Busy with lots of excitement!

The week flew by once again, and I'm just getting around to updating the blog. First I want to say Clint's parents are visiting this week... Bill got here on Thursday and Sheri will be flying in on Sunday. We are super excited to see them and we should have a very good time. Bill has a doe tag so we are going to work on finding him a nice deer.

On Wednesday I headed out to a great ranch outside of Dupuyer to see if I could find a buck. Clint had to work and couldn't get off, but I was fortunate enough to be able to sneak away. The weather was not what I thought it was going to be. It was cold and started out raining but then started snowing. Needless to say I hadn't dressed warm enough but as long as I kept moving I was okay. Anyway, the critters were moving a ton and I didn't seem to be able to get into the right place at the right time... Finally I was hiking along next to this really thick creek bottom and I heard a buck grunting. I have never heard a "real" buck grunting. Of course I've heard the calls but I never have heard it in the wild. I was pretty excited so I set up and started rattling with some horns that Clint had sent with me. After a while this guy stepped out and looked right at me. I made a little "maaaa" noise and he stood there just long enough for me to get a shot off. It ended up being a great shot so he only went about 20 yards back into the bush. I do have to say that I worked my butt off getting that critter out... it took me a couple hours and I was one tired girl when I got back to the truck!

I also really missed Clint during the hunt. Even though he was a small 3x3, this buck did mean a lot to me because I really earned it. I did it all by myself from start to finish. But, Clint is such a great partner and we really make an amazing team! I missed him during the whole day and it means more when we share it. That is what it's all about for us... Sharing the experience with those we care about! Anyway, here is a picture of me and the buck. He was a nice deer and will eat really well!!!

Last weekend when we were coming home from the cabin we saw some really nice deer. They were so "rut stupid" that they just stood there and let us get some pictures.

Here is a really nice whitetail and his ladies!!!

This is a mule deer that jumped the fence and was aggressively approaching a whitetail buck and doe that were just off to the right. I know that the picture is kind of dark but it was really cool. This buck had his ears laid back and was walking kind of stiff legged... We thought we might get to see them scrap but they didn't.

Here are some pictures from our hike today. We went up on the Butte and had a great time. The wind was blowing and it was pretty chilly, but we all enjoyed getting out.

This is Clint and his Dad. His name is Lee, but we all call him Bill! (long story... he is such a great sport!)

Dane is doing really well. He is going to have a very good time with Nana and Grandpa. He is really getting his coordination figured out and now kind of lunge-crawls... For those of you needing a baby fix I will put some more pictures of him in the next few days!!!

A wonderful weekend at the front!

We headed up to the front EARLY Saturday morning to spend the weekend hunting and the night up at the cabin. Right now is such a phenomenal time of year. The snow geese and swans are migrating, the weather has been very mild for Montana, and the deer are all starting to rut so they are out and about! The first place we stopped we lucked out and spotted a mule deer buck and doe. Well, the wind was HOWLING (about 4o mph). Clint offered me first shot at the buck but I didn't feel entirely comfortable shooting in that kind of wind. I tend to err on the side of caution, so Clint crawled out in the stubble to see what he could do. Dane and I waited in the truck watching through the binoculars! After a long crawl, the deer got up and Clint took a great shot at the buck. I saw the deer go down and I was so excited for Clint, so I grabbed Dane, put him in the pack and we hiked out to take a look! What a nice mulie buck!

It's too bad that the grass is blowing in front of the camera... This would have been a good picture!
We took quite a hike on Sunday and found some really incredible public land that was full of deer. Unfortunately, none of the deer were bucks, but it was pretty cool. We ended up on Willow Creek Reservoir, it was beautiful!
The snow geese were EVERYWHERE! They fly in huge flocks... Clint took this picture with the moon and the geese... Pretty cool!
A gorgeous sunrise.

We hunted the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday looking for a buck for me but didn't have much luck. I made a stalk on a mulie and had a close call with a whitetail but didn't quite get it all to work out. Oh well, it was an incredible weekend and we didn't really want to come back to town!
On Sunday after we had packed up, Clint wanted to jump shoot a short creek with Bones. As you can see he came away with one beautiful greenhead!

