Nov. 5-8, Fri-Mon.

I transplanted 47 raspberry plants out of my garden, to four different places in the woods around our property. The raspberry plants are trying to take over my garden! I could transplant a couple hundred more out of there and hardly dent them!

Steven and Tristan took the original doors off of the uhaul.

We got the insulation in the ceiling and put up the paneling.

Then I painted it.
This picture, obviously, is before I was done.
We still have to put up the trim/molding boards, but we'll do the wall paneling first.
Steven wants to run wiring along the top of the walls in that gap (you can hardly see it) before we put up the wall paneling. We'll have a few outlets and maybe a couple of lights and switches.
It'll have solar and wind power, but also be set up to plug in to either a generator or electricity.

It's been cloudy the last couple days. The high today was 39.
It rained a little this morning. We're hoping for SNOW!
At least snow would make the deer hunting easier.
Steven has gone out hunting a bit each day.

Nov. 5, The uhaul back wall gets built.

It's nice to know, as we go about our busy day, that the Kitten, at least, is comfortable!

I poured the frying oil through cheesecloth into a quart jar, to filter out the bits from frying the donuts. I used the same oil to make french fries, too.

Then I put the lid on tightly and stored the jar under my bed where it's dark and cool.

I finished caulking the seams and screws on the roof with silicone caulk.

I left my flip-flops on the porch roof and climbed around barefoot so my feet would get better traction on the metal roof.

This is from the top, looking down toward the porch roof.

The insulation on the walls is done, except for a few little places.

While I was caulking the roof of the cabin, Steven built the back wall of the uhaul.

Progress! Yay!

Now the wall is done.

We've (obviously) left the loading ramp in place.

One of these years we'll remove it and Steven will weld stairs.

Right now it's pretty cool to have it!

Looking out from inside.

I didn't use the flash, so it's hard to see the framework he built to attach the siding to.

The door goes on!

Done!

I caulked around all four edges plus around the door.

Now the old doors look like some kind of goofy wings!

I'm really happy with how it's looking!

In addition to all this, I pulled the furniture out in the living room in th ecabin and swept under and behind it. We took the loveseat out and I brought my swivel rocker in from where it's been stored in the barn for about 5 years.

Late in the afternoon we went over to the lake to check the muskrat traps.

See, at the far end toward the front left corner of the hood of the car?

There's a carrot there that must have been in the canoe. It felt onto the hood while we were driving. Being somewhat tapered it rolled back and forth in a bit of an arch and worked it's way toward the edge, but never quite fell off.

We were watching it, enthralled, and started laughing at ourselves!

Funny what you find for entertainment!

Half a mile later it finally rolled over the edge and was gone!

This is one of the floating matts of cattails that drifts around the lake.

Sometimes it wedges itself against matts around the edge like a puzzle piece.

The bad thing about that is sometimes we have a trap or two set where the floating matt comes to a stop!

We had to push this one out with the canoe paddles to get in where a trap was set today.

A beaver and a muskrat.

A beaver shouldn't gave been able to get caught in a muskrat trap.

Good thing Beaver trapping is open too.

Nov.3 & 4, Wed. & Thurs.

Kathleen with some of the meat left to process.

Gregg and Kathleen are in the process of butchering one of their steers.

The meat hung in their horse trailer, parked in the shade on the north side of the house.

They took a piece out at a time to process it.

What a job! Hundreds of pounds of meat!

Very cold weather, most of the time, and rainy some of it.

They still have another steer to do!

Wow! I admire their hard work!

After visiting a short while with Gregg and Kathleen, we went on down to the lake to check our muskrat traps. Steven is unbuckling the ratchet straps on the canoe

Peering at Steven from my side of the car, between it and the canoe, while he's waiting for me to help get the canoe off the roof!

Muskrat potpie.
Doesn't taste like chicken!
I'd guess more like squirrel!
A friend thinks it tastes like dark meat turkey.

Steven splitting kindling for the woodstove.

A little bit different view of the mountains by the lake.

Looking through the trees on the hill above the boat landing.

Steven slides the canoe into the water.

Reaching into the cattails to reset a trap.

A view of the mountains from the canoe.

Looking another direction on the lake.

The mountains just barely peek above the trees, from lake level.

And now looking to the southeast.

Big sections of cattails matts float around on the lake.

This is how much insulation I got put in on Wednesday.

It's hard working around everything else, but there's no place to put things like the extra rolls of insulation, and the "new" door.

