Where oh where have all the Gawkers gone?

Here is a picture of all the Gawkers that I saw during Elk season this year. Well, actually it is a picture from Johnny lake the other day. But it still has all the elk that I saw this year in it. Thats right, none. I was skunked. Not only did I not get to shoot an elk, I did not even see and elk. Actually, I did not see any animals other than squirrels and birds. Which brings me to the next part of my Gawkers and Runners theory.(see previous posts if you have not heard of this theory yet) I think the Runner variety of elk has intermingled with its close cousin, the Gawker, enough that they feel a need to protect them from the strange 2 legged creatures with the big sticks that go boom. They could not risk not running to save their dopey Gawking cousins, so they had to find an alternative means to warn the Gawkers and get them to go into hiding. I think I have discovered what they have done. They are paying off squirrels and birds to warn them! Every time I sneak up to some prime Gawker habitat, the birds and the squirrels start squeaking and squawking like someone just tried to eat their food, steal their firstborn and burn down their house. I don't see any other reason for this odd behavior other than to warn the nearby Gawkers that they need to get into hiding. After all this racket, you can walk into this prime habitat and find so many elk tracks you would think there was and elk superbowl going on. (I think they are getting ready to play the Clydesdales during the superbowl this year.) If you think about it, the squirrels and birds are perfect for this lookout job. They work for very little, (usually nuts & seeds) and they don't have anything else to do all day anyway. So the squirrels and the birds are diligently watching for the two legged beasts to come into the area. When they spot them the start yellin at the Gawkers telling them where to run and hide how fast to do it. Then the squirrels drag some branches around trying to hide the tracks. That usually works because the tracks always mysteriously disappear after a short distance. So now hunting is even more of a challenge. Not only do you have to sneak up on the animal you are hunting, you also need to watch out for those pesky squirrels and birds that are gonna rat you out. This is the best explination that I can come up with for why I did not see any elk at all this hunting season. I saw lots of tracks, but no elk. Those tracks don't taste any better than those big antlers! At least I got some exercise and took some cool pics. Now I just have to hope that the Deer Gawkers have not figured out how to get the squirrels and birds on thier payroll. Stay tuned.

Which way is up?

Which way is up? Fall colors are out in full right now. I was working out in the cascades a couple days ago and had time to stop and enjoy Gods creation while waiting for a truck. This picture is at Johnny Lake, about 1 mile off Hwy 20 up Sheep Creek. It was perfectly calm and the water was as smooth as glass. You could flip this pic upside down and almost not tell that it is not right side up. I was looking at this reflecting on the beauty of Gods creation and thought that this is very beautiful, but pales in comparison to what heaven will be like. Another thing came to mind also. This earth is the ruins of what God made originally. Remember that there was a flood that covered the earth and destroyed everything on it. What we see now, that is so beautiful, is the remains of what God originally made. I am once again reminded of how blessed I am to have the job that I have and can be out enjoying things like this on a daily basis.

Happy Birthday Sarah!

Its hard to believe that Sarah is 1 year old today. It seems like just yesterday that she was born here in our home. She is a great blessing to our family and a true gift from God. She brings joy to us every day. She is in some ways like her sisters but is also very much different and is uniquely Sarah. I thank God for the blessings of all my daughters as we celebrate #3's 1st birthday.

Daddy, how many days old are you?

One day a few months ago, Emma came up to me and asked, "Daddy, how many days old are you?" At first I just tried to estimate, but then thought I could probably make a spreadsheet in excel that would calculate it exactly. It was pretty easy and soon we had a table with the ages of all our family on it, in days and years. Now every time that Emma wants to know how many days old someone in the family is, she can look at this spreadsheet and it is current up to the day that she opens the file. It can make you feel old though, (I am over 14 thousand days old) so don't think about it this way if you do not want to feel old. Here is a sample from the table in the excel file that I made for Emma.

