The Babadook

This 2014 low budget film that has earned critical acclaim for it's use of symbolism and metaphor to trace an individual's Poe-like descent into madness.  It scared the bejesus out of this blogger without cheap slasher scenes.

The Babadook can be streamed on Netflix.  

Perfect for Halloween viewing.....

Boo!

In case you are looking for inspiration for a Halloween dinner...

Yum!

Boo!

We owe the origin of Halloween to the Irish.

2000 years ago the ancient Celts celebrated the festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in) in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France.  November 1st marked the new year - the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter this was the time time of year that was often associated with human death. The Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. 

In 609 A.D., Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honor of all Christian martyrs, and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western church. Pope Gregory III (731–741) later expanded the festival to include all saints as well as all martyrs, and moved the observance from May 13 to November 1. By the 9th century the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted the older Celtic rites.

Der schlafende Hund

My favorite subject...

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Don't know how she does it.

It's In the DNA

Done!

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Sample taken and mailed.

Stay tuned...

Active Scrape Photo Series - Part One

Several weeks ago I placed a trail camera over an active deer scrape.

Bucks create scrapes by using their hoofs to dig at the ground. Once the soil is stirred up, they urinate on the scrape. Bucks don’t pee the way we do. We try to keep it off of us. Bucks actually try to pee on their own legs. The object is to hit their tarsal glands in an effort to leave their scent on the scrape. Every deer has it’s own unique scent. The tarsal glands hold concentrated amounts of that scent.

Another thing scrapes have is a licking branch - a tree branch will hang above the cleared out soil. Bucks will rub their forehead glands on the stick and will also lick it with their tongue.

Scrapes serve much the same function in the whitetail world as a mailbox post or a fire hydrant does for dogs.  Scrapes are meant to show dominance over a territory but are normally used by more than one buck.

I'll be posting a series of photos in chronological order including the date and time stamp.  Follow along with me and check back periodically for updates.

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Ugh

I have been battling the worse case of laryngitis in memory.  Should not have stayed-up last night.  Should have gone to bed early.  Got up before sunrise to head out for a deer blind and just couldn't do it.  Voice is reduced to a wheezy croak and my respiratory system is compromised. Left a note for Six Deuce before dragging my sorry ass back to bed.  Ugh.

Sunset

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Another fine peninsula sunset.

Taken with a smartphone from a tree stand.

Movie Night

Sometimes you just need to kick back and relax with a glass of Merlot aside the wood stove and watch an old movie on Netflix. 

Friday Music

Tom Russell lives in El Paso-Juarez - smack dab on the border between Texas and Mexico. 

His says that his first thought when he heard about the wall going up was, They're gonna build a barrier, and most of the cheap labor along the border is by illegals. Who's gonna build the wall?

Monsoons

After a half day or rain another inch and a quarter in the rain gauge for the week.

It is a freak'n swamp here..... 

Ancestry DNA

You're probably thinking that old Swamp Gas is nuts.

Not really.  I've been thinking about this for awhile and an article I read recently prompted me to go ahead and act upon it.

Stay tuned...

Recipe of the Day

If you're looking for an easy meal for your slow cooker go and grab a couple of venison roasts from the chest freezer and add an eighteen ounce bottle of your favorite barbecue sauce.  Cover and cook for four or five hours.  Remove the crock before going to bed and let it set overnight in the fridge.

The next day resume cooking on the low setting and mid day shred your venison with a fork.  Add more barbecue sauce as needed.  Continue cooking on low.


This is an easy, low-tech meal that even the most culinary-challenged individual can make. 

Serve on a kaiser roll or on top of a plate of tater tots.

BBQ pulled venison.  Yum!

Walk Down Memory Lane

My Pal Lawyer sent these photos to me recently.  They're from one of many trips out to South Dakota to chase ringnecks.  They're also pretty old.  The dog and I are both quite a bit grayer nowadays.

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Sunrise

Sunrise contrails...

 

Grandkids

While on a previous visit the daughter fashioned some nifty, crafty bookmarks using photos of the grand kids.  This way when you are curled-up with a favorite book both The Frau and I are never far from thinking about kin so far away.

Anyway, I was sitting in front of the warming glow of my laptop recently and noticed that the grandchildren were hanging with Smokey Bear....

click on image to enlarge

 

Russian Carrier Deploys

The Russian navy is deploying their sole aircraft carrier - the Admiral Kuznetsov -  to the Mediterranean Sea in a show of force.

The Kuznetsov is an aircraft carrier without catapults, sports shoddy plumbing with only half of its toilets in working order, burns belching black oil to power steam turbines so prone to failure that the ship cannot leave port without an ocean-going tug available for a tow.  It is a lucky ship indeed.

In case you want to follow the cruise of the Admiral Kuznetsov you can monitor the transponder for the Nikolay Chiker - the obliging little tug which travels with the mishap-prone carrier always ready to lend a hand or a tow following the inevitable break down.

Too Close to Home

Click on the image above to enlarge it and look closely at the bottom center of the photo directly below the branch reaching over the trail.

