Don't show this to PETA

We had a pet northern pike (Esox Lucius) at school. Strictly for scientific purposes of course. Sadly through our studies we found out that confinement is not conducive to the survival of the northern pike. He recently passed on to fish heaven after about 6 months of being our friend.

What is a house without a kitchen table?

One day when I build my own house from the ground up it is going to have a very simple design. The entire house will be built around a single object, the kitchen table. Gone seem to be the days when company crowds around the eating area to discuss politics, strum the guitar or to just play cards and smoke. Now people crowd around the idiot box, fixated on whatever meaningless show of the day is on. I wish to change this. Conversation is the fruit of human relationship.

For five years I have lived without a kitchen table in my house (I have one in my trailer but what is the function of it if the company is lacking). Now I will attempt to build one... The most beautiful table your eyes will ever behold! In my house it will sit, where once a wall stood.

One of my instructors owns a saw mill so I explained to him my predicament. Low and behold Carrier Lumber sells him their over sized logs. I went on out and chose a strikingly gorgeous tamarack. We put er threw and it ripped er in half. Now I have two 8 foot long lengths 2 inches thick and 20 inches wide with intact bark on the exterior sides. Try buying that at the hardware store. YOU CAN'T.

Canoeing March 16th?

March 16th. After a long day of fucking around and encountering vehicle troubles with Joe, we finally pushed away from our troubles around 5PM. The day had been extremely frustrating. We were stranded at the intersection of Broad and Victoria for at least an hour and then got stuck again in the the truck at the Liquor store parking lot. Thankfully Joe and I have creative instincts and we managed to pass the time stuck in traffic making up "Truck" tunes, rolling down the windows and singing the blues at the top of our lungs to anyone that would listen. To top things off we had someone bail out on us at the last minute and were not nearly ready to go when Brett got off work.

The events of the day however made pushing off that much more enjoyable. It was time to forget about life for a while. During the first twenty minutes of paddling we saw a total of four mink just outside the city limits. Definitely a good omen for the trip. Over the course of the next two days we would see a handful of white tail deer, beaver, muskrat, a nesting great horned owl, migrating snow and Canada geese and even the occasional migrating mallard.

The ice had not yet broken up and instead the water was flowing on top of the ice, forcing the solid mass to sit on the bottom of the creek. In a few places where the ice had heaved, it had let go and we got to battle with the odd iceberg. Compared to last years flow though this was pretty tame. Last year the water ran at 80cubic meters per second whereas this year it was flowing at only 8cubic meters per second.

St. Patrick's day was spent getting a sun burn drinking pilsner on the river pretending to be pirates. I was in bed by nine. Don't really have any regrets spending the evening with two good friends and a couple hound dogs rather than chasing pretty girls at the bar.

Picture credits:
Pic 1) Me trying to ride an iceberg.
Pic 2) The river leaves eerie things when it floods its bank.
Pic 3) Buffalo rubbing rock.
Pic 4) He is new at the whole swimming thing.

Hangin out in da bush

Is there anything better? Nope. Three men, one cabin, one dog, a box of homebrew, an endless expanse of wilderness. Makes for a great weekend. This is Boyd's hunting cabin/eventual living quarters. There is always a lot of talk about people wanting to live off the land and do their own thing but I never see much action. Boyd will actually do it in the near future. I hope I will not be far behind. There is something truly enduring in chopping down a tree, splitting the wood, lighting the fire and cooking last fall's venison sausage on the cookstove. I could get fully used to it.

Me and a pal have been throwing around the idea of operating a christmas tree plantation so that we have an excuse to buy some land up here. Fifty grand for a quarter section? feels like theft.... Research is currently in full effect.

My new friend

It is the time of the year when muskrats start to get frozen out of their pushup holes. Muskrats create a big pile of vegetation that is similar to a beaver lodge. With the insulating factor of the push up and the constant activity of the muskrat, the hole to the slough usually remains open. This summer I believe the muskrats became a little bit over optimistic with all the water everywhere. Driving accross the province it is not uncommon to see pushups from the summer in the middle of what is now a very dry slough. With the shrinking of the water table I think the ice made it down to the mud in many watering holes, trapping the muskrat out of the water. Some years it just gets so damn cold in the winter that even with a high water table, the ice will freeze down to the mud forcing the muskrat to leave or die of starvation.

When the muskrat is forced from his home it goes out trecking. Why? I don't have the answer to that. Maybe it believes it will find the Big Rock Candy Mountain, where the sloughs are always open and full of the tastiest carrots and the beaver make hats out of humans.

I stumbled upon this little guy far from any slough. He let me get pretty close. I hope he made it but most likely he became coyote bait.

Clint approves

Clint approves of this. I wanted to try doing something with my moonshine so we will see what happens.

I also recently stumbled upon an old oak barrel that was laying around at a Friends place from when his father used to make swish. Swish is made by taking an old whiskey barrel, filling it with water and waiting for the water to extract all the old alcohol from out of the wood. Hillbilly delight.

Time to char the barrel and start on some moonshine i guesse.

Present?

Not sure who left me this? maybe just a feral cat?

Wildman skills

Songs

Some of the kids from my school did a little live recording of some songs I played at the library last month. Here it is.