Yesterday morning as the Weasel and I were making our plan play out to get on track to intersect the batch of turkeys we had seen, we were hiking up a grassy hill and stopped to catch our breath.  At my feet was an unfamiliar looking critter….Wapiti…You can stop reading right now and click off of this posting.  The rest is not meant for your eyes.  A large space is being left below for you to realize “YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW THE REST OF THIS”!  I have warned you.

Ok, so on with the story.

It was a slippery looking olive colored snake, about 18 inches long.  I had to look really close to even see its head.  The head was almost undetectable.  The morning air was still quite cool and the snake just laid there not moving.  In all my days afield I have never seen a snake that looked like this one.  Was it poisonous?  I didn’t know, but then I really don’t like snakes anyway, whether they are poisonous or not.  I stepped around the little critter as we went on our way, I didn’t think it wise to step over it.

So all the rest of the day I was pondering that little slick skinned snake.  I could not see scales on it like most snakes have.  Was it native to our area of Utah?  Poisonous?  Should I have killed it?  Should I have tried to capture it for the authorities to study?  Well, whatever, I left it alone and went on.  It’s still up there somewhere.

This morning I looked up “Smooth green snake in Utah”…this is what I found:

Read more: Smooth Green Snake Information | eHow http://www.ehow.com/about_6548419_smooth-green-snake-information.html#ixzz2TZEpjKHL

The Utah big game tags are being charged against people’s credit cards as I write.  I have visited the Utah Wildlife Net forum and there are quite a few reporting their success’.  This is good news in one way and not so good in another, at least in my little world.  You see, I did put in for a limited entry elk tag and that tag costs in excess of $280, if I draw out.  The problem is Sherry and I are going on a two week trip to California in the coach and at $4 per gallon for gas, it will cost me $240 to fill up and then drive 400 miles…I’m going to spend well over $1500 in gas alone for this trip and the $280 for the tag could be used as part of that.

I really hope I don’t draw out that tag, but will fate deal me a blow this year?  Probably.

Bears Butt

May 15, 2013

For several years Utah has become very much aware of a problem with Zebra Mussels and Quagga mussels and are trying very hard to get the people who use the waters of Utah to become aware and to do their part in trying to control them.  Once they are in the water, they will always be in that water.  There is no known way to control them once they are in a body of water and they are very prolific, laying as many as 60,000 eggs several different times each year.

As part of the control effort, it is mandatory for anyone using a water body in Utah to display a certificate stating that you have not “boated” in any of four bodies of water in Utah in the past 30 days (the fourth is Lake Powell, as the mussels have just recently been discovered there).  This certificate is to be displayed on the tow vehicles dashboard.

Their definition of a boat is this: “If it floats it’s a boat”!

So that goes for kids float tubes, rafts etc.  And fishermens float tubes.

There are specific things that are required of the user after leaving any body of water in Utah and one of them is to clean, drain and dry your equipment and leave it dry for 7 days…but only if you have visited one of the known contaminated bodies of water.  It’s actually a good idea to do that regardless, but for some of us who only visit a couple or three bodies of water a year and they are not ones on the contaminated list, we are in luck.  BUT, you can get a citation if you do not display the certificate with your signature and current date on your dashboard.  The citation can be as harsh as visiting a judge, jail time and up to a $5,000 fine.  No thanks!  I’ll display the certificate.

If however you visit one of the known contaminated sites and don’t want to wait up to 30 days to play with your boat, you can have it professionally steam cleaned at one of the many DWR sanctioned “FREE” cleaning places…see their site for where those are located.  Your home hot water is not enough to kill the little buggers…it takes 10 minutes of 140 degrees to kill them.

I just finished taking their on line informational course and got my year long certificate to be displayed on the dashboard.  It takes about 30 minutes to complete and you have to have a perfect score…there are only 30 questions as well, but it is very informative.

Hope to see you on the water soon!

Bears Butt

May 13, 2013

Today the WEEDS are DEAD!  HAHAHAHAHA!

