MOOSE DOWN!

*** FOR SOME REASON IT IS NOT ACCEPTING RETURNS RIGHT NOW AND IS RUNNING THE WHOLE STORY TOGETHER. I APOLOGIZE FOR THIS *** Well I know we've been up to a lot lately, but the only thing on my mind right now is to share how my moose hunt went. The hunt is called the Upper Ship Creek Registration Hunt. It is a hunt that is offered within a 10 mile drive of Anchorage. It is an extremely difficult hunt as only 10% of hunters are successful. Of those 10%, 9.5% of them are horse hunters (no motor vehicles allowed in the hunt area to aid in the hunt). It is so difficult because access to the hunting area is very minimal. It takes a great deal of walking up, down, and around mountains to just get in to the hunting area, let alone finding good huntable ground. This in combination with the amount of pressure the hunt area has in the accessable areas, makes taking a moose difficult. The hunt is an any bull tag and only 100 tags are issued every year. To get a tag, you must be the first 100 in line before the Department of Fish and Game opens on the designated day (8AM). For me, this meant gambling that I would get a tag getting there at 4AM. You never know how many people will show up, especially with how close this hunt is to home. There are always people sleeping overnight in tents or bivies insuring that they get a tag for the hunt. Last year, if you weren't in line by 5AM, you were not getting a tag. This year, if you got there anytime before 8AM, you were getting a tag. The hunt starts the last week of October and the area quota is 10 bull moose. As a hunter of this area, it is your responsibility to know on a daily basis if the quota has been met or not. This means calling every morning to insure you are legal to hunt. As I already said, the hunt takes place at the end of October. This is past all the other moose, sheep, goat, carribou, etc. hunts. The rut is over, and the moose have sporadic areas that they roam, making them fairly unpredictable. The other challenge to this hunt is the weather. This is the time the snow starts to fall. So either the hunt gets closed by emergency order because the quota was met, or the quote doesn't get met because you can barely move through the valley because snow conditions are too poor to ambulate. However, the really cool thing about this hunt is that I can literally see the mountains that form the outside edge of the hunt area from my house. This also means I get to sleep in my bed at night and can be in the hunt area by sunrise. SIDE NOTE - the weekend prior to the opener, Danielle and I drove up to the hunt area to time how long it would take to drive from our house and hike into my scouting area. That totaled a little under an hour. On our way home, we spotted a group of about 8-9 grouse munchin on gravel next to the road. If you don't know what a grouse is or how they act, they are pretty tame birds. They are a little smaller than a chicken and just fly into a tree when spooked. They will literally just sit and watch you as long as you stay about 30+ feet away and don't bother them. They are supposed to be descent eating, but we have never dropped one yet. Well we pulled over and I got out my sling shot (always carrying hiking with me). I shot 6 BBs at them and the first two got within 1 mm of a head. We then resorted to throwing rocks but still could not connect. We ended up chasing them around the woods for a little bit and came home empty handed. As a result, we decided to get a .22 air rifle to make sure we get some dinner without using actual bullets. Back to the hunt story - Well somehow I managed to get the opening day of the hunt off (Tuesday, October 25th). I decided that I would give it a try and see how it went. If I didn't get anything (and chances were I wouldn't) I would wait until the next week, since I had the entire thing off in preparation for this hunt. I got to my planned spot about an hour before sunrise. As I set up on the mountain side in preparation for a day of glassing, I could see many headlights on other hunters through most of the area I would be looking for moose to roam in. Dissapointed that I would have no chance of getting to a bull moose before one of the other hunters would if I actually saw one, I stuck around until first light. It turns out that morning was a disaster for hunting. It was extremely cold, extremely windy (40mph+ gusts), and sleeting sideways. I sat in the weather for about 2 hours before I decided to throw in the towel and head home. I would try it again Saturday. The crazy thing is when I left my hunting spot and drove home, I saw 42 cars that belonged to hunters on the back road. That amazed me since only 100 tags existed, there were 2 other entry points, and this entry point was soo small. The concentration of hunters in that one area must have been incredible! Saturday came and once again I was out to my spot before sunrise (there was a foot of snow on the ground now). As it started to get a little bit lighter, I spotted two moose about a half a mile away, part way up a mountain. It wasn't quite light enough for me to be able to tell if they were cows or bulls. Deciding that I didn't want to risk someone else taking one of the moose before it got light enough for me to determine the sex, I packed up my stuff and headed in their direction. I figured that I would rather find out they were cows by walking through all the snow to get to them rather than waiting that same amount of time to find out they were bulls, and then pursuing them. Well it turns out, the moose I saw were a mamma moose and a yearling. As I was looking closer at the yearling, I noticed that it had a couple little bumps behind its eyes and in front of the ears where the rack usually is. I would estimate the size of the bumps as half of a golf ball. Anyway, this got me really thinking... is that a bull or a