2010 trips to the

No, I did not forget this blog after Trip Number 5, of May 4. Here's the scoop:

Two reasons made it look like my Sticking days were over, at the cabin:

1. Two heavy snowfalls, Oct. 2, 2009, and spring 2010, while the leaves were out, made a lot of trees break and bend so badly that all the trails became impassible.

2. It seemed that after 15+ years of sticking there, I might be out of business.

By great coincidence, a good friend showed me an area far away from the cabin where the sticking is VERY good. So, naturally, I switched areas. Here is a brief version of the sticking trips there:

The details of the switch to a new area follows in the section below the line of asterisks:

Trip Number 6 in 2010:

On Saturday, July 10, Marie and I took a huge load of sticks to the cabin; these were mostly my 103 Rejects collected here. We visited briefly with John & Diana. John had completed his new Diamond Willow deck.

At the cabin all was well; there had been very little rain so the lawn was badly overgrown but not as bad as I'd expected.

In the field, Conrad had seeded "field peas" but they were not doing well due to lack of rain. Beno came by and he figured the peas would bring in elk.

The beavers were still in the creek about 100 yards north of the cabin, in spite of my many attempts to chase them away. They had rebuilt the dam even though there was very little water.

The two little strawberry patches were doing fine but overloaded with weeds in spite of us putting "carpet" down before we put on the soil. I raised the lawnmower as high as possible and spent many hours working on the lawn; it did not look as good as it should so needs a second round of mowing. In one strawberry patch, we found a toad the first one I've ever seen at the cabin. Odd; Beno had just told us that there were a lot of toads around.

There were 5 ant-hills in the lawn and I poured dry coffee grounds on them to see if that discourages them. On the lawn I nearly stepped in a juicy pile of bison poop. There was one deer in the park on Saturday. We loaded up the Rails which customers had requested.

Sunday morning there were 3 Muledeer bucks near the cabin. I drove to the end of the road and spooked 6 bull Elk. They were running so my pictures were too blurred to keep. In spite of that, this pic shows 4 of the bulls:

Later there was one Muledeer doe on the lawn. Later there was one deer near my granaries.

I climbed the cabin roof and put screen around the chimney to keep squirrels and birds out. Three or four times, over the years, I've found such critters in my stove. I found that my slightly-sweaty bare feet were best for traction on the slick, metal roof.

We hiked one of my many trails in the bush, and noted that even near the cabin, most ant-hills had been clawed up, indicating bears nearby so I carried my 30-30.

My trails are, to a large extent, no longer open due to snowfalls when the leaves were still out.

The squirrels had been busy along my hiking trail "Tanner Creek Road."

I have many old moose racks along the trail and had hung them into trees but many of them had been torn down, probably by a bear even though they are very old and weathered.

The Indian Paintbrush were in bloom:

On the way home, near Spirit River, we enjoyed, as usual, the view to the north:

On Thursday, June 24, I decided it must be dry enough to try for another load of sticks even though I really *was* afraid to run into a mean bear. I took my shotgun along and left at 7:36 AM. By 4 PM it started to rain a little and that was fine with me because I was extremely tired. Once I saw a big animal on the road behind me, a very long way off so I could not even tell what it was. I got home by 4:52 and after a shower unloaded the van. I had 213 sticks! Broke my own record. NOW I have one huge skinning job to do.

June 30: Well, we tried again. Looked FINE until we got to the first gas well. Met a fellow from BP (yes!!) there and he agrees that there are a lot of bears in that area; Griz and Black.

We went further but due to mud, we stopped and had lunch and then turned and went back. It was very wet IN the bush too; too wet to wander around in there.

We took the "scenic route" this time.

We did not get rained on, did not get stuck nor did we get attacked by bears or Great White Sharks.

So, it was a good day.

On July 1, I finished processing that load.

On Saturday, July 3, I went out alone to find some very thin Diamond Willow twigs for the cup-rack I am making. I left at 10:00 and was back by 2:00 with about 60 sticks plus some twigs.

Now to let those twigs dry and fit them into this rack to replace the temporary pegs.

This next section tells about the trips to a new area for sticks:

On Friday, May 14, 2010, Marie, Jack & Wilma Ames (not their real names) and I went south again. We had gone there previously for a picnic and for Jack to show me the area.