My marching orders have been given and those bad boys are going down!  I had to see the forecast calling for a few days without rain and now is the time!  As a kid growing up here the garden was the big focus for dad and mom.  The ground tilled up and raked smooth, ditches hoed out and the seeds planted.  Always some day or (mostly) nights to water when it was our turn and then the dreaded weeds!  I didn’t like summer time because of the weeds and it seemed like that was all we did all summer long…water and pull weeds…sometimes we got to hoe the weeds because the rows were so long!  I hate weeds.

No Grimace and I used to hoe and pull weeds and water it seemed like everyday all summer long and while we were doing that, we were dreaming about a cool mountain lake or stream and we would be fishing…but no…we had to take out the weeds and water the stuff.  And when harvest time came around, we still had weeds and some of them were higher than our heads…big old red root weeds.  But the corn and tomatoes tasted good.

And that is exactly why there is so much grass around here.  Grass hides weeds.  You know they are still there, but once a week you get to cut their little heads off with the mower..I like that part.  If you don’t believe me that they are still there, just let your grass die and watch what grows, even without water, weeds will grow and sometimes they are the pokey type..you know the ones that can poke a hole through your bike tire!  Or cause a great soreness in your heel if you should step on one!  OWEEEEE!  I hate those kind.

So now, I have them pretty much under control…I spray the edges of the lawn, around the raised garden paths and all through the “parking lot”…there are still weeds that would have to be pulled, hoed and raked, but that is too much work and besides in order to get to them I might destroy the asparagus patch…I let them weeds have their way.

Oh give me a spray….that makes the weeds go away….and I’ll be a happy boy all dayyyyyyyy!

Bears Butt

May 13, 2013

I’ve been reading all the Happy Mothers Day wishes on Facebook this morning and Bears Butt just had to have one of his own, only I stole it off the world wide web.  Sure I could have sat down here and thought up something clever, but I’m in a lazy mood this morning…besides, I haven’t watched the DVR recording of Adam Eakles show from last night.  Sherry and I just can’t stay up that late…that comes with age.  An Early to bed, late to rise deal that gets handed to you later in life.  Especially when you got up at 3 a.m. the morning before to go turkey hunting.

So, Happy Mothers Day to you all!

Things My Mother Taught Me (from Splitcoaststampers)

My Mother taught me LOGIC…”If you fall off that swing and break your neck, you can’t go to the store with me.”

My Mother taught me MEDICINE…”If you don’t stop crossing your eyes, they’re going to freeze that way.”

My Mother taught me TO THINK AHEAD…”If you don’t pass your spelling test, you’ll never get a good job!”

My Mother taught me ESP…”Put your sweater on; don’t you think that I know when you’re cold?”

My Mother taught me TO MEET A CHALLENGE…”What were you thinking? Answer me when I talk to you…Don’t talk back to me!”

My Mother taught me HUMOR…”When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don’t come running to me.”

My Mother taught me how to BECOME AN ADULT…”If you don’t eat your vegetables, you’ll never grow up.

My mother taught me ABOUT SEX…”How do you think you got here?”

My mother taught me about GENETICS…”You are just like your father!”

My mother taught me about my ROOTS…”Do you think you were born in a barn?”

My mother taught me about the WISDOM of AGE…”When you get to be my age, you will understand.”

My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION…”Just wait until your father gets home.”

My mother taught me about RECEIVING…”You are going to get it when we get home.”

And, my all-time favorite – JUSTICE…”One day you’ll have kids, and I hope they turn out just like YOU — then you’ll see what it’s like.”

Happy Mother’s Day!

What a wonderful day and event that was held out at the Golden Spike National Monument.  Temps were hovering in the low to mid 70’s with a light breeze, a very nice day for the re-enactors in their hot looking black suits and the ladies in their long and multi layered dresses.

Before I get too far into this story, I promised some kids they would become famous on Bears Butt Dot Com…I’m not sure they will remember to check on this site, but here is the picture I took of them.  One of them called me “sick” and another said I had an awesome name…Bears Butt.  Thanks guys!  You looked to be having a very good time!

