Photo was one I took off the internet.

Sherry had a hair appointment in Ogden this morning and it was going to take a couple of hours to get it done.  So, what was I to do in the meantime?  It didn’t take long to decide I needed a cup of coffee and I had never been to the Grounds for Coffee on 25th street, so off I went!

This little gem is owned by Sadie Clifford….who, by the way, is the daughter of Twister (Al Clifford).  I was in hopes of seeing her while I was there, but like a good boss she was away and letting the employees run the place!  I have not seen Sadie since she was a little girl and Twister would bring her and her sister to the rendezvous up on Curtis Creek…THAT was a LONG time ago!

Well, I ordered “A cup of coffee”….I have no idea what kind it was but it was very strong!  I have not had coffee like that since the deer hunt of ought six!  BUZZZZZZZZZZ!

Looking around inside the place there were lots of folks in there studying whatever it was they were studying.  Some just looking at the internet and it was obvious that others were studying courses probably being taught at Weber State University.  As I sat there the people were coming and going…some sitting and talking with friends who also had come in for a “cup of jo”.  It was a very interesting visit for me and I was very pleased to see the place doing so good.

Before I left I had to take a picture of the pretty girls that were heading up the place.

Very attentive and busy doing whatever it is they do when not waiting on customers.

So, for all of you with a desire to have a great cup of coffee, maybe a bagel or donut or some fancy flavored coffee…stop in at Grounds for Coffee on lower 25th street in Ogden!  You won’t regret it!

Bears Butt

March 18, 2016

I have something to share with all of you.  I like to gamble a little, not too much but a little.  I’ve never been one to play sports much, dabble yes, but not play like my life depends on it and for sure I find it a waste of time to watch it on the tube.  Baseball, football, basketball and all the rest, and yet I have friends who can’t live a day without some sort of view, story or dialog about these sports.  They even have imaginary teams they make up with the real names of players and they play their imaginary teams against their buddies imaginary team and bet beers and such on them.  I never could understand any of that.  How on earth do they know who won what?  Anyway, suffice it to say, I will watch the big games like Super Bowl and World Series, but only if I have a number on the game.  I really could care less about which team wins, as long as my number comes up and I win some money!

So, I get talked into “running a board”…..100 squares for $X per square.  I make up some rules and away we go.  It’s not too hard to find enough people willing to “pay to play”, as I have found there are a lot of people who think like me, but who have to have the game playing in their house because of a fanatic that lives in the same house and so they might as well have some money riding on the outcome.

Well the board has been full for several big games, but at the last World Series a small group of 5 guys who have coffee together have 5 squares on my board.  When the numbers for each of the squares had been pulled they complained that 3 of the 5 of them had “tied” scores….like 8 to 8, or 9 to 9….When confronted my defense was that I choose totally at random.  I have 100 playing cards with numbers 1 through 100 on them and I mix them into a box and pick one out at a time and corresponding that number with my list of names, beginning with the first name and going down the list, that name gets put on that square.  Square one is the upper left square and square 100 is the bottom right square.  In choosing what number goes at the head of the column or row, I take 10 cards out of the mix, 1 through 10 and pull the number and write it either in the first square along the top or the last square along the top and move either left or right across the top accordingly.  The same with the side numbers.  At any rate, it is totally random and anyone can end up anywhere on the board.  AND when you think about it, there are 10 numbers across the top and 10 numbers down the side, 10 of the squares in the field (of 100 squares) will be ties, who cares?

Well, they accepted that fact and went on about business.  Did they win?  I don’t know, but at least they had a square, which is more than most people….and I have a waiting list of people wishing they could get on the board.  The way it is set up, the 100 squares are spoken for until someone opts off and then the square becomes someone else’s…it’s all fair!

Randomness is always the most fair when it comes to something like this.  Some people run their boards by allowing the square holders to write their names in any open square on the board when the come to pay and will continue to sell the squares in this fashion until it is full.  Then put the numbers along the top and along the sides…those being the only randomness of their board.  I’ve played with boards like that and they are fine.  Any gambling board is fair, especially if the end of the game numbers are the same as my numbers on the board!  Then life is really good!

Ok, so it is Super Bowl time!  Big name teams paying out tons of money to big name players, who may or may not be taking bribes etc. to sway a game one way or another.  Maybe even deflating the balls to give them a better advantage.  The gambling casinos in Nevada and other places around the world are taking all sorts of bets on this game.  Bets on who will win the coin toss.  Which team will score first.  Which player on the team will actually carry the ball across the goal line.  Which water boy will drop his basket of water bottles.  Which players will pick up the drink cooler to dump on the coach when the game is over.  They bet on anything and everything.  And so, trying my best to be like them…..I have this board (insert humble smiley face here).

Giving a lot of thought into how to make this drawing as fair as possible so as to avoid these 5 guys from getting tied scores.  There are 90 squares that will not be ties and only 10 that will be ties.  What are the odds that I need to worry about any of them getting a tied score on this board?  Hey, gambling guys!  There you go!  What is the bet and what can I win?  They have a 10 to 90 chance of getting a tied score.

Well, I’m still worried about it and so I really put my thinking cap on.  I have a list of 96 names and the four of us who collect and distribute money get one square each for “working” the board, for a total of 100 names.  Today I decided to number each of the names on the list 1 through 100.  I mixed up the multiple square holders (some have two, some have as many as 5) so that each name had numbers representing their numbers of squares.

Then I went to the internet and found a “random number drawing system” and had it print me out a random list of numbers from 1 to 100.  The first number on this list was “51” and the last number on the list was “6”….as random as it gets.

Comparing the list of names to the list of numbers, number 51 was “Joe Dokes”(name made up to protect the innocent).  I wrote Joe’s name in the first square on the board.  The second number on the random list of numbers was “62”…The name on the list that was numbered 62 was “Martha S.” (We all know who she is), and her name was written in square two on the board.  I did this for every number on the random list and checked off the name from the list.  Multiple square holders were treated the same as their respective numbers came up.

I ask you, how could I have ever done this any more random than that?