cow? And if it's a bull, is it a legal animal? I wasn't sure it was a bull, as I have never really studied yearling anatomy or ever thought I would approach one with the slightest inclination of taking the animal. Since being here, I have set my standards as high as possible and have vowed to never shoot an animal unless I am 100% confident it is legal (this can be difficult when judging antler, sex, and horns). I was not confident that these bumps were on males only, as I could see these also being on cow yearlings as well, but they may just flatten out and never sprout a rack. Unsure if it was a bull or not, I called all of the people I had in my phone that knew anything about hunting. The consensus was 50/50. That didn't really help my confidence on determining whether or not the bull was legal. It was impossible to see it's penis and I tried to stick around long enough to watch it urinate, but that never happened. If I would have determined that it was a bull, I would have then been faced with my next challenge... How do I feel about taking a legal animal that is still coupled with its mother? Well, it was a Saturday, and we were having a party that night for Halloween, so after watching the pair from 100 yards for a good 4 hours, I decided that it was time to head back. (Shooting a moose would have meant canceling our hosted party and spending all night dealing with the meat). I returned home thinking that I may have just passed up the first opportunity for myself to harvest a legal animal. I had to find out if that yearling was a bull or a cow. To help me in determining this, I consulted a bunch of moose growth resources, looked at information on the Alaska Department of Fishing and Game, and consulted the Alaska hunting forums. In summary, I determined that the moose I was looking at was in deed a yearling bull. My next thought after making this conclusion was determining if I really would have shot the bull. I had mixed emotions about this, but basically concluded that yes, if given that chance again, I would take a shot at the moose. Granted, I would much rather take a bull with a massive (or at least bigger) rack; but if it was between not putting meat in the freezer or harvesting a legal animal that wasn't ideal, I would harvest a yearling. For those that disagree with my train of thought, I encourage you to read this post on our Alaska hunting forums. http://forums.outdoorsdirectory.com/showthread.php/106954-Would-you-shoot-a-quot-calf-quot It takes a poll on this subject and then people defend their reasoning. There is some very interesting information there! I was planning on going hunting again Sunday, but it turns out I had a little too much fun the night before and missed sunrise. That's ok tho; I needed a day to recover, plus, I had all of that week off. Monday comes around and once again, I'm headed hunting. I called the ADFG and they said it was a busy weekend with 7 total bulls being taken so far... 3 left! The weather was pretty crappy again and not very reassuring. In fact, I almost decided to stay home that day because I could not find my hunting license ANYWHERE. Lucky me, I purchased my hunting license online and I had a paper printout that I could carry with me (almost forgot I had it). So the time I spent looking for my license put me behind the morning rush traffic and I actually parked my car as the light was starting to come up. There was a couple more inches of snow on the ground and I knew I couldn't glass the valley very well from my normal spot since their was basically a mini blizzard taking place at that time. Because of that, I decided to just start hiking on the path toward where I saw the pair of moose two days earlier. On my way there, I noticed some very fresh tracks from a single moose on the path I was headed. Since visibility was about 300 feet, I decided to just follow the tracks and hopefully stumble across a bull at the end of them. The tracks started to head down the mountain and in to some deep snow and timber. It wasn't an ideal direction in case I happened to harvest it, but it was still generally close the truck. As I'm winding down the mountain and weaving in and out of alders, I caught myself having an extremely difficult time following the path the moose took. I am constantly amazed at the terrain and brush that a moose can navigate through without any trouble! Well after following the tracks for a good 1.5 hours, I finally came across a moose. To my disappointment, I was staring at a big cow moose. I just stood there and watched her for about 20 minutes when I noticed some more movement in the background... it was another moose! The moose came into the clearing, and I'll be damned, it was the same yearling I spotted two days ago. The tracks I was following did not belong to these moose, but somehow, they led me right to them. Already deciding before I left for my hunt that day that I would harvest the yearling if it crossed my path again, I knew my tag was soon to be filled. Unfortunately, we were in some extremely thick brush and stalking and seeing where the moose were was extremely difficult, not to mention dangerous. A momma moose is nothing to mess around with!!!! I waited patiently for the moose to move elsewhere and I probably waited a good 2 hours only to have them move a couple hundred feet. That entire time, I was fairly close to them ( I would estimate about 200 feet). They knew I was there, but moose typically adopt a carefree attitude and don't pay much attention to things smaller than them. Well after these two hours of being in their presence, they started to get a little edgy. They started trotting down the mountain and stopping to look back at me. Of course I pursued them and they continued to trot away. There was a couple times during this chase that I had my gun set up and ready to take a shot, but I could not