Our weekend of hunting

We really enjoyed the weekend. We got to hunt a fair amount, but didn't harvest anything. We found some new areas to bird hunt, so we are very eager to fill our other deer tags and get back out with Bones.

Saturday we covered a lot of ground in the truck... I was on call all week so we had to make sure I had cell coverage. This did limit us a little, but it was a great opportunity to look at a bunch of state land and we saw a ton of birds!

Sunday morning we sat on the property, but the two (small) bucks had already moved through. At first light we could see them on the neighbor's property feeding back into the trees. Then we headed out to one of our favorite Buttes to hunt. (Where Clint and Brock shot the deer last week) There are always deer out there and though the big ones are rare, I get cell coverage and it was a great day for a hike. So, we decided to see what we could find. As always we did find deer, however the biggest buck we saw was a forky...

The views were spectacular! As I said before it was a beautiful day with no wind. (are we still in Montana???) We had a great hike, and I think Dane even enjoyed the views!

You can't really see him, but Dane's on Clint's back in this picture.
Then, it was such a mild day, we decided to go sit on the River Property in my blind. Even though I knew we would have to wait over 1 1/2 hours, I had fantasies of Dane playing on a blanket while we waited for the deer to come... In my mind it would be perfect and we would all be so content!!! and then we actually got in the blind. Yes, Dane wanted to play on the blanket and then he figured out that the grass and dirt was SO MUCH more exciting... So he kept scooting to the edge and eating the grass. When we stopped him from doing that he would get cranky. Then we were playing with him and he was laughing... so fun but not very conducive to hunting! Oh well, it was a great evening and we had fun! Needless to say, we didn't see any deer and I don't think we will be hunting out of the blind again anytime soon!

Here is Dane on the blanket in the blind. This picture isn't that great, but it shows how RED his hair is... Holy cow, he is going to be a red-head!


Clint and Dane waiting for the deer to come!!!

Tomorrow we are going hunting with some friends, Mike and Shanna (Shanna is actually my boss, but we get along with them really well, great people.) They have some doe tags that they would like to fill... Hopefully, we will get lucky and find some for them!

We also would like to say Happy Veteran's Day to everyone, and thank you to all the men and women who have served, or are serving, our Country. We appreciate the sacrafices that you and your families make so that we can live so well. Thank you!

A boy and his dog!!!

Bones... The ever faithful companion...

He is very loyal to Dane. He especially loves to carry around his shoes. It doesn't matter if they are on Dane... In fact that's even better!

And then there is the highchair! Bones has discovered the best place to lay is right underneath it to get all the tidbits. Fortunately Dane hasn't figured out the joys of feeding the dog, but I'm sure that will be coming one day soon!

Bones eats the little pieces immediately, but he brings us the big ones... Today I was doing dishes and Bones comes up all happy, I can't figure out what he wants and then I tell him "no bites" to which he drops two halves of a rice cake that he had been carrying around...

Brock's Deer

Well, Tanya doesn't let me post on the blog very often (for good reason),,,nor go hunting with out her. Last night I picked Brock up after school and we headed out of town for a little hunting. Last year we lucked into a very nice buck. This year was a little more of what I expected last year would be like. We spotted two mule deer does bedded down not far from the road. We parked and tried to put on a stalk. When we came over the hill they were gone. After some glassing we found several animals bedded down close to a mile away near the top of the butte. Well, Brock and I only had about 20 minutes of Shooting light left and I asked him if he had it in him to make a run for the top. One good quality of Brock is that he is stubborn and wont quit. So we make it to with in shooting range with only a few minutes to spare and I was able to shoot this nice mule deer. Since it was a little smaller than the one I shot last year with Brock, we got it off the Butte with out too much work. Any way it was quite a good hunt for Brock and I.

Dane's endorsement of delicious hummus!!! Makes you want to go eat some!!!

Dane's American Idol Demo Tape!!!

Don't forget to vote!

As if you could with all the last minute campaigning that is going on... Anyway, we wish everyone the best when they visit the polls... We voted absentee so we already sent ours in.