OK, there is more to this than that.  We still have to select the numbers that go across the top of the grid and also down the side.  There are 10 squares across and 10 squares down…10X10 = 100.

I again went to the magic of the internet and used the random numbers list generator to give me two lists from 1 to 10….the first one I printed I wrote…across the top….the second one I printed I wrote…down the side.  Those numbers were written in their respective squares, across the top of the board and down the side of the board.

One last detail!  There are two teams playing in the Super Bowl…Denver Broncos and South Carolina Panthers.  A quick flip of the coin and I wrote the Panthers down the side and Broncos across the top.

Random as random can get!

Well, all of us “workers” like to make sure everyone playing has a copy of the board once it’s filled out and ready to go.  The rules are also copied and made ready to anyone wishing to know what those are as well.  Everything is above board and with that…Happy Campers Every One.

As I was highlighting the names of the 5 guys who drink coffee together I was thinking to myself just how fair I had been to everyone involved and then I looked at the scores for each of them.  Player one…5 to 6 (not the real score, in fact none of the scores I’m about to write are correct, but you will get the drift), Player two…1 to 1…..Player three…5 to 5…..Player four…8 to 8 and Player five…7 to 7.  (How about that odds makers?)

OH MY HECK!  Four of the five players have tied scores!  I’m going to be hearing about this soon.

Now for real.  No score at this point in the process is a bad score.  In fact every score is a winning score.  It isn’t until the game is played that the winning scores will be known.  But, as a consolation and as I have two squares of my own, I have offered any one of them the chance to trade one of my squares for theirs before the game begins if they would like.  I’m very fair like that.

Bears Butt

January 25, 2016

Yesterday afternoon Sherry and I decided to head on up to the Ice Castle exhibit near Heber, Utah.  The ice castles are actually West of Heber about 10 miles, nestled in the foot hills on the backside of Mount Timpanogos.  The weather had been quite mild but a storm was coming into the area but not expected until later in the evening.  Not to worry…we have all wheel drive!

So, we planned on leaving town about 3:30 and stopping in a place we had talked about but never been to…Taggarts Grill.

Taggarts is a whistle stop of a place as you proceed up Weber Canyon toward Evanston or points between home and there.  I’ve only stopped there once before in my life and that was when Bob took Rick and I fishing on the Weber River and we stopped in to see a caged Bobcat they had there.  That was a hundred years ago (or so it seems).

Well, we pulled into Taggarts and went on inside.  The pictues you are about to see of Taggarts Grill and the food have all been downloaded from the internet and I thank the photographer(s) dearly for these as I didn’t bother taking any pictures of the place myself.  I thought about it, but just didn’t do it…my bad!

Taggarts Grill looks just like this, only add about 6 inches of snow and ice all around it.  When we went in I found the atmosphere to be wonderfully rustic and rather Western.  Would you expect anything else from a place tucked away in a wide spot in Weber Canyon?

The very friendly waitress seated us at a table in a closed in patio with sky lights overhead and lots of windows around to see the snow outside.  We noticed too they have an outdoor seating area on the far end of the building for summer enjoyment!  A very nice cozy place with a fireplace that put off lots of warmth and was right alongside me!  I thought to myself as we were waiting for our meal, just how can such a small place tucked away like this afford to pay two waitress’ and 3 cooks?  After all, we were two customers among the 5 that were sitting in here.  Oh well, not my problem.

Sherry and I decided to order sea food.  She would order the shrimp plate and I the halibut.

This menu is a little old but will give you an idea of their prices.  Not too bad considering today’s restaurant prices.  Our sea food was priced a dollar more than this shows.

When the meal came, Sherry had about 10 medium whole body shrimp on here plate….Sorry Bones…no tails!  A salad and good old french fries finished off the plate.  I might mention too, the plates were rectangular and fit on the rectangular table perfectly.  Four people could eat at one of these tables and not bump into one another….something I have often wondered about at restaurants, using round plates on rectangular tables.  The table clothes were not clothes at all but butcher paper and the paper dispenser was hanging on the wall just outside the entry and next to the cash register!  You don’t see that everyday.

Back to the plates of food.  So, Sherry has shrimp and I had halibut.  Both plates looked the same with the exception of the meat.  They served us each with our desired salad dressing (Ranch in both cases) in small metal bowls.  The meats could be dipped in either cocktail sauce (Sherrys’ Shrimp), or tarter sauce (my halibut) and then there was the ever present Utah famous fry sauce in its own serving dish as well.

The salad:  This is not an ordinary salad the most restaurants serve.  I have no idea what the “lettuce looking stuff” is called, but it sort of tasted like lettuce.  It had olive slices, spinach leaves, small tomatoes, some other greenery and topped with a sprinkling of shredded cheese.  It was very fresh and refreshing at the same time!  No carrots, no purple cabbage and no normal lettuce.  I loved it!

The french fries were cut extremely thin and coated with something that make them crackle when you ate them and the flavor was WONDERFUL!  The halibut wasn’t too bad either and you had to watch out that your bite wasn’t too large because they were hotter than the dickens (heat hot)!

We didn’t have any, but they serve beer there as well, and I think wine…not sure of that however.

We enjoyed our meal and before we were ready to go, the place began to fill up with customers!  Everyone had on cold weather boots and clothing and were obviously either skiiers or snowmobile types coming in.  Large family groups and the place was about to fill up quickly.  That sure explained the number of people who worked there.  They were going to need “all hands on deck” and this was a Tuesday night!

So, off we go toward Heber and the Ice Castles!

Our appointed time to enter the Ice Castles was 6 to 6:30 according to our tickets…bought on line through Groupon for about $14…a saving of 4 or 5 dollars for the two of us.  Driving up the canyon we saw lots of deer and a few elk and even a bald eagle.  One lone fisherman on Echo and as we drove into Heber and headed West the sun had long since gone down and it was getting dark.  A light snowfall was beginning.  That would not damper our trip.