get a clear shot of the yearling. I ended up chasing them down hill for about 30 minutes. Getting a shot on the yearling became increasingly difficult as they were now facing away from me constantly, and the moose were staying close together. I actually ended up below them after pursing for a while. This made them turn back uphill and separate by about 20 feet in an opening before some alders. This was my chance. The yearling never gave me a good broadside shot, but quartering away was going to have to do. With little time to think, I lifted my rifle, judged where the fatal organs rested, and took the shot. The yearling bolted 10 feet.... and dropped. The momma cow stood there, unknowing of what just happened. Before the cow could realize what just took place, I high-tailed it out of there. I got 300 yards away and stopped to recover myself. I noticed at that time that I had a good amount of blood dripping from my chin. Apparently, when I took the shot the gun shot back with enough force to have my scope gash my forehead open. I didn't even feel it happen, or know it was dripping down my entire face. In foresight, I really should have gotten a couple stitches to close it up, but I didn't have time and a suture bandaid worked good later on... After I gathered myself, I took a moment to pray in gratitude for the yearling giving its life to feed many mouths. The next couple hours were the longest ones of the day. I could not start to work on field dressing the moose until the cow was no longer protective of her young. It was now a waiting game. I shot the moose at 1 PM. I proceeded to climb back up the mountain, find a place where I could see the kill sight, and watch how the mamma cow reacted, hopefully and eventually leaving the yearling. In the mean time, I contacted a couple people and lined up 5 helping hands to hike in, help field dress, and pack the moose out. I sat there, watching the cow walking around wondering why her young would not get up. In between patches of fog and 20 minute intervals of sight and then hiding beneath the clouds, the mamma cow would not separate more than 100 feet from the yearling. It was a very bitter sweet moment for me to reflect on what had just happened... I would be lying if I said I didn't mourn along with the cow. Watching that, one can't help but try to relate to how the mamma cow was feeling. I do not enjoy killing. Killing is the least rewarding aspect of hunting and fishing for me. The thrill and reward is in the preparation, execution of a plan, attempting to concur various challenges, and to hopefully provide sustenance for my family and friends. After sitting in the snow and cold for a little over 5 hours, I was starting to shiver quite a bit. I had not eaten lunch that day, I was hiking the whole morning in fresh snow, and my water was completely frozen in my camel pack. I was drained. In the mean time, the cow had yet to leave the yearlings side. It was looking like we were going to have to force the separation in order to dress the moose. The crew arrived to my location on the mountain around 6PM. We slowly headed down the mountain to the location of the kill. As we approached it, we were extremely cautious as the situation and attitude of the cow was very unpredictable. Luckily, the cow was rather submissive to our presence and never once suggested any aggression towards us. The power of numbers proved beneficial here. The cow watched from 300 feet away as we walked up to the yearling and set up our field dressing gear. Danielle was on Cow patrol and myself and the guys started to dress the yearling. Soon after we started, the cow lost interest and ventured off into the valley. It was a good thing too as darkness soon fell and it would have been extremely hard to keep tabs on a pissed off moose in the dark. We put our headlamps on and proceeded to cut up the moose. After a couple hours, we had everything cleaned up and packed ready to hike to the truck. Luckily, we had just enough people to pack the entire moose out in one trip (This would have took at least 1 other trip on a full grown bull). It's a good thing it only took us each 1 load because by the time we were ready to leave, it was snowing extremely hard and accumulated a couple more inches of fun to walk through... up a mountain... 1.5 miles... with 80 +/- 20 pounds (depending on what was being carried) apiece on our backs. It was a pretty grueling hike and my legs were CRAMPING bad by the end of the hike. This was the first time I had done any kind of exercise for 6 weeks. 6 weeks prior I broke two bones in my ankle from playing basketball. Typically, I would have been conditioning myself with cardio and a weighted pack prior to a hunt... but my basketball injury prevented that from happening. Once at the truck, we relaxed for a little bit. I was pretty beat, but it was hard to ignore the beauty of huge snowflakes emptying from the sky to the top of the mountain where we stood, knowing I just had 5 good friends help me complete the challenge I set out to conquer, that very few have succeeded at. I got home at 10:30PM and I spent the rest of the night on into the late morning cleaning and preparing the meat. I ended up staking out a lot of the meat and packaging it myself. I took the quarters and ribs to a local butcher to have the remainder processed there. Overall, we got back a little under 200 pounds of moose meat.... delicious table fare that is very lean and healthy! So far, I have had the privilege of harvesting both a moose and black bear. I just entered Danielle and I's names into the hunting draws for next year. We are guaranteed a caribou tag and hopefully we get drawn for another species as well. I am predicting that Danielle will get in on the action with a caribou and bear next year... I have my next goal set on a mountain animal... a goat or perhaps a sheep.

