. We saw some pockets of blue sky, but the locals quickly corrected us - "those are sucker spots!"

Great day with great girls.

Girls and a Gun

2011-10-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

Had a great time building a compressed air cannon with some cute girls for a HS Physics class.

It started out small... but we had extra PVC, so why not make it BIG!

It was a lot of fun.

I got to contribute the cool "racing fire" duct tape to really jazz it up...

Then there was the shooting! WAY too fun!

The key was alot of TP for wadding. There were several challenges, but as the girls learned: "Scientists are the philosophers of the natural world... but ENGINEERs make it happen!"

We got it up to 75 psi...

Water Drip Line

2011-10-13T13:02:00.001-07:00

After just a couple of days of drizzle, our water troughs are all filled up!

With so much easy water, our next step is to connect our drip-line that feeds all the blueberries and fruit trees into our trough.

We got a replacement trough plug, and now will attach a fitting for our valve and drip-line.

The goal: setup our water catch system and dripline all of our fruit during the summer with a low-cost, completely hands-free system.

A simple drill tap to fit a 'replacement' hose fitting into the new trough plug.

A little extra heat from the heat gun and some ABS glue, and the fitting is a tight, waterproof success!

We also added some gorilla glue for strength.

Next step is to attach it all up! No rush though - everything is getting plenty of water right now!

New Canning Experiments

2011-10-13T12:44:00.000-07:00

We are at the tail-end of canning this year (phew!) and with a bumper crop of pumpkins, we wanted to try new ways to use and eat them, besides just carving faces.

First experiment was with drying them.

Simple enough to clean out...

We cut them into rings, and took the rind off some of them.

Into the drier them went.

Another fun new idea (for us) was canning dry beans. We have lots of them but don't use them in cooking that often because of the extra prep time they take.

So... with lots of jars, we canned a bunch and now they are ready right out of the bottle!

Here's how the first batch of pumpkin drying turned out.

Amazing how much they reduced without all that water.

That is how I feel after a few days in the Wyoming sun!

Next we plan to cube them and try different ideas.

We bottled black, pinto, and several other types of dry beans.

They turned out fantastic!

This is one of those simple ideas we keep telling ourselves "why didn't we try this sooner!"

Besides drying, we also have been BAKING a bunch of pumpkins. This is by far the best way to use them... and put them into pies!

Face up in the oven worked ok.

Just like canning our own tuna, homemade pumpkin pie built from real pumpkins is much more delicious than store-bought filling. BY FAR!

Baking the punkin's face down seemed to be a much better way to do it.

The meat is moister and more flavorful - almost steamed.

The rind peels off easily, too.

This was a funny year for all the garden and fruit.

We did our last picking of sweetcorn in the middle of October!

All of these ears are now drying by the fire and will eventually be cobbed and then ground up for cornmeal.

Yum!

Harvest time is wonderful anywhere you live, but seems especially sweet here in the great NorthWest.

Chinook Fish Hatchery

2011-09-29T08:49:00.001-07:00

We took the kids out for a church service project 2 weekends back.

It was at a fish hatchery - so that makes it blog-worthy, right?

This hatchery in Chinook, WA was the first one on the west coast - 1890-something. It was in pretty rough shape because of lack of funding.

After 2 hours the 340 or so volunteers wiped the fishrun clean!

It was alot of fun and made a big difference. New smolt are already using it = more fish (fishing!) to come!

Nerd Nodes

2011-09-29T08:46:00.001-07:00

Ok, this one is kinda nerdy, but it has been fun.

In July some of us got our HAM license (Tech level) and with a new TNC modem, I've been goofing around with Airmail - a free app to let me send/receive email with my handheld.

The radio is on the right, TNC under the laptop. Email on the screen.

Pretty cool.

Last Bit of Fishing

2011-09-29T08:42:00.001-07:00

As good as salmon fishing has been, we never quite got enough.

Last day of the regular season was a good day - trolling we picked up a really nice steelhead.

A big silver (coho) was also a bonus, and finally this fat chinooky.

This year was all about new colors - new lures and colors never tried before all did well!

Fish-n-Game openned up the lower Columbia for an extra weekend, and we got a nice afternoon on the river. Alot of fish caught, and we got 2 nice ones, too!

Nice, peaceful, fun day to wrap it all up. Peaceful until we went to the boat launch, but we knew that was coming.

Fish on!

Hornet Trap

2011-09-29T08:39:00.000-07:00

Skinning fish or canning fruit brings in the hornets - bad!

So, a simple trap we use is easy to make and works great.

Over a 5gal bucket, we hang scraps - fish skin works best.

At the bottom of the bucket is water, with a bit of dish soap in it.

The greedy buggers load up on food, and often drop into the water where they quickly drown.

After just an hour or so, the bucket starts to make a dent on the pests.

Canning Season

2011-09-26T14:11:00.001-07:00

When it rains, it pours.

We got a BIG order of produce in from Tri-cities... peaches, pears, tomatoes, peppers, apples, etc.

Just as we started in on it all, the grapes rippened!

Yeah! You can see that many of them split open in the recent rains. Hornets have been thick, too - time to juice them!

The outdoor propane stove is a huge help - extra burners and it keeps the heat and steam outside.

We put out a hornet trap while picking the grapes to keep the pests down.

It worked great. The hornets were so 'drugged' on sugar, they were quite docile.

Alot of the corn from the garden ripened this week, too.

We picked and blanched more than 100 ears, and froze them whole.

Lots of tomatoe soup, salsa, and other pastes were produced and canned.

Six boxes of peaches we bottled and dried.

Very good peaches this year again.

Here's a new one for us - roasted tomatoes.

These are the big 'hit' of the year - blended up or just added on top of everything.

Seasoned and heavy garlic. The whole house smells great!