We wanted to see these Ice Castles in the dark because we had heard there were lights and music and the whole thing sounded great and we would probably miss something special by seeing them in the daylight.  Even though we had read that no matter what time you go see them they are great.  Upon arriving at the parking lot we first noticed it was PACKED!  Where in the heck are we going to park?  As I sat there in the line at the very beginning of the parking lot, I noticed a “space” right next to a car that appeared to be the first in the row…Heck, this car can fit into that space!   And in I turned…sure enough, as my headlights hit the snow bank I saw tire tracks from someone else who had been parked there!  Front Row Parking!  You can’t do any better than that!  For those of you who might be planning on adventuring up that way, be prepared for a LONG walk uphill from where you park to the event.  And don’t forget it is icey!

You can’t read these even when standing right in front of them, but these are the rules of the Ice Castle event.  Roughly it says, if an ice cycle falls on you you can not blame them because it was probably something you did to have it fall in the first place.  Any picture or movie you take while at this event and post it on your personal wall, Facebook, Twitter or anywhere else and it is located by one of the Ice Castle people, it can be downloaded and used at their discretion with no payment to you AND no photo credit given to you either.  Kids found at the event after closing will be auctioned off to the highest bidder and in the event there were no bidders, the kids will be raised to become slaves of future Ice Castle events.  It went on but Sherry wanted to go inside.

I’ll let the series of pictures show you what you can expect and I wish (always do after you are finished with something like this) I had taken a video of the inside of the castle when we first entered.  It was pretty amazing and made the whole trip worth while (even if it had been half the event it is, would have made it worth while).

Does it look cold to you?  It was FREEZING!  And like a dummy, I forgot my gloves!

This is blurry, but they had made a slippery slide out of blocks of ice and the kids (and adults) were sliding down it and having a blast.

And after we walked and walked in what seemed to be many circles around the same thing, we asked a photographer lady if she had seen us come past anytime before now….she said she didn’t, but I think I remember seeing her once before.

There is an EXIT sign!  Surely a way out!  But not before I saw some stranger stuff that most people would not have taken pictures of:

DANGER!  DANGER!  Area is still under construction!  Do NOT enter!

And of course the “Employees only break area”:  

Well, it was a very fun evening and we highly suggest that if you have some warm clothes, especially warm boots and hats and gloves and coats….go see this.  Keep in mind too, you will be walking in about 6 inches of very cold ice chips and snow.  This walk is not for little kids in tennis shoes (even though we saw some of that), nor one for anyone without warm clothing.  They do have a hot chocolate, coffee etc. stand at the end of the trail inside the event and of course they channel ALL participants through their curio shop at the end of it all….at least it was heated and very warm inside there.  BEWARE of the lady standing behind the cash register….she is looking at all parts of you to see if you have picked up anything you aren’t going to pay for!  At first I thought I looked hot to her, but then I realized what she was doing.

Fun times!

On our drive home we had a little surprise…the weather had come in quite hard and we had to follow a snow plow up and over the Park City summit and then the travel down toward Echo was about 55 mph which then got worse as we entered Weber Canyon headed for Ogden….40 mph max following 3 big rigs with flashers going.  Slushy and slick!  By the time we got out of the canyon and onto I15 headed for Willard it was just rain and the temp raised to 38!  We made it home in time for a beer and then off to bed!

Bears Butt

January 20, 2016

I took the 50 minutes to listen to this man speak and I strongly believe you too need to take those few minutes and listen to what he has to say.

North American Wildlife Model – Shane Mahoney nails it . . .

Thanks!

Bears Butt

January 16, 2016

WOW what a day!   The assistant manager of the ranch, Marni Lee, told us there had been over 1700 guests register for the event yesterday!  THAT IS A LOT OF FOLKS!

The view from the visitor center showed a pretty good hurd of elk in the meadow…estimated to be about 300 animals.  We did see a couple pretty good sized bulls in the group, but mostly cows and calves, which is normal.  The ranch hands started off with the usual one wagon load of people to take them out among the elk with another in stand by mode in case the crowd got bigger.  By the end of the day, they had 3 wagons going out and still had over an hour waiting line!

I appears the hurd got bigger as the day progressed!  But that was outside!  Inside we were having ourselves quite a time showing everyone interested in what mountain men were all about.  Pretty soon the picture taking was becoming overwhelming and Edjukateer, Sara, Bones and I were deeply involved with that, while Wapiti handled the question and answer session by himself!  Tracker was busy with movie taking to document the event around the ranch and we didn’t see much of him until close to the end of the day!  We had a fun time and Edjukateer especially was busy taking selfies and pictures of the crowd using other peoples phone cameras!

A multi tasking mountain man taking two pictures at the same time…he said he was ambidextrous and then said that word had something to do with liking girls.  Those that heard him say that got quite a chuckle out of it!

The craziness of getting the next group ready to have their pictures taken while the group that just got done un-robed was sometimes hair pulling stuff, but we continued to get things done!

Capotes, hats and of course the guns and sometimes knives!  The kids were especially fun to watch as some of them don’t get to touch guns at home!

And of course there is always a “cutie” that comes to the show and entertains old Bears Butt!

Well, in no particular order here are some of the better shots I took to show off how fun this was!  I’m not sure who had the most fun however…me?  Bones?  Sara?  Edjukateer?  Or the folks that donned the gear and tried to sit steady for a thousandth of a second while we snapped the shutter!

Some tried to look serious, but it didn’t always work!  There are lots of folks who can’t be too serious when they are having this much fun!

Some folks just gotta have a kiss when the urge hits them!

There you go again!

AND what would the Elk Festival be without a visit from the Director of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources!

Of course, Edjukateer and Bears Butt have to get in on the picture!  BUT…don’t forget about old Tracker!

So with the 2015 Hardware Ranch Elk Festival behind us!  There is still a whole winter full of sleigh rides in and among the elk!  Get on up there and have some fun!  It is more than worth the drive up beautiful Blacksmith Fork Canyon!

I’m sorry I didn’t get good pictures of everyone that came up.  I’m not the steadiest of camera guys and sometimes my camera just doesn’t want to focus.  But for those I did manage to get a picture of, it sure brings back some fun memories of the day!  Thank you folks for entertaining us old mountain men!

