Last rose

 

Yesterday while I was harvesting my potatoes I noticed that there are still a few rose blossoms on the bushes behind the potato patch. A few last remnants of summer. Most of the flowers were too deep and high on the thorny bushes for me to get close too. But I got close to this one.  The roses are still blooming even as their leaves start to turn yellow.

Patrick

Still some blueberries about

 

I have not gone looking for blueberries for a few weeks now, but on today's dog walk I decided I wanted a blueberry snack and went for a look. I know of a few blueberry 'honey' holes that tend not to get picked over too hard. And low and behold there are still berries on the bushes. Good berries too - they are bigger and sweeter than they were when I last tried them a few weeks ago.  I grabbed a few handfuls, the dogs snuffled their share too, and then away we went. Blueberry snack complete.

Patrick

Late September

It's late September and it still seems surprisingly warm here on Kodiak. There has not yet been a hard frost in my yard, and the grass in the yard is very green.  I even noticed sprouting kale plants in one of my beds. Will they beat the frost? Earlier in the month I did harvest about 1/3 of my potatoes but I stopped because too many of the potatoes were still babies with lots of room to grow. And the potatoes are still growing and vibrant and even flowering.  I guess I will wait a bit longer. And once I've harvested the potatoes it will be time to plant the garlic.
 

All that said, despite the unseasonally warm temperatures the landscape is still slowly turning red and yellow. What's ironic is that it is still warmer than it was in May when the world was turning bright green. I guess the plants do not need to be reminded by cold temperatures that it is fall - they know anyway.  That is all the plants except my kale and potatoes.

Patrick

Two cruise ships at the same time! Horrors we are getting to be like Juneau

cottonwood tree in the yard

vibrant potatoes

devilsclub

highbush cranberries

The Landscape

 

Foggy and frosty at drop off

My final south end hunting trip post. This one is all about the scenery. And rather than write all that much I'll let the pictures do the talking. After all, a picture is worth 1,000 words.  Wide open vistas, fall colors of red, yellow and brown, fog and low angled Fall sunshine that rakes across the landscape. The south end is a big and beautiful place.

Patrick

Wet and red at pick up

A bear 'century trail'

Teepee Time

 

This time of year it is getting dark earlier in the evening and staying dark later and later in the morning. So on hunting trips that means more teepee time. Every day we'd get up in the dark, light the woodstove, and cook breakfast on it. By the time we had finished our second cup of coffee it would be somewhat light outside. Time to get your hunting pack/gear together and head out hunting up the mountain or floating down the river.

In the evening we'd cut and chop wood and then light the woodstove.  Then it is 'wiki' time (cocktails). We'd also chop vegetables, cut up sausage and get dinner going on the wood stove. After dinner the sun would set, we'd turn on the Luci light, and hang out around the woodstove. Pretty simple life!

Patrick

wiki vegetable cutting time

If you look closely you can see our camp in the far distance

Floating the river

 

This year's remote hunt was a float trip. We used inflatable rafts to carry us, our camp, and the deer meat down the river. 5 deer on the bone weigh on the order of 400 pounds, and our camping gear and food, while on the lightweight side, is also a lot of weight. So we use big rafts with inflatable floors that can carry a lot and do not draw a lot of water.  They are also durable so we did not mind dragging them fully loaded along the rocky bottom.

The biggest of our rafts can actually carry weight-wise an entire Beaver floatplane cargo load. Of course it does not have enough room to carry all our gear and us too! 

We used 3 rafts so that each of us could have a raft of our own. The rafts were all different sizes and came with different names (SOAR names not ours!). The smallest is called 'squirt', next up is 'blaze', and the largest one 'canyon'.  We found the names humorous - especially 'squirt'. As we went down the river we often went at our own pace and often paddled alone for long stretches.  We used VHF radios to keep in touch with each other.  Nothing better than floating through the Fall colors on a river!

Patrick

Deer Meat

 

The whole point of our recent hunting trip was to fill the freezer with deer meat. And in that we were very successful.  Each of us ended up with about 75 pounds of packaged deer meat for the freezer - around 225 pounds total. All but one of the 5 deer we harvested was on the big side, and even the 'small one' was pretty big.

On these remote hunting trips we try and take very good care of the meat.  We bring along a tent that is specifically for sheltering the meat (see above).  We also bring along a lot of extra cotton game bags, and we changed the meat bags often to keep the meat dry. On this trip we also brought extra dry bags so that we could keep the meat dry during transport.

Keeping the meat cool, clean and dry is a lot of work!

If you look closely you can see deer!