We eventually tired of the rotten fish smell, and turned on the 'other' hornet deterrent.

Fun to hear the zapper go off periodically...

Very busy around the place... and we always swear off ever canning this much again, until we spend the year eating so well, and then it is all worth the 2 weeks of crazy.

Solar Power Revisited

2011-09-12T12:07:00.001-07:00

Last year we built a custom circuit to charge a car battery off a small solar panel we had.

It worked fine, but consumed alot of power itself.

Now we have simplified the entire circuit with just a by-pass diode: it allows power to flow to the battery from the solar panel, but prevents power travelling from the battery to the panel at night or low-light.

It is working well.

Soon we'll rig the solar panel (in the window) outside and angled for best light in the day.

The battery (for the backhoe) trickle-charges, and also powers our lighting in the garden house at night.

Works great, and simple... the way we like it.

Drain Water Storage

2011-09-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

In prep for putting up a retaining wall back by the boat house, we wanted to do something to collect (and use) all the rainwater.

So, using 2" PVC (soon to be replaced by ABS) we made a simple fitting to capture the rain off the roof, and pipe it underground into a fish trough.

A simple reducer moves the rainwater into a 1/2" poly pipe we buried to keep it out-of-sight.

Remember our potatoe-digging crew? Yep, he's also an A-1 irrigation pipe digger.

The poly pipe travels a few feet back to empty into the trough.

Works nice and easy.

A few weeks ago we buried drip-lines to the berries and trees, and we will soon tap into the trough with some valves to feed those lines off the trough.

The goal is simple - automate the collection and distribution of rainwater as easy and sightly as possible.

Misc Winterizing for Rain

2011-09-12T11:59:00.001-07:00

We sealed alot of asphalt cracks this week, in prep for the eventual rains...

but who wants to read a blog about asphalt cracks?

Here's a better project - hammering arrow heads from nails.

The boys have quiver fulls of arrows, and have been experimenting with flint, shale, and now iron for arrowheads.

Simple to do with a hammer, anvil or hard metal surface, and teenage energy.

They fly well, too.

Garden Update - Beans, Potatoes, and Grapes

2011-09-12T11:46:00.000-07:00

The hot temperatures lately have signaled its time to pick the dry beans.

Most of them are dried nicely.

Last year when the dried ones got wet, they started to sprout, so we picked after several days of dry heat.

These were fun for picking.

In a few weeks they will dry and split open, spilling the beans.

Many of the potatoe plants were ready to harvest, since some of the spuds had started to "emerge."

We have a great spud-picking crew this year.

We harvested 8 of our plants (the ones needing immediate attention) and ended with 46 lbs of nice spuds.

We will wait for the rest of the crew to be out-of-school to dig the rest, so they can have some of the fun.

This week many of the first grapes are sweet!

It will probably be another 2 weeks before we start to pick them so more are ready, but we are all getting excited.

Mom also started ordering installments of the canning foods.

Only a few boxes of peaches, pears, and tomatoes this week so we can pace ourselves!

While we are talking grapes - back early in August we had to prune many of the vines back to keep the cranberries from being overrun... and we attempted to create new vines.

Some of them took! We had alot of success after potting them by keeping them in the bucket with at least 1/2 inch of water at the base - these new starts have vigorous roots already.

What is really interesting is that these vines, clipped from the base growth, first put our new baby grapes before putting out new leaves - just like the new growth on the existing vines.

I expect these vines will be much more robust and productive than the vine starts we created from "end-clippings".

Fall Chinook 2011: Salmon Smack

2011-09-07T10:50:00.000-07:00

Fall fishing this year turned out great. We only fished 5 days this year, but they were fun and action-packed.

Though you can't tell by the sleeping crew...

Pikeminnow fishing also turned out good, though very few of the fish were long enough to be "money fish".

Oh well, there were lots of them and it kept the kids busy at slack tide.

Beach combing was good, though alot more folks camping on the island this year cut back on the good haul.

Nice candle...

The boys had kayaks this year to play with, and put them to good use.

Then of course there was the fishing - it was great!

We limited out almost every day, with nice sized fish.

Every one of our fish had heavy gill net scars...

As usual there were alot of close calls with folks messing up anchoring, pulling their anchors into others, etc.

Not as many boaters this year playing chicken with the big boats... like this dude.

That is WAY too close to stay on anchor! All for a spot... not even a fish!

The usual lures didn't work as well as expected, but we quickly found some that did.

Blues were much better for us this year than in the past.

This one in particular really earned its keep!

Boys don't mind lifting heavy objects alot when they are fish!

Many of our fish were at or near 30 lbs.

The kids caught so many, even Dad got to reel a few in!

It was very fun with the boys running the boat and netting fish more this year.

The crew is really getting the hang of things.

Weather was beautiful for the week we camped. Calm winds and clear skys in the night and AM were new this year, too.

Usually it is cloudy and cold until the sun comes out at noon.

Mosquitoes were a bit more of a problem, and of course hornets.

The hot summer sun felt good - recharging the vitamin D to get ready for back-to-school.

This last picture shows the fire smoke from the central Oregon fires, pulled up into the Columbia River Gorge.

A nice, calm evening to close the year's fall fishing.

Deschutes River Rafting!

2011-09-07T10:41:00.000-07:00

We hit the Deschutes River again above Maupin for another annual trip. The same old veterans were there, along with some newbies!

The weather was great, the river was fast.

With 5 vessels there was plenty of water fights this year.

Those bailing buckets sure came in handy!

We rode the White River shutes again, too.

Alot of drunks and rowdy folks on the river this year. Not as family friendly as years past... maybe because of the fires?

The overlook on the White River was hot and sunny.

This year we only rafted the 1 time, and then drove back to the Mt Hood area so we could camp with a fire.