On behalf of the Willow Creek Free Trappers!  THANK YOU UTAH DWR FOR ALLOWING US TO PLAY!

Bears Butt

December 13, 2015

I borrowed this picture from the internet…thanks to whoever took it!

Tomorrow Tracker and I are going to go off and do something a little different….we are going to go take pictures of rutting bucks!  Of course the place we are heading into is a deep dark secret but we will be staying in his cabin over night.  Once at the cabin we will be setting up our base camp at about 6500 feet and there should be some snow around from the recent storms that went through the area.  During our adventure we will try to reach the top of Monte Cristo mountain which sets at just over 10,000 feet.  I’m not so sure we will be able to make it that high, but that is the goal.

Our main purpose is to take pictures of the wildlife in and around that area.  The big muley bucks are now in full rut and they should be visible in almost every direction.

Tracker had heard about this several years ago and has yet to make the trip…this is the year.  One thing we have come to know is this:  If you want to do something, then do it!  Time waits for nobody and before you know it your time will be at an end and you will still be saying…I was always wanting to do that (whatever that is).

So, not knowing exactly how to pack, I’m probably over packed for cold.  Backpack full of water and goodies and of course some emergency stuff just in case.  Snow boots as well as regular hiking boots.  Insulated bib cover alls, the kind I use ice fishing.  Capote and warm gloves and lots of assorted other warm clothing.  I’m also packing my 17, just in case we see a coyote that needs to be dead.

Our food is limited to meat mostly as that is just what we do.  Salad and stuff like that is not something we think we need, at least not on this trip.  Steak, jerky, pepperoni, kippers, hot dogs…ya, that will do.

This will be a snap and chat excursion as opposed to a run and gun one.  And hopefully there will be lots of critters to take pictures of.  I’ll try and get a picture of the coyote just before it takes a dirt nap, but no guarantee.

More will come by the end of the weekend…until then!  Wish us luck!

Bears Butt

November 18, 2015

CONTINUED:

It was Thursday morning and the sky was mostly cloudy, temps in town were in the mid 40’s and we knew it would be colder where we were heading.  But it was still a rather difficult task to decide what we needed to bring to keep warm.  Over dressing is not a good thing, but under dressing is even a bigger problem.  So, with the old saying “It’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it” went into effect.  And off we went!

(discount the 5 white dots on the picture, that’s part of my camera)

Sunrise across the Cache valley was pretty interesting to me and so I had to take this moving picture of it.  We were in for an interesting weather day.

And even more interesting was the fact that Hyrum city had there Christmas lights up and burning as we went through town.  Hey guys, it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet!

And on our way up Blacksmith Fork canyon the deer started to appear!

We couldn’t stop to take pictures of all of them but there were plenty to keep our attention.  And when we arrived at the Hardware Ranch, the turkeys were ubiquitous [you-bick-quit-us] (seemingly everywhere at the same time).

This was just a small band of turkeys off by themselves.  I thought it a great picture where they were all standing in a line along the ditch bank.  They best be hiding as Turkey Day is fast approaching!

And as our trip continued toward Tracker and Bone’s cabin, the deer continued to entertain us!

Almost every hill had a deer or two on it…mostly does, but then there were the occasional small buck as well.

The seven mile drive to the cabin took us about an hour because of all the stopping and looking at deer!  It was fun and a sure sign that our trip was not going to be a bust!

Arriving at the cabin, we had to “undo” things in order to make it ready for our overnight stay.  Bones is funny in how she places things in order that when she comes back to get ready for the summer, everything is in its place.  We messed things up really good for her this time!

We were ready to head out about 11 a.m. with great prospects ahead!  I was really excited to think:  First:  I get to drive the Rhino!  Second:  We were going to drive up a road (trail) I have always wanted to go up and Third: The prospects of seeing some magnificent bucks was very real!

Well our trip began by heading up a very well used road through private property and on our way to Monte Cristo Peak from the west side of the mountain.  A beautiful piece of property with lots of very nice scenery.  Those who have ownership of the parcels are really lucky.  A gateway to some exceptional deer, elk and moose hunting country!

Well, here we are heading up a rocky stretch of the road and going slow so as not to miss the glint of an antler in the high sage.  I glanced to my left and saw a lone magpie fly off a branch on the hillside some 400 yards away.  I made a mental note of the bird but thought nothing more about it, when suddenly another magpie took flight and then I saw what I thought was the tip of an antler.  And then another.  I pulled over and glassed what turned out to be a dead bull elk.  We made the walk down the draw and up the other side to where the bull lay.

A fine specimen of a mature bull elk.  5 points on one side and six on the other.

Of course the first thought that came to my mind was it was poached and left to rot.  On further examination, without too much disturbance of the area of course, I think it died of wounds from fighting with another bull elk.  Time and an examination by an officer of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources will determine the cause of death.  Of course anytime an outdoors person finds such a thing, they should contact the authorities and have it investigated, which I did on the site.  With only one bar on my cell phone service I called the poaching hotline (1-800-662-3337) and reported it.  I’m still waiting for a return call to set up a time to go to the site with the officer to investigate it. The animal has been dead a long time and of course there is no salvageable meat, only the antlers and ivories.   If that officer agrees with me we might be able to keep the head.  If not, the animal will become evidence.

Well, we spent about an hour dealing with this and then were on our way.  I apologized to Tracker for “seeing” this and having to deal with it.  An hour lost on our adventure…oh well!

Up the road a ways we came to a cross roads and since neither of us had been on this road, we made the decision to drive it and see where it went.

That “road” sure looks more like a trail to me!  But we turned to the left and headed up it!  A beautiful drive through the snow that was on the ground.  Our tracks were the only ones on it.  The snow was about 2 inches deep and no problem for the Rhino to traverse it.  Never slipped a tire….well….once we got to here.  We had a time before we got here and at that time I thought we were done driving up this road.  But by unloading about 180 pounds from within the Rhino (Tracker getting out), it climbed right up that slick steep hill!  Thanks Tracker for sacrificing and walking up that hill!

