Holly Jolly Holiday

A nice Christmas was had out here in the piney woods.  Chris and family came in from Illinois...that's a long drive with a 4 yr old and a 4 month old in the car.  It's also affirmation of Nature's plan to have children when you're young.  I don't know if I could do it now, and my memories of similar trips with our 4 preschoolers are mercifully foggy.  Anyway, we are so happy that they embarked on the adventure.

The house was ready...

We spent their time with us getting to know the newest member of the family a little better...

Bea in a tree...

Bea and me...

Bea and Big Dad-ee (sorry, I had to rhyme there)

Bea and three...

Of course, it wasn't all about Bea.  Big sister Maggie helped with the Holiday decor by decorating a gingerbread house and a gingerbread family with her culinary mentor, Gran.

According to our little decorator, the ginger bread family from the left represents Chris, Gaby, Maggie, Bea and the Christmas tree.

Maggie had the most interest in the pending arrival of a certain Mr. Claus.  It seems like her preparations paid off.

As an added bonus, she "helped" Bea open her Christmas haul (seen in the background above).

We engaged in other activities as well.  Chris and his timberdoodle (the cold weather has them down into our part of the country - the season lasts until Feb, so maybe we'll get enough to have a potroasted woodcock meal!)...

We also took Maggie to the catfish pond up the road...she was good at reeling, but not so certain if she wanted to get close to them once they were landed.

Maggie explored the magnolia...

...and listened to tales of Daddy's hunt (with a lot of questions).

There were more visitors and still some to come, so I'll add another post in a few days.  For now, I'll close with the Trailcam highlights for December.

The two deer pictures were at different times on the same day, but I think it may be the same deer.  It looks like a yearling button buck to me.  The black squirrel is a regular, and the cat squirrels are having a party out there (they even engaged a pole dancer in the bottom picture if you look closely).  We did shoot a couple of the cat squirrels and I can't believe how fat they are.  I think I saved them from future cardiac arrest.  Maybe I should grind up a little Lipitor and mix it in with the corn?

That's it for this edition.  I'll try and catch up with a few posts before I go back to work for my career denouement.

'tis the Season

Mostly a wet and cold early December weekend on the farm.  Big Daddy came for the week when I was working in the Big City, but there was not much that Denise would allow him to do, so he kept guard on my birdfeeder.  He did halt the seed predation by a big Chucklehead with my .22 from the porch.  Denise took a picture as proof, and at first I thought he had dispatched a cat.  Not so.  The fox squirrels are enormous here.

We brought him back to Baton Rouge on Friday and had Joe and the kids follow us back that night.  They were a big help on moving us forward inside the house.  We got a few pictures and a big mirror hung, Jack reversed the dryer door to make it more convenient for Denise, we got some Christmas decorations up, and Joe took the sander to all of the interior doors so that they shut easily and completely.

We even got some lights up around the front porch.  All that remains is to get a tree (and maybe a present or two to put under it).

Other seasonal happenings around the house include the annual blooming of the camellias...

...and Christmas-ready cardinals frolicking with their feathered friends on the feeder...

And grandchildren decorating gingerbread houses.

As far as the crittercams...not much whacking there.  I still don't have full confidence that the cameras are doing what I want them to do (like conjuring up deer out of thin air...is that too much to ask?).

Scotty's feeder out back was the one I had real hopes for.  This series of pictures shows Jack and I checking it last week.  Unkbeknownst to me, there was a visitor out there on two separate occasions afterwards.

The modern day Artemis with her slingshot passed by the next morning.

...and again yesterday when it wasn't raining.  Allegedly Alice was along for the adventure both times, but let Audrey, er, Artemis venture out first.  I don't think they knew they were triggering the game cam.

I'm not all that sure this feeder is doing it's job.  Last week and again today, it would not feed on the test cycle until I had manually spun the mechanism a few times.  The camera seems to work when deer sized animals pass in front.  I did change the snap setting to 60 seconds from 5 minutes.  I'll check the camera again next week.