We tried in 3 areas; hardly any of the sticks peeled well. We saw one small brown bear, a yearling bull moose and 7 deer. I had been asked about "Labrador Tea" by Sara Little-Crow Russel and did find a lot of that too; I took home a few leaves to dry.

It had been very dry and very cool most of this spring hence the sticks not skinning well. Well, a day or two later the rains came. And came. And came. And came with SNOW on Friday, May 22. On Saturday I got up to see about 3 inches of snow on the ground. Trees had been breaking off all over the country bringing down powerlines. This means sticking is delayed again.

On Tuesday, May 25, Marie and I tried again. It was VERY wet in the bush, VERY thick bush and VERY hard to do anything BUT I did find a lot of sticks. I even saw a garter snake. There were still little patches of snow all over in the bush, and much of the time I was walking in water up to 10 inches deep. I did suffer a violent attack from a vicious tree and Marie had to wipe blood off me. On the way home we saw a Great Horned Owl.

I was so exhausted I went to bed at 9. I'm not as young as I used to be when I was not as old as I am now!

On Saturday, May 29, Marie and I thought we'd try it again. Since "flattered scowers" were in the weather forecast, it might be good to have some on hand to skin as soon as that rain was gone. Back home at 4:30 with 74 sticks, including some VERY good ones.

I carry a brown paper bag for garbage. Every bit of it I find goes into the bag. It makes me feel good to know I'm doing the country a small favour.

Next day we tried again. We used the old golf bag carrying thingy on wheels and that helped when I went down an old cutline. Then the rain came and soaked everything suggesting that a trip home would be in order.

Next day we went out again and got a good load. We saw almost zero mosquitos.

By Friday I had them all skinned and had 3 large garbage bags of packed bark.

The sticks at the bottom of the pile, i.e. the ones harvested June 4, skinned just fine.

Saturday, June 12: I went out (alone) about 10:45 AM and was back with 105 sticks by 3:30 PM. I saw a large Grizzly at one oilwell and he ambled into the trees so I moved no less than 200 yards from that spot to start my Sticking. I hauled several arm-loads to the van and as I was bringing one more back, I saw a large Black Bear only 100 yards from the van, on the road, ambling away. He must have been very close to me in the bush; just as well I did not see him. I had seen a few more nice sticks there, so I made sure the bear spray can was still on my belt before I went back in. This one was no hurry at all, even with me hollering my greetings. So I shot him. With my Canon. Here is the result. I suspect this was a 400-pound bear with the Grizzly being much the same size.

Now to skin these 105 and then go look for more until the sticking season ends when the sap stops running about mid-July.

On Wednesday, June 16, I went back out alone, leaving at 9:30 and mailed some sticks on my way out. By 4:30 I was too tired to continue sticking so went home, getting home by 5:00 P.M. and immediately jumped into the shower. Next morning I unloaded the van: 142 sticks including one 15-footer and one Scout Stick. My biggest haul ever in one day.

On Thursday I re-arranged the sticks in the garage and found a bit of mould on one of them. Quickly, I rushed to Canadian Tire and bought a powerful 20-inch fan to circulate air over the drying sticks. On Thursday and Friday I skinned about 75 of the 142. Next day I gave my poor, sore hands a rest.

Trip Number 5 in 2010:

Tuesday, May 4: it was a cold, snowy, windy day. We saw a bunch of 6 Muledeer on the way. The further north we went, the better the weather. After lunch we went to the cabin and saw a moose feeding 100 yards south of the cabin. It was cold but there was almost no snow. I filled the bird-feeder and soon a couple of Juncos were enjoying my offering.

There was very light snow falling and I mentioned that to Marie. She replied that it was pollen; not snow. So I marched her outside and we held out our hands to let some of the flakes land on our skin. They quickly melted, indicating that it really was snow. Henceforth, every time it snows, one of us will say "there is more pollen falling." I set up the 10 Super Rails which I'd brought from town and took a picture of those.

We got 11 sticks and 3 of them peeled well. I was telling Marie that Connie C was going to have a laparoscopy. When she asked what that was, I explained: "well, you know the word "lapidary" which refers to making jewellery out of rocks, so this must be where they cut a hole in her tummy, pour in a bunch of rocks, and tumble her."