Well, as we proceeded up this road toward what we figured would be Monte Cristo, we found ourselves in a narrowing of the canyon and of course the narrowing of the road.  Someone coined this area “The Switchies”….Switchies or not, I had some Twitchies of my own as we drove along it.

Whoever made this road knew to keep the cut of the road sloping into the uphill side and I was sure glad as some of this snow had ice under it and I hate sliding off the down hill side of a hill.  There was plenty of brush to stop our rolling decent should that happen, but it would have ruined a perfectly good day.

Tracker agreed.

By the time we got through the Switchies and up on the ridge line, it was time for some lunch.  I had brought along some hot dogs and fixins and so we found a really cool spot tucked away off the ridge and out of the wind and blowing snow to make a fire.  A wonderful little spot I might add.

A close look at the scene and you should be able to see we have all the essentials…cold beer, hot dogs, buns, ketchup, mustard, napkins and of course a LONG stick to cook the dogs on.  The fire was warm and the snow about 4 inches deep!

As we enjoyed our hot dogs it was obvious that a snow storm was coming in.  It began falling as small flakes and soon was blowing and drifting.  Perhaps it was time we turned around and headed to lower country.

The sign says Private property, but the road went around the gate.  We figure this road is probably a pass through road that people are allowed to travel to get from one side of the private property to the other.  I don’t know for sure, but we turned around because of the snow that was bearing down on us.  The wind was whipping up pretty good too and that made for a very cool ride back down.  I was SO glad I had brought ALL my warm clothes…back to the old saying….better to have it!

Back down and through the Switchies, the weather was much different.  Very little wind, no snow and it was much warmer…still glad I had all my warm stuff on though.  We took a little detour and then a short walk to look over the edge of the steep rock cliffs in search of bucks and bulls, but mostly what we saw was a deer that had pooped on a flat rock!  We didn’t see the deer only the evidence it left.

One must be constantly aware of his environment.

Back to the bottom of the mountain and the main road we took a drive down the main road to see what was there.  It was getting late in the day and the daylight was fading fast.  We saw some deer and I’ll post up a series of pictures of some of them at the end of this article.  As for now let’s just say we saw some pretty nice bucks.

Back at the cabin the sun was down and it was getting cold…I mean COLD!  So, Tracker went to making a good fire in the cabin fireplace.

We had a wonderful day out and about and now it was time to relax inside, have a couple drinks and then eat our supper!  Tracker had planned on us to have a nice T-bone steak with Garlic Toast and he did it up right!  It was the best tasting steak I think I have ever had and the toast was perfect…crispy and yummy!

This cabin of theirs is wonderful!  Warm, dry and all the conveniences of home!  It doesn’t get any better than this.  After supper and clean up, we sat and talked about all that we had seen that day.  And then it was up into the loft to catch some dreaming time in preparation for tomorrows adventure!

Morning came quickly and during the night we had some very strong winds, freezing rain and a bit of snow…of course that was all outside….inside we were comfy, warm and dry!

I didn’t bother looking at the thermometer this morning but it was COLD!!!!!  The prospective of another great day of wildlife viewing ahead!

The following pictures are not necessarily in the order they were taken, but just to show you that we did indeed see a lot of nice bucks, here you go:

Does too!

I love skyline bucks!

Two impressive bucks….not the biggest in the world, but pretty neat to see them together.

Well, that isn’t all the pictures I have of bucks and other deer, but that gives you a pretty good idea of what is available to see should you decide to drive up there and take a look for yourself.  OH, but that isn’t all!  During our travels we saw two of these guys too!

Not the best of pictures as I was holding my camera on full zoom when I took this, but the top bull is a 3X3 while the bottom is a nice 6X6.  They didn’t care if we were there or not, but then they were 500 yards down hill from us at the time!

And what would be a trip like this without seeing some bull moose?

Hey, there is another!

And a third one!

Dang!  Three bull moose all together!

And if I had a tag, this is the one I would have taken just because he is so unique!

And so, you can see we had a really good time at the cabin.  I think we will be doing that trip again in the future!

Thanks Tracker for allowing me to join you on this trip!  It was a fun trip!

Bears Butt

November 22, 2015

MORE TO THE STORY:

Well it took a bit of time and several phone calls both from myself and from the DWR, but we finally made a time to meet to investigate the dead bull elk.  Tracker and I made sure we had some extra time before the meeting to be able to stop and view any wildlife we might encounter on our way into the meeting place.  We did manage to see this little guy on our way in.

A very tall 3 point.  We both thought it strange that the number of deer we were seeing just wasn’t what it was last week.  Did they migrate on through?  Were they just not near the road?  Were they just laying in the tall grass and sage?  Whatever the reason the deer just were not as plentiful as we saw last week.  None the less, we did see a couple bucks.

At the meeting place with the DWR Conservation Officers, we went on through the locked gate and drove up to the parking spot where the elk could be seen.  We were quickly told this was an investigation and that we were not allowed to take pictures.  I’m sure they would have rather not had us tagging along with them, but before long I think they became at ease with our presence.

The elk had been dead for at least a week, maybe two and was “quite ripe” but the officers took that in stride and literally dug right in.  Not a pretty sight for my old eyes, but I sure could see they had a method about what they were doing.  Both very professional, talking about what was going on and what they were seeing etc.   Samples were taken from the animal and saved.  Pictures taken as well and pretty soon it was obvious to all of us that this bull had been poached.

I really hate poachers and this one just added my hate for them.  A magnificent 5X6 bull elk, just reaching its prime and there it lay, bloated and wasted in every way.

Tracker and I continued to watch the methodical way the two conservation officers worked and we even helped where we could rolling the carcass over or holding on to it while they cut and carved the parts they needed for evidence.  I have always thought highly of the DWR personnel and the job they do, but this event put them at an even higher level in my mind.  I don’t care what they are paid, after this stinking endeavor, they don’t pay these two enough money!

The very sad thing is what we were told later on, back near the trucks.  They have investigated OVER 25 poaching cases since August on the Cache Unit alone!  25 cases of poaching of deer, elk and moose!  How sad is that?  How many of those poachers will be caught and brought to justice?  And how many of those brought before a judge will only get a slap on the wrist instead of what should be really tagged to them for the wanton disregard for animals that belong to all of us?

