Going out to the CABIN

I'd rather go to my cabin here in northern Alberta, Canada, than any other place in the world, including Hawaii.

2009 visits to the cabin

Trip #5:

Monday, June 22: Got to the cabin mid-afternoon. The field next to mine on the south side, for the full mile, must have had a thousand bison on it. They seemed to be everywhere. Sorry, no luck making a decent panorama picture.

NOTE: this picture is 5000 pixels wide! You will need to scroll horizontally for it!

Tuesday: I got up at 5:30 and saw one Whitetail buck 250 yards away feeding in my field and another 150 yards north of the cabin in my park.

It was only 8C outside and I got the stove going. We took a very long run north with the Argo and checked out a lot of willowy places. Picking was very slim. In one area, I felt sure I'd never been there before.......... until I found a very nice Rail with one of my old ribbons on it.

Thursday: rain overnight but I fear that for farmers, it it Too Little; Too Late. Up at 7:40 and there was a buck Muledeer in the field.

Friday: More rain overnight. Cool and windy. It rained off and on all day. Beno noticed a Flicker on my lawn so I took a few pictures of it.

Saturday: Up at 6:40 whent the driveway alarm went off; nobody there; must have been a bird. Darn! The bison in the field next to mine are slowly, like clouds, drifting around that field, which measures one mile by one mile. Huge bulls lumbering along and cows with small, brown calves running ahead of them. I don't doubt that there are now well over 1,000 bison there.

When John saw all that, he asked, "Do you have an instruction manual for all that?!"

Monday, June 29: A clear day to start, breezy and about 7C outside. Up at 5:30. One Whitetail buck around the cabin with two smaller ones.

John arrived around 9 so we boosted the Argo to start it and then went about 2 miles north to my favorite spot for Rails. We had no trouble finding a load and it weighed the Argo down big time.

In the evening Marie and I checked out the beaverdam close to the cabin and cut two little holes in it to let at least a little bit of the water out. I wish they would move; already they have chewed down three poplar trees again. What a mess!

Tuesday; I made a willow bow and arrows so if another bison comes near, I'll use that on him. I set up the solar cooker to try heating water; not great success:

In one of the books I just read, I got an idea for protecting the garden from rabbits and such; maybe deer too: push some mothballs into the ground, slightly. In another book I got the idea for cooking potato: slice the potatoes thin, heat some oil very hot, make a batter of flour, water, baking powder, salt and mustard, coat the potato slices and deep fry them. Not half bad. John tells us that the next few days will be rainy too so we will go home in the morning. I went to hang up a bit more chicken wire on the birch beside the cabin, to protect it from the sapsucker. Unfortunately, there was a bat hanging behind the ladder and I hurt him. I picked him up and moved him to the bat house where he took hold of the screen and eventually climbed up into that house; there are two bats in there now. Mid-afternoon, we noted a pickup truck on the road south of us and a lot of yelling; we assumed there were some drunks; a rare occurrance. A bit later I noted that nearly all the bison were gone. At least, I could see only a very few. Later John explained that the bison had been moved across the road, west, to the next field which had some feed. Apparently, the bison know that if a gate is being opened, new areas of feeding are being offered. Late in the evening, I noted a huge bull bison 200 yards from the cabin. Eventually it lay down to rest.

Wednesday: More rain overnight. The bison bull is still there; he eventually got up for breakfast and as I type this, he is feeding 210 yards east of me, with a deer near him.

I am concerned that after we leave this morning, he may come to the cabin and damage the yard again. But I sure do not need meat so am not in the mood to shoot him. There was one more mouse in one of the 15 traps. Only about the 3rd one this year so far.

Trip #4:

The fourth trip to the cabin in 2009. The second trip was not a great success as far as stick-hunting went. It was cold and threatening rain so we went back to the city early, after 10 days. There has been so much in the news of late about the USA's "AirForce One" flying over the Statue of Liberty for a photo op, and causing panic in the streets that I thought it would be nice to invite Air Force One to visit at the cabin for a real Photo Op. So this is what we got:

It is always so nice to get out of town and all the frustrations. Lately I've had a terrible run-around with Travelocity. I had booked a Mexico vacation and then the Drug War there go out of hand, followed by the Swine Flu etc so I told them to cancel. But I had paid the $2,600+ cost so getting that back turned out to be virtually impossible. They are TERRIBLE to deal with as I explained on my website at http://www.sticksite.com/travelocity.html.

