Elk, small game, and fish 1, hunters 0.

Ok, so I’m a little late on the updates. This post is all about my recent hunting trip in Colorado, which was in mid-October.

First, I’m using “hunting” somewhat loosely, as it was my first time hunting anything. Elk was the primary game being hunted, but not everyone in camp had an elk tag. Hmmmm…..maybe I should give some background before telling much more.

Elk camp has occurred almost annually since the early 1990s. It was started by Donnie L’s family and friends. I went to high school and college with Donnie, and we have known each other for over a score (that’s 20 years for those who don’t remember the Gettysburg Address). I remember Donnie going to elk camp a few times in college, and I’ve had a standing invitation to participate for several years now. I finally decided to take advantage of the offer while I am relatively unfettered. Since it was my first time hunting, I decided not to pay for a bull or cow elk tag, as they cost $550 and $250 for out-of-state hunters, respectively. I don’t own a suitable elk hunting rifle, either. I was fortunate to borrow a .40-caliber handgun for the trip, to be used as protection against certain types of wild animals and eroding masculinity from years of a desk job.

I flew out to Denver a few days before the planned departure to camp in order to spend some time with grandparents and Mom. Having done that, I met Donnie and his parents at his brother’s house in Denver, where we hatched various strategies and generally prepared for the trip. There were five of us: me, Donnie, Doug (brother), Darrell (dad), and Caden (Doug’s son). We planned to meet two other guys at camp (Donny P and Rick), and three more (Cleo, Jim, and Garrett) would be arriving a few hours after us, bringing the total to 10 guys.

Elk camp is at Sawtooth Mountain, near Gunnison, Colorado. The elevation is about 9,500 feet above sea level, and we drove over the Continental Divide at Monarch Pass on the way there.

Monarch Pass, Continental Divide

Eventually we turned off the highway onto a dirt road leading to camp. Shortly thereafter, we encountered our first wild animals: bighorn sheep.

Bighorn sheep

We arrived at camp in the early afternoon, and the two guys who arrived before us had already set the tents up. We helped set up the bunks and stashed our gear, then had burgers for lunch. With 10 guys at camp, the next order of business was to dig a latrine.

Just like my bathroom at home!

These guys have really gathered together an amazing setup for the camp. There are two tents: one for storing food and some cooking, and another for sleeping and eating if the weather is bad. The sleeping tent has a homemade wood stove inside, complete with chimney, and it keeps the tent quite warm all night long.

The sleeping tent.

At dusk, we had to take a short hike to Lookout Rock to try to spot deer and elk. The season didn’t open until Saturday, so there was time to scope out the area.

Darrell glassing the quakies and dark timber from Lookout Rock.

Fortunately, I remembered to pack the binoculars that Karis gave me as a gift several years ago. They worked great!

Who's that macho dude?

When we hiked back to camp, Rick had already started preparing a venison dinner. He brought some meat from a deer he shot last year, and fried it on the wood stove. Then he made gravy with the little brown bits.

MMMMMMM.....venison medallions!

Since the sky was so clear that night, I decided to try my hand at photographing stars. I’m not kidding – you could easily see the Milky Way if you walked 50 yards out of camp away from the campfire. Note to self: research and save for wide-angle lens! This isn’t a photo of the Milky Way, but it’ll do for now. I’m somewhat dissatisfied with it because there is visible horizontal banding. After I got back, I consulted with one of the Sacramento area’s premier photographers and got some advice on how to get better star photos.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star....

On Friday, we got up and cooked a nice camp breakfast. Did I mention that these guys have the sweetest setup? This skillet is the best for cooking bacon and elk sausage, and then frying potatoes!

After our hearty breakfast, we headed down the hill to go fishing in a stream that meandered through an expansive meadow where a herd of sheep was grazing. I had a one-day fishing license, but also wanted to practice using my Gorillapod and RF remote shutter release.

Fishing pond.

Donnie brought his fly rod, and Doug brought a regular pole, but we had no luck.

Donnie and Doug try to trick the fish.

Back in camp later that afternoon, we geared up for the season opening. Some of the guys packed a change of clothes and hiked up to a high point called the Saddle where the elk are known to cross regularly in the dawn hour. It’s important to pack a change of clothes because by the time you hike up there, your clothes are wet from sweat and you can get hypothermia if you don’t keep warm and dry. In order to be in position to shoot an elk at dawn, you have to be hiking to the Saddle by around 2:00 a.m. Needless to say, since I didn’t have an elk tag, I saw no point in hiking to the Saddle at that time of morning. When the hikers got back, we sat around the campfire and strategized and generally told tall tales of past hunting trips.

Darrell, Jim and Cleo laughing at Donny P's story.

Later that evening, Rick had to get out of bed to defend his version of a story.