The Bear Creek Campground was basic, and too close to the highway, but it worked out fine for one night.

We also stopped by Timberline Lodge on our drive back to PDX area. It was beautiful up on top - out of the fog bank.

Rafting the high desert one day, playing in snow the next.

Great fun in the Pacific Northwest.

We stopped by "Calamity Janes" on the drive back too, and enjoyed milk shakes and their ceiling 'art'.

The almond roca shake was awesome, and everyone liked the cinnamon, rootbeer, and raspberry ones, too!

Another great trip.

2011 Tuna Fishing

2011-09-07T10:35:00.001-07:00

This year was a funny year for tuna fishing... at least for us.

We went out on a first trip, and found good water but worked really hard to get fish to bite.

Very few jumpers, but we'd pick up one here and there on the troll.

It did get crazy one time - all of a sudden, 2 of our six rods doubled over - its a double! Then a third rod went down, and a fourth! Hurray!

There were 4 of us in the boat, and then a 5th rod went off. Oh no! I mean, Oh yeah! We tried really hard to get to the 5th fish, but it came off before we could tend to the other 4. We all got our fish, though.

That first trip the water was nice and flat. Beautiful for fishing and casting.

Any trip is good when you take home fish... especially with many of them over 30 lbs!

Our second trip was very different. Beautiful skies, but ROUGH waters!

One of the crew was out the window in the ocean spray way too much.

We ended that trip too soon - just as we were getting into good water. Very expensive $ roller coaster ride.

The local fish monger is also having trouble getting good fish - in fact he said he quit selling tuna because the boats were charging him $3.50/lbs!

Where are the big schools, and how to get them to bite! Oh well, we'll keep trying!

Northwest Noodling

2011-09-07T10:26:00.001-07:00

Maybe it was the summer doldrums... or maybe it was too many episodes of "Swamp People".

The boys were bored, but soon found a solution on what to do that afternoon.

Trough Noodling!

We had released a few "feeder" goldfish in the troughs to keep mosquitoes in check.

The boys discovered the fun of "feeling around" and catching the fish by hand.

The murky water made it more challenging.

Success! Look at the size of that lunker!

Of course they practiced catch-n-release.

Most of the hot day was consumed, and then it was time for some downhill racing.

Bored boys can always find something to occupy themselves, especially when Dad starts looking for work to keep them busy.

Summertime 2011

2011-09-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

Summertime came and went too fast for the blog to keep up with.

Here's a few of our highlights!

We did alot of kayaking around Scappoose Bay this year - great fun exploring and beachcombing in the swamp... especially in the early high water.

We went plunking for steelhead on the Columbia at an infamous boat launch alot, too.

The bite was pretty good, and we caught a turtle, too!

Not as picturesque a place to fish... but effective!

We spent a day watching family bungee jump.

Very fun - especially since we were only watching.

It was an impressive bridge in Amboy, WA.

Some impressive jumps from a 40 year old birthday boy, too.

Of course there was alot of swimming this summer...

And some crazy tubing!

Hang on, dude!

I said "Hang on!"

When the sun came out, the Pacific NorthWest was gorgeous.

Scappoose Bay has a great variety of terrain to explore, with lots of wildlife and space.

We never saw other kayakers in the areas we chose. The seclusion was very nice.

We spent a day in Seaside, OR inside studying (and Passing!) our HAM radio license testing.

When the test was done, we hit the beach for a cool, relaxing wind-down.

More swimming! (and sand-bathing...)

We definitely got our money's worth out of this summer.

Sturgeon at Tongue Point

2011-09-07T09:57:00.001-07:00

We fished the mouth of the Columbia for Sturgeon in July before the close of the fishery.

It started off slow, but then we moved and found a herd of fish grazing and it was lights out!

Six big oversized fish, and 2 big, fat keepers - a double of doubles even!

Here is one of the nice keepers.

We are all big fans of "the other white meat."

50 Mile Hike on the Pacific Crest Trail

2011-08-06T13:40:00.001-07:00

We took a bunch of boy scouts on a 50 mile hike along the PCT.

Originally the plan was to start at Timberline lodge on Mt Hood, but with the extra snow, we started lower and hiked up to the alpine line.

Some boys needed more incentive to get started, so snack bags strategically placed got them running!

Several places to ford rivers. Here we cross the Sandy river.

Of course, we also took the time to soak our feet frequently.

Nice, cold water for hot toes.

Hopefully the good people of Sandy, OR don't have to drain the river because of our sweaty toes...

The mountain above was beautiful.

Another river crossing, heading north on the PCT.

The boys did great.

More trail-side foot care.

With all the steep up and down, toes and heels were tired.

The sausage-n-biscuits were a big hit again.

The sticks made a big difference, allowing the biscuits to bake instead of fry.

Duct tape added miles to soft feet.

The second day we had a stop at Lost Lake to camp.

We put a LED lamp at the south end of the lake... look for it!

Another training tip for the boys - use clothes clips to keep stuff on the line and out of the dirt.

Pancakes with lots of syrup were a big hit - no one ever got tired of them with lots of butter and buttermilk syrup.

The handy tubes worked well for butter, peanut butter, syrup, or mayo.

We also had dutch oven cooking at Lost Lake, and replaced sweaty clothes.

Resupply of food made all the boys smile.

Another great piece of gear - small, disposable toothbrushes.

Eventually the trail led to the Eagle Creek trail - here the boys found Tunnel Falls.

The Eagle Creek trail is always a hit. Beautiful.

On the ride home the boys quickly gobbled up icecream.

And as soon as the ice cream was gone, they passed out.

Kayaking in Scappoose Bay

2011-08-06T13:33:00.001-07:00

The nice weather lately chased us out to the water again.