Today we have the day off so we are going to spend the morning cutting up the two does we shot on Saturday. We went out again last night and looked at some deer. There were some little bucks, but we're not ready to fill our "A" tags with a spike yet. (For those of you who don't know our A tag allows us to shoot either sex, either species--whitetail or mule deer-- so it we can always fill it with a doe at the end of the season if need be.) It was an incredible evening and from where we were the views of the sunset were amazing!

Then we will probably head out to take a look at some state land... If nothing else it's a great reason to get out and enjoy the afternoon.

I will be posting some funny videos of Dane once they get done downloading so keep you eyes out for them! He has discovered a loud very pretty sound he can make!

Here are a couple pictures of Dane enjoying a rice rusk!

A very successful morning!

Grandma was nice enough to watch Dane for a while on Saturday morning so we could sneak out for a hunt on the river property. It was Clint's turn to shoot first (with Dane along only one of us can shoot anyway, so we've gotten in that habit of trading off!) We were looking to fill a whitetail doe tag... They are great eating and this year our goal is to get some meat in the freezer as quickly as possible since having Dane makes it a little more challenging and we don't want to count on filling these tags later! In the past it seemed like there was almost always another day that we could get out... Now we want to make sure we take the opportunties as they present themselves cause you never know!

Anyway, we were lucky enough to spot some does moving onto our property when we arrived. We were able to sneak into position and Clint made a great shot on a beautiful doe. After he shot we stayed where we were and the other two deer didn't run too far. They were really skittish, but they didn't go right for cover so I was able to get a doe as well. WOW! Never did we expect to fill 2 tags but things just worked out right for us! Once again it was a wonderful morning to be out, as you can see from the picture the sunrise was beautiful!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!

We had a wonderful Halloween with our little guy. He was sent the cutest Tiger hat from Nana and Grandpa! It was super cute, but a little big so he wore it for a while and then I dressed him in his Horse outfit. He wore that to daycare all day and I was sure he was going to have a blowout so that he couldn't wear it in the evening... But thankfully he didn't!!!

Since Dane is so young, we didn't go trick or treating... But, we did go over to Grandma and Grandpa's house for a few minutes and then we went to a costume party. Well, we had decided to go at the last minute so my costume left something to be desired! Clint's was pretty funny... He was a Butte Deer Hunter, I wore a witches hat, and of course Dane was a horse!

We had a good time at the party but kept the "partying" to a minimum. We wanted to go out Saturday morning to chase some critters.

Gentian Violet---Abby, this one is for you!!!

I just couldn't seem to get that last little bit of thrush out of Dane's mouth, so I decided to revisit the gentian violet treatment that helped me so much... This is only our second day, but hopefully we can get this taken care of. I'm so tired of this whole deal! (I'm sure he is too!) Anyway, my good friend Abby said that she thought the "purple crap that I put all over his face" was hilarious, so I thought I'd take a couple pictures and share... It does look pretty funny, like he decided to eat purple lipstick or something crazy!

I also think the little guy is getting close to crawling... We've been thinking that for a while, but now he gets up on his knees and rocks back and forth... He also has figured out how to roll and then scoot backwards so he is getting most places that he wants to anyway!!! This picture is a little fuzzy, but it shows him up and concentrating so hard... look out when he gets his forward momentum!

Nobody said we weren't stubborn!

Despite the "not so great" bird hunting on Saturday we decided to go back out on Sunday. I wasn't really that excited at first cause I figured that the wind would be blowing at gale force winds again... and like I said before, that just makes everything hard, poor Dane was a trooper, but it had to be hard for him too. Well, Saturday night we looked at the weather and got great news... cold and clear with wind at 5-10 mph! We were so excited, and to top it off big game season opened on Sunday as well. So, we went to bed early on Saturday with high hopes for Sunday!

Sunday dawned just as promised and we were up on some state land to watch the sun rise. After a few unsuccessful stalks for a mule deer doe, we decided to go chase some birds for a while. Once again the sharptails were flushing wild on the first piece. So, then we moved on and found a covey that had broken up so the birds were flying one or two at a time.... Perfect... Karl and Clint each got a sharptail and then Karl got a pheasant! Finally some birds! The dogs had a great time... It was pretty funny because while Bones was retrieving Clint's bird, Grits and Sadie both retrieved Karl's bird and NEITHER were going to let go... So, they both brought the bird back. It was pretty cute!

Here they are with their birds!