A view of the moose taken from my iPhone through my binoculars.

He was a chubby thing... and hairy too

I tried to clean it out, but it started to bleen again. Every high-powered rifle hunter has to get scoped at least once.

Sitting on the mountain looking down in to the valley where my moose lay. The clouds kept pushing in making it difficult to watch anything for more than 20 minutes. Good thing I was sitting there for 5 hours... I got plenty of 20 minute intervals :)

Success! We didn't have to worry about the meat getting too warm since there was snow EVERYWHERE. We didn't even have to worry about the bears since they were all denned up by now.

Close up. The next one I shoot I promise will have a rack that may get in the way of me being in the picture.

few fall pics

Oh hey.... it's just me, Danielle. Here are a few pics from some of our fall weekends. On the boat, scouting the surrounding mountains for bears. hmmm..... I feel like I and/or Adam have already talked about this........I'll keep it short. We were looking for grizzly bears to fill our buddy's tag and only saw black bears.... A LOT of black bears. We went up after one.... it was a ridiculous hike up, took two hours..... and no bear. Spot and stalk is a lot of work!

A different weekend..... bird hunting. Ptarmigan and Grouse---- saw lots of birds but they were extremely spooky so we didn't get a shot in. But the dogs had a blast!

cool lil fungi

Sunset over Eagle RiverA different weekend.... Erin and I took the dogs up a mountain to play in the snow. They were SO SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited, it was hilarious and awesome!

They did a great job of posing amidst their snow excitement!

Tundra challenging Chena

We had to climb to the top to the snow

Northern lights..... from our back porch!Fall colors and snow on the peaks

Rainbow! Turned into a double. At one point, I could look around and see three rainbows!

Snowing in the mountains!