Wednesday: First off there were 2 deer in the field and two rabbits on the lawn. They have completely lost their white winter coats.

The temperature was only zero C and it was heavy overcast. There were no mice in the traps this morning. The sapsuckers are making the usual very loud noise on the boards of the firewood bins. Click below to hear them:

The flickers are very noisy too.

At noon there were 4 deer 200 yards east of the cabin and two further away. We went a mile west and got 23 sticks; all smooth-bark "Scout Sticks." Only one of them peeled well. I found one excellent fungus too and a bison skull.

There was ice on some of the small bodies of water in the bush. We hiked out into my field to take one more look for the arrow I lost last trip. I found it, about 200 yards from where I had shot it. In the evening there were 9 Whitetail deer 220 yards east of the cabin. Here are five of them:

Thursday: Another cold day; it started with -2C. There were 2 bison a mile east on the neighbor's land and on my east end there were 4 elk and 3 deer. There was snow and hail, off and on all day. The temp did make it up to nearly 10C. In the evening there were 3 elk at my deer-blind.

Friday: The day started cold at 0C and two Whitetail deer just behind the cabin in my park.

Saturday: another cold morning: -5C. There were 5 elk a mile east of the cabin, on Jerry's land. Time to head back to the city. We have not see a single mosquito on this trip; must be too cold for them.

Trip Number 4 in 2010:

This time, I'll put ALL the text just ahead of ALL the pictures.

I just got some new eyeglasses for an incredibly low price and NOW I CAN SEE AGAIN! These came from ClearlyContacts in Vancouver, B.C. VERY good people to deal with. I did it all online; you can find them at http://www.ClearlyContacts.ca.

Tuesday, April 20: The day was hot and my air conditioner had not yet been refilled so we had to put up with 24C. The further north we got the more green we saw. We saw three deer too. We found 4 loose bison a half mile before we got to the cabin. At the cabin we unloaded and then did all the usual chores necessary after 6 months of winter. I reset the 20 mouse traps, picked out some Rails for a customer, set the rain barrels so they would fill, etc. We walked to the slough which is about 220 yards from the cabin to see if we could find the frogs which were causing an uproar. They were hard to see but after we had sat quietly for 5 minutes they started their songs again. They were very loud to me, after so many years of not being able to hear them at all. Later in the day we watched 6 elk crossing my field; when they got to the fence they went back.

Wednesday: When I got up there were 2 deer 400 yards east of the cabin and 4 Whitetails less than 200 yards east of the cabin. There were lots of geese flying over too. A cool morning so I got the stove going for awhile. We walked to the beaverdam and found that the beavers were gone, leaving a terrible mess. There were 4 mice in the traps this morning; the raisins work well for bait. We set up the Rails and photographed them. A HOT day; 24C in the shade. My nephew came over as I was about to fire my crossbow for the first time. I shot an arrow into the air........... it fell to earth; I know not where. We never did find that one. We set up a target.

Thursday: There were Purple Finches at the bird feeder and while shooting them from the east window, I glanced out the north window and there were 2 deer in the park. We took a short hike and later I took a long hike north; a mile north there were 2 deer together with 3 elk.

Friday: Marie was going to Edmonton with Jolene Olsson so we left early. Beno was just going by, to look at the wildlife north of the cabin.

And now the photos of this trip:

Trip Number 3 in 2010:

Wednesday, March 3, 2010: We had not been here long when I saw a coyote 200 yards east. We took a 1 1/2 hour hike, Marie on skis and me on snowshoes. On one trail, we heard some large animal snorting in the bush ahead of us. I could see a bit of movement but not enough to identify it. I assumed it was an angry bison and told Marie to stay where she was, get ready to slip out of her skis and up a tree if necessary while I went on ahead thinking that it would take me several precious seconds to get out of my snowshoes. Nothing bothered me but I saw two deer cross the line far ahead. The snorting noise was repeated several times. Finally I motioned for Marie to come and we continued without seeing the critter that caused the concern. Snow keeps sliding off the cabin roof and crashes to the ground with a "whoomp" that rattles the windows. At suppertime we could see the bison calf still at the bale on the east quarter, exactly as it was last trip.

