Renewable Energy

File this under renewable energy resources.

One full cord on the porch - one more to store in the refurbished granary.

Stacked and loaded.

Bring-on the snow and cold.

Day Is Done

Wisconsin's nine-day gun deer hunt is finished.

Nice sunset tonight is frosting on the cake...

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Better Late Than Never

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Two cords of firewood delivered - a couple of months later than normal.  But better late than never.

Heating with firewood is cheaper than heating with propane.  Between the heat pump and the woodburner we're down to purchasing the minimum propane on a prepaid contract and our heating costs (combined electric, propane and wood) are the lowest they've ever been.  

The stacking continues....

Midnight Rambler

The deer have been visiting under cover of darkness.  How do I know this?  They are leaving tracks in my gardens.  Fresh tracks too.  And lots of them.

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Funny thing is that there's nothing in this garden for them to eat while the other larger garden still has come carrots, beets and overgrown broccoli.

Dinner Time

Ninety percent of this Thanksgiving dinner was harvested from The Platz.

Sister-In-Law's pairing of a fine Chardonnay with this awesome wild turkey feast was terrific planning.

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Feeling full...

Happy Thanksgiving

Flying Tiger

Yesterday I heard the call of the Great Horned Owl as dusk settled upon the forest.  The horned owl is common around here and it's call is quite distinctive.

It is coincidental that this morning when I let the Labs out before breakfast there was bunny fur scattered all about a section of the front yard.  It occurred to me that in the course of the evening Mr. Rabbit had fallen prey to Mr.Owl.

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The horned owl is particularly gutsy being one of the few birds of prey that will take porcupines and skunks.  Plucky bird the horned own is - which is why it is sometimes called the Flying Tiger. 

Aliens Come to Deer Camp

The frenzy of a long weekend with eight other guys has passed.  Seven deer found their way to the camp meat pole - three bucks (an eight, nine and ten pointer) and four does.  Yesterday we processed six of the deer and dropped one of the big does-off at Marchant's Foods for the local food pantry.  Today I went back to town and dropped sixty pounds of venison trimmings at the butcher for grinding and packaging.  Whew!

This afternoon I hunted by myself and upon climbing into my stand was surprised to find a collection of nine fist-sized rocks carefully arranged in the corner of the floor.

This is completely strange as none of the guys hunting here had any time for rock collecting.  Or carrying them around with them and then climbing into a stand to place them there.

The only explanation is that the aliens are sending me a cryptic message.

Perhaps they want nine pounds of ground venison conveniently packaged in one pound packs and frozen for intergalactic travel?

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Deer Camp

Things are going to get busy around here very shortly so check-out the other blog and the Gas Pains Facebook page for updates.

Circuit Rider

Traveling the circuit to monitor the trail cameras.  

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Two of them got new sets of batteries, found out one of them has a corrupted SD card and I couldn't retrieve the photos from it.  That's shame since it was a cameral located next to a big and fresh buck rub.

The dogs get some exercise too.

Active Scrape

Another IR photo taken after dark of what appears to be an eight-point buck visiting the active scrape.

Popular place this scrape...

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Getting Your Undies in Knots over Refugees

One of the downsides of having a Face Book account is that you have to periodically tolerate what I characterize as:  Faux Face Book Rage.  

If you can visualize an adult throwing a tantrum while hiding behind the relative safety of their smartphone you have the picture.

The last 56 hours or so has been a cornucopia of manufactured rage over the threat of boatloads of Syrian refugees flooding our beaches and borders and bringing terrorists and mayhem to our peaceful nation.  In the interests of national security all Syrian refugees must be banned.  Never mind the peaceful nation murder rate in Cleveland  - but I digress.

Here’s the skinny on refugees and asylum-seekers.

Using just the current screening process it can take up to two or more years for U.S. officials to process applications for resettlement, most of which are referred to the U.S. and other countries that have agreed to accept refugees by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Each applicant undergoes medical exams, several security checks and an in-person interview with immigration officers at the Department of Homeland Security, cultural orientation classes and a final security clearance.  It can take up to two or more years to accomplish this.

Candidates must prove they meet the legal definition of a refugee, which includes having a well-founded fear of persecution based on one of five protected grounds — race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.

The average processing time for Syrian refugees is typically longer.  A good example is a couple of families that arrived in LA a month ago applied for resettlement from Egypt - where they fled after Syria erupted into civil war in 2011.

With the exception of several incidents with Cuba the U.S. doesn’t typically have to deal with boatloads of refugees washing-up on our shores. The intensive vetting of those seeking asylum under U.S. law makes it exceedingly difficult to quickly process large numbers of people.  As a matter of fact, since the refugee program for Central American minors was established a year ago, the United States has yet to admit one child.

So puzzle me this.  Since a much easier way to arrive here is as a student, tourist or businessman (no years of waiting, no medical exams, no rigorous security check or interrogation) how is it that refusing refugees makes my world a safer place?

Add to that the fact that most terrorist acts are committed by self-radicalized individuals already living in the country.

If I had to hazard a guess this has less to do with security and much more to do with next year’s election.

As evidence of this I submit the closing of Wisconsin's borders to Syrian refugees by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

Inasmuch as Wisconsin only accepted a grand total of... wait for this..... TWO...refugees from Syria in 2014 I will sleep soundly tonight knowing that no further refugees will be admitted to the dairy state. 

Raising a cold glass of moo to our closed border. Can't wait for the first border control point when I travel to Illinois.

Move along now.

Nothing more to see…. 

Revenge of the Aliens - Space Balls!

I think the aliens read this blog.  How is it I suspect this?  Both their visitations and the level of their belligerence has increased.  

