Moose Hunting Lottery 2012 ~ Tylor's canoe seat

The much anticipated moose lottery drawing took place in Rangley this year.  Our phone began ringing right off with rumors of who had been drawn and for which season and what zone.  The first good news came from our friend Kevin who was in attendance at the drawing and called my sister to say her son's fiance Megan had been drawn. Moments later my sister Skyped me to give me the good news my mother had been drawn too. Later Darlene called to say someone on Facebook said Leitha  (Wade's mom) has been drawn as well.  Eventually the list was posted on the web and we verified it was all true.  Three moose hunts in the family and quite a few friends like Arlo and Lorraine. The evening was spend between phone calls and skyping to talk over preliminary plans.

Wade stayed close to the phone today to be available to book guided hunts and we were fortunate to book several hunts and we are hoping for more.

We went muskie fishing this evening and as we came up over the bank on the Allagash, we saw Leitha, Tylor and Darlene all working on caning a seat for the canoe Tylor is restoring.  It's a big home made square stern, like a grand laker type.  He replaced the gunnels and thwarts and patched 2 holes and is now replacing the seats.

It takes a village ~ Part II

I don't mean to spend so much time writing about a few pigs, but so much of my time is spent discussing pigs.  Somehow our pigs have become some sort of Allagash town mascots.  Everywhere I go people want to talk pig.  People bring by their kids, relatives and even pet dogs to see them.  They bring food and treats for them and yesterday when I arrived home, Clayton had dropped off a new shelter that is more like a pig hotel.  Last year my pigs outgrew their house and they would stuff themselves half in half out to sleep.  I got quite a bit of feedback from folks until we built them a low cost addition.

When I went in for my morning coffee at the restaurant this morning Wayne was complaining because the big new shelter was blocking his view of the pigs.  He suggested I start a special "pig blog" so people could stay updated with pig news and pictures.  Darlene thought it would be nice to decorate the pig hotel and I knew immediately how it should read.  This is the phrase coined by my mother, I hope she likes it.  I do!

Little Black River Allagash Maine

My friend Nola loves to kayak and invited me to join her for a short trip.  I had purchased a kayak last summer and rented it out several times but had never been in it myself.  I intended to go but I felt somewhat intimidated to go out by myself since I have never been in a kayak.  So when she called yesterday I jumped at the chance to have my own mentor show me the ropes.  As we drove across the Little Black Bridge, Nola said "I love the Little Black."  When I asked her why ,she only replied "...because God lives there."  Well said Nola and that was good enough for me.

Nola grew up on the bank of the St John River where the Little Black dumps in. She told me how when she was she was a kid, the local swimming hole was across the river and it was common for 20 or 30 kids to be hanging out and swimming off the dock.  She said because she was lazy, instead of walking across the bridge to get there, she would swim across the river. That sounds like more work to me.   Her childhood home is gone now, first burned to the ground in the 50's, rebuilt only to be taken away by the big ice jam in 1991, but her family still  keeps the place mowed and camps out there during the summer.

We floated along effortlessly and only got held up once when we got out of the channel and stuck on bottom in shallow water.  The only excitement was when we saw the rare sight of a sheriff drive by and when Nola found a spider in her kayak.

It was hot and sunny when we started, but as we got closer to home the sky began darken up and we hurried along before the storm.

Visit to the Moir Farm on the Allagash River

My parents will be celebrating 50 years of marriage this fall.  They are my heros in so many ways.

My parents are here for a visit.  After a nice breakfast at the restaurant, we put the canoe in at Michaud Farm and motored down the river to poke around the Henry Taylor Sporting camps.  It was beautiful out, warm, sunny and breezy.  Wade had to replace two sheer pins on the way.  We hiked out to see the old Moir farm built around 1837 (http://www.maine.gov/doc/parks/programs/history/allagash/history.shtml).  Truly amazing!!  The horse barn and chicken coop are still standing and we went in and looked around.  The second story is collapsing but still full of hay and old horse poop still covers the barn floor.  Out in the field a huge patch of rhubarb still going strong.  It's amazing that a structure built with hand tools is still standing. I can't explain the feeling to look across that field the same way a farmer did over 150 years ago. I love the history on the river and I wish there was more of it left to explore (http://www.meepi.org/files04/pa070104.htm).  I think it should be preserved.