Fishing has been slower for us, so we spent an afternoon kayaking instead.

The boys did well, and liked the kayaks better than canoes.

We checked out the usual spots...

The water levels in the bay have dropped about 5' from last visit, so we were able to do some beach combing and exploring this trip.

Lots of debris floated up in the woods from high water all winter.

The weather was gorgeous.

Besides beachcombing, we also followed several of the side-channels up deeper into the woods.

Reminded us alot of "swamp people", but we didn't see no gators.

Caught some big snakes, though.

Found lots of old iron in old log floats washed up.

Sure enough, most of it was forgotten out in the yard by the next day.

A fun day - and definitely recommended for a great afternoon adventure in the Pacific NW.

Sturgeon on the Estuary

2011-08-06T13:30:00.000-07:00

We found a day to get out to the lower Columbia River before the fishery closed, and put a few FAT sturgeon in the boat.

Fishing was slow, but when we found the herd's grazing on the bottom it got crazy, fast!

We ended with two keepers, and 6 oversized fish that were 6-7 feet long. A great day!

Hiking Souixon Trail in Washington

2011-06-28T12:53:00.001-07:00

Over the weekend we did a backpack trip with a bunch of other teenage boys. We hiked the Souixon Peak trail, and did almost 23 miles in the 3 days / 2 nights.

Souixon Peak is south of Mt St Helens, just below and east of Yale and Swift reservoirs.

Everyone was eager to leave the vehicles.

The countryside and woods were beautiful.

We were in timber the entire hike.

Most of the trail followed the Souixon creek or Chinoon creek.

The water was beautiful, but no evidence of fish...

At the big falls, we crossed the river on a natural bridge.

Only one boy fell in, and he was wading the river instead of on the log.

Our first camp was at 3400 feet, 8.4 miles later.

It was a dry camp along an unusable road, but was nice and open.

Even after a day of tough hiking, the boys were ready to explore and push logs.

We needed more help with this one...

We climbed the closest peak, and placed a solar LED lamp on top. You can see camp at the clearing in the background.

The camp was a great place to experience the boys with the fine art of food prep. The 2nd day's breakfast was crossoints rolled around sausage links.

We put a layer of wood down in the pot to keep the rolls from frying, then covered the pan on the propane stove to bake them. This first batch didn't bake as well, but no one complained...

We used higher heat on the second batch - and you can see they turned out perfect.

The boys were so eager to eat them they never noticed the camp spices...

They sure turned out good, though.

The second day some of us decided to hike the extra 1-2 miles to get to Souixon Peak.

We quickly ran into snow, and ended up abandoning the trail for the last 100 yard scramble up the hillside.

Once on top of the ridge-back, it was a fun but spooky hike to the summit.

A great hike! Now, we had the tedious job of hiking back to camp, and catching up with the other group on the 8.4 miles down from camp.

Oh well - being on the summit was well worth the sweat.

The cool, cloudy weather was perfect for hiking, but obscured the great views of Mt St Helens, Adams, and Rainier.

Here St Helens peaks out.

The hike back down was long, but at least it was down-hill.

We all enjoyed soaking our feet in the cold water at the log-bridge.

Some boys got a bit nervous on the return crossing...

The second night we camped within a half-mile of the cars.

Everyone was happy to have the work done, and we enjoyed that last night on the mountain.

The last morning broke with clear skys and sun!

A quick hike to the cars and we were done.

Sore and stiff (at least the adults), but smiling.

A great hike and highly recommended.

Crows in the Corn

2011-06-28T12:50:00.001-07:00

Crows have been at the corn lately.

So... we soaked some of last year's corn, and it started to sprout!

Unfortunately it is all "mule corn" - hybrid offspring.

According to the 1881 Maine Farmer's almanac, if you put horsehair (or thread) through a handful of kernels, the crows will eat the corn, then when the thread remains coming out of their beak, they will scratch out their eyes trying to get the thread out.

We'll see. We only tried 3 kernels. Kind of morbid to think of blind crows gathered around the house, but it makes for good bed-time stories for the children...

Roadside Camas!

2011-06-20T10:32:00.001-07:00

On our way out to Silver Falls, we passed a nice farm with a sign on the barn "Native Lilies - Chocolate, Fawn, Camas".

We had to stop!

They were growing very nice 'Grand Camas' - we've never seen them so big!

The Chocolate Lilies were done for the year, and next year's plants were just coming up.

We have tried to grow camas from seeds, but after they initially sprout, they die off.

Regular potting soil, long, deep planters (more than 12" deep), and some sawdust to hold moisture with the plants outdoors seems to be the trick.

We bouight some bulbs - these 5 year old plants were huge! The longest was over 52" long.

Most of the wild plants we've dug were less than 18" tall, with bulbs the size of dimes or quarters.

These bulbs were fist-size.

Alot of seed pods for next year, too.

We planted them where they would get alot of sun at mid-day.

While planting the new lilies, we uncovered a bunch of smaller camas from our seed plantings last year and 2 years ago.

These bulbs never flowered (that we know of) but seem to be thriving. Hurray!

These Grand Camas were beautiful plants.

Hopefully they take to their new home 2 hours north of their birthplace.

Fun!

A New Hike - Silver Falls SP

2011-06-20T10:24:00.001-07:00

The boys all had a prep hike to get ready for this summer's 50-mile hike. They went to hike 8 miles of logging roads.

The girls had a certification hike for church camp, and planned to go to Silver Falls State Park. It was a beautiful hike.

The park is manicured - easy trails and trimmed edges! Very disappointing how 'managed' Oregon has made its scenic places. I guess there is a price to pay ($5 per day!) to use public lands that employ state pensioners.

The many waterfalls were beautiful - the trail was very similar to Eagle Creek along I-82 near Multnomah Falls.