Thursday: Lots of vapor trails from big jets apparently coming from and going to Alaska. I had brought with me some printout material about the Python programming language from http://www.inventwithpython.com/. It is surprisingly like the QuickBasic 4.5 which I used years ago to write programs. A coyote was not far from the cabin and it jumped on top of one of the bales.

We took another long hike on skis, snowshoes. Tracks all over every place; tracks of moose, bison elk, deer etc. Moose are decorating the country with piles of nuggets everywhere.

We saw two coyotes heading for the bison calf living by the bale. I could not imagine them tackling the calf and, in fact, trotted right by it.

Friday: Another long hike; we need the exercise. When we got to the trail, we were as close to the bison calf as we would ever be, so I tried to take a picture of it.

This morning Conrad appeared on my field with tractor and trailer to haul out some more bales. I waved him over and we visited quite awhile.

After lunch we took another 1 1/2-hour hike on my trails. The snow is now getting very wet and heavy so this has to be the last such hike. Every bale on the field has a lot of tracks leading to it, mostly moose and bison.

Now it is time to head back to the city so we'll make our getaway in the morning, on the frost.

Sunday: nice trip back home.

Trip Number 2 in 2010:

Tues, Feb. 16: we arrived about 1:15 PM. A few miles before we got there, we saw a bald eagle and some ravens feeding on a road-killed coyote.

As usual, I had my dash-cam running for the entire trip but the eagle was too far for decent footage.

No problem with the coyote.

A half mile before we got to the cabin there was a young bison calf on the road so we followed it as it trotted ahead.

On the right in this pic you can see one of my granaries and a tiny bit of the cabin.

The road goes north a bit more than a mile, then west a mile, then ends.

At my driveway, it turned in.

I got the first load on the toboggan and pulled that on snowshoes to the cabin. Once there, the bison ran around my birch tree and came back, straight at me. I could not believe it would charge me and in fact, it did not, but decided to go around the OTHER side of the cabin where we had, last trip, shoveled a trail toward the bush past the outhouse.

Wednesday: A gorgeous day; about -4C at sunrise. We found a butterfly in the window, fluttering around. It seemed to be of a type we had never seen before.

This was indeed very, very strange; a butterfly in the middle of WINTER??

I brought in some firewood and kindling, checked the sheds and then set on fire the brush-pile.

The pile was unusually large this time; all the bark from sticks harvested in 2009 plus all the broken trees and branches resulting from the snowfall on October 2, 2009.

After lunch we went on a long snowshoe hike. It was too far for Marie. It was excellent exercise though; we were gone about an hour and a half.

This is on one of my many private trails.

It was a good hike; something one should do every day.

My new little beard helped keep me warm. That's my story but Marie does not believe me.

OK, I'll take it off in spring or sooner.

Note the bent trees due to that early snowfall; I hope they come back up next spring.

Where there were a lot of spruce trees, it was obvious that squirrels were doing just Fine, Thank You, eating seeds from spruce cones and leaving the scraps in piles.

I had expected to find evidence of a wolf kill and we did; it was part of a deer's leg, near the cabin.

It was neat to see how mice had come out of the bush to feed at the bales on the field. They had travelled on top of the snow. Our snowshoes went down into the snow about 8 inches and under them was probably another 8 inches.

Yes, there are tracks of something a bit larger too; probably moose or bison.

When we got back to the cabin, the camera batteries were dead. I put in 4 more; Energizer rechargeable ones, but all of those were dead too. It was getting warmer and snow was starting to stick to the snowshoes. In the evening, near sundown, four bison came out at the far end of the field.

Friday: the day started cold: -15C but was beautiful. There are a lot of mouse tracks from the house, the 8 feet to the bird feeder and I had set some traps, baited with raisins by the propane tank. One of them had a mouse in it this morning.

In the morning we both read our books and after lunch we took a 2-hour hike. I found one willow with 3 fungi on it. This time Marie used cross-country skis; she found that much easier than snowshoes.

Neat how the snow hangs on a branch like this, sometimes.

The temp was around freezing in the afternoon; we worked up quite a sweat on our hike. I took a small saw and cut our way through some places where the trails were blocked.

In the bush the snow is covered with tracks of all sorts, from mouse to moose.