That's about it..... working, hunting, and hiking!

Hunting... but no luck :(

Alright, so this blog update starts out with a solo moose hunt that I went on. Danielle and I scouted out an area over the summer that looked promising. I decided to give it a try but didn't have any luck. This area I was hunting in actually did not allow ATVs, which was good, since I do not own one.... yet. Anyway, during our scouting trip, we saw a bunch of moose all over the area. Unfortunately, that was not the case during hunting season. Apparently, horses are allowed in the area, and many people ride in on them and bring a couple extra to help pack a moose out. I was not expecting to see so many horse hunters, and unfortunately, they were able to hunt further in than I was. If I got a moose, it would have taken me 8 trips to get it out of the field. I camped 2 miles in, that means, I would have to hike 8 miles with about 100 lbs on my back and 8 miles with an empty pack going back to load up again. Because of that, I could not hunt too far in (although I could easily walk further if I wanted to). The horses on the other hand, could make the pack in 1 trip, so they were not limited in distance. I saw many horse groups bring moose out, and I actually witnessed a massive bull being takin down through my spotting scope about 5 miles away. All in all, it was a good learning experience. I will likely not hunt this area again unless I have a horse team with me.

The second hunt was around Kenai Lake in an attempt to fill our friend Shawn's grizzly bear tag. This hunt consisted of both me and Danielle and Shawn and Erin (and the dogs) driving down for the weekend and camping out of the camper. The plan was to cruise the massive lake in our boat scouting the shore and mountains. We would scout during the day, and drink and be jolly at night. The first day of scouting, we cruised the lake with some mediocre weather... partly cloudy with some drizzles here and there. We didn't see a single grizzly bear all day. We did however see a little over 40 different black bears. Danielle has yet to shoot a bear, so we were trying to talk her into putting a stock on one of the bears. Unfortunately, she forgot her hiking boots and was only wearing rubberboots. In addition, these black bears were all on the tops of the mountains eating berries, so shooting one would require hiking up a very steep mountain, from ground level, without a path to follow. Needless to say, she didn't fall to our peer pressure. We were kind of bummed that we didn't see a single grizzly that day and it kind of lingered over into the next day. We weren't going to take the boat out until I convinced everyone that I needed to in order to get it ready for the winter. So we all jumped in the boat and did the same thing as the day before. We didn't see as many black bears, but we saw some massive ones. There was one bear in particular that appeared to be at the top of a hikable mountain, so once again, we nagged Danielle to try and go after it. Sick of the nagging, she said YES, LETS GO. This caught Shawn and I by surprise as we were now committed to the stalk now. She borrowed Erin's hiking boots and we were off. To make a long story short, we tied up to shore by some trees, left the dogs with Erin, hiked 3 hours up to the top of the mountain with very questionable places that some people probably should not go, fighting the worst swarm of flies I have ever seen in my life (you seriously could not breath without inhaling a couple... and they bit... and laid eggs on you), got to the top only to find our bear was gone, returned back to the boat 5 hours after leaving, and left empty handed. The things we gained were: great pictures, a great workout, many bug bites that actually swelled with infection, Danielle craving to drop a black bear (which WILL happen next spring), a place to go if we ever want to hunt fall black bear (or any guests that visit), and a good since of where not to hunt Grizzly bears. In addition to the blackbears, we saw so many Dall Sheep that I know exactly which tag I will be putting in for for next year :)

The most recent hunt was a weekend hunt with Shawn again looking to fill his Griz tag. We decided to head South again to his hunting unit and hike back deep into a lake. The hike wasn't too bad except my GPS was not accurately portraying the path. We actually took a wrong trail and wound up talking to trail construction workers that actually told us we were not headed in the right direction. Regardless, I could have sworn my GPS was telling me the trails met, despite what the workers said. Anyway, we decided to back track and jump back on the trail where we diverged resulting in 4 additional miles of walking. Turns out, toward the end of this trail there was a fork in path that had a sign that was was pointing at the original path we were on! Oh well... walking with a heavy pack is good for me :) The weather wasn't the best being cloudy and rainy, but we made due. We pitched our tent and scouted the mountain sides. Once again, we saw plenty of black bear, but no griz. We also saw a bunch of mountain goat which answered the question of which goat hunt will I apply for next year too! Shawn will continue to hunt every weekend to fill his draw tag until the bears den up for the winter. His tag is actually good in the Spring too when they wake back up. He has a better chance at filling the tag then and I have a good contact who might be able to put us on a bear then.