One very neat thing that happened was that John Gilbertson in MN was kind enough to want to SHARE his findings with the world so he snail-mailed me a CD with a lot of super photos, a letter and a wood template for a cane handle. THANK YOU, John! I've put the whole story at my new page at http://www.sticksite.com/cane_making/index.html.

That page resulted in my idea to sell bundles of Diamond Willow Sticks specifically for canes and that page now lives at http://www.sticksite.com/cane-sticks/.

ANOTHER neat thing was that literally hours after returning from the cabin, Dyle and Nancy from Glenwood, Iowa dropped in. Dyle had printed out and put into a binder much of my website. They were on their way to Alaska and stopped in to pick up a few Diamond Willow Sticks. Dyle is Mayor of Glenwood. It was really neat to meet them and I hope they have a super vacation.

YET ANOTHER neat thing that happened was that my friend Ted Cardelli and his wife came all the way from Montana for a load of sticks. It was very nice to meet them.

If that was not enough, I had a good chance to finally get some good pictures of Bohemian Waxwings and learn how to tell that beautiful bird from the Cedar Waxwing. That meant some updates (still to be made) on my BIRDS website at http://www.sticksite.com/birds/.

Thursday, June 4: we got to the cabin shortly before noon; the first thing I noticed was that my field had *not* been worked. Too bad; no crop this year. The second thing was that the young moose is still stuck in the bison pasture. I hung on the wall a copy of an old auction poster:

We ran the Argo north a mile or more and went to where my maps said there were some sticks. We did find some but no good DW sticks; only Scout Sticks and a few Rails. We did notice several particularly nice "Huge" ones so I am keeping maps of where to find those; so far, I have located and mapped 9 Huge ones.

Friday: After lunch we went north again by Argo to get some sticks. One of them, a Rail, might come very close to being the most fantastic piece of Diamond Willow I ever found. I believe I might keep this one forever. Took a pic of the big birch tree in order to, maybe use it on a website to sell birch sticks:

Sunday: again, a frosty morning. Thermometer at 6:30 AM was at about 1 degree C. In the pasture where the moose is stuck, there is now also a bison. I presume he jumped the fence to get in. Here she is trotting along the fence again, while keeping an eye on a bull bison nearby:

No mice in the traps again today. I cut down one small birch tree to make a couple of poles and a hiking stick. They skin pretty easily now and I have a very nice stand of many small birch 50 yards from the cabin. In the R & D Department, a year ago I buried a diamond willow stick in the garden in town. Dug it up and brought it along this trip. I tried carving away the wood around the diamonds and it works very well. This is really good to know; now it is much easier to make sticks like the one shown on my website at http://www.sticksite.com/carvings/diamonds.jpg. After supper we tried making a pair of snowshoes using only willow sticks with willow bark for lacing. At least they LOOK like snowshoes................

Monday, June 8: this is the day we've been waiting for. Finally, plan is, to try to get into an area of willow about a mile NE of the cabin. It is hard to get into and we've been waiting for what looks like a nice day. This could be it. It was a cold, windy day. Frost on the picnic table. At 9 AM we left; I took the chainsaw in case I needed to cut my way in. We did not need it. The creek had eroded and one side was caved in but Marie hopped out and I drove across without problem. It was very, very steep getting back to level ground but the Argo performed flawlessly. When we got to the rock-pile (which we refer to as "Le Pile de Rox") I had to scout around on foot awhile to find the trail. Once found, I cut and moved a lot of dead wood off the trail so the Argo could use it. Eventually that was done and we were, to my surprise, able to travel a long way (300 yards?) up that trail. Made a stick-carrier from a golf cart.

At noon we ate the lunch Marie had packed. We stopped in many places and I hunted sticks. We finally had a load and headed back. At the creek I was afraid to go across the way I had come because of the huge load on the back. Thirty feet further, it looked like the Argo could cross and while Marie watched, I crossed it and kept going some way to try to get back up the hill. It went very well.