Wooded spoked wheels

fireplace

Henry Taylor cabins

We made ourselves at home and had lunch on the porch.

Footpath to Moir Farm ~ enchanting!!

Moir Farm today

The barn at the Moir Farm

Inside the barn

The chicken coop

.

Even dogs like pigs

Roy Gardner has a little dog that loves to see the pigs.  Roy told me his dog gets really excited when he says "Let's go see the pigs".   They drive over and watch them for a few minutes every day.

PIGGYBACK

To Chamberlain

Today we drove a couple college students to Chamberlain Lake for a 7 day canoe trip.  Along the way we saw 13 moose, one with a newborn calf, 8 deer and one small bear.  We found a partridge chick in the road that was sickly.  Wade moved it out of the road into the tall grass and we hope it will live.

Fire and Rain

Jake is on the left

My 24 year old son Jake is in his 5th year of wildland firefighting.  He works for the USFS on a Helitack crew called Malhuer Rappel Crew based in John Day, OR (http://www.malheurrappelcrew.com/index.html).   Rapplers are used for initial attack on wildfires in remote or steep terrain areas that would be inaccessible for ground crews to respond quickly. Currently he is working on the Whitewater Baldy fire in New Mexico (http://inciweb.org/incident/2870/) which is now the biggest fire in NM history at over 250,000 acres.  He called me this morning and told me he has been working with the aerial ignition crew dropping  PSD's to moderate fire spread and slow the fire speed to prevent uphill runs. The PSD is a machine mounted to the rail of the helicopter that dispenses ping pong type balls charged with some type of accelerant that explodes and burns.  He stands with one foot out on the rail to drop the devices as directed by the crew boss and describes it as what it would be like to fly.  He was as excited as I've ever heard him.

Here is Jake rappelling from the helicopter

Now getting back to Maine, no fire danger here.  It's been cold and rainy, in fact southern Maine got about 6 inches of rain yesterday.  We didn't get that much but it is wet and cold enough for a fire in the wood stove.

Wade hauled some firewood from the camp to the house.  The old dump truck come in handy!

We also put up an old sign that Darlene pulled out of the tall grass to mark our landing on the St John River.

Darlene's Birthday

Today was spent on firewood.  I rather enjoy working on firewood, it's very satisfying to see it piled up and drying in the summer sun.  There is nothing I hate worse then trying to do it after the snow is on the ground.  Every time that happens I promise myself it will be the last time but it never is.  We are far from done but approaching half done with the cutting and splitting, maybe 4 cord so far.  Wade got the splitter fixed after he dropped it out of the tractor bucket while moving it and bent the base all up.

Firewood piling up

This morning the Allagash Fire Department burned down Wade's Aunt Jackie's  house.  It had been abandoned for years since she moved to Eagle Lake.  It was sad for her daughters who stood by the roadside and watched it go up in flames.  I hate to think what that must feel like to see your childhood home burned up like a pile of garbage.  But like Darlene said, they will always have the memories of the time spent there.

Jackie Leslie's empty home

To celebrate Darlene's birthday Leitha invited us to dinner at the camp.  We had meatloaf, potatoes and gravy, fiddleheads, pickled beets, peas, corn and macaroni salad.  For dessert we had pie and cheesecake. It was a nice visit!

The one that got away

Yesterday afternoon I was out cutting the grass on my new (used) lawnmower.  A gentleman that I had never met stopped in looking for Wade.  He said to me "don't wear out that mower the first day!!"  It always surprises me how the small details of your life get noticed by the people around town.

"Look at that contraption!!" is what Darlene said when she saw the new lawnmower, I laugh every time I think of it.

We heard they are cutting out on the Carney Road, so we rode out to see if our baitsites would be effected. We couldn't get through because they were working right on the main road.  I love watching the limber work.  At the end of the video is a skidder exacatly like the one Wade drives in the winter.  He works on a crew just like this one.  One fellerbuncher, one limber, two skidders hauling trees out to him.

After lunch, Wade and I went out to the Yellow Line Road to take down a coyote blind for the season.  The road was muddy and wet and we got stuck briefly and Wade had to push us out.  When we got back to camp, we saw a bunch of gear stacked on the steps and a rough looking canoe on the lawn of the new camp.  Leitha yelled over and said that a group of 4 guys were dropped off here and had lost their canoe.  They had borrowed Leitha's car to hopefully spot the canoe washed ashore on the riverbank.  When they returned empty handed we got the full story.

