July 16th, 2008
By Arthur

Well, I first saw this post topic on Blessed’s blog, and then I came across it again on Jody’s blog. The different part about Jody’s post was that this time I got tagged. The theme behind the post goes like this:

Think back on the last 15 years of your life. What would you tell someone that you hadn’t seen or talked to for 15 years? How would you sum up your life? You get 10 bullet points. A list of 10 things to summarize about you. At the end of your list, tag 5 more people and send on the love…

The last 15 years? That would only make me 15, so I guess for the purpose of this post I have to talk to someone like I haven’t seen them since I was 15. I guess I can do that. So, without further ado here it goes:

• Yes I graduated high school. I was a slacker for my freshmen year, but I finally realized that an education was pretty important and buckled down and got my diploma.
• No, I’m not still with the same girl from high school. We did get married, but it was short lived, and then a few years later I met my current wife, and she is perfect.
• Remember how much I hated high school, and all things related to it? Well now I work in a school system. Now there is some irony.
• Hunting and fishing are still a HUGE part of my life and will probably always be. To be honest they are a bigger part of my life now then they have ever been.
• I still live in the same town I grew up in and I am pretty happy with that. Hopefully my wife and I’s four year plan works out and we get to move into the country, but for now the small town life works just fine.
• We bought our first house two years ago and we take tremendous pride in it. Sure it isn’t the fanciest one, but it’s ours, and we’ve made some fun improvements to it.
• I finally broke down and got a dog. I know I always said I wouldn’t have one of my own, but I do. I should say we do, because I think the wife likes him more than I do. Did I mention that he is completely crazy?
• I run two of my own websites. One is a personal notebook type, and the other is an outdoor blog. They take up a lot of my time and I absolutely love it. Never did I think I would like to write, but with my outdoor site/blog, it sure has taken a hold on me.
• Family is a big part of our life, and I’m glad that most of them are close by. Even the cousins who moved to South Carolina are on their way back and we couldn’t be happier. It is going to be like when we were 15, except now it will be hunting, and our kids playing together, rather then bb guns and G.I. Joe’s.
• My wife and I are expecting our first child in October, and we couldn’t be happier. It has made life come full circle for us at this point, and we can’t wait for our little girl to get here.

So there ya have it. The last 15 years of my life in a nutshell. This was actually a pretty fun post to do. I really had to put a lot of thought into it. I mean you only get 10 bullet points, and I could have kept going, so picking the important ones was a little bit of a task.

In the spirit of this post, I now have to tag 5 people to write a similar post of their own. I’m going with:

Jeff at Lowcountryhunting

Rick at Tails and Trails

Phillip at The Hog Blog

Mike at Hunting with Mike

Kris at Jake’s Outdoors

Hopefully everyone takes me up on the offer. I love getting different insights into my fellow blogger’s lives.

Popularity: 16% [?]

July 15th, 2008
By Arthur

It really is a thing of beauty.  And it honestly always brought a smile to my face.  What could be better than watching a poor unsuspecting victim be attacked by a humongous white bird?

Ok, so what sounded a little harsh, and I can already hear the comments, but quite honestly everytime it happened all of us laughed.  No harm was done to the victim, except for them being a little startled, and every single time the event happened it brought tears to our eyes. 

What am I talking about you ask?  Well, on the torch river there is quite a bit of bird life, and in particular, there are quite a few swans.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many swans confined to one area.  The other thing, is that during the this time of year, they are either in the process of having babies, or they already do, and because of that there are numerous nests along the river.  This sets the stage for some laughter.

When boats are travelling up the river there is a strict no wake rule, so everyone is going at really slows speeds, even the jetskis.  For some reason, and I think it is directly related to their size, the swans don’t take kindly to these particular water vehicles.  The boats can pass them all day, and nothing will happen, but the minute a jetski comes by, the show begins.

As soon as the male swan see’s the jetski he will start postering, and heading right towards it.  Now most people aren’t aware of the issue, so they just keep going along without even realizing what is happening.  Normally the birds attack from the rear too, so that makes it even harder to know what is coming.  At first they will just put across the water trying to catch the “intruder”, but after a little while they will actually take off and fly, eventually catcing the rider and thumping them in the back.  I can’t deny that it is quite a spectacle to watch.

Last year Jeff almost got attacked, and that is the only reason that we are aware of the issue.  The birds are real protective when the waverunners come around, and we just wait and watch.  The attacks are never vicious at all, but they definitely let the rider know to move on.  It is so funny.

So next time you are in the torch river, and you’re on a waverunner or jetski, make sure you watch your back, or you might be on the next episode of “When Swan’s Attack”.

Popularity: 15% [?]