That branch is called a 'licking branch' and the dark blotch (bottom center) is an active deer scrape.  Male deer pee on their tarsal glands and make these scrapes as a mechanism to mark their territory. 

What buck deer has the temerity to mark and claim as part of his domain the corner of the back yard this close to our residence?

Sheesh.

The Trouble With Technology

I don't know what your experience has been over the past 48 or so hours.  But beginning Friday afternoon the emails stopped.  The country was under cyber attack.

There was some limited functionality Friday overnight but by 4 AM Saturday morning the attacks returned.

Wide-ranging and sporadic email outages were the norm persisting through Saturday and Sunday morning and now finally seem to be dissipating.

I wonder who's behind this mayhem?

Although have to admit that a couple of days without email wasn't the very worst thing in the world - as long as it is restricted to a weekend of bow hunting.

Changing It Up

Hunted New Guy's farm in Jefferson County this past weekend.

Nice weather and along with terrific view - a glorious time to be outdoors

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No deer hanging but grilled venison was on the menu and the grub and adult beverages were excellent

And I got to sleep with cats 

The Biblical Plague Continues

So does the slaughter.

Raising a toast to systemic insecticides. 

Bwahahahah......

Tooth Fairy?

Found this morning in the kitchen.

Must've been a colossal tooth.

Completely unnecessary.  But thanks guys...

Friday Video

Celebrating a cult following Kelly's Heroes is a 1970 film about a group of US soldiers that sneak through enemy lines to rob a bank of Nazi gold.

This film stars Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, Donald Sutherland, Carroll O'Connor, Gavin McLeod, Harry Dean Stanton and Stuart Margolin.

Filmed in Yugoslavia it features real Sherman armor still used by the Yugoslav forces at that time.

Just one of my many favorite scenes...

Men Without Work

Say what you will about Donald Trump - he has successfully tapped into the mother lode of an angry and disaffected vein.

Going to take an intellectual deep dive into this with Men Without Work by Nicholas Eberstadt.

According to the American Enterprise Institute more people—but especially men in their prime—are out of work than ever before. Eberstadt, America’s leading demographer and political economist, exposes this reality with fresh, detailed demographic data. He concludes that there is a new population of men—beyond the “employed” and “unemployed”—that are “unemployed but not looking for work.” Who are these men? Why are they not looking for work? And how has the welfare state influenced, contributed to, or even exacerbated the reality of this new class of men?  This book pays particular attention to this group, presenting a clear, researched look at what all Americans can no longer ignore.

Self-Destruction

So the operative question is this:

Will he bring down the entire temple as well?

Cryin Shame

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It's crying shame for sure.  Yup, those onions might just make you cry if you began to slice one.  But the real shame is that is the 2016 crop in it's entirety.

With all the rain we received this year about half of the onions developed root rot that made them unsuitable for table fare.  Sure I could have harvested them earlier and cut my losses but they would have been about half the size.

Six of one half a dozen of the other I suppose. 

These have been curing on a tarp in the machine shed for about a month and all I had to do is don my garden gloves, give them a rub to remove a layer of dry skin along with the dirt and snip-off the dried top.  

I'll bag them and put them in cold storage in the beer fridge in the garage.

Biblical Plague

Meet Harmonia axyridis.

A native of eastern Asia this multicolored Asian lady beetle was introduced into the United States by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a biological control agent. It seems now they are everywhere.  They bite, they stink and they've descended-upon the sunny sides of the house in numbers of biblical proportions.  This happens every autumn

So I wet to the garage and brought out my big spray bottle of Spectracide Bug Stop.  A non-staining insecticide I anointed the sides of the house and now these stinky invaders are died by the shovel full.  

Have to use the leaf blower to clear the porch deck.

You can learn more about the Asian Lady Beetle here.

Moonrise

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Walking back from my deer stand last weekend I watched a full moon rise in the east.

Smoked Chubbs

I found these at Marchant's Foods over the weekend.  Two packs. They weren't cheap but I haven't seen these in awhile so I grabbed them.

Ate them during cocktail hour at deer camp.

Nice!

Awesome Evening for Astronomy

First there was the passage of the International Space Station.

 click on images to enlarge

Date: Sunday Oct 16, 2016
Time: 6:30 PM
Duration: 6 minutes
Maximum Elevation: 56°
Approach: 10° above NW
Departure: 10° above ESE 

This was followed by the Hunter's Moon - also known as a blood moon. Typically occurring in October - it is the first full moon after the autumnal equinox.  This year it is also a super moon - meaning that the full moon coincides with the evening that the moon is at its closest approach to the earth on its monthly orbit.  The blood moon will appear almost 15% larger and will sport a bright orange color.

First Archery Deer

My pal - Six Deuce - with his first archery deer.  A dandy six point buck.

Not bad for a guy that just recently decided he liked to shoot arrows again.

Fun weekend fellas - but cutting-up a deer in 70+ degree weather is no fun.  