Tuesday: A very nice day; a bit windy but warm. I skinned sticks outside all morning and after lunch we set up the old screen tent so I could skin them and not be bothered by mosquitos.

When I had only 22 left to do, we ran north with the Argo, about 1.5 miles and did some sticking there; we got a surprising catch there. And I had been there before. I found two large Rails that were too good to leave (Marie reluctantly agreed that it would be sinful to leave them).

Wednesday: Needless to say, the young moose is still walking the fence. I skinned sticks all morning and Marie came out to tell me that the fridge had quit so the propane tank must be empty. After a quick lunch, she drove to John's place (nobody home) and then to Gilles' place where Gilles suggested getting more propane at the Blueberry store. She was soon back with a full tank. Meanwhile, in removing the dry tank, I noted that it was far from empty. I turned the fridge on again and it worked. I told Marie, "I farted into the tank so got it running on methane." She did not buy that. I filled several small bottles from the new full one.

Then I finished skinning all the sticks we got yesterday. We went into the slough south of the cabin and cut a lot of small, new willow growth and took it all to the fence and stuck it into the fence so that the moose could feed. She did.

Friday: Skinned sticks basically all day. The moose is finally gone. In her place, in that field, now, there are several hundred bison. I skinned one Rail today that was absolutely incredible.

Two apple trees are in bloom; probably crab-apples. A few strawberries are blooming too.

Saturday: Correction: the moose is *not* gone. Must have been hiding. Marie walked to where we had left all the willow for the moose, and carried back all the leftovers. There must have been 40-50 skeeters in the kitchen window. Funny, they are normally very hard to swat but when they are on the screen, on the inside, you can very easily crush them with a fingertip. No hurry needed.

Sunday: Another gorgeous day. Did not see the moose today but at suppertime a cow with last year's calf came running out of the bush and into the field, far end. They crossed the field, got to the fence and ran west, toward us.

The moose is definitely gone now. We took the Argo north and got a small load. We came back via Crazy Trail; our first trip on it this year. Fortunately, the two bridges needed very little fixing and there was no problem.

Tuesday: My hands are so sore now that I can't do any more sticks for a few days. After a morning of reading and puzzling, we went home and on our way picked up some bedding plants at John's place, leaving him another Rail for his deck.

Trip #3:

Friday, May 22: First nice day in weeks. John has 3 bear baits out now and all 3 have had a bear on them. We saw no big game on the way up but once in the cabin we could see a moose in the field next to mine. We took a hike up the road and cut a few Scout Sticks but they were, surprisingly, not skinning well so we gave up on that. Yes, we did pack the 30-30 rifle this time; awkward though. Last week there was a black bear attack on a 15-year old boy who was in his tent at the time. This was at Roche Lake, maybe 200 miles from here. Back at the cabin we set up all the Rails and re-took the pictures of those as well as the new ones harvested in 2008.

There were only 2 small bundles of Scout Sticks left up there, so I loaded them to take back to town; I had just completed a sale of 50 to a customer in Maryland so am anxious to get more of them soon.

Saturday: up at 6:50. There was a meteorite shower; the "Lyrids" last night but I was super tired and slept through it. There was a bull bison across the road, about 200 yards from the cabin. On the way back, the bison seemed to be on his way into my bush. My freezer does not need refilling so he was having his Lucky Day. The moose is still hanging around; she is a young one and stuck behind the bison fence. I saw that it was near my granaries which are a few feet from that fence so I carefully walked there keeping the granary between her and myself. Finally, at 50 feet, I stepped out and took a few pictures of her.

We saw something on the edge of my field. It was a big black bear. With binocs I could see that she had 2 cubs.

I walked out there with camera and rifle to get pictures but I walked right past them without seeing them. In the bush Marie noted a lot of deer hair and sure enough, I quickly found the head of what had been a young muledeer buck.

