Off to the Cabin

One of the real highlights of every trip to WY is to spend time up at the family cabin. It is out in beautiful country between Sunlight Basin and Cooke City, MT.

There is alot of that great WY open space, with mountains and new country to explore.

Inside there is alot to do for the little kids.

No matter how many times we pick up these blocks, they are always out, always being used.

The big chess set is another popular spot...

The games get pretty good - especially by the end of a long stay.

Down in the TV room there is alot to do, too.

The best part is the outdoors, though. With all the big windows looking out on the meadow and Beartooth Mountains, everyone is drawn to watch constantly for animals to come out.

It used to be that elk, deer, moose, and even bear were regulary spotted. This trip, only one moose was ever seen. Fish-n-Game did tell us that they recently killed 51 wolves up in the area, because they are becoming such an issue... maybe that explains why we haven't seen elk in more than two years...

Anyway, after a nice morning the first day we explored the bench and mountain up above the high-way. There in the old snow was about a quarter-mile of grizzley tracks coming down off the mountain.

The early snow and then warm weather seem to have the bears up and about later than usual...

Up on the bench, the old wood stove is still out in the middle of no where... if only we could get the story on how, why, and what went on here...

... just another WY mystery.

Up on the bench was beautiful - the warm weather was up in the mountains just like it was down in the sage - although when the sun goes down, boy did it cool off!

Here are some more of the bear tracks... paralleled by at least one set of wolf tracks...

... and not a deer or elk track to be found. Hmmm....

Here's a nice view of the cabin and meadow. If you look close, you can see the boys goofing off at the pond.

Maybe the close-up will help.

The pond stayed frozen most of the time - more on that later.







Usually there is a pair of binoculars handy for scanning the edge of the meadow...

Here the kids are training for barrel-racing.

One generation passing along the tips-n-tricks to the next...







... then off to the dining room for more cocoa!

... or dinnner, or whatever. This is the most common room for cards or talking.








A couple of days we had weather blow in on us, but the snow never stayed long or got very deep.

Sure is pretty with the clouds moving along the Beartooths across the gorge...

Some more game playing.


The cabin is a great place for just hanging out, and is a great base-camp for the other activities to come.

Fixing the Van and Raking Leaves for Grandma

Before moving on to more vacation, we made sure to get the van looked at. Turns out we lost a PFE sensor, and cylinders 1, 3, and 5 were completely lost! That explains the extreme loss of power, and the 7 mpg gas guzzling!

Fortunately the Ford dealer got it fixed in a day. Unfortunately we had to go to the dealer, where it cost quite a bit. Oh well - working on those big vans is a real pain - with the motor up inside the cab, etc. $600 was the final bill to fix it - we probably could have done it ourselves and saved $250, but it would have taken 2 days and some busted knuckles.

Now the van is running GREAT, and I've never been so happy to get 12 mpg before! We'll save that $250 just in gas on the return trip home!

While the van was being fixed, we raked up the lillac leaves for Grandma. It was so sunny and warm out, and work always makes a vacation better - especially for others.

The boys were fast with those rakes... must have been the clear, WY air.



In no time, we had the leaves in piles, and the first piles on fire.

The big rake made a great fan for a hotter fire.







All the piles burned quickly and easily. soon, there was nothing but ash.

Good job, boys.

More time with the horses

Even though the deer we shot were alittle smaller than we hoped, it was great to be 'done' with the hunt to better enjoy the vacation.

One of the uncles keeps about 15 horses, so the girls wanted to spend some 'quality' time at the barn.





The girls remembered their favorites from our last visit...

... and they said the horses remembered them, too.







They were nice and friendly.









And big, too!









They got even friendlier with alittle hay...









... and the kids found alot more to play on.









This was a great shot of Heart Mountain and one of the beeves. They had a big herd on the upper pasture - right where the best spots for the deer were.

These big, black beeves were easy to tell apart from the deer, fortunately!

Of Deer, Wheat Fields, and Officers

As we hunted the deer through the wheat fields, we saw alot of deer beds and sign all throughout the fields.

Here you can see one of the bigger beds, where the animals laid, ate, and left 'other' evidence.







There were whole hi-ways through the field where the deer regularly moved through.







We had a couple of Fish-n-Game officers out for the day documenting what we saw. Most of the beds were on the extremities of the wheat, but there were quite a few beds in the wheat as well.

We also jumped a little fork'n horn buck while the officers surveyed the damage.



While we were out there, the combine was working to get in the wheat. It seems pretty late for the grain to still be in the field... but it has been a pretty crazy fall, weather wise.

It isn't likely that the State will compensate for the damage, though... the officer's said that the best 'fix' was to let other people onto the land to shoot more does and fawns... and to offer extended seasons on the deer. Hmmm...


The funny thing is that even after shooting 3 deer and spending the day chasing the deer around the field, they were right back in the 'feed' that evening - right below the house!

Cutting off the horns

With the meat taken care of, we next removed the antlers for hanging in the shop.

The best tool for this is a sawzall with a 9" blade.