I'm sitting on the part over the cab, where the bed will be.

I caulked the roof seams and any place that even remotely looked like it might leak.

Then I got up on the roof of the house and caulked more of the roofing screws, to use up the rest of the tupe of caulk.
We have to replace the maker light on the right in that group of 3.

It was broken when we got the uhaul.

I baked dinner rolls Thursday.

I set them on a dehydrator rack on top of a cake pan, to cool.

I made donuts, too, using a new recipe.

My donut cutter makes such small donuts, so I tried forming them by hand.

I made balls, flattened them, then pulled open a hole in the middle.

I don't know how this picture got turned sideways

I frosted one apiece for us to eat, and then remembered to take a picture!
Of course, mine was half-eaten by then!

They were the best donuts I've ever made!
I love the new recipe. They taste like the ones in the grocery store bakery cases! Only homemade and with wholesome ingredients...at least as much as white flour and white sugar can be called "wholesome"! Well, the egg is, anyway! Fresh from our chickens!

Election day, 2010

This was actually yesterday morning, not today. It was on Steven's camera.

I pulled stems off of rose hips, then put them on a high shelf to dry.

Rose hip tea is delicious and high in vitamin C.

We like it both as a hot tea and as an iced tea.

Another picture from yesterday. That's our dog, Odie.

Odie is standing about where our property line is. Ahead is land owned by the guy who owns the buffalo.

You can see snow on the mountains. There's more each day, it seems!

This picture is taken from the dirt road, looking across the lake to the mountains.

There truly are not many places more beautiful than this lake.
See how perfect the reflections are on the glass-smooth water?
Breath taking.

We checked the muskrat traps this morning.
Only 3 muskrats, but at least it's a start.

Here's one of the traps, set back in among the cattails.

We have to be careful to counter-balance each other so the canoe doesn't tip.

As Steven reaches over the side to work on the traps, I try to compensate for his weight shifts.

One miscalculation by either of us...and over we go!

Like we did once last November! The lake was starting to freeze then, and it was icy cold!

Now we're done and heading back to the car.

It's always a joy to be out on the lake.

I get such a feeling of peace out there.

God is so good, to bless us with living here.

And we are blessed to be allowed this pleasure by the fine folks who own the property around the lake.

Here I am, holding up today's catch.

We've heard muskrat meat is edible.

Tomorrow I can tell you if it's palatable.

After we got home we changed clothes, then went to vote.

The ballots are still marked with pencil in our precinct.

You fill in the circle next to the name of who you're voting for!

This has been an intense election.

Nov. 1, 2010 Muskrat trapping starts

Muskrat trapping season opened today. Just after we got everything loaded into the car and the canoe tied on the roof, it started to rain. Oh well. We still went out to set traps.

In the front of the canoe are the traps. Carrots for bait, in the white bucket. The poles are for anchoring into the cattail matts to attach the traps to.

I took my fishing pole along and spent some time casting while we were "parked" and Steven was setting traps. Not even a nibble. I'm starting to forget what fish tastes like!

There's Steven with the canoe.

You can see raindrops on the water as we paddled along, looking for likely places to set traps.

As you get familiar with it, you can see the muskrat trails all through the cattails.

The trails and feeding beds have increased dramatically since we trapped last year.

Pretty soon they would start starving themselves out of food and begin fighting each other.

Muskrats don't have many predators, other than mink and the like, and they are prolific procreaters.

Steven kneels in the bottom of the canoe to set a trap.

It's cold work, putting your hands in the cold water, kneeling or sitting on the wet bottom of the canoe, and feeling the cold water through the bottom of the canoe.

The paddles get wet, and hands get wet, and clothes get wet, especially when it's raining!

The body-grip traps kill almost instantly.

No suffering, or chewed-off feet.

More humane than the feedlot animals sold in the grocery stores.

I took this picture of me by holding my left hand up over the side of the boat.

My right hand is holding the canoe paddle into the mud to keep the canoe in place.

I'm sitting in the bottom of the canoe so that the center of gravity is lower while Steven sets a trap, so we won't tip the canoe over.

I happened to look down and notice that I looked like the circus had come to town:

Orange coat, yellow and blue life jacket, and a red fleece blanket over my bluejeans to keep my legs from getting wet and cold in the rain!

I still got wet and cold, but it took longer, and there was a kettle of hot water on the woodstove when we got home, for hot chocolate! Yay!