Crash Landing

Sometimes the patient trail camera rewards you with a real gem.  A gorgeous sunset, a new critter, a perfectly composed photo and sometimes an action shot.  This is a series of circus shots courtesy of the busy camera at the turn in the trail a few hundred yards from the house.

A sequence of burst photos of an adult bird coming-in for a landing amongst a brood flock of poults.

 

If you're observant you've noted a couple of things.  Wild turkeys land (and take-off) vertically.  The poult on the right has his tail fanned (unusual) and kept it fanned the entire time.

Amazing.  
 

Playing Possum

Many years ago I walked out to a deer stand on a totally dark morning.  With a bow in one hand and a headlamp I climbed the ladder to the platform and just as I reached the top an exceedingly large and very ugly possum looked me right in the face!  I don't know for sure who was more startled.  It was miraculous that I didn't fall from the ladder and crash to the ground.  There is never a dull moment when bow hunting.

Didelphis virginiana - the Virginia opossum is the species found in Wisconsin and is the only marsupial found north of Mexico.  It's curious creature as it doesn't hibernate in winter, can hang by its tail from a tree branch, the young travel from place to place perched on mom's back and the possum can defend itself successfully against large predators.  In a pinch it will rollover an play dead.  This critter is resistant to plague and rabies and is immune to snake venom. 

They're also nocturnal.

click to enlarge and you will see his skinny naked tail

Scrape

Last Saturday I was out scouting with my girls and I found this immediately below a tamarack branch about the height of my shoulder.

 click on image to enlarge

Trampled with deer tracks this is what is called a scrape.  During the rut (mating season) male deer pee on the tarsal glands and mark their territory.  But it is much too early for the rut so what's the explanation?

These early scrapes are a bit different.  Few and far between these early scrapes are mainly used to communicate as bucks begin to leave their bachelor groups and stake out their territory.  It is akin to posting a no trespassing sign on a property line.

Later in the season it will be used to communicate for breeding.

The same day I fetched the memory cards from the trail cameras and last Saturday this guy's photo was taken about 20 yards from the scrape. 

Maybe it's his?

We'll find out.  I moved the camera to photograph whoever comes to the scrape.

And a placed a ground blind where the camera used to be located.  Guess who might be hunting there as you are reading this?

Stay tuned...

Friday Music

This song is often remembered for the 1993 version covered by Jimmy Cliff for the movie Cool Runnings when it reached number 18 in the Billboard 100.

Originally written and recorded by Johnny Nash - I can See Clearly Now - was released in 1972 and rose to number 1 in the Billboard 100.

The Best Roasted Pumpkin Seeds in the World

Around Halloween time and the carving of the gourds what to do to put all of those pumpkin seeds to good use.  All hands on deck.  I call family-wide kitchen project.  This is a universally-successful recipe but you need the correct gourd for the best of all results.

I've been roasting pumpkin seeds most of my life.  Beginning as a child with the help of my parents.  Followed-on by several decades of jack-o'-lantern carving.  And finally by means of serious pumpkin growing specifically for seeds.  I've grown pumpkins for carving, roasting on the grill or making pie filling. You can get a can of pie filling just about anywhere.  But where can you get a good roasted pumpkin seed?

This year brought the return of the seed-producing pumpkins. A hybrid pumpkin renowned not for its pulp -  but for its seeds.

If you're a fan of roasted pumpkin seeds you absolutely need to check this out.  Not only are these pumpkins terrific for fall décor they are prolific seed producers.  Furthermore, their seeds lack the tough outer hulls of other garden-variety pedestrian pumpkins making them perfect for roasting.  On top of that they're a bush-variety and don't take-up large amounts of space in the garden.

Behold the Kakai pumpkin.

click on images to enlarge 

A fetching bright orange pumpkin accented by dark green digital camouflage.  A non-GMO, organically-raised gourd of about 3 to 8 pounds.

And chock-full of hull-less green seeds - pure kernel - without the tough shell.  All you have to do is open them up, insert your hand into the pulp and all of those seeds will slip right out.  And plenty of them too.

Pour your seeds into a stock pot and add enough cold water so that they float freely.  Add to that as much kosher salt as you can stand (about a half cup - give or take).  Bring your pot to a boil and then turn-down the heat and simmer uncovered for 30-40 minutes.

Drain your seeds in a colander.

Spread them out on a cookie sheet - take care not to crowd them - and bake at 300 degrees.  Stir every 15 minutes with a spatula.  After 90 minutes pay close attention to your seeds.  When they start to snap, crackle and pop your seeds are telling you they're just about done. Oven temperatures vary so rely on how taste and look rather than a precise cooking time.

They should not be soft inside and they will look like this!  

A light, nutty, salty, snack that is full of vitamins, minerals and healthy antioxidants.  They’re good for your prostate fellas.   

Serve with a frosty beer during the Packer game and at deer camp.  Want to try something really decadent?  Mix a bag of M&Ms with a big bowl of these.

Consequences

The Trumpians got the candidate and campaign they wanted, and now they have to own the result.