In the evening, John and Diana visited awhile. John was quite pleased to see the "Wanted" poster of him hanging on the cabin wall. (from http://www.glassgiant.com/wanted/)

No mice in the 14 traps. The moose is still traveling back and forth along fence, dreaming of a way to get over it and cross my field back into the bush. There were two birds this morning, and even after checking Sibley guide, I cannot see what they are; they are black; I must go to the forum and ask. Here are both the male and the female:

The guano under the bat house shows that there is at least one bat in the bathouse. For too many years they avoided it.

Monday, May 25: No mice in the traps this morning; that's a very good thing. The moose was still stuck behind the fence; a bad thing. I cut down 5 small birch trees and skinned them to make poles and hiking sticks. After lunch we took a long hike and saw a robin's nest with eggs.

We happened to stop by a small tree which had a bird's home with a unique entrance; it had baby birds in it. No idea what they are, but I could feel them when I stuck my fingers in.

Late in the evening there was a Whitetail doe on the yard. It rained VERY hard. Any skinning I did today was IN the cabin, not outside. We bundled up much of the bark to dry and burn for firewood.

Wednesday: I noticed a coyote approaching the cabin; (s)he had gotten wind of the kitchen scraps and enjoyed a bit of that as I very carefully opened the window and took many pictures of that gorgeous creature.

I saw something big and black along the edge of my field a half mile away, exactly where the bears had been earlier. Binoculars showed that it was a big bull bison. He kept slowly ambling along headed our way. Finally he was at the edge of the lawn nuzzling the pile of bark I dumped there, from skinning sticks.

Fearing he might damage my trees, I took the rifle and walked to within 50 feet of him. I yelled, waved my arms and threw a rock but that did not bother him at all. Finally I fired a rifle shot into the ground beside him. He moved 50 feet and turned to look at me. Finally he moved into the park. I went back in. I remembered my little pencil-like flare gun so loaded it and went into the park with that. He did not like my looks and trotted away so I did not waste a flare on him. I hope he comes around in the fall when I'm ready to do some butchering.

Thursday, May 28. Again, the day started beautifully. I still have a few of yesterday's Rails to skin. I'm doing all the work inside now so it is VERY messy in here.

We drove the van up the road. BIG mistake. As soon as we got going it was very clear that the road was not ready; very greasy. But there was no way to turn back nor turn around so with effort I kept going. Finally, at the end of the road (2/3 mile north and 1 mile west) I tried to turn, but, of course, could not and got very, very stuck. We left the van and headed back on foot, stopping at all the willow places and cut Scout Sticks which we left in 6 places along the road.

One cool thing on this trip was to see some Rose Breasted Grosbeaks. We very rarely see those and I'll put them on my BIRDS website at http://www.sticksite.com/birds/index.html soon.

Friday: We took a trip NE with the Argo and then walked quite a bit to an area where my "treasure maps" showed I had put up a lot of ribbons but we found very few. We put two little piles of red pepper on the seat of the Argo to give any visiting bear a thrill. We did carry the rifle on our walk. Back by noon. Beno came and pulled the van out. Then we took the Argo up north and collected the 6 stashes of sticks.

Saturday: cool and windy. I skinned sticks all day, mostly inside. I made bundles of the strips of bark and hung/set them to dry; they make great fuel for the stove when dry in a day or so.

Sunday: We went north a short way to look for sticks; one mudhole was long, wide and deep.

It really is a weird springtime. Usually, we would have hundreds of houseflies in the cabin; this year, there are almost none. And no mice. And the mosquitos are not bad at all. And the willows are not in full-leaf yet.

Monday: the outside temp in the sun, at 6:45AM was only 4C. The moose is taking her morning run along the fence. I had a bad night; could not get comfortable; aches all over from skinning and cutting sticks. Caught a big, black and red spider on the deck last night; here he/she is:

Ice on the birdbath and frost on the picnic table so we'll go home for a day or two and wait for nicer weather.

Trip #2:

Thursday, April 2: Time to get another load of sticks from the cabin back to the city. It looked like the depth of the snow had gone down close to 5 inches, leaving something like 24 inches around the cabin.

Friday: Snow........... more snow and snowing. It snowed most of the morning and some in the afternoon. After lunch we took our trek; Marie on cross-country skis and I on snowshoes, breaking trail again.

