Almost

After the move to Phoenix, Arizona, it wasn’t long until we found the perfect place for a weekend getaway, Rocky Point, Mexico, back then, 1971, no drugs, no shootings, just good ol’ saltwater fishing, eating, margaritas and lounging around!

On our first trip down as we were driving around, I noticed a mountain, really just a high hill, more like the flat hills in central Texas. The interesting thing about this one was it had a trail, like 2 ruts, running from the ground to it’s top. Thinking to myself, “Someone, more likely a lot of “someones”, has used this trail to drive up the mountain.”
Putting this in my “something neat to do file”, I continued to drive on.

A couple of years later, back in Rocky Point, we had just come back from fishing and were driving around (again), we curled around the mountain, there was the road/trail going up to the top. Having to try it, I mistakenly said to my family, “Why don’t we try and go up it?” Resounding “Yeses” from my family was my answer, so here we go! At the time I had all the confidence in my new 4 wheel drive, Power Wagon, complete with a hemi engine and a camper on the back. Thinking to myself the added weight of the camper with 3 kids, will help to get traction and keep us rolling on up.

But, on my way to approach the road/ trail, thoughts were popping into my mind. If the truck didn’t make it up, how would I get the family down safely? How would I get the new truck down? Back it down was the only solution.

Confidence abounding and in 4 wheel low, I started up the road/trail, hmmm, a tad steeper that it looked, but we powered on towards the top. Half way up, the engine straining, all 4 wheels kicking up sand, this wasn’t as easy as it looked from down below. Almost to the top, roughly 75 feet to go and the new truck just bogged down and wouldn’t go up any more. My back wheels were spinning, the front ones couldn’t get traction and the truck was going nowhere! It appeared that a mix of gravity, weight in the back of the truck, and basically street tires, did us in.

Putting the parking brake on, everyone, but me, got out, then putting the new truck in reverse and giving the engine gas, it didn’t move! Duh, I hadn’t taken off the parking brake. The “back” down wasn’t hard or difficult, just line up, tap the brakes occasionally and hold on. Down it went and this wasn’t as hard as backing down the real curvy street in San Francisco, many years ago, with many, many crooks and turns in it. I’ll mention that it also was one way going up.

The walk down was tougher on the family, but if it hadn’t been for that one spot, I believe we’d made it!

Deer Season, January 25, 2013

Well, the final count is in, Tim shot a nice buck, a 9 pointer, I shot the big one, a 10, Tim added a doe and a spike to his tally and Sean shot a spike. Colton only hunted once all season, college you know, so there was no massive kill of doe and spike, just kidding!

At legal shooting time this past Sunday, the Special Doe and Spike season ended, there were no hunters at my ranch, period, for the entire special season and December 30th was the last time that I went out! My big buck will be ready today, I’ve called Mickey with no response and, when he responds, I’ll go right oven and pick it up, otherwise, not much going on around here, the season is over, the hunters have all gone home and our “honey hole” isn’t providing any duck shooting, poor me! With the very dry spring and summer there’s no food and ducks are really scrambling.

Getting ready for the upcoming season, no not hunting season, Senior Softball starts in March, Mickey and I will start working out in mid February. However, he’s really stumping around with an Achilles tendon problem. It pained him last year, but ibuprofen enabled him to play for the entire season, but who knows this year, maybe an operation for him is in the future?

Deer Season, January 19, 2013

It rained on January 8th and 9th, a signal event because we’d only had sprinkles since June!  Here’s a picture of rain puddles “shot” on the 9th.

Last week I spent in Paris, Texas taking Suzanne for her treatment in Dallas.  Things went fine and she’ll be back at work on Monday, then another treatment on January 28th.  This will be the 8th treatment, only 4 more to go!

It looks like only one of the bucks made it to next season this is the “fighter” that tried to pick one with the buck that I shot on November 7th, see my post on November 8, 2012, “[Challenge Unanswered]”.  This buck made it through the 2012/2013, season.  He will be 4-1/2 next year and notice his main beam, on the right, is broken and both brow tines are broken off.  He’ll live to fight another season!  A rabbit is also shown in this “shot”, it’s been a tough year on rabbits with the drought and all.

Here’s a fox that came up to the water trough on the early morning of the 16th.

Another “shot” of the “fighter”, I believe that will be his name from now on.

This special spike and doe season ends at 5:59 PM tomorrow, we’re having company so for sure, I won’t go this afternoon, but who knows about Sunday?

Deer Season, January 12, 2013

The last 7 days of the 2012-2013 deer season will close next Sunday and, frankly, it won’t come soon enough, being a one buck county!  Tomorrow, I’m off to Suzanne’s to take her on Monday for her fifth treatment.  Her bones are hurting and we’ll have to ask her Doc why the pain, I’m sure it’s the chemo.

It rained this past Tuesday and Wednesday, 3.25 inches all told.  It didn’t break our drought, but it will go a long way if we just have more rain, it was falling almost all over our State!

Now cold front (norther) “Gandolph” is bearing down on us and the forecast for low temps is 25, brrr!  No snow, but north of us they’re having fits with the white stuff.

I took some pictures last week of some nice gadwall ducks, but it’s really slow around here and not much else happening.
   

Deer Season, January 3, 2013

The Christmas Holidays and New Year celebrations have passed, the world didn’t end on December 21st and everything is relatively normal except for the cold!  It’s bone-chilling cold around here, the high today is a whopping 38, it was 22 this morning and the forecast is for a winter storm to come in this evening.  The weather forecasters are predicting rain changing to snow so tomorrow we might have a white January 4th, (that’s a pun on white Christmas).

I went over to Mickey’s house today and found him hard at work on his taxidermy business, today he figured he was half way through with this year’s crop of heads.  My big one will be ready on the 25th and the final results are in, it was 5-1/2 years old and scored on the B&C 142.5.  Bragging, it was the biggest one out of the over 120 he had to finish!

Randy came up from San Marcos on Monday, hunted Tuesday morning with Rebecca with no luck then took Sean out in the afternoon and Sean shot a spike.  Due to a miscommunication with ‘Becca he had to be home on Wednesday so she could attend a drill team line, dance lesson.  Wednesday morning it was 24 degrees, the spike was frozen almost solid so I loaded it in the back of my pickup and took it to the processor.

Here’s the spike he shot, it’s the one in the background.

Randy and Sean looking for the spike that had run about 50 yards into the thick stuff.

The season closes at sundown on January 6th, then on the 7th a special season, running for 2 weeks, for spike and doe begins and, maybe, I’ll go out and get me the other spike!