Saturday: the day started cold; about -15C with a very beatiful sunrise.

So far, the snow and ice have not slid off the cabin roof; usually it does. And we have had the temperature up to 90C.

I've seen two meteorites this trip; this is not the time of year to expect many of them; the next Meteor Shower is in April. I keep a printout of them handy; every year I print a new one from the website at http://www.theskyscrapers.org/meteors/.

The temp was not able to climb up to the freezing point but it was a super beautiful day. The one little bison calf has clearly decided to live on my east quarter, right beside a hay (read "weeds") bale by the bison fence.

It was too far for a pic, but it happens to be the little round dot right below this visiting elephant.

Sunday: We had an early lunch and then were off to Grande Prairie again.

Trip Number 1 in 2010:

If it had not been so very cold, I'd have visited the cabin much sooner. In early December, one morning the temp was -47F here in Grande Prairie. That does not play nice with my Raynaud's Syndrome. And then, January 1, my annual auction of the Best of the Best Diamond Willow sticks kept me home for a couple of weeks.

This cow moose was resting near the cabin long ago; Don Pratt added the snowman and Diamond Willow stick.

WELCOME, btw, from me, Ken Laninga, in northern Alberta, Canada, to this, my BLOG.

It is still WINTER here; I checked my shadow just now and it appears that we are due for another 52 weeks of winter.

Tues, Jan. 19: My friend Marie and I arrived around 12:30 and it took about 3 hours to get the cabin comfortably warm. The road had been snow-plowed to my driveway, no further.

This is the view of the main road, from where my driveway turns in. This road goes north a mile and then west a mile and then ends. There are no buildings of any kind north of my cabin.

First thing I always do is empty the stove of all the ashes from the previous trip and get a fire going. In the stove this time I found a dead squirrel! After hauling our stuff on 3 toboggan loads, I got the 15 Rails I needed for customers who had asked for them. The temp outside was around -10C and there is about 14 inches of snow on the yard. It sure is nice to be away from the city with all its noise etc. So very peaceful here; no signs of life of any kind other than an occasional bird.

The field with the bales was much the same as it was last time we were here.

Wednesday: By 8:15 AM it was still dark. The temp is about -15C. We kept the fire going, of course, all night. I had filled the bird feeder and 3 bluejays were enjoying the offering.

I skinned dry sticks while Marie did her jigsaw puzzle and five bison fed in my field; east end. If you look very carefully, you can see 3 of them in this pic.

Around noon I figured it would be nice to walk south on the road to the top of the hill to take a picture of the cabin for my blog. So we did that. There were enough rabbit tracks to make it seem as if maybe they are making a come-back after many years' absence.

There were wolf tracks on the road too but they were not particularly large. I would hate to be a rabbit in this area! When we saw an animal far ahead on the road, I wished I had brought at least a hunting knife along for protection. It turned out to be a coyote.

Looking north, from a mile south of the cabin, you can see the cabin and my 3 granaries; the chalet is across the road, in the trees. Where the road appears to end, it goes one mile west and then really does end.

Thursday, Jan. 21. Today is the birthday of my brother John. John is spending his second winter in Arizona where he bought a condo a week or two ago. I made a collage of pictures of/for him and also a new "Wanted" poster and sent those down there on CD to get printed. This is a tiny version of the collage; it is a pic of his home place from the south, with a bison-shape design of 72 pictures of John which have been cropped. He was a bison rancher before retirement.

This is a small version of the "Wanted" poster; this new one has nails in the corners and bullet holes. I have other pages in my various websites detailing how I made these.

After lunch we took the same hike as yesterday.

In the afternoon a young bullmoose came out to feed on a bale about 250 yards from the cabin. If his antlers had been any smaller, I would have mistaken him for a cow moose.

Friday: In the afternoon we decided to try a bit of cross-country skiing so we went north up the road on old vehicle tracks to where there is a cutline which we use a great deal. I checked to see how it looked and was dismayed at what I saw. Due to the snowfall last October 2, it is impassible.

No way to use it with skis, nor horses, nor Argo. It looks like my sticking days are over. This is a very bad development. Even large trees are broken off.

Now it is time to head back for the city for a few days of bill-paying, stick-selling (hopefully) and general chores.