So basically the fall hunting season is coming to a close. I was not able to hunt very much at all... or plan much of a hunt because of things going on at work right now. Our hospital is in the process of implementing a new electronic health record system hospital wide and low and behold, I have a huge role in the pharmacy part of it. Because this is such a huge task, no one in the pharmacy was allowed to take vacation from August to the end of October (HUNTING SEASON!) I already have some prime time confirmed off for next year, so I EXPECT to be dropping some kind of animal then.

There is still one hunt that I will likely attempt. It is a special registration hunt that you basically have to wait in line for 5 hours before 8AM to be the first 100 to get a tag. This hunt is for any bull moose and it is actually on the other side of the mountain of the valley that we live in. The success rate for this hunt is only 5% (and less than 1% without a horse). Who knows, I could be that 1%! Anyway, it's convenient, I can do it daily if I have time to scout, and my last bit of hope for the season. I did this hunt last year too. I saw many cows, but not a single bull.

Oh ya... we can see black bear up in the mountains every night now from our front window!

That's it for now!


I HATE HOW BLOGGER ADDS PICTURES OUT OF THE ORDER THAT YOU SELECTED OR UPLOADED THEM. So they are out of order, but I don't have time to organize it :(

Sunrise at Ptarmigan Lake trying to drop a Griz with Shawn

Danielle's battle wound from climbing the mountain. She fell at one point and gashed her leg open good. She said she didn't even know she did this. We were half way up the mountain and looked down and noticed her pants were ripped. She looked further and her hiking pants underneath were also ripped. She looked further and noticed her under armor was ripped. She looked further and noticed her skin was ripped. She had no idea about this until she saw her pants. Weirdo... it was a pretty clean cut too. It looked as if someone took a knife to her; all layers and her skin were so finely cut in the same place.

Hiking back down the mountain after an unsuccessful stock all the way to the top.
Shawn overlooking the world... aka Cooper Lake in the distance, Kenai lake below us, and the Kenai Mountain range.


Ptarmagin Lake as we arrived. There were the mountains we were glassing looking for a weekend grizzly.


Since it just drizzled after we got to the top of the mountain, we decided the faster way to get down the mountain would be on our asses! This was good until we got the rocky parts... OUCH!


View from the top of the mountain. Silly bears are roaming up here feasting on berries... it makes it hard to get to them.


Shawn and I walking on the mountain ridge. After we realized the bear had already left, Shawn and I decided that since we were so close, we would peak over and see what we saw. There was another valley and two rams over looking it.


This is Danielle's patented poop poke. She HAS to know if it is fresh or not. This one was definitely fresh and still hot. It was from the bear we stalked. We must have scared the crap out of it since he was no longer there :(


An eagle soaring above us as we rested atop the mountain.


Almost at the top of the mountain and Danielle is wonder what the hell we got ourselves into.


A view of how high the bears were. Easily above tree line and right where the clouds were.

The best friends were along for the ride as well. This picture was actually taken right after Tundra fell off the boat. He was roughing around with Chena as we were cruising pretty fast and then all of a sudden he lost his balance and toppled over the side. We had to turn around and pull the booger out of the water. We let them run around when were driving because they really can't get too hurt if they fell in. Since I have a jet boat, if a dog were to accidentally fall off the bow, yes, we would run them over, however, it would only push them down in the water for a second and they would pop back up. A jet doesn't have a prop that would chew them up... in only sucks and spits water and a dog under the boat would not get sucked into the jet. Not the prettiest picture, but reality.