The trail passed behind and under many of the falls. Don't worry - we were well protected with fences, walls, and handrails to save us from ourselves.

The weather for the hike was rain. It was very pleasant and not too cold, though.

And of course it was green.

Another falls...

North falls was the favorite - very impressive.

The cavern behind it was also impressive.

A great hike with alot of great people.

Another Stump Rodeo

2011-06-20T10:14:00.001-07:00

Stumps are great to keep kids busy. Cutting them down, hauling the branches, chipping, splitting and stacking firewood, etc.

The boys like a hard challenge, and pulling a stump is a challenge.

This area was too soft to get the backhoe in, so we put the mule to work on it.

The younger boy got to saddle up the backhoe to pull his stump.

After 2 years down, the stump still put up a good fight.

There was 'real' work for him to do getting the last of the roots out, too.

With this stump out of the way, we can expand the garden again next year.

The mylar tape is doing a great job keeping out the birds this year.

This ones just about out.

After the stump is out and on the burn pile, cleanup went quick.

Sure looks better. Now, to get the other tree, stump, and old pole out of there.

Job security!

2011 Garden

2011-06-20T10:07:00.000-07:00

This year's garden is up and running. We are pleased with how well the beans, potatoes, and even the corn are doing with this cooler weather we've had so far ths spring.

We just got the tire on the backhoe fixed, and so its time for the old stump to come out.

The real benefit of the garden is the work it provides and the excitement it gives to the kids.

Yeah, it is alot of work, but work is good. The kids are seeing this, and enjoying it.

This year's experiment is with our son - he is measuring how quickly his garden plot comes up compared with our family garden. The difference? He planted his in the old chicken coop we aren't using now. The difference is visible - his plants are up sooner and growing noticably faster. Chicken coop "soil" is sweeter!

The devourers have noticed the garden, too. Here are two little bucks snooping under the fruit trees.

The neighbor's horse chased these dudes off fast... right into our pasture.

Our dog chased them off FASTER! Good dog!

The dog didn't chase them off until one of the boys got a good, hard look at those antlers.

The boys are building arrows, buying arrows, and throwing arrows to get ready for this fall's hunt.

It is a great time of year with all the green and growth in a new garden. Just need more sun!

Rescue Tape Test (FAIL)

2011-06-09T10:55:00.001-07:00

I know, it happens all the time. Kids playing with swords, end up cutting Mom's garden hose...

Usually "the tape" can fix it. Not in this case.

Mom really needed the hose, so the boy got to "hold the tape" so that alittle water made it out to Mom.

The hose was almost cut completely.

Looks like a great test for Rescue Tape!

A single layer of duct tape was then wrapped with 3 layers of Rescue T.

Looks good, but not sure about adhesion to the hose.

Well, it failed. Most of the 'fix' held, improving the water yield at the other end by about 80%, but not a real 'fix'.

Oh well...

Fortunately the cut was only about 3 feet from the end, so we simply put on a new fitting and are done.

We're going to make the boy keep holding the old piece of hose for a day to learn to be more careful ;-)

Finally - A Salmon from the River!

2011-06-06T14:32:00.001-07:00

Wow - has it been so long since the sun has been out?

A couple of hot days this week, and out comes the hose for waterfights!

This lady is definitely 'pro' - look at her blast him in the face while completely dodging a full bucket-load of water!

A long piece of heavy plastic is all that is needed for the water slide.

Sleeping on the tramp is another favorite - hurray for summer!

We loaded up the plunking rods to hit the Columbia.

The water on the river is WAY too high for care-free boating... and with all the trees floating down, we decided to fish from the bank for steelhead and salmon.

Most of the action has been from the bank in shallow water anyway (so we hear...).

The sky is blue, and the scotch-broom is in full bloom.

Beautiful day.

We found a 'mutant' bush, too. Very purdy.

We had the best 'action' using tuna balls. The oily meat seems to work great - especially in the shallow, murky waters.

Mom brought the little girls out later and we had a great picnic.

The boys tossed the football most of the day, which left Dad watching the fishing poles.

We had 3 good take-downs. The first two didn't stick very long. We used smaller hooks, and the third take stuck!

Its just a little one, but we were excited to put it on the bank! The first two bites were probably small ones, too, we think.

Great day. When it is nice here in the Pacific NorthWest, you can't beat it anywhere.

Problem is, we've only had 4 nice days so far this year...

Canning Chicken

2011-06-06T14:22:00.000-07:00

Last year we raised a couple dozen 'meat chickens.' It was fun, interesting, and a great experience.

It cost us about $13 per bird to raise them, not including the equipment (feeders, coop, etc) we had to build or buy.

This year we are trying something different. A "manure-less" option...

We bought 6 rotissery chickens from Costco - $4.99 each. Already killed, cleaned, cooked, and still warm.

We removed all the meat, packed it in jars, and made broth from the remains.

Those 6 birds filled 11 Quart jars. We got another 6 + quarts of broth.

Economically this worked out to be about 25% less expensive than the cost of raising our Cornish-Cross birds.

We also decided to test out our new "reusable" canning lids with the chicken, because the meat is greasy and "worst case" testing for the lids.

These reusable lids are great - check them out at http://reusablecanninglids.com

The jars all sealed well. They are about 2-3X more expensive than regular (one-time use) lids, and should pay off over the next few years.

No risk of inflation with these...

The chicken turned out fantastic. Definitely the best way to put up alot of meat for the winter. No mess or effort in having to raise (and butcher) the birds.

Enough Goofing - Lets go FISHING!

2011-06-06T12:11:00.000-07:00

We've been working hard, cutting wood, planting garden, and fixing cars.

The work is great, but we work to PLAY.