On Saturday, we set out through the dark timber, walking five abreast while making plenty of noise trying to roust the elk from their daytime sleep. Though we did encounter one elk, it ran the opposite direction of where the shooters were stationed, and we were unsuccessful. We tried again in the afternoon.

Donnie and I before heading into the woods for a final brushing.

Back at camp that night, we settled in for some stew, followed by a Bible study around the campfire, and then some of Darrell’s famous Dutch oven peach cobbler.

If you haven’t experienced a meal from a Dutch oven, you’re missing out.

Hot coals on top, wood stove on the bottom.

At this point, the latrine was getting a little full. Remember, it’s been three days with 10 guys at camp, and we’re eating nothing but meat, potatoes, eggs, and the occasional canned vegetables.

How else do you take care of a full latrine?

One last photo of camp:

After a week away from Jen and four days without a shower, I was ready to get back home. At that point, Jen was at 36 weeks and a little nervous about me being gone. I came home to a full social calendar, including an evening with the previously mentioned photographer, who taught us some new tricks!

Jen at 36 weeks

More to come in the next week or so. Jen’s due date is November 19….

More pictures than actual information.

This post is primarily for updating everyone who wants pictures. We really have no more information to share at this point. Jen and baby are healthy and doing well. We have been very active in preparing for her arrival, checking off several items on our to-do list. Enough talk, on to the pictures!

We’ll start with the shed construction. I had to build one wall completely on the ground and paint it before installing it because it was right next to the fence.

Knee pads are the best!

Next, Rob C. came over to help install the wall and bang some nails for rough framing.

Powered by donuts and coffee.

You can’t tell me this photo doesn’t remind you of Top Gun!

Since one wall was to be anchored in existing concrete, I borrowed my neighbor’s hammer drill/rotary hammer and put it to good use by drilling holes for the anchor bolts.

Go rotohammer! Go rotohammer!

After the installation of the first wall, we were very productive with our tool belts and finished the framing in one day.

The first day's work.

I installed the siding and eventually worked up to the roof, where Jen caught me one hot Sunday afternoon.

Again, knee pads are critical!

Rob came back for some more work on the door, and here he admires his handiwork.

Finally, I finished painting the walls and trim, and installed the last bit of trim this weekend.

Rob was a big help on this project, and I did get some assistance from one other person. He had lots of great ideas, and was the best job foreman ever!

With the shed completed, we shifted our focus to inside the house and preparing the nursery/former office. This task consisted of moving everything out of our third bedroom: two desks, computer, books, and boxes of miscellaneous stuff that we never unpacked or just tossed in the catch-all room. After that, we painted. Don’t worry; we used the low-VOC paint so the fumes wouldn’t be a problem for Jen and she could help with painting. It’s my least favorite job.

Too much skin showing?

We finished the room off with a chair rail between the pink and green. All the photographers out there: I know the greens look different. I was tinkering with my white balance and ISO settings to avoid using the built-in flash because it’s too harsh.

We also painted our hallway (twice!), but who really wants to see those pictures?

I must say that tackling all these home projects has taught me a few lessons. First, it’s okay to cut the sheathing (that goes underneath the siding) a little big. You can always caulk the gap!

Disregard that conduit...there's nothing to see here!

Second, when your air conditioning unit starts making a “whack-whack” noise, it’s best to check it out immediately. Steve vR – thanks for the wiring diagram, it did the trick!

Blue wire cut by the fan blade, other wire must have been on its way out.

Last but not least, here’s Jen at 29 weeks.

Survey says….

It’s only early July, and we’ve had quite a bit of activity this summer! For those of you who like pictures, there are many.

In early June, we visited Kevin and Linda in their new town and new church. They live about 30 minutes from Calaveras Big Trees State Park, so we spent Saturday afternoon hiking in the South Grove, which I highly recommend over the North Grove if you really want to get into the forest. The weather was amazing, ranging from a sunny 70 degrees to overcast and raining. Along the trail, we found ourselves about 30 yards from a brown bear cub who was just foraging in the bushes. I didn’t have the camera out, so no pictures. The cub ran off, and after we waited quietly to make sure mama bear wasn’t coming to eat us (parents, tell your kids whatever you want about bears), we continued on the hike. Did I mention how big the trees are?

Jen tries to wrap her arms around the concept of how big these giant sequoias really are.

Recreating our wedding dance at Big Trees.

Kevin didn't get the memo...

I’ve been playing in a co-ed softball league with some colleagues, and in our fifth game, I started out playing first base. Even though Jen will say otherwise, I did some stretching and warming up before the game. Apparently it wasn’t quite enough. As I did what any good first baseman would do and stretched to try to catch an errant throw while keeping one foot on the base, I heard a pop in my groin area and promptly fell down without catching the ball. I’ve had groin injuries before, but not this bad. The injury happened on a Thursday, and this bruise showed up on Sunday.