July 09th, 2008
By Arthur

I was usually awakened by conversation, along with the smell of fresh brewed coffee. If I was home I would have been up hours ago, but not now-not while I was in this place. I rolled over at 9, or maybe even 10 in the morning, and proceeded to get dressed and head down the spiral staircase to the main floor. The start of another great day.

Normally everyone was awake before me. They would be sitting around the kitchen counter enjoying their black go-go juice. They might even be sitting out on the deck enjoying the start of another great day on the Torch River. I was a little different, since I hate coffee, so I would head to the fridge and pour my cup of orange juice. I love the smell of coffee, but I could never get used to the taste.

Slowly I would walk down the hallway onto the laminated wood floor of the living room, ease the sliding glass door open, and proceed out onto the deck. The river, which was only a few feet away, would normally call to me and I would grab my fishing pole, already rigged with bobber and worm, and head out onto the dock to try my luck for that morning. The fish weren’t big, but they were a challenge to catch, and that was good enough for me.

After trying my luck on catching the perch, rock bass, or bluegill, that decided to fall prey to my hook and bobber, I would check in on everyone and see what was happening for lunch, or see who wanted to lose at a game of horse shoes. Some afternoons were spent on the pontoon, taking in the sun and the sights, and getting in some football throwing while wading on the Torch Lake sandbar. It was a rough life.

Evenings would bring about food-all kinds of food-from ribs, to frogmore stew, to pork chop and scallop potato casserole. We always ate good-no doubt about that. Of course, even with all of this food available for consumption, it wasn’t anything a nice cold beer couldn’t wash down. And boy did we drink plenty of that-in moderation of course!

All of my vacation days went pretty much like what I described. They were great, and as always went way too fast. It is amazing how time just flies by when you’re on vacation and almost comes to a stand still when you’re at work. I still haven’t adjusted to having to wear socks yet. I was barefoot pretty much everyday, sometimes with sandles on, and it was awesome.

Now it is back to reality, and to be honest I like being home. I like getting back into the routine of everyday life, but I can’t help but think about what it would feel like to be at the cottage again-being able to walk out my back door and enjoy a little fishing. Hopefully those days will return once again. I’m sure it won’t be soon enough.

Note: Stay tuned for more vacation posts. I have plenty. What’s in store you ask? Well, there will be a swan story (and no it’s not a nice story). I will introduce you to a little vacation friend that we met, and I will also be covering a few of our fishing escapades. I have plenty of things to write about, and I finally have my internet connection back as well, so the posts will keep on coming!

Popularity: 21% [?]

July 08th, 2008
By Arthur

I eluded to this in my post yesterday, so I figured I would clarify what I was talking about in my post today, and not keep everyone in the dark. Our vacation was great, but while I was gone my house didn’t have quite as great of a vacation.

On Wednesday some nasty storms tore through the area, and were especially strong in my city. Our street, according to one of our local mail carriers, was the worst hit in town. As of this morning we still had barricades up at both ends of our street and there are tree limbs down everywhere. From what I understand it all looked much worse, and I’m glad a lot of clean up had been done by the time we arrived home.

We had cousins who were going to stay at our house while we were on vacation, but once the storm went through, and took out our power, they decided that staying there wasn’t the best option. The wife and I were glad they were there though so that they could check out the damage and inform us if we needed to cut our vacation short. Thankfully we didn’t and got to enjoy the entire vacation, but some houses on our block were not so lucky.

Our neighbors had their power box ripped right off the wall by a tree branch, and a bunch of the houses around us have damage from falling limbs. There are still a couple that have trees laying on them. The worst thing that happened to our house was just debris. There is leaf debris everywhere. I will be cleaning that up for awhile I’m sure. We also lost power for a few days, but that was fine since we weren’t home. We did lose some things that were in our freezer, but thankfully my venison was almost gone anyway. Our car, as well as our cousins, also received some hail damage. Apparently the hail was grape-sized at certain points and really did a number to our vehicle that was still at the house. Thankfully the house faired better and didn’t receive any noticeable damage.

I wish I could show pictures, but since I wasn’t home, I obviously don’t have any. Apparently the hail was inches deep at certain places in our neighborhood. My cousin sent a picture, via his phone, while we were away, and it looked like it had snowed. I even heard that people were having to shovel hail off of their porches and decks. Pretty amazing stuff.

So the only real damage from the storms, that we are suffering from at this point, is the car damage, and the fact that I don’t have an internet connection at home. These Wifi spots will do the trick until that comes back on. A minor inconvenience as compared to what happened to other people’s homes.

Hopefully we will be back online by the time you read this, and hopefully all of the thunderstorms in the near future steer clear. I promise some vacation related posts in the next few days.

Mother Nature can be one bad mother I tell ya!

Popularity: 20% [?]