Deer season shot.

November 27, 2006 (12:49pm)
40º F, Drippy clouds, N wind 11 mph.

Good afternoon,

Another deer season is in the record books! Not too sure what the total harvest is, but I don’t think it was anywhere near what was hoped. There are 1.7 million deer in the woods and they were joined by about 600,000 hunters. I think the goal was to harvest at least 500,000 deer. I really have not heard of anyone really bragging about their results around here. A couple of guys from church said it was a scarce season for even seeing deer. Not only does the lack of snow cut way down on the sight lines, but the warm weather causes the deer to just lay down and the color of the woods really hides them. During the opening weekend, there were no gun related accidents, other than one gal had a minor self-inflicted wound. There were three deaths the opening weekend, but they were due to heart attacks. Since opening weekend there have been only three gun related accidents, making it one of the safest hunting seasons on record. That is the best part, but I am fearful of a lot of deer starving this winter - if we ever really get some snow that stays around.

The weather is really not nice today - or what was predicted. We were supposed to have a few sprinkles over night, then the sun come out and warm things up to the near 50º F mark this afternoon. Not sure that will happen. The sprinkles didn’t come last night, only the clouds and fog this morning. The rain did come - just about the time I decided to go outside and accomplish something. So much for that idea. I really don’t like to mess around in wet clay soil that sticks to everything - mostly me. We are suppose to have rain most of the rest of the day, off and on, then it will get more serious about it tomorrow. Oh well.

Margriet’s apple flip wasn’t any flop. Tasted pretty good and others at church said the same. Most of it was gone when we left, so told one of the widows to take it home and if she happened to see another member who is not doing all that well, to drop some off for him too. She lives a short distance from him. There was more than enough apple stuff for everyone at church yesterday. We ate too much and decided not to stop for lunch. All was really good that I had, other than one piece of something I really didn’t care for - peanut butter and raw apples don’t go well together for me. I ate it anyway.

The church is sponsoring a "holiday dinner" on Saturday, so we decided to roast a turkey for it. There was only one other who signed up to do that and another person signed up to bake a ham. That isn’t enough. After thinking about the turkey bit, decided to pick up a couple of turkey breasts and roast them instead. After they cool we will slice them and make some gravy. We will heat it up before taking it to church Saturday morning. Wonder if we should make a pan of stuffing too? The bones left after carving will make some good soup stock for us. I am sure we will be there again this year to help serve and cleanup as usual for us.

On the return from church, I was noticing that the farmers have almost all of their corn harvested and fields plowed. They should not have too many complaints about either, but probably can find something to complain about. The countryside, from a farmer’s viewpoint, really looks pretty good. There are huge piles of bailed hay and big white plastic tubes of corn silage near their barns for the winter. Wonder if they will use it all or are planning to sell some of the hay. The stacks look way too big for each of them to use in a season. The boat launching docks have been out of the water now for sometime, but there are still a few fishermen going out on Lake Michigan to fish. This is very late in the season for that. I haven’t seen any golfers at Alaska, but the TV is showing some out in Green Bay and the Appleton area.

Time to get a-going.

In Christ My Saviour,

Chris <><