The bruise as it first appeared, 3 days after the injury.

The week after that, we drove down to Santa Barbara for Jen’s sister Amy’s wedding. Amy is the youngest of the three sisters, so you can imagine Dad’s relief!

Whew...almost done with the third wedding!

It’s much different when you’re just in the wedding and not the people getting married. You can actually goof off a little during rehearsal!

Gotcha!

After the rehearsal, we headed to Amy’s then-boyfriend, now-husband Jim’s aunt’s house for a tasty meal of tri-tip. The baked beans were good too, and there was some other food, but I don’t really remember it.

Mmmmmm...tri-tip!

After a week of hobbling around and a total of 13 hours driving to and from Santa Barbara, my bruise changed a little. I wonder if my low platelet count (99k at last visit about three weeks ago) has something to do with this?

The bruise after a week of interacting with gravity.

We enjoyed a quiet 4th of July weekend at home. I took advantage of my holiday off work, and with the help of a few good friends (thanks to Sean V., Eric C., and Rob C.), finally got started on that shed I mentioned last summer by pouring concrete on Friday morning…and early afternoon. I’m pretty sure they made a mixing error and gave me too much concrete, because we had to scramble to build additional forms for places to put an extra 3/8 of a yard of concrete! Either that, or I just miscalculated how much I needed. Since we were pretty busy with that, I didn’t take any pictures of the process. More to come as actual construction begins!

On the actual holiday itself, Jen had to work. It was one of the two holidays that she signed up to work at the beginning of the year. We wanted a quiet (relatively!) evening at home, so we just had dinner alone and watched a movie, and briefly went around the corner to see the neighborhood fireworks.

Happy Independence Day!

Let’s see…what else? Oh yeah, Jen is about 21 weeks along now. We had an ultrasound today, and TJSJr. (XX) is developing just great. Our ultrasound technician happened to be the employee of the month this month, and we experienced no less than excellent service from her. I’ll add an image from the ultrasound tomorrow.

Jen at 21 weeks.

Tuesday morning edit: Ultrasound picture added.

Already sucking the thumb!

Two hearts beat as one.

Since there’s no real health news for me right now, this space will be used to keep everyone updated on Jen and TJSJr. Who is TJSJr., you ask? Here’s a photo.

In anticipation of taking many photos in the upcoming months and years, we also splurged on a new camera to adequately capture our collective progress. Here’s a new picture of Jen, with our offspring at 16 weeks. Only a teeny little bump…isn’t she cute?

I must admit, this new camera is taking a lot of my brain power to learn all of its features and settings. Something in that photo doesn’t look quite right…or maybe I’m playing too much with the bundled software.

We had an appointment this week, and heard the baby’s heartbeat for the first time. Whoosh whoosh whoosh! Pretty cool stuff! Our next appointment is toward the end of June, and then we find out TJSJr.’s gender in early July.

Sowing the seeds…

It’s officially spring, so that means it’s time for an update, right?

In September last year, I mentioned that we had a garden and were enjoying fresh tomatoes. This year, we got on it a little earlier, and decided to expand the garden from its measly 5 feet by 6 feet to about 6 feet by 16 feet. That meant digging up grass, rototilling the soil, mixing in a topsoil/compost blend, and finally planting. We stopped by the local nursery this week and picked out a variety of veggies and herbs: 4 different types of tomatoes, corn, bell peppers, serrano peppers, sugar snap peas, cilantro, mint, basil, and some reddish-green lettuce-like stuff that goes in salad.

This morning, we got up at the crack of 10:00 to eat a hearty breakfast, drink a nice big cup of coffee (Todd, not Jen), read the headlines online, and finally dragged ourselves out of bed. I had to do some yard work while Jen went and exercised. Finally we got around to planting everything in the garden and installing the irrigation system, which consisted of replacing the spray sprinkler heads with a drip system. We also planted the best large shrub/small tree ever: Osmanthus frangrans. It has small flowers in the spring and fall that smell really good, so we planted it out back near the living room window.

Here is the finished garden:

Let’s see…what else is going on these days…Oh, yeah! I almost forgot. A few weeks ago, I came home from church to check on Jen, who wasn’t feeling well and had stayed home to rest. She said she had a little gift for me, and made me walk all over the house to find it. Here’s what I found:

In case that’s not clear enough for you, this might help:

Yep, Jen’s pregnant! She’s about 11 weeks along right now, due in mid-November. You all know what this means, right? I don’t know that I’ve ever written about it, but early on in my treatment, I talked with my doctor about the risk of infertility from chemotherapy and transplant. He recommended providing sperm samples to be stored in a sperm bank, which I did. I don’t need to explain how that works, do I? Anyway, my boys have been on ice for a few years, just in case we needed them. It turns out that we don’t need them, at least not right now. My boys can swim!