After lunch here was everyone just relaxing in the grass!

Karl and Dane having a good time!

Karl with a couple birds... Grits and Sadie looking proud!

After we finished bird hunting we decided to go back by some state land where we had seen some deer. We have a couple mule deer doe permits so we were hoping to fill one. Well, we spotted some feeding and decided to make a stalk. Dane went into the pack and off we went!

We had to do some major crawling through some really thick grass and brush. At one point I looked back over my shoulder and there was Clint with Dane on his back. Dane was looking up, smiling and sucking on his pacifier... what a trooper! Finally we got to the best spot we could and set up with the shooting sticks to see if I could get a shot. After a ton of patience I was able to get a shot on a doe. With one beautiful big doe on the ground we got to work. What an amazing hunt with the whole family!!!

While we were quartering the deer, the sun was setting and it was so beautiful. Here are a couple great pictures that Clint took! Those are the Rockies that you can just make out with the sun behind them!

That's why they call it hunting! (Saturday)

Our friend Karl made the trip from Washington to do a little bird hunting with us. We were thrilled to see him and his two dogs (Sadie and Grits). Friday Clint and Karl went out to Freezeout Wildlife Management Area and they were able to get one pheasant. (Clint had to be to work at 1100 so it was a short morning) Then we all headed out Saturday morning to the Conrad area to find some birds!
The sunrise was beautiful!

Where is that rascally rabbit???

Well, the wind was HOWLING! It was blowing so hard that it made everything difficult. On the first piece that we stopped at, we hunted pretty hard and only saw one big flock of sharptails. We chased them and bumped them about 3 times but they were flushing so wild that they flew at about 100 yards... So no birds went down. Clint did find a very cute Cottontail rabbit in a pipe...

The blue thing strapped to Clint's back was Dane. I found the coolest full body suit made out of thick fleece. It is very warm and covers every inch of Dane except for his face...

Here is a close up of the cute rabbit. He wasn't coming out of that pipe!

The hatch this spring was affected by our late snow. It appears a lot of chicks didn't make it cause there just aren't very many birds! But, we did see more when we stopped at the
second piece of land. There were about 5 pheasants... But they all flushed as soon as we pulled up. They probably have been hunted numerous times and they get pretty smart about leaving when vehicles pull up. (Okay, all but one pheasant flushed as soon as we pulled up. There was one rooster that I saw hiding on the side of a windrow. Clint was driving and as soon as he stopped I hauled butt over to where I had seen it. I was SO EXCITED! I got close, the rooster flushed, and ........... nothing.......... Rarely do I forget to click off my safety before trying to shoot, but of course that time I did. Needless to say I did say some pretty words after that.)

Well, we still hadn't gotten Karl's birds any retrieves, so we decided to go jump shoot some ducks. Since the wind was still blowing really hard, I felt bad dragging Dane along again. He had been a trooper all morning, but the dirt was getting in all of our eyes and such. So, Dane and I hung out in the car. We had a good time making toys out of water bottles, and all kinds of other fun things! Dane even pretended to drive for a few minutes!
Unfortunately, when Karl and Clint got back they had bad news... Not one bird... Well, as I said before I guess that's why they call it hunting...

Bathtime!!!

Usually Dane just gets in the shower with us, but tonight I decided to give him a quick bath in the sink. Well, he quickly realized that it was fun to splash... We made a MESS! But, it was a great time and we did get him clean eventually!

I had to share some pictures cause it was really fun and he was so darn cute!

(Doesn't he just look like trouble... Oh goodness we are going to have our hands full!!!)

What a nice visit!

Dad and Marsha came from Oregon and spent the weekend with us. We didn't really go out and do anything fun, but we got a bunch of projects done and had a great time catching up and playing with Dane. Oh yeah, and Dane's thrush is starting to clear up, but I got it pretty bad over the weekend. In a moment of weakness I decided to try Gentian Violet which is REALLY purple. (everyone told me it was the answer to my problems!) It stains pretty bad and you can still see it on Dane's face...

Dad and Clint working on the shed... Hasn't Clint done a great job?

Grammy and Dane

Marsha helping me make curtains

Gramps and Dane having a great time

Look at that face Dane is making... So funny!