And so the story goes.  144 years ago today they actually did drive the last spike into the last tie to complete the railway.  To think about that and in that day and age it was a monumental feat.  One which caused hundreds (and they said possibly thousands) of men died getting that rail laid.  From the West going East were a few thousand people from China and surrounding countries using tools available like shovels, wheel barrows, oxen pulled sleds etc.  Can you imagine how hard that work was to do?  Filling in voids, digging out the high points, following a grade laid out by the engineers that would allow the steam locomotive to be able to pull a string of transport cars up and down the mountains of the west.  Blasting out rock mountains to make cuts and tunnels.  The enormity of the food and water that had to be prepared and served several times each day.  The traveling tent city that had to accompany all those men.  The policing of difficulties that would develop among men doing that sort of work (In my opinion, construction type men have a lot of testosterone).  The medical issues that would have had to be handled daily.

Was there a clean up crew?  I doubt it and today one can still find a relic of those days if they hike alongside the old rail grade out in the West Desert of Box Elder County and further West across Nevada and California.

From the East building the tracks toward the West, you had a mix of European men from several different countries.  Ireland, England, Scotland, Germany, France etc.  The same enormous task awaited them as well, with the same problems and needs.  Did they have a clean up crew?  I doubt it.

So, with literally thousands of hard working laborers working from opposite sides of the country toward one another, each railroad company expecting to make money based on the number of miles of track they laid, you can imagine the pressure that the “line bosses” were putting on the backs of the laborers…”WORK HARDER AND FASTER”!!!!  “DON’T GIVE ME NONE OF THAT ‘I’M SICK’ CRAP!  GET TO WORK”!!!!  You have someone in your face yelling constantly and pretty soon (shorter for some, longer for others) someone is going to lose their temper and strike out…BLAM!  And with that probably came a “blam” of a different “caliber” and someone was going to be dead.

Now don’t take what I just said as fact because I just made that up, but I’m convinced there is some truth in what I just said.  No matter how they died, hundreds if not thousands of men died pulling off this great feat and so today they had a memorial wreath that they set out and we had a prayer and moment of silence for.

Now this is a family site and I get to call all the shots, at least until the blog police make up rules for what can and can’t be posted on a site like this one.  So, here goes.  I’m not a big on politics guy so I’ll just say there were some dignitaries out there today and one of them gave a pretty good speech, I’ll let the news media say who they were.  They were schmoozing each other and congratulating  themselves etc. in typical political form, but I managed to get up on that stage (thanks to my son Mitch) to take a picture of a Famous Man, Mr. Les Dunn.

Les was there to lead the entire audience in the Pledge of Allegiance and he did a wonderful job!  Thanks Les!  For some of you reading this you might remember Les as the football coach for Box Elder High School in Brigham City, Utah.  A great guy!

Once I was done taking these two pictures I ducked off the stage to join the common folk and watch the show.

This will probably come as a surprise, but I have already told you I’m 63 years old, have lived in the same town my entire life and this is the first time I have gone out and watched a re-enactment of the driving of the golden spike.  What I found out by being me…I like to talk to people whom I don’t know…is that I was not alone!  I met another Willardite who is a bit older than me and he too had never been out to watch one of the shows.  I’ll just post a picture of him and his wife and you can figure out who they are.

I also talked with one guy, who actually ends up to be a friend of my neighbors and the two of them work together at the Snowbasin Ski Resort and he is my age, lives in North Ogden and he too had never been out to the party either.  Were there others in the crowd as well?  I’ll just bet there were!  The crowd was, in my estimation about 200 strong…maybe more…

You can count them…Oh and there were a few behind me when I took these pictures.

The pageant was very well done and the information they passed along was pretty good too.  They tried their best to make it as real as the day the event unfolded and I suppose they did it perfectly.  It seemed so anyway.  I don’t want to spoil your visit to the Golden Spike National Monument site, so I’ll just make some stuff up on here.

So here is the stage for the re-enactment and because I was so far away from it my pictures don’t show much if any facial details of the ones doing the acting, so I’ll just put words in their mouths, under each of the pictures.