This might be alittle gross - so be warned...




The first step is to cut through the hide at the base of the antlers to get to the bone - this ensures the sawz-all makes a straight cut.

We like to cut through the top of the skull - almost like a european mount, but lighter and smaller.





On this one we cut just below the eyes.

Quick and easy.







The only remaining work is to skin the skull.









Now with it skinned, we'll boil it when we get home to remove any remaining "meat".

Cutting up the Deer

We wanted to get the deer cut up as soon as possible - we're going to make all the deer meat into pepperoni sticks, so we just needed to bone it out.

I had a good helper.





The only drawback at Grandma's house is that there wasn't a good place to hang it to skin it yet. So, we just skinned it while on its side.

It went pretty quick, too.





My little helper was eager and all smiles.

Its amazing what a little girl will do to get some time with Dad! Here you can see she did a great job holding up the leg.






After skinning one side and boning out the exposed meat, we flipped it over and finished skinning it.








Here you can see most of the meat and the remaining skeleton.

Almost done!







Here is one of the uncle's deer being ground up for hamburger. He mixed in about 20% beef suete and it tasted great!

Fun on the Range

With the deer hunt over so quickly, we had alot of time to explore and play on the prairie.

The boys went hunting rabbits and shooting alot.

One thing WY has alot of is space...




... and moles... as we drove by a corral, one of the girls exclaimed "Wow - they sure have alot of moles here in WY!"

We all got a good laugh on that one - especially when we told her she has to push all those 'mole hills' down by hand!

The First Day of the Deer Hunt

Now that we made it to Grandma's house, its time to hunt deer! There have been alot of deer out in the alfalfa and wheat fields - we saw almost 50 animals that Sunday night we drove in!

The next morning we loaded up!





This first morning, 2 of us moved up through the small canal toward the 2 waiting uncles. We had does crossing in front of and behind us all morning!

Here's a great 3x4 buck one uncle shot. A group of 12 or more bucks were bedded in the wheat, and headed out past the house on their way to the sage brush. This one was shot near Grandma's house and shop! Nice Buck!

Here is the 2nd buck of the morning. We didn't see the big whitetail bucks that had been on the place...







After the successful morning hunt and excitement, we went into Cody, WY for some supplies.

The weather was beautiful - clear and warm!






About lunchtime, we spotted a couple of animals out in the wheat and went to check them out!

Nothing to shoot at, though...

The boys were eager to get out. We decided to regroup and head back out for an evening hunt...

... and before we could even get to where we wanted to hunt, we caught this dude sneaking back into the wheat fields from the sagebrush!

He's a nice buck! Not really huge, but decent. After the first shot, I looked back at the boys and they were all grins!

The first shot hit him in the lungs, and he was off running for the canal and BLM land. We were in hot-pursuit!

He tried to lie down twice before we finally got him.

Not really heavy antlers, but very pretty and symmetric. My only regret was that we still had 10 days of hunting! We saw alot of nice smaller "shooter" bucks.

A great day of hunting - it was especially good that the boys were along for the fun!

Here you can see the far hillside we first saw and shot him on.

He ran about 400 yards before ending up here.

As we loaded him into the pickup, another beautiful Wyoming sunset closed the day...

...at least for the outside stuff...

The girls were eager to go and see the horses at the barn... so with the animal hanging up, and the blood washed off, we went to see the horses!

Yeah!

Mom spent the day marinating one of the salmon we brought - the one we froze whole.

It was fantastic! Lots of family came and we had a great dinner.

We apologized for only bringing a 'small one' to dinner!

After dinner, all the kids had fun whooping on their older cousins.

A great day of hunting, family, and good food - and vacation had just started!

Road Trip - Off to Wyoming!

We've been in Wyoming for a few weeks to see family and deer hunt... and now we finally have internet to update what we've been doing!

On to the roadtrip!

Here's loading up the gear into the trailer. Lots of stuff - good thing its a big trailer!


We tarp'ed it up well. Two days on the road - want to keep it dry and safe as possible.








The first day was to get to Missoula, MT. There is a great hotel there we stay at - it breaks the trip up nicely.

Finally made it to Wingate on exit #99 !






The van was running very rough by the time we got to Missoula - it was severly lacking power, the transmission seems to be slipping, and the muffler is dropping!

We limped into Missoula and got about 7 miles to the gallon. Ouch! The muffler is staying in there... but we were really worried about the transmission. The van and trailer would only go 50-55 miles per hour - on the flats or down hill! That was definitely the slowest we've ever driven through Montana!

Here's the water park at the Wingate. The kids were in the pool more than 2 hours, and got all their wiggles out.

Very nice on a long, two day trip.






The next day we just hoped and prayed to make it to Wyoming before the van died. Going slowly we had a better appreciation for the nice scenery.

Nothing to do but take pictures...

The weather was great for the trip - thank goodness.



As we got closer to Wyoming, we started seeing more and more wildlife.

Here are the first antelop we spotted.






Here we're finally dropping into WY, and the Bighorn Basin. We made it!