A couple of warm days has the kids hitting the sprinkler.

Not sure what he's hoping to accomplish, but it was funny!

With the Columbia flooded so badly, we've been hitting our favorite lakes in the mountains.

Float tubes are working out well.

Even picked up a fat 16" fish from last year. These are becoming more common.

Life is good.

More Solar Options for the Farm

2011-06-06T12:05:00.000-07:00

Besides the solar LED keychains, we've also gotten a few of the landscape LED lamps. Walmart had the cheap ones for as little as $2.50 USD each.

They are great to put out by the chicken coop, the path to the garden house, and all over. They work great as a handy flashlight.

They also seem to be helping the chickens to lay eggs better in the darkness of a Pacific NW spring. We've also noticed that the deer and chicken predators are also put off by the lights. That is good!

Besides all these handy uses there are some valuable 'guts' in the things.

A rechargable 1.2VDC battery, charging circuitry, and light detector (to switch on the light) are also inside - individually these parts would cost way more to buy from digikey.com...

Some of the ideas we've tried successfully: daisy-chaining a few of them together to use as an emergency charger for a cellphone (or USB device).

Two of these together work great to power a small, low-power PIC microcontroller (12F675 works fine) for remote applications.

They are simple and easy to hack - just cut the right wires.

Solar Power for Protection (of the Garden!)

2011-06-06T11:45:00.001-07:00

Less than an hour after the garden was tilled and the first beans planted, a rooster pheasant was in it scratching.

And he wasn't alone! Three deer were moving in.

We've had encounters with "dinner bell grizzlies" hunting in WY, but this is our first encounter with "Rototiller Deer".

We've come up with a low-cost deer deterent.

This is a small, deer detector we got off eBay for < $3 each. When a dog, deer, or kid gets within ~15 feet, it shrieks a loud siren, alerting us (and the dog) that interuders are in the garden.

Very inexpensive, so we can deploy meny of them.

We have a more expensive IR detector that turns on a sprinkler to hit the deer, and it works great, but at over $100 per pop, it is too expensive to cover our large garden. The other draw-back is that we have to leave the hose on all night...

Now - lets see if we can improve this cheap deer detector!

Some of the detectors we added a bright LED to give us a visual warning. Stealth!

To do this, we simply cut both wires connecting to the piezo speaker, and connected up an LED.

Very bright. But wait... there is MORE!

We also have been stocking up on solar powered LED keychain lights. These dudes cost less than $1USD ($0.73 each, including shipping!) on eBay and are great - super bright, and the kids don't drain the batteries.

In other words - they are ready to use when we actually need them! we have them all over the house and in the boat.

So... how do we combine two cheap, useful gadgets into one?

How about using the solar power to charge and run the deer detectors?

Here we've removed the small batteries from the deer detector, and connected power from the solar cell/battery.

You can see the yellow LED light up from reflected motion. Works great... now to make a waterproof enclosure for it.

Back in the Saddle

2011-06-06T11:43:00.000-07:00

Ok, its been a while since posting last... kind of lost interest, and kinda got busy. A great trip to Israel, Hawaii, and lots of work around the place.

The garden is in and growing well, and the grapes are doing GREAT!

We've started fishing (and catching!) again, even with the Columbia River flooding, so its time to start posting again.

More Messing with the Spy Camera

2011-02-07T10:31:00.000-08:00

We've been playing with those cheap video cameras again.

Several of the cameras died... water overdose. So, we removed parts from one and brought the other back from the dead... and it works.

While we were building this Franken-cam, we also added wires to control our creation before turning it loose on humanity.

Yes, we've learned lessons from history. And lessons from fiction!

Here is Franken-cam with his skin on. The top blue-wire is the picture/video button. The top red wires are for turning the camera on/off.

The bottom blue is ground, and the bottom red is power.

Now, we can power a small ucontroller (a PIC12F683) off the camera's battery, and have it turn on the camera, take a photo, take a few minutes of video, and then everything goes back to sleep.

But wait - there's more! The PIC is quite powerful and there is alot of room for more code... so we have the PIC control 2 servo motors (very small ones, too).

Now, when the camera is woken up and after a picture or two, it takes video, and the PIC runs the servo motors to pan and tilt the camera - offering complete access to the entire Pacific NW around it.

The metal brackets on the servos are bent spring steel. Light and strong.

Here is the working camera and its PIC controller. The LED used to tell us it is alive takes more power than the PIC itself.

Now... we have to provide a stronger power supply to run it all - for the servos and so the camera will last for hours.

We have a PIR detector from an old alarm, and soon will have remote animal detection and video (with pan and tilt) at 1-mega pixel for about $20 in parts.

The kids just like to see the thing move with blinky lights. Email us for PIC code or details.

Enough With the Work and Projects - Time to Try Fishing Again

2011-02-07T10:23:00.000-08:00

We've been cooped up too long. A friend got a "hot tip" that the fishing is "red hot" up the Columbia Gorge... and we had to go try it!

We drove forever! Finally, we spotted a boat launch at Mayer State Park (almost to Idaho!) and hit the water. The river looked great!

Only a few other boats out, too, so we had the launch to ourselves.

The water at the launch was shallow, though, so be careful!

We quickly got into fish! A few good shakers had us hopeful for the day.

The sunshine was also a welcome ray - even despite the cold wind.

Having a windshield on the boat is a big plus when the wind is running.

Having hot cocoa is even bigger - cocoa makes any day "the best day ever!"

The water was a cold 40.3*F, and so it seems the fish weren't moving around much. We moved the boat several times and would catch shakers, but after a while the fishing died off.

So... we pulled up and launched in Cascade Locks. It was a nice launch, but a little tight for the long truck-n-boat. A very nice place, though, and it was fun running the swift current in the old locks channel.

