Bolt Hole Report, October 9, 2010

A beautiful fall day here at the Bolt Hole. The sun was out all day and a cool breeze shook the leaves all day as the temperature never got above 55 degrees. It'll get a good deal cooler tonight as there are freeze warnings up all over the north country.

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My day started out pretty good at 7 AM when I rolled out of bed and looked out the window. Oh my Lord! There was a deer standing in the backyard! It was a doe and Mark and I previously had passed on shooting does--but the freezer is empty and venison is needed. I dressed hurriedly. (Although I didn't really have to, this deer was nibbling the grass and the shrubs at a leisurely pace.) I got downstairs and picked up my bow and snuck out the front door. I cautiously made my way around the west end of the cabin and between the shed the cabin.

There she was! Just 10 FEET away head down and still chewing grass. Slowly I lifted my bow and began to draw back...and she looked right at me, snorted, did a 180 and bounded into the trees of the apple orchard 15 YARDS away where she stopped, turned and faced me head on. She stomped her front feet several times and then did a little dance as she moved back and forth raising and stomping her forefeet time and again. I couldn't figure out why she had stopped at first and was content to watch and look for another opportunity to go to full draw on my bow. Then I saw it, out of the corner of my eye, and tucked behind some shrubs and the rest of the shed, the doe's fawn. Her stomping the ground was as much a message to the young one as it was to me. She wanted her baby to come to her. Now! Dammit!

The little one probably never saw me, but as I began to try to raise my bow again, Mom turned, raised her tail up high to present a clear white flag of danger and trotted off down the trail to the woods with her youngster bounding along after her with its own white flag aflyin'.

I guess there could have been a better start to my day, but watching her dance was pretty cool. Oh well, I didn't really want to shot her anyway. (Of course, if it was muzzle loader season--which starts in a week or so--she'd be hanging from a meat pole to age for a few days.) We've got game camera picks of her and her twins from early in the summer. She lost one somewhere along the way and the one that's left is nearly full size already.

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After breakfast I let the sun have an opportunity to dry off this morning dew and then went outside to start hauling firewood into the shed. I've a big construction grade wheelbarrow which comes in handy for such chores as well as moving soil or mixing cement. Today I put it to good use moving firewood.

From the pile of split wood near the barn to the woodshed it's about 30 to 40 yards and slightly up hill. I loaded the wheelbarrow with 25-30 splits of firewood and pushed it back and forth all day. In the woodshed, I would unload the wheelbarrow and stack the wood. Every five trips or so I would stop and take a break for a drink of water, lunch, toilet break, or just to give my aching back a respite. I worked from 9 AM until 5 PM by which time my back, legs, arms...hell, all of me ached. But I got it all moved into the woodshed attached to the house. There will be no stealing of firewood out of the barn this winter!

After, I went down to the grocery store to buy myself a nice strip steak and some ice cream. I thought I had earned them.

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Tomorrow I'll have to clean up some of the debris from the log splitting/wood pile. There's lots of loose bark and wood chips laying around on the grass.

Then it will be time to load the log splitter onto the utility trailer and move it out of the way.

After that, I'll haul the travel trailer out into the sun so I can go about draining the tanks. That will require running a garden hose out to the trailer from the basement of the cabin. (I've no outside faucets...yet.) Once the tanks are flushed and emptied, I'll have to put some RV antifreeze into the water lines and tanks just in case there's condensation or residue water that I couldn't get out. Don't want that stuff forming sharp-edged plates of ice inside plastic tubing, pipes and tanks!

Just another lazy Sunday.