On the day of the event, they could only find a 20 star flag to fly for this celebration and so, these people did the same.  There were actually 22 states (I think, if you know differently leave me a comment under this story and I’ll fix it…thanks!) in the Union in 1869.  But way out here in the sage covered desert of Utah nobody seemed to have a current flag.  This is the first time I’ve seen a 20 star flag…that alone made the day for me!

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this wonderful time in our lives.  You are about to witness for the first time in American History, the greatest feat known to man, the coming together of the first transcontinental railway, bringing with it the goods and services of the Eastern coast of America to the Gold and Silver of the West Coast…After all folks, It’s all about the money!  Now I will turn the bull horn over to the guys with the money and they can tell you their part in all of this.  In the meantime, I’ll go back in the back and have a drink!  My part is all but over.

Folks!  I give to the guys from the other train company this spike as a token of my appreciation and in celebration of this event.  I think I have done about as good as I can under my present financial situation.  It’s made of the finest gold and plates a solid steel spike.  I think you will like it!

Congratulations!  Thank You!

I give to you all this solid silver spike made from a couple of days mining from the Comstock mine in Nevada, the Silver State.  Enjoy it and the next time you are in Elko, stop in for a fine drink and some gambling!  Take the train, it goes right through town!

Congratulations!  Thank You!

From my train company, so as not to be seen as “cheap”, we have cast a solid gold spike and inscribed our names on it so everyone from here on out will know who we are.  We give this spike to the rail company that has been our rivals in this entire ordeal.  We are so pleased that this job is done, I’m going to join the conductor for a drink in about a minute.  Until then, please try not to damage this soft metal spike.

Congratulations!  Thank You!

And so it went and the spikes were placed into a tie made of Laurel wood, the last tie that was needed to complete the task.  And so, the saying would be coined, “You have run yourself out of work, now go sit on your Laurels”!

It was a pretty cool looking tie I have to say and of course the gold and silver spikes were just placed into holes and the whole pounding of the hammer on them was just made up.  Who would want a solid gold spike hammered on?  Nobody…besides it wouldn’t look good in a show case in Sacramento, or Omaha or even the Smithsonian for that matter.

Gold on the left and Silver on the right!

THE LA-Golden Spike!

The whole re-enactment was very well done and I don’t mean to make a mockery of it on here, I want everyone who is reading this to go out there and see and hear it for yourselves.  You will come away with a very different view of what it all meant when the rails were laid connecting the East side of America with the West side…over 1600 miles all built by hand labor!  No back hoes or drilling rigs.

Did you know?  Of course you didn’t, you haven’t been out there!

The Jupiter has it’s boiler heated with Wood!

While the 119 heats theirs with Coal!

Coal burns a lot longer and hotter than wood, so why not make them both burn coal?  Well, the California side of things didn’t have much coal and to ship it to them would not have been cost effective, besides they have lots of trees and both steam engines have to stop for water about every 30 miles.  No big deal to load up another load of wood when they stop for water.  So, in reality, the guys running the 119 are lazier than the ones on the Jupiter.  When they stop for water, they can go into the saloon and have a drink, while the Jupiter guys have to load wood.  I would hope the Jupiter guys would have gotten paid more too…I don’t know.

So, we acted like the tourists we were today and had a really good time!  Chase even got to hold a golden spike!

And I got to go inside the 119 and take a picture of the Engineer and the fire box.

I’ll bet the engineer liked it when it was cold outside, but when he was running across a 110 degree desert, I’ll bet he hated it!  Metal flooring next to a high heat furnace…no thanks!

It was a fun day and I think I might even go back out again sometime.  Maybe in the winter months and see the steam clouds that come off the engines when they are fired up.

One last thing.  I was strolling past the back of the 119 and noticed a picture drawn on it…it looks vaguely familiar.

Just add an upside down horse shoe and there you have it!

Bears Butt

May 10, 2013

Today in history 144 years ago, The Driving of the Golden Spike!  This is going to be a great day…the weather is going to be near 80, sunny and very nice for this celebration.  Sherry and I are heading out to be their to see the steam engines brought from their storage areas to face each other for the celebration.  Our youngest Grandson will go with us and I know he is excited!  As am I.