Taking a little scouting break by playing in a drying up creek drainage.


This was probably one of the most dangerous parts of the hike. This does not look steep in the picture, but trust me, it was NASTY!


A lake off the Denali Hwy from my solo moose hunt.


McLaren Glacier... also part of my moose hunting area. A man actually just got attacked by a grizzly bear near that glacier while hunting. He was very close to dying.


My consilation prize to not dropping a moose. I found about 10 different caribou sheds. Unfortunately I had to leave 5 in the field, because they were so damn heavy. My pack was probably well over 110 pounds when I packed out due to these things!


This is a lake in my hunting area. I was hoping it would be the local watering hole, but it just proved to be water in a hole.


The scouting break continue with a walk up the drying out creek. This will also be my highway if I get a sheep draw tag for this area some year.


Blue berries were everyone during my moose hunt. I ate so many that my bowels didn't like it!!

A view of my daily scouting area for moose.


The camp site.


Another glacier in the distance on my way to the hunt area. This is acutally Susitna glacier... it results in a massive river throughout Alaska... which houses many good fishing opportunities. On the banks of this river is where I shot my black bear this spring.


More blue berries... just a few I guess.

Sept. 5, 2011

Hi there. This post doesn't have a specific event or adventure, just some random photos. The first few are pics I forgot for the last post. As well as some videos that I HOPE will work this time around. ....we'll see!

Here I am....driving the boat! I am also pretty good at backing the trailer in, thanks to a tip I learned from Kevin a few years ago!

Our dipnetting fish- 35 in two hours. Cleaning took about 3 w/ just Adam and I

Adam, waiting for a fish to hit the net

King Salmon steaks we had when our parents were here..... AMAZING! :)...like I am drooling right now just thinking about them!

Erin and I w/ our moose jaws. We came across a pile of moose bones

Okay--- this was a riot. Of course the goofy dude who also happens to be 6'8'' is ADAM! We were at a party thrown by some softball friends, they also had other friends over. Grilling and SLIP'N'SLIDING! So Adam takes this silly green thing to wear. Well this other guy, whom we'd NEVER met, had a silly green thing too! The only difference was that Adam's actually had short bottoms and this dude's was a thong. Absolutely hysterical when they both undressed and matched! I did not go on the slide- as all the boys promised they weren't cold but were shivering and turning purple. It was a blast to watch! :)

Erin and I saw these 3 fine fellows on our girl's hike. 3 rams--all w/ nice curls! Quite the sight to see! :)

This is our little boy--- always playing in the mud!

King of the mountain w/ his giant stick!

Poor baby, his paw is STILL wrapped up. Doesn't stop him from playing with his new favorite ball though!

My poor baby, at the emergency room. He cut open the pad on his paw by stepping on a glass bottle on the beach. Chena hit it too, thankfully it only slightly cut the front of her leg...coulda been a lot worse had it gone deeper. Tundra's healing process is going to be around 6 weeks. Pretty sucky for a 10month old Alaskan dog.... and his owners! We are extremely frustrated w/ the jerk who left their garbage behind, it woulda been so simple to pick it up and pack it out. It woulda saved us $100s of dollars and 6 weeks of lost adventure. All Tundra wants to do is go out for walks and to play, he stares out the window a lot. You would never know he is hurt by the way he runs around the house---it is hard to keep him "quiet". He has many new bones and toys to help w/ the boredom. I am realizing what it is like to be a "mommy" and having to stay home with him. We have to put a plastic thingy on his paw when he goes out so the wrap doesn't get wet. We also have to re-wrap it often. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR--if you can pack it in, you can pack it out!

The silver truck is new, it's Adam's. We are a Dodge family now. The Dakota is mine and what I have driven since we moved here. We needed the bigger truck to pull the boat and future toys

This is a video of dipnetting. If you are not a fan of fishing or blood, then don't watch this. Some may consider it gross.

OKAY--the Sanibel videos of the manatees and clams will NOT work. sorry. Maybe Adam will try to reformat them or something for next time!