I did take a couple of picture with my phone when I went to check today...I saw a small cow oak, some small hickorys, lots of transplanting size huckleberries, holly trees of various sizes, and some small beech trees - it was easy to identify beech trees (I know there must be a big one somewhere...I may want to transplant some of these small ones)

And I can see just why the privet shrubs are so invasive (I will NOT be transplanting any of these).

Only 8 more days to work this year, then the final push!  It's almost time to stop thinking about plans for the place and actually start doing something.  In the mean time, we are looking forward to our first Christmas in the woods.

Whang, bang, sweet coontang

We went to Baton Rouge in response to an invitation for a non traditional Thanksgiving meal with Joe and the kids.  He has perfected the replica of Maw-Maws seafood gumbo (shrimp and lump crab meat as the seafood components).  mmm-mmm good!

In gratitude, we brought the kids back to the country to spend the weekend.  (We really had plans to exploit them for cheap labor, but we were only partially successful).


It was bound to happen sooner or later; we woke up on a frosty (28 degrees frosty) Friday morning and found that persistence pays.

Jack took care of business and there's one less boar coon to terrorize the neighborhood.  We are about to run out of different species to find in the trap, so we gave it a rest for the remainder of the weekend.

I then lured Jack into taking a ride with me to the furniture store, where we took advantage of a Black Friday discount and started the process of refurbishing our living area.  We coerced them into selling us the floor models and Jack and I were able to get the pieces in the house.  We snagged a "snuggle power recliner" and a loveseat/ottoman in lieu of a couch.  They fit the room and look like they will serve nicely.

We also decided to re-work the antique fireplace mantle, get it off of the front porch, and restore it to it's rightful place.  We moved the TV over to the corner where it could be viewed from any seat...now we just need to get it off of my nightstand and onto a proper TV stand (and say goodbye to the TV tray table I currently use by the bed).

The old leather recliner just might get donated to Brian and we're thinking of getting the matching chair to go with the loveseat.  We're also getting close to decisions on hanging more pictures and other stuff on the walls...like window treatments of some sort.  Pretty soon we'll cross the threshold from camp to house.  Denise will let me know when...

No blog post is complete without Trailcam Highlights and other outdoor pursuits.  Scott came the weekend before Thanksgiving, and we set up a feeder on the back property line by a little creek in the woods and under a really clean'trunked white oak that looks perfect for a bow stand.  Jack and I pulled the camera card and fooled around with the feeder mechanism, which looked like it was hung up.  The test function indicates it's feeding now.  The camera may take pictures of deer sized creatures (if they're as big as Scott, me or Jack anyway).

The feeder in situ...

The cuddeback took a few when we set it up and then when I checked it with Jack a week later.

Scott had wheelbarrowed out the feeder and 100 lbs of corn, wishing for a 4 wheeler of some sort the whole time.  I cleared out some underbrush and a few saplings to complete the clearing.  You can see the small brushpile to the right in the pictures.  The white oak is just to the left of the big pine in the back of the field.  The creek is just out of the picture on the right.

Jack and I took inventory of the many huckleberry trees and even a few mayhaws along the fencelines.  We'll have to monitor for blooming in a couple of months...both seem to bloom in late January/early February if I remember.  I'm really hoping for jelly from both species come the spring.  It was nice to see the yaupon doing their Christmas color thing, also.

Nothing new from the original Trail cam - a big fox squirrel and the clan out to witness the execution of the masked bandit.

The kids also spent quite a bit of time doing stuff they couldn't do in the city...like shooting a compound bow, a wrist rocket slingshot and target practicing with an airsoft pistol (dense plastic bb looking projectiles).  The girls went down the trail on the other side of the house with the slingshot and pistol, and Jack set up with the bow.  Hours of fun.

To take us out of this weeks' blog...the flexibility of youth.  Alice claimed to smell something quite foul, but Jack was in the kitchen and the dog was in the kennel...

Audrey proclaimed that she hadn't taken a shower since the beginning of Thanksgiving, and we asked her to check her feet for the source of the stench; she complied, then confirmed.

Socks to the washer, Audrey to the shower, and out with this entry.  'til next time, mon amis