Thanksgiving Weekend 2009

Carrie, Bob, Cam, and I arrived at the cottage on Friday November 27th. We had come from Neillsville and hunting the previous few days. We did not have a specific plan except to hang out.

I headed for my dad's house to pick up his propane burner so that I could start the process of a european mount for the buck that I found the week before when I was bowhunting. On my way home, I had glanced down and noticed that I was going a bit to fast.... as I did so, the car that is going past my turns on his lights, whips a shitty, and pulls me over. I was going 72 in a 55. He was nice enough to let me off with a warning. At least I was thankful for something that day.

Once home, I started the boiling process on the head. I let it go for about 2 hours and then pulled it out so that I could start to cut some of the meat off. I continued to do this over an over for about 6 hours. The hardest part was to get the brain out of the skull. I continued to boil and pick until it all came out. I left all the stuff in the driveway for the night as I was done for the day. Carrie, Cam, and Bob had gone to 10 point for dinner and had brought me left overs back.









Saturday morning I got up and cleaned up my mess from the night before. I also picked and cleaned a bit more on the mount and then washed it all up in the sink, let it dry, and then hung it on the wall. I still have one more step to do which is to soak it in peroxide to whiten the skull. Overall this was not as smelly as I thought it was going to be and also was not that hard, but was time consuming as in all it took me about 8 hours to complete.



We all took a short walk to check out some land nearby that was for sale. It looked nice but was overpriced a bit. Cam and I did some exploring in Old Blue just checking out some of the back roads near our house. Cam did ride his four wheeler a bit also. My dad came for a walleye dinner in the evening and then Carrie and I headed to Schwedler's for a campfire. We laughed a lot, drank a little and then headed home for bed.



Sunday we woke to about 2" of snow on the ground. Cam really liked his ATV today as he was able to spin all over the place.





Not much was happening so we packed up and headed home to Pewaukee. It was nice to be at the cottage for a bit after spending so much time in the last few weeks hunting in Neillsville. There is no place like being in your own home for vacation rather than a guest.

Fall Cleanup and Winter Prep

Cam and I headed up to the cottage on friday morning November 6th. Cam was sick from school so we left earlier than we had planned. We were there and unpacked by 3:00 or so. We started out by getting the boat in the garage and turned sideways which proved to be a bigger chore than I had originally thought. We hung out for the afternoon. Cam rode his bike and ATV and we headed in at dark.

Saturday we woke and started raking and blowing leaves. This took about 2 hours or so and looked OK. From there, we loaded the trailer with Cam's and Carrie's ATV and headed to my Dad's to ride around there for a bit. Cam really likes riding grandpa's trails. We then talked him into going for a short ride on the trails. For some reason the last few times up there he did not want to ride the trails. I am thinking that it is to boring for a 5 year old to be a rider on an ATV rather than a driver. In any case, we went a few miles, and then headed back and went out to lunch.




Cam in Grandpa's tree stand.


Uncle Danny's new tree stand.

From there, we waited for Cayden to get to Grandpa's as he really wanted to play with Cayden. They really wanted to cut some trees down... They played for a bit and off we went to the cottage again. We were in need of a jack, so we headed to Minocqua and Walmart. We were going to go out for dinner, but Cam did not have a nap and appeared to have the patience of a 5 year old so we headed home to eat. Not much happened after that.



Sunday we packed up and headed home. It was a good weekend to get the cottage ready for the winter and spend some time with just Cam.