I can’t go into detail about what we saw with this investigation as it might be detrimental to the case, but I for one was very “down in the heart” to think it was a poaching case and not a natural selection that caused the big bull to die.  We were enlightened as to poaching in general:

There are those people who are really out there to take trophy racks and make somewhat of a living doing it.  Those types will kill the animal and tie the antlers to a tree and then drive away to come back many months later and retrieve their “trophy”.  My take on these thieves is they have NO regard for right and wrong.  They don’t need licenses and they don’t have any seasons.

The second type of poacher is the accidental type.  Maybe they were shooting at a cow elk and the bullet struck and killed a bull standing near by.  If that hunter does not turn himself/herself in for that accident and lets the animal lay there and waste away, they are poaching in the second worst way (the worst way is the guy who conducts his poaching as a profession).  Perhaps this hunter shot at something he thought was bigger than it turned out to be and then walked away leaving it lay there.  That is the same thing in this case.  A poacher with no regard for the animal shot and no remorse for leaving it rot.

The third type of poacher is the “opportunist”.  Here is a guy with a gun in the truck and suddenly there in his view and shooting capability stands a giant of an animal!  Something we all drop our jaw at first seeing it.  The mentality of this poacher is to shoot the animal because he can.  Not necessarily to get the giant rack, but just to shoot it.  It’s sad to think there are people out carrying weapons that just can’t stay off the trigger.

Investigation done, we headed home.

The most interesting thing happened just about the time we came out of the canyon….High upon the ridge, some 500 yards out stood a very large buck silhouetted against the sky.  I looked through my binoculars and almost in that instant saw an equally big buck coming up from below that buck.  I told Tracker…they are coming together!  And he quickly got out and started to set up his camera on the tripod.  Before he was ready to start his filming, the two bucks were locked in battle.  They pushed and pushed each other and the horn rattling was intense.  Soon they fought over the ridge out of site.  I maintained the binocs on  the ridge and after about 30 seconds here they came pushing each other around in big buck fashion, over and down onto our side of the hill.  The fight went on for over a minute, maybe longer.  I  have never seen such a spectacle in my life.  Sure I’ve seen bucks come together like this, but usually the battle lasts maybe 5 seconds or so and then it’s over…not this time!  Eventually the bigger buck got the best of the smaller (yet still big) opponent and it ran off, big buck still in pursuit!

A great way to end the day!

Bears Butt

November 25, 2015

The other day I was rumbling through the garage and found an old candle I’d saved for making emergency fire starters.  I also had an 18 egg carton and decided today was the day to melt it down and pour it into the egg carton.  I cut some kerosene wicks down to put them in as wicks for the fire starters even though the egg carton would have been enough by itself.

Today I cut the carton apart and put the fire starters in a plastic bag and placed that in the hunting trailer.  I’ll probably be using the hunting trailer if I ever am in need of an emergency fire.  But then that could happen anywhere in the woods.  You never know.

So, I decided it would be a good idea to know just how long they would burn and with that knowledge you would know just what you had to do in preparation before you lit it.

The picture above is just after I had lit it.

Two minutes later this is what it looked like.  I can imagine placing small twigs and such around it and having them start to burn.

At the 5 minute mark it was blazing pretty good.  If I had the need to get a fire started this would be more than enough time to dry out wet twigs and get it going, I would think anyway.

And at the 8 minute mark the flame went out.

Eight minutes is a pretty long time to get a fire going and so I think these will work just fine.  Place one in a plastic bag with a half dozen strike anywhere matches and put it in your day pack.  You just never know when you might need it!

Bears Butt

November 8, 2015

Sunday is going to be a very special day here in the USA, or at least in some of the states within the boundaries of the USA….The cancellation of participating in Daylight Savings Time, Utah is one of them.

Way back when Daylight Savings Time (DST) was implemented it was my take on the whole matter, that a bunch of high fellutin politicians wanted to golf after their busy day sitting around making up new laws and they needed an extra bit of daylight in order to accomplish this.  So, they made up this DST business and sold it to enough people to get it voted in.  But not all states chose to participate.  For all these years it has made for some interesting events.  First off, it was my feeling, that when the time was changed in the Spring of the year and the clocks were moved forward an hour, I was very tired and that tired feeling continued for almost a week before my body clock caught up with the time clock.  I also observed, although not scientifically, there were more accidents on the highways because of tired drivers during that same week period.  Conversely, when the clocks were moved back in the Fall of the year, I felt like I had gotten an extra hours sleep, even though that was not really the case, and I liked that time change very much.  It did make for some interesting discussions about when we were to get up to go hunting early in the morning.  You wouldn’t think an hour would make that much difference, but in my mind it did.

Well, whatever the reason was that DST was implemented, it is about to become history!  And we will join the rest of the world in a standard of time we can all live with.  BUT….there is always a BUT (Bears Butt)……I went in search of the “standard time” and what I uncovered was a whole lot of non-standard time stuff.  Let’s begin with scientists.  Those guys have bulbous heads, even if they don’t outwardly show it.  Their minds have to have firm, unchanging and scientifically proven (without a doubt) stuff in their lives.  Stuff they can count on being the same today as it was yesterday and the day before that and will continue to be the same tomorrow and next week and next year.  Time is one of them and I’ll bet they had a very difficult time with DST.  I’d even go out on a limb and say some of them never observed DST even if it was the standard in the state they lived in.  They would have fashioned their theories around the world clock…Atomic time!  Measured out to +/- .09 seconds.  OH YA BABY!  That is the real time!

We all can relate to the Atomic Clock!  It is so accurate, even my scientific clock that hangs in my dining area will automatically adjust itself to whatever the atomic clock says is the real time.  And by the way, I try and regulate the other 10 clocks in my house to that one clock.  My trouble is getting the grandfather clock to continue to be within +/- 10 minutes of it in the 8 day window of its winding.  But I keep trying….a true scientist with the bulbous head would have destroyed that grandfather clock by now.