Alot of boats above Thunder Island in hog lines. We found our spot, and did everything right... except catch fish.

It seems that what few fish were caught were all keepers, so we were hopeful.

Finally, we moved, and lightning struck - we got a nice keeper in the boat.

Only one keeper, and alot of miles on the truck, but when the weather is so nice, the scenery beautiful, and the cocoa warm... what else could beat this?

This time of year we are always a "sucker" for a long road trip... any excuse to get out. Not alot to show for it, but it was a great time.

Easy Sealing for Mylar Bags

2011-02-07T10:16:00.001-08:00

Years ago, we got a box of mylar bags very cheap. A friend at church has an old sealer, and the bags have worked well for rice when we've bought the big bags at Costco.

On Youtube, there are alot of videos showing how to seal the bags using a clothes iron, so we thought we'd give it a shot.

Pretty simple using a long metal clamp on the countertop.

With the iron at the highest NON-Steam setting, we simply ran a seal along the edge of the bag. We tested it with Mom's towel inside to see if it would be air-tight.

Even with a sloppy first seal, the bag seemed to hold air...

So... we dunked it in the trough.

No bubbles, that is good!

Brrr... cold water - that is bad!

We've got some bags of White Wheat that we'll soon seal up in the smaller mylar bags for longer storage.

Mylar bags are still cheap, as are the oxygen packets that keep the air out.

Now hopefully we'll have a rainy day soon to keep the kids indoors to help with the wheat...

More Fun In Tillamook

2011-02-07T09:37:00.000-08:00

Family got together in Tillamook for a weekend, and it was a great weekend!

We stopped with the crew at the footbridge above the Wilson River. Alot of folks fishing the river, and the water looked great.

Didn't see alot of catching, though.

The waterfall across the highway was also worth the short hike.

Stops like this on a long drive are always fun, and break up the trip. There are always great stops to see along any trip here in the Pacific NW.

Most of our time with family was wandering the woods above Netarts bay. The weather was gray, but it was warm and dry.

We found ALOT of salamanders. They were very friendly, and liked being handled with all the warm hands.

In fact, they got rather clingy, and wanted to sneak home with us.

We found some huge old-growth stumps still in the woods. These dudes were big!

Many of them still sport the old spring-board notches, too.

It is fun to find them, but adds a bit of sadness in their reminder of what this country used to be.

We took the new guns, and they were another big hit.

The kids are getting pretty quick with setup and servicing the weapons, too. The best part is their safe behavior.

It is nice to put a couple teenagers in charge and have everything and everyone safe.

We recovered a couple of the old rounds. Digging bullets is as fun for a 12 year old as shooting can be.

Some of the salamanders were very small!

Small animals, big stumps.

And big egos?

On leaving the woods, we spotted a number of clammers out in the low tide.

With new fishing licenses in our pockets, we thought we'd check it out. Everyone was digging Cockles. A few tips and pointers from the friendly folks, and we soon were digging our own, too.

Cockles are definitely the easiest clams we've dug - they aren't deep at all.

Some of them were sitting on top of the sand, too.

We boiled them, cleaned out the sand, and quickly ate them. They were very good - not as good as the razors, but they were eaten in no time.

And the little girls pointed out they have nicer shells to keep forever.

Another great trip. Not bad for January!

The Kids Can Shoot

2011-02-07T09:28:00.000-08:00

We got a couple of new guns, and wanted to get out to try them out. The kids were excited to shoot, and we took along some friends that hadn't ever shot before.

We got a new .22 rifle - a Henry "US Survival" .22 that disassembles and stores in the plastic stock. It is waterproof and even floats!

A very cool rifle, and it shoots well - it was a big hit!

Everyone did well shooting the .22 pistols, too.

Lots of big smiles.

The boy's smiles got even bigger when we pulled out the new 9mm carbine. Cabela's had this on sale last month for only $200, and we couldn't resist.

This is a shooter! The weapon handles really easy - its heavy, but with little kick, it is just like shooting an Airsoft BB gun. The peep sites work well, and everyone was effective at hitting the target out to about 80 yds. The best part is that 9mm ammo is pretty cheap.

It made even the newest shooter feel like Rambo - like they could hit anything and were invincible!

One of the most important points in teaching kids gun safety is to help them be comfortable and in control of the weapon. The other part is to teach them respect for them. Watching targets fly and water bottles burst helps them "get it".

Lots of good, safe places to shoot in the mountains, too.

Alot of Everything - Lets Get Outside!

2011-02-07T09:14:00.000-08:00

So many little adventures around the place these dark days. Even in the rain and dreary cloudcover, there is much to do and enjoy in the Pacific NorthWest.

Our neighbor took the plunge, and bought some geese! They are very friendly - too friendly in fact for our 3-year old...

The geese seem to prefer our home to that of the neighbors, but at least they go home easily. fun!

The latest science project with the kids is figuring out how to create a remote-control for fireworks. That way we can launch them from the WA side of the river, where they allow fireworks, and where they are much better.

Here is the latest favorite option - a low-value resistor wrapped to a matchhead. Pass 12V and about 100W and the resistor heats, then lights, the matchhead. Too much current and the resistor breaks before it lights.

This week we caught our first squirrel in the live-trap by the chicken coop.

This time of year there is a big-momma squirrel that hangs out on our back porch, sneaking food. Now, she has at least 2 younger ones that haven't learned the proper places for handouts.

This one was pretty agitated. He never looked back when we openned up the trap... at least until he was back at the top of the tree - then he chewed us out!

The hens have been laying really well lately (thanks to the light on in the hen house 24/7) and it was time for an update to the straw.

The goat was sold a few weeks ago, so we didn't need the hay to feed it, and the chickens got it.