	Birthday	Today	Days Old	Years Old
Sarah	10/29/2007	10/28/2008	365	1.000000
Riah	2/20/2004	10/28/2008	1712	4.690411
Evan	12/9/2003	10/28/2008	1785	4.890411
Emma	6/19/2001	10/28/2008	2688	7.364384
Aleesha	2/17/1997	10/28/2008	4271	11.701370
Daddy	11/24/1969	10/28/2008	14218	38.953425
Papa	2/20/1935	10/28/2008	26914	73.736986

The Pen

Something happened today that I knew was coming, but was beginning to wonder if it would ever happen. My pen ran out of ink! I know this happens all the time, but this pen was different. It has performed valiantly for the last 2 months without even appearing to be tired, when it looked as if it had no ink to write with. It was a great pen. For 2 months, with no visible ink inside, it wrote on, not even fading a little. For 2 months this pen has fought to stay alive and out of the garbage can. Then suddenly today, with little warning, it could go on writing no longer. It struggled to finish a small word. With the last letter, it showed its lack of ink with a faded color. It tried to continue and started the next word. But with each stroke it was lighter and lighter, and before I could finish the word, it was over. The pen was dry. I had no time to mourn for the pen as I needed to continue to take notes. So I put the faithful pen away, grabbed the spare, and continued on writing. It was just not the same. It was a little different color and not as smooth, but somehow I made it through. So now I write this to remember that faithful writing instrument that would not die, and share this last picture of that faithful pen with its replacement. Hopefully I can get used to this new pen and it will last half as long as the old one.
Okay, that's enough of the sappy stuff, time to put The Pen in the can. I need to go hunting.

Gawkers beware

Well, tomorrow is the first day of Elk season in the Cascades. I have 1 week to find one of those Gawkers I have been blogging about the last few months and put him in my freezer. I have done a little scouting to try to find where the Elk, Gawkers or Runners, have been hanging out. That way I would know a good place to start looking. All I have seen are other hunters doing the same thing. So after a week of looking, I still have no idea where the elk are or where to hunt for them. I know where some were about 2 months ago, but even a Gawker won't stand still in one place for that long! They tend to move around a lot.
Since the first weekend of October, it has been deer season. I have, to this point, failed to see a deer to shoot at. Today I was within about 20 feet or less of 2 deer, but the brush was so thick I could not see them even that close! They were apparently runners, because they took off like a flash and I heard them bouncing away for a while and never could get a peek at them. It did not matter anyway, because I did not have the rifle with me. I thought I might actually see a live animal if I left my gun in the truck. It almost worked!
Enough about deer. That season is over now, until after elk season, so lets talk about the bigger variety of Gawkers. I do have to shoot a bull this year, as I did not draw a cow tag. The last 2 years I have drawn cow tags and was successful both times. Bulls are a little harder to find.

I am not going to be greedy and wait for one with the big trophy size antlers, like the guy in this picture. Can you see him? I would be over joyed to find this during hunting season.

This would be the ultimate dream in a hunters life. Those are all bulls. The only problem is this pic was taken in April and hunting season is in October. Why can't they do this for me when its hunting season? So barring a scene like this, the first legal Gawker that steps in front of my sights is the one I am going to try to get. Remember, those horns don't taste very good. I just want to get more meat in the freezer. I have been praying that God would provide for us by helping me have a successful hunt and I would get an elk to fill the freezer for another year. But I know that even if I do not bag an elk, God will provide for us in some other way. He always does. (It should be obvious to anyone that has seen me that I don't miss too many meals or go hungry very often.) I will just enjoy the time I have hunting and if I am successful, Praise God. I just have to remember not to get frustrated when all I see are the hind ends of runners disappearing into a nasty brush hole. If you do not read anymore blogs about Gawkers in the next week, I did not get one. Otherwise, stayed tuned for a Gawker report. If you venture out into the woods in the next week or so, make sure to wear lots of orange and try not to look like an elk or deer! Theres a lot of crazies out there, and they all have big guns.

Finally, the earth moving is done!!