OK!  So, we are about to change our clocks back to what the rest of the world is on, so what is that called?  Normal time?  Greenwich Meridian Time?  World time?

I’m going to call it Standard World Time and I did see that somewhere on the web.  It makes sense that it should be called “standard” and since the whole world relies on this standard it should be called this.  Am I thinking outside the box or is my bulbous head getting in the way?

So, let’s put this Standard World Time at or near ZERO (0) degrees Longitude.  Digressing a bit:  Longitude is the dissection of the world from top to bottom and moves in East and West direction every 1 degree (or parts of degrees) up to 360 degrees worth.  Latitude is the same dissection around the world from the middle to the North and South directions up to 90 degrees…to make it easier, think of Latitude as “laying down”…..The Equator is zero degrees Latitude.  There is more to this that just this.  As the powers to be at the time (scientists) made a rule that said something like this (my words):  From zero degrees Longitude and going in an Easterly direction we will count the degrees as East X degrees until such time as we reach East 180 degrees.  As is real, at the point of 180 degrees East, we then begin to enter into the West side of the world and so we must stop our East count.  Conversely, if we depart from zero degrees longitude in a Westerly direction we will count the degrees as West X degrees until such time as we reach West 180 degrees.  As is real, at the point of 180 degrees West, we then enter into the East side of the world and so we must stop our West count.

Sort of like answering the question:  How far can you go into the forest?  Answer:  Half way, because the other half is on the way out of the forest.

Latitude is different as it is only graduated to 90 degrees each way from the equator…90 degrees to the North and 90 degrees to the South.  For time purposes we don’t get too concerned about Latitude…the only big deal about that is that when it is winter in the north, it is summer in the south and visa versa.

Back to time:  When the Atomic Time says it is Midnight (or whatever time it says), every 10 degrees you move away from Zero, in either East or West direction you will add or subtract an hour from that time.  West subtracts the time.  For simplicity sake, zero degrees longitude goes through England and Utah time is six hours behind them.

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

Look it up yourself.

Another thing that might be of interest, each TIME ZONE is divided into 15 degree chunks.  So if you are standing in a spot at say 110 degrees West latitude and take one more step in the Westerly direction you just gained an hour of time!  So, if you are thinking of never losing a day in your life, just keep going West….but wait!  Those tricky scientists figured out that if you did that and everybody did that, so as not to lose a day in their lives, the world could possibly get moving faster and faster (remember the merry go round at school?  The faster the guys went in the middle of it the faster it went around and pretty soon you couldn’t hold on and would fly off of it?) and disrupt the entire universe.  So they introduced “International Date lines”….that is where the East 180 meets the West 180…dang!  Lost the day.  Might as well just enjoy where you are at the time and hang onto a tree in case a bunch of people decide to get the world spinning quicker.

I for one will be glad to get on a standard time and forget about the DST B.S.  I golfed a little in my time, but not enough to lose my precious sleep over in the Spring.  Golf is going out of favor these days and that is probably the real reason the push to get rid of DST.  I know it will make the APFO Contracting section a bit happier, as when they make up the contracts for flying in NON-DST states they can forget about putting in that statement and get back to what’s real with the sun angle.  The whole country needs to drop the DST!

Well folks!  At 2 a.m. on Sunday, November 1, 2015, when it’s 8 a.m. in England….Change your clocks back one hour!  Fall Back/Spring Forward will become a question on some game show in the future!  Count on that!

Bears Butt

October 30, 2015

What you are looking at here is a dutch oven that has been very much forgotten about.  Several years ago 5 of us drew out a special hunting tag in the Crawford mountains one that was to go down in all time and eternity as “the best hunt ever”!

With all our time being spent on hunting these big old bruiser bucks, we didn’t take the time to clean up after every meal.  In our minds we were doing just fine and in reality we were, but just barely enough cleanup to keep us all from coming down with some dreaded problem.

Well, the other day I decided to make “Rabbit Chicken” for the grandkids and whoever else wanted to share in the delight of that meal.  I knew I’d need a big deep dutch oven to cook it all up.  So to the garage I went and found the 14 inch dutch oven.  Into the kitchen I went to wash off the dust from the lid and open it up to rinse it out….a very typical event because I don’t use the bigger dutch ovens all that much.

I rinsed the lid off and tried to open it…stuck bad!  I grabbed a wooden spoon out of the “big ticket” drawer and banged it against the side of the lid.  Usually a couple of whacks and it comes off.  This time after the 4th smack the spoon broke!  My bad!

I took the oven out to the garage and gently tapped it with a ball peen hammer and when the lid popped off this is what I was looking at (top picture)!  About 1/4 inch deep rust in the bottom and growing stuff on the sides!  Mind you, this is several years of the growing stuff trying to get out of there.  It dawned on me that the last time this oven was used was on that hunt when we made none other than “Rabbit Chicken” in it for the whole gang!  I have to say it looks pretty clean as we didn’t leave any chicken in it!

Needless to say I was not going to use that pan today to make the chicken for the grandkids.  I went to the backup dutch oven and made the meal.  But what about this disgusting mess?  Can it be saved?  Would it be better to chuck it and go buy another one?  Never say Never!  I’ll save this bad boy!  Then it hit me…I can do a “how to” and post it up on here for you to know just how to save an old dutch oven from the land fill!  Here goes!

Keep in mind this is the way I did it and it will work.  Others might do some things different and I hope we get some remarks on here explaining their methods.  I can almost hear one coming from Softball about tossing the thing into a burning fire and letting the fire work things out.  OK…this pot is rusted beyond belief.  The only way we can salvage this pot is to get it back to the “metal” state it was when it was first made.  That is my goal!

It is going to require heat, acid and some heavy duty scrubbing!

The object here is to get the acid in the vinegar to get under the rust and lift it off the metal that created it.  But just boiling the vinegar water is not going to do the job all by itself.  It is going to require a little assistance from a putty knife!