It should be an almost full day of trains and pictures and speeches and more pictures.  I’ll post them up when I get back.

This is a spot in Americas history and it’s really hard to believe there isn’t a “big deal” out there.  It is far removed from the big cities and for that matter, the little cities.  An hours drive from my little burg of Willard.  And to top it off, once you get there it costs $10 to enter, a typical fee for a National Monument and/or Park, but when all there is to see are two trains parked on a track, a 15 minute movie about the history and a few artifacts…I have to question that fee.  But on the other hand I see they need to cover costs as best as they can.  It isn’t cheap trying to maintain a building and two trains WAY OUT THERE!

More to come!

Bears Butt

May 10, 2013

Yesterday was Weeds and Roses, today only weeds remain.  But with pending rain I don’t think I want to waste that expensive weed killer…it will wait for another day, perhaps next week.

The remainder of this week is filling up fast.  Today is a day with Sherry to do whatever…Tomorrow a turkey hunt with the Weasel and hopefully success…Friday is May 10 and the plan is to go out to the “Golden Spike National Historic Site” and celebrate the 144th anniversary of the driving of the golden spike.  We live so close to that place and yet in all my 63 years I have never seen the celebration…shame on me.

It was on May 10, 1869 that the last tie was put down and the last two rails were spiked into place to complete the transcontinental rail road.  When you read about this “transcontinental rail road” bit and do a bit more studying about it, it really wasn’t complete at this time.  But the need for a celebration was in order and after all the two railroad building companies did meet at this point…. eventually.

I understand that the two companies building their portions of this rail line were being paid by the mile and since the contract was let to each of them, one coming from the East and the other from the West, neither contract said they had to end  and so they actually laid tracks parallel to one another for quite a distance.  When the powers to be heard about this, they forced them to “back track” and meet at the Promontory Summit…sneaky track layers anyway.

Back to my writing:  And then on Saturday, we want to go turkey hunting with Conner…This day I really hope is a successful hunting day with a big bird downed by Conner…we will give it our best shot and hopefully he does too.

Bears Butt

May 8, 2013

Looking forward to whatever else there is to do besides the Youth Turkey Camp is a tough thing to do.  All I see are weeds, roses needing trimming and a tree that needs something done to it.  Add to that the honey do list on the fridge and there really isn’t much to look forward to at all.

Sherry says we need to save money for our trip to California next month and for sure we are going to do that.  My oldest living aunt is going to turn 100 this December and so we want to get down there and see her before that.  If possible we will go to help celebrate that day as well, but we want to make sure we get to see her this year and June is the month to do it.  We all know how Decembers can be, especially with money.

So, I guess in order to save money, I should just get out the clippers and go “hang out” in the roses.  What will I do after that?

I just did text the Weasel about the possibility of a turkey hunt this week…maybe 2, gotta get Conner out and Saturday is the only day he has available.

Where to go hunting is the next big decision.  We have seen turkeys locally right in town, up at Mantua in a couple of places, over on the Logan side of the mountain, Mendon (of course), up by Hardware Ranch, Corrine and have heard about them being in Bear River City.  Our old stomping grounds gets hit pretty hard but we know it better than any other place.  Maybe we just go for a drive and let the Weasel scream out the window with his new Peacock call until we get a response.  I wonder how well it would be received in Mims Bar and Grill?

Bears Butt

May 7, 2013

A lot of behind the scenes things going on with the Youth Turkey Hunt.  It always seems to go that way with an event of this size.  Just when you think everything is in order, something new pops up.  Nothing big on this one mind you, but a bit of extra “doin”.

One thing about this camp and the whole event that amazes me is the number of volunteers that have come forward.   Lots and lots of helpers.  Maybe it’s the event and the desire to help some young hunters bag a bird and maybe it’s just that the weather is turning pretty good and people just want to get out and go camping and hiking around.  Whatever it is, I like it!

Bears Butt

April 23, 2013