The earth moving is done at the Jayne house. (at least in the front yard) I got all the extra dirt moved out and smoothed out the rest. We had to haul off about 10 wheelbarrow loads to the neighbors back yard and I took about 5 loads to our back yard. (great more work!) It is not totally flat, but it is a vast improvement from what we had before. The best part is that all the grass coming up in the picture is coming up on its own. I have not put out any seed yet. I guess thats what happens when you get the dirt from a grass seed field. Now I just hope that the Oak trees and Oak leaves do not kill the grass. It was a fun project and a lot of work. The girls liked to try to help as much as they could and Brooke was able to come out a couple times and push the wheelbarrow around. This was a true family built project.

The other project I did this last summer was the railing on the front porch. I wanted to do something a little different than the normal everyday railing. So I borrowed an idea from a friend and modified it a little and this is what it became. I think it turned out good. What do you think?
Now I have to fix up the back yard. That will have to wait until next summer. I think I'll come up with some woodshop projects for the winter so I can stay dry and not muddy. That happens to me enough at work.

Digital Blues.

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Here is a nice picture of nothing. It was going to be a cool picture of some cool scenery I saw at work the other day. But my compact flash card decided to crash on me and all the pictures I took are gone forever. Digital is really nice. You can take a lot of pics and do not have to spend money on film. However, as I found out today, it does have a down side. Oh well, I will get a new card and get more pics.

Evolution??

Zippy lives here!(that what I named the spider that made this web)

The other day as I was driving out to a plantation to check on the baby trees, I saw a bunch of spiderwebs glistening in the morning sunlight, covered with drops of dew. I was just now looking at the pictures thinking about how intricately each one is made and wondering how the spider knows how to do that. If you believe in evolution, then the spiders ability to do this just evolved over millions of years through trial and error, and just happened by chance. My question is, what did the spiders eat for those millions of years it took for them to develop this ability and knowledge through evolution. It seems to me that they would not have been able to produce very many more spiders if they could not eat. Then, what would you think if one day you suddenly had sticky stringy stuff shooting out from your backside? That would kind of be a shock. Plus they would have had to develop, at the same time, the stuff that keeps them from sticking to their own web. Since this new ability just showed up, who teaches the spider what to do with this new found ability? What would make you think to trap food in something that suddenly started coming out of that area of your body? I do not know the probability of these two things happening by chance, but I am sure there is lots of zeros after the 1. Once you get to a certain number of zeros after the 1 it is considered a statistical impossibility. I am sure this would be past that point.

I named this spider Lazy. He was not home but apparently only wants to catch big bugs.
I like that God has put so much evidence for creation in creation. I personally believe that God created everything, just as the Bible says. He did it in 6 days and has He put man on earth to take care of it. There are so many examples in the animal world, like the spider thing I was thinking about, that if you think about it would remove any doubt that God created all things. They could just not happen by chance over millions of years, the animal, bug, bird, fish, whatever could not survive unless they are complete as they are today, from day one. Check out www.drdino.com if you want to study more info like this.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God.......
End of story.

Are You Ready?

Are you ready for winter? I know it is only October, but I was driving around in snow today during my trek through the woods working. Here is a couple of pics I took to prove it.


At 2025 feet elevation there was snow mixed in the rain. At 3500 feet elevation, the pictures, it was all snow. Nice big fluffy flakes. It helped make a rather enjoyable day. I got to play in the snow(well at least drive around in it), went for a jog on a nature trail along the Santiam river to get a geocache, saw some deer,(one might have been a buck, but I did not get a clear enough look to be sure enough to shoot), and did not have to stare at a computer screen all day. Who cares that it was raining the rest of the day, I got to be outside enjoying Gods creation.
The deer I saw must have been some genetically mixed up ones. They looked confused and did not know if they wanted to run or stop to gawk. So they ran a little and gawked a little. Unfortunately they did not stop and gawk in the right spots for me to confirm the antlers I needed to see in order to throw some lead at them. I think they are a little heavier on the runner side of the gene pool so they stayed in the protected areas. Maybe I'll be able to find a true gawker later this weekend.