Being careful so that I didn’t get the boiling hot water on my hand I scraped and scraped the bottom of the pan.  After a while I could feel where the rust was still clinging on for all its might.  But as I worked at it the bottom of the pan became more and more slick.  I knew I was on the winning end of things.  Pretty soon (like an hour later) I felt like this was about all that could be done and it was time to go to step two.  So I turned off the stove and took the mess outside and tossed it out of the pan and onto the gravel road.

It is obvious there is still a lot of work left to do to get out that rust, but at least there isn’t the big flaky chunks in there.  Time for the steel wool!  (Side note:  It is raining pretty good here as I’m typing and I looked outside and said to myself…Bears Butt, you best save this draft just in case there is a power bump…I hit “save draft”, and started to load the next picture when….poof…power bump….3 seconds more and I would have been cussing instead of smiling).

Keep in mind, we are on a quest to save a badly neglected dutch oven and so, vinegar, soap, scrubbing steel wool and all of the cleaning things in the world are what we are using.  In all other cases, only rinse with hot water and scrub using mild abrasive plastic scrubbers or wash clothes and NEVER add soap or other cleaners to the inside of a dutch oven.  You want your oven to be slippery from cooking things in side it.  Black is beautiful!

So, here I go with the steel wool scrubbing.  I added about 1/4 cup of water to the pan and began scrubbing.  After two steel wool pads I decided to rinse out the pan and take another look.  The sticky mess in the bottom of the pan was a cruel reminder to never neglect my pan again.

You have to admit it is looking better, but still not quite there yet.  I’ve been at this task now for nearly two hours.  But the box of steel wool pads still has 4 in it!  Let’s use some!  And back to work I go, 1/4 cup water and more scrubbing.  The froth doesn’t look quite as reddish this time when after two more steel pads I decide to rinse and take a look.

To some of you, you would probably say this is too much work and give up.  I’ve been cooking with dutch ovens long enough to know that I’m not the first one to go through this sort of clean up and it probably won’t be the last.  These ovens are made to be used and they sometimes get neglected, but they are still a great work of art and worth cleaning up.  That rust that you see in that pan will become just a color once the pan is “seasoned” again and it will not effect the taste of the food, nor will it cause any ill effects to the people eating that same food.

I continued to work on the larger patches of rust, using a knife and scraping here and there.  Once that was rinsed I was satisfied it was ready to be “seasoned”.  Seasoned is a way to say “sealing the pores of the metal” and the best way I have found to do that is to heat the pan (and lid) enough to melt Crisco and then put them in the oven at 500 degrees for awhile to expand the pores of the metal and get that Crisco oil down into the pores to seal it all up.  Other people use lard, vegetable oil or some other cooking oil, bacon grease or whatever to do the same thing…butter works too.  The object is to get a “cooking oil” into the pores of the pan so the rust and stuff can’t come off and into the food.  This seasoning is the “base” layer to what will become your favorite pan to cook with as long as you don’t put cleaning soap in it once you have cooked with it.

Once I was done with the scraping I rinsed it one last time and heated it to make sure it was completely dry before adding the Crisco.

So, I smeared a good coating of Crisco on the inside of the lid and around inside the pan (don’t forget to coat the sides)!

As you can see in the last picture I had excess Crisco in the pan that I needed to remove.  So I took a paper towel and got it out.  Then using that same paper towel I wiped the entire inside of the pan with it which soaked up a little more excess Crisco.  Now it’s time to pop both the lid and the pan into the oven to “cook”!

I have to tell you something at this point:  The outside of the pan does not need much attention as who knows what you will subject it to in the future.  I’ve had some might fine tasting vittles come out of a dutch oven that had been placed right inside the open fire at a deer hunting camp and you sure as heck don’t need a nice looking dutch oven sitting inside a hot camp fire.

OK!  Let’s get this job done!  Set the oven to 500 degrees F….THAT my friends is HOT!  You are going to let it set in there for about 30 minutes and then turn off the oven and let them sit in there until they are cool to the touch!  Once that is done the oven and lid are ready for action once again!

When the timer went off I just turned off the oven and went about my daily chores.  It took just over 3 hours of very hard work to get to this point and I was sure glad when it was over.  About 2 hours later I pulled them out of the oven and here is what I found.

The picture makes it look like it did in the first picture but trust me on this one, there is a very good layer of solid coating between the surface and any rusty looking stuff in that pan.  Look closely at the top portion of the bottom of the pan, you can see the glaze and that is covering the entire pan, sides, bottom and all!  This pan is ready for some cooking!

Now there is ONE LAST STEP!  Sure the pan and lid are ready for action, but if you too want some action, you best clean up the kitchen before the wife comes home!

Bears Butt

September 16, 2015

Winemaker and I made a trip over to Hotchkiss Colorado last week, the birthplace of my mother.  It’s a quiet little town tucked away in the foothills of the mountains.  It appeared that most people there were “visitors”, at least that is what I saw, as there was a county fair going on at the same time as we were visiting.  The local store “City Grocer”, honored our Smith’s discount card, but they didn’t carry Oly beer.  That was OK, as we had plenty with us.

So, we went there hoping to find some of my relatives from Mom’s side that were supposed to be buried there in the Riverside Cemetery.

When I think of anything named Riverside, I think there will be a river near by…. Well, this cemetery is up on a high plateau looking over the valley and some of the grave stones we saw were perched right on the edge of the plateau ready to be exposed to the air at the next rain storm and eventually will end up in the valley below.

Well, we looked at almost every one of the headstones in that cemetery and never did find any that we were looking for.  Even after Winemaker had been on Ancestry dot Com and seen pictures someone had taken of the very grave stones we were looking for.  We saw the opening wall of the cemetery, just like the one on Ancestry, so we knew we were in the right place, but no such gravestones were to be found.  We spent 3 or 4 hours wandering around there in hopes of discovering them….but to no avail.

What I did find was a very interesting one.  Someone carved into a rock the words written on the picture above:

“MELVIN LEE GOODWIN,  “Hippy LeRoux”, 7-13-48,  I DIDN’T SHOOT THE SHERIFF, BUT I DID SHOOT HIS DOG”

Cemeteries are interesting places to visit.

Bears Butt

August 12, 2015