Trail camera captured the blinding flash of the the alien space ship's thrusters.  The colored balls of light are space balls fired from a cannon.

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Camera survived unscathed.  Poor marksmen the aliens are...

Who is Clayton?

I mentioned Clayton's Stand earlier this week and you're probably wondering who the heck Clayton is.  Clayton was a founding member of the deer camp here at The Platz and even though Clayton is not longer hunting with the group his stand persists.  

The deer stand (roughly five feet off the ground) is wedged into the crotch of a willow tree.  It is constructed of recycled deck from two houses-ago.  It's a really good location as a deer hunter with a rifle has a commanding view of a six acre wildlife opening.

Clayton is retired - both from his job and deer camp.  Although I hear he's still knocking-around.

From the trail camera that was located in the woods west of Clayton's Stand another doe.

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Active Scrape

An evening IR photo taken over the active scrape of a spike buck giving the licking branch a tug.

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Friday the 13th

Today is Friday the 13th.

And if you're like me you probably remember the creepy movie featuring the camp counselors who are picked-off by a creepier attacker at a summer camp.

Not that I'm superstitious or anything - but I'm staying in today and not taking any chances. 

 

Active Scrape

Remember the post detailing the active scrape?  

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It is larger and definitely has been visited by several deer.  The black Lab even took the opportunity to roll in it.  Blech!

So I located a trail camera adjacent to this calling card to see who's visiting.

Daylight photo of Mr. Buck...

 

New Location

Moved a camera to a new location adjacent to Clayton's Stand.  

Smokey Joe pointed out that the woods to the west of a 5 acre wildlife opening was filled with buck rubs.  

After less than a week of monitoring I got a few crappy-blurry IR night shots of some bucks but several decent daytime photos of the ladies.

Like this one...

 

Bridge to Nowhere

Spotted a convoy of Spancrete precast bridge parts rolling down the highway the other day.  

Southbound on I-43 north of Sheboygan.

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Wondered where they're headed.  

Best guess is the Zoo Interchange project in Milwaukee County.  If anyone knows otherwise - let me know...

Got Deer?

I dunno about you but there's no shortage of deer around here.  

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Me and the Girls

Just me and my girls...

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Talking Turkey

Brood flock moving thru on the trail north of the creek.

The birds are now fully grown and looking more like adults.  They're punctual too - you could almost set your watch according to the movements of this group...

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Rage Mechanical Broadheads

Short blog post on the ever debatable topic of hunting technology.

Several years ago I switched from fixed-blade broadheads to mechanical broadheads.  For the uninitiated a fixed-blade broadhead has no moving parts.  The 'tip of the spear' (so to speak) consists of two to four razor-sharp blades affixed to a chisel-point arrowhead.  Deadly efficient but the aerodynamics of the blades can from time-to-time be problematic in their accuracy.  This is remedied by means of time-consuming tuning of the bow on a paper target.  And keeping it paper-tuned.

Mechanical heads fly with the accuracy of a field point (an arrowhead without extruding blades and thus no aerodynamic issues) but deploy their blades on impact with deadly results.  Braumeister and I both have adopted Rage two blade devices.

Sure, I know that some hunters haven't adopted this technology on the premise that anything mechanical will eventually fail.  And while I suppose that is a possibility that's not been my experience.  The two-inch wound channel of the Rage makes for a quick kill.  For me - case closed.

Just like the death-dealing parts of a fixed blade the components of a mechanical broadhead are reusable and can be resharpened after use.  And just like fixed blades you better have some spare parts because sometimes they get beat-up beyond normal repair.

Like this one - which happens to be a crossbow device:

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Having struck some bone the blade on this Rage is going to have to be replaced as no amount of work is going to straighten and sharper it to its previous condition.

Here's a high speed video the two-blade mechanical:

Deer Avoids Hunter

From last weekend here's a trail camera photo of Braumeister heading out for an early morning hunt.

And the buck that preceded him - by exactly 22 minutes.

The whitetail must have heard the guys shuffling around in the garage and decided to vamoose from the vicinity.

Smart deer.   

Maybe even wears a wristwatch...

Deer Camp

Smokey Joe and Braumeister chilled-out with me last weekend to chase whitetails and upland birds.  Brau arrowed another deer - a nice fat doe.

Nice relaxing weekend inasmuch as I got to sleep-in each morning.  Plenty of camaraderie, chuckles and good eats.  I sure do enjoy time with good friends such as these guys.

Here are some photos of the festivities...

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The Rut

Whitetail mating season has commenced and the bucks have romance on their mind.

Plenty of buck rubs to be found and active scrapes like this one.  Hubba hubba.

The bucks are also starting to chase the does.

Just like this fella that's come sniffing-around...
 

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Speaker of the House

I figured he would want to remain Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee - but it seems his colleagues twisted his arm.

Paul Ryan is an ambitious lad but I sure hope he has been reminded that the last Speaker of the House to become President was James K. Polk who served as Speaker between 1835 and 1839, leaving to become Governor of Tennessee.  He was subsequently elected as the 11th President of the United States - from 1845 to 1849 - the last strong President until the Civil War.

Here's the new Speaker of the House.  Not me - the guy on the left...

Turkey Avalanche!

A new record in turkey appearances.  Multiple locations.  Multiple days and times.  

 Hens at the crossroads

 Gobblers at the turn west of the house

 Hens on the trail adjacent to the park bench stand

 Brood flock in the opening near the shitter

 Brood flock at the turn west of the house

Hens at the turn west of the house

 

Small, Medium and Large

Little buck...

Medium buck...

Big buck... 

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