It took an hour for the 1-mile trek. I learned that to make the snow-shoe-ing easier, ski poles are useful, particularly if you change the rings near the bottom of the poles so that they do not go down into the deep snow so far. I am getting quite interested in making a pair of snowshoes.

Now I'm thinking maybe I could make the snowshoes with thin birch trees and not cut them lengthways at all.

Saturday, April 4: heavy fog this morning; visibility less than 100 yards.

Went to put some stuff into the van and noted fresh grouse tracks; a bit later I saw the grouse nearby.

Beno came over at 3:30 on snowshoes and so all 3 of us took the usual 1-mile trek. At the creek he decided to cut down the thin tree that was bent over the trail. In doing so, he clobbered himself on the back of the head with his snowshoes.

He got quite a lump on the back of his head!

We watched, again, for trees with bear-claw marks on them like we did last trip but all the trees we saw with them, were too thick for a nice coat-tree.

This one is about 8 inches in diameter; too thick.

Beno used his skis most of the way. It was a bit wet so we sank fairly deep once off the track. On the track our skis were about 15 to 24 inches above ground level.

It was -8C here this morning but Beno heard that some places in the area reported -15C. Sometimes we can hear coyotes howling. We saw a grey owl almost a half mile east along my field.

I took this picture of him/her from the cabin window.

Sunday: a beautiful day; only about -4C to start the day. Time to go back to the city.

Trip #1:

Friday, March 20: Marie and I left early afternoon. The first 30 miles or so were very bad; blowing snow and cold and sometimes it was a virtual "white-out" but I kept going. The further north we got, the better road-conditions got but it did get a bit cooler. At the cabin it was about -6C. We walked in on showshoes; there was not much crust so with every step I still went down 8 to 12 inches.

I pulled the toboggan with our gear. I got a fire going and in about 3 hours we had the temp up where it should be. I hauled 3 bundles of sticks from the sheds to the van. Snow around the cabin seems to average about 29 inches deep. Without the snowshoes, though, we would never have made it from the road to the cabin.

Saturday: Outside temp this morning about -13C. I hauled more sticks to the van so that there was barely room left in it to haul our "stuff" back to the city.

My friend Ted C is coming up from Montana in May for sticks and if the weather should happen to be very bad, at least I will have many hundreds of sticks in the garage this way. After lunch we tried to take a walk but the binding on one of Marie's snowshoes was tearing, and rather than get stranded far from the cabin, she turned back after going only 100 yards. I trekked about a mile. It was tough going; sometimes my snowshoes went down as deep as 14 inches.

Beno visited; he wondered if it would be a neat project to make a coat-tree from a poplar tree which has bear-claw marks up it.

Sunday: snowing again. The calendar says it is spring but maybe that calendar should look outside for a different opinion. After lunch we took a long hike, on the track I made yesterday. This time, Marie used cross-country skis and that worked very well.

I came back exhausted. She did better than I did. I watched for poplars with bear-claw marks and there were dozens of them but even the thinnest ones were at least 7 inches in diameter; a bit thick for a coat-tree. It snowed non-stop all day.

Monday: Another beautiful day. Spent most of it reading. We brought in another toboggan-load of birch firewood and we took another long hike; this time both of us used cross-country skis. I found that with snowshoes, you use leg and 'bum' muscles a lot and with skis, you use upper torso and arm/shoulder muscles; very different. Again, we used the track I made on the first hike.

Here is Marie as we were back out of the bush and on the final leg of our trek, along my field, back to the cabin which you can see a half mile ahead. (speck to left side of her head)

It is amazing, how much wildlife we have *not* seen this trip. I saw the one grouse and on the yard we saw one or two chickadees and we heard a crow or raven and that is all. There has not even been a Bluejay at the feeder. Rumor has it that there will be a lot of mice this coming spring; the deep snow has protected them from predators.

Tuesday: a bit warmer today. Finally, there was one Bluejay at the bird feeder. Late morning we took our usual hike again, this time both of us on skis. The track is about one mile in length and it takes us an hour.

By the time we got back, it was snowing so it is time to get out of here while the roads are, probably, ok.