The goat? She is off at a friends house until the spring - we ran out of blackberries to keep her fed.

At the first break in the rain of Feb is when we start pruning the fruit trees. The grapes are already done... and we lit into the apple tree.

Having a tall ladder makes it much easier. Having a tall teenager is even better!

We also put up the old windmill frame at the far edge of the garden. This summer, we'll run electrical power to it, with lights and speakers so the kids can enjoy weeding the garden with music!

They don't seem to appreciate it yet, but they will...

It is great to get out of the house, and start gearing up for spring.

Food Storage Update - A Visit to the Cannery

2011-02-07T09:00:00.000-08:00

We've been really busy the last few weeks, though the blog hasn't been reflecting that. Lots of fun, thought we'd share the latest.

With threats of inflation, we decided it was time to stock up again on food. Most communities have a cannery available to the public that is owned and operated (by volunteers) by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It is a great facility with good deals on quality food.

We had alot of help from the volunteers already there, and were done packing our food and orders of others in less than an hour.

The #10 cans seem to work the best -better than the mylar bags for storage long-term (30+ years!).

Here are some of the beans...

Alot of food and materials on-hand in the cannery.

The volunteers there commmented on how prices have gone up 3 times since the beginning of the year. They are expecting more increase again soon. Cocoa was up 30% in the last 6 weeks! Ouch!

It was a great day, and we got home just before the freezing rain hit for 3 days.

It is always a good feeling when bad weather hits, knowing we have something on-hand for all those hungry mouths.

Lets break out the cocoa!

New Year's Day Hike

2011-01-02T11:21:00.001-08:00

New Years Day dawned bright and cold!

Lets get out of the house! We took a fun hike along the Columbia river on train tracks with the whole team.

Lots of fun junk to find and collect... at least for a while, then the weight of it sunk in and it was discarded (fortunately) back where it came from.

Plenty of ice to throw rocks at, too.

After a mile or so of swamp land, we hit the rocky cliffs for some variety.

Pretty good current running again in the stream.

Alot of water and ice coming down the rock face.

We had to take care not to linger by the rocks... quite a few were falling.

The icicles were a big hit.

Just the right size for swords... even if they didn't last long in battle.

We found this little buck dead along the tracks.

It looks like he either fell from the cliff, or this rock fell onto him and killed him. No signs of trama, dragging, or other indications of how he died.

One set of tracks very deep in the mud. His head was mashed under the rock.

Both his little antlers were busted off by the rock.

We only found the one - the other was probably under the rock.

Several neat waterfalls, with frozen decorations.

This was the biggest and favorite.

On the eastern side of the mountain, the sun went down quickly and cast a beautiful, if cold, hue across the river.

Many geese were reluctant to leave the shallows of the river to flee into the current...

Someone's old fishcamp along the river was holding up pretty well... we left it alone, because nothing every good was left behind at fishcamp.

It was a great way to get out of the house and start the new year off exploring more of this beautiful Pacific NorthWest.

Slowing Down the Goat

2011-01-02T11:18:00.001-08:00

All the fireworks on New Years Eve freaked out the goat, and she drug her 45# cannon ball through the pasture, under the fence, and into the garage, where she ate our Samoan Creme Pie!

Bad goat!

We needed something more difficult to drag...

So we tethered her to a concrete block.

Not as heavy, but not as easy to drag as the cannonball... at least for now.

In about a week, when she realizes she can drag this one, we'll have to put the cannonball AND the block on the chain...

They've Kept Portland Weird

2011-01-02T11:11:00.001-08:00

With all the dark, dreary, and rainy days this Christmas Vacation, there haven't been many outdoors things to do...

So, we went downtown, and had donuts and visited Powell's.

Is there always a line outside in the rain at Voodoo? Every time we went there was...

The kids quickly found the donut they wanted...

They they tasted the salty, greasy icing on it and left it alone.

The glass was covered with smudges of their little faces pressed up to the glass.

Lots of fun donuts, and some very good ones. Of course we had the bacon maple bars... they were good.

We grabbed our loot and ran back to the van.

A bunch of weirdos, carrying pink boxes...

The peanut-butter crunch, mango, and grape donuts were the most favorite ones.

The voodoo dolls were the most graphic...

And then after washing off all the sticky fingers, we went and wandered Powell's World of Books.

A great day in downtown, and "educational" too!

Some Videos of the EL Target and RocketCAM

2011-01-01T21:43:00.000-08:00

Here is the toy rocket launched with cameras on it. This one turned out pretty good- especially with the slow motion.

Illuminated Target Using EL Wire

2010-12-31T19:08:00.000-08:00

Here is a fun project - creating an illuminated target for shooting.

The darkness of this time of year needs more illuminated projects. Now, rain or shine, darkness or grayness, we can go out back and shoot!

First, simply create a simple sillouette target on thin wood or cardboard.

We are using 2mm EL wire - some cool plastic coated phosphorous wire that lights up with power!

At one end of the target, punch a hole and feed all the EL wire through.

Now, we simply tape or stable the EL wire around the sillouette's outline.

Here is the target, completed.

Here is how it looks in the dark. Cool!

We put some LEDs behind the target, so when we hit the cardboard, we can see the holes light up.

EL wire is very cheap - we got some 7.5 feet long wire with the power converter on ebay for only $3. So many fun things to do with this stuff!

Next we might make a TRON suit for Grandma!

Rocket Camera!

2010-12-31T19:05:00.001-08:00

One of us got a cool, simple air-powered rocket for Christmas...

So of course we had to attach a video camera to it and shoot it off!

Here is the simple rocket, with one of the cheap ($8) video cameras taped to it.

Here are the rocket scientists, ready to launch.

Of course, we didn't get dramatic heights, but we got some great footage.

Stay tuned - we'll post some of the video soon!