They had put in at Baker Lake several days ago and had canoed all they way to the Ouellette Farm where they camped for the night.  They awoke this morning to find one of their canoes and a cooler had floated away sometime during the night.  The river had come up and the canoe wasn't tied off.  Hilton spotted a red cooler floating down the river this morning around 6am.  The guys were from Jackman and the youngest member of the party was sent for help while the rest of the group waited at the campsite.  After walking 10 miles he was picked up by a good samaritan who kindly took him back to pick up the others and all the gear.  They looked quite tired out and seemed happy to be here although were quite bummed about losing the canoe. After a good meal at Two Rivers Lunch they contacted their ride and will be picked up tomorrow.  Tonight they are relaxing comfortably in the cabin.  When asked if they needed anything, the only thing they requested was a case of Bud so Wade and I went to Judy's on a beer run, our good deed done for the day!  Something tells me they will sleep good tonight.

Looks like there might have been a problem with the paddle too!

Spring Projects

I planted some small cedar tress along the driveway of the bait shop yesterday.  Several years from now they will fill in and provide some privacy for our campers.

Wade has almost finished building our canoe trailer.  It needs just a few more reinforcements and then we'll paint it.  We used it last night when a couple young men stopped by saying they had just come from Michaud Farm where they were flagged down by a canoe group from NY.  The group wanted to end their trip early because they were not prepared for the bugs being so pesky.  The group paid the guys to find some one to come get them.  We got out there around 5pm and they were so happy to see us and thanked us over and over.

Windshield time

On Tuesday we traveled down to Lincolnville to visit with my parents and pick up a lawnmower I got from my them.  It was a short visit but as usual my mother fed us well and served us steak from a Belted Galloway cow they raised on their farm.  It was delicious!!  We had fresh rhubarb pie for dessert.  Abby stopped by after work to join us.  My sister Terrie's Chocolate Lab was having puppies and we got to see them, she had 8 in all.

Moxie's pup

Next morning we had waffles and maple syrup they boiled off this spring ~ yum.  After loading the lawn mower, 500 or so earthworms my folks dug for me to resell, 2 quarts of maple syrup and the new boots I got for mothers day we got on the road.  We stopped by Scott's who also new babies, a litter of kittens that were just starting to run around.

We headed to Princeton Maine where Wade attended the IF&W Advisory Board meeting and then headed home arriving in Allagash at 8:30pm.  It was a long day.

This morning, Wade took a sport fishing in a couple remote ponds. They had decent fishing catching more than a dozen brook trout ranging form 8-15 inches.

Native brook trout

 I headed to Baker Lake with Arlo to pick up a truck.  The Cyr road had just been graded so we slowed down and held our breath crossing it.  After 5 hours  we arrived at Baker Lake and found that the truck had already had a flat on the way in and the driver had to put a very bald spare tire on leaving us with no spare. We carefully drove back until I had a flat on my truck on the 17 Road.  We got changed it and made it home after 10 hours of driving 236 dusty miles.

Arlo on the wrench

It takes a village to raise a pig

Today I went to Frenchville to pick up our pigs.  We are raising three altogether, two for us and one for Bonnie and Hilton.  They are various sizes and we paid $65 for the smaller ones and $70 for the bigger one.  They were happy to be out on green grass but spend most of the day laying in the shade trying to stay cool. There is always a lot of anticipation in town about when we will get our pigs. I have been asked probably a dozen times this week when they are coming. The folks in town seem to enjoy seeing them out in the yard. I purposely put the pig pen out near the road  because the few kids in town like to come by and see them.  Many people help out feeding them by throwing in their food scraps.  Pat Kelly is an older woman in town who lives alone and each week I find a  small container of food scraps on my doorstep that she brings by for the pigs. It always brings a smile to my face and I am amazed by her faithfulness and that there are still people like her in such a fast paced world.  Most people would not take the time or effort  to bother with it.  I think folks are reminded of the good old days when they raised pigs in their back yard. My mom says  I should put up a sign out front that says "It takes a village to raise a pig!".  We feel happy to see people stop by and enjoy them.

 It was in the 90's today.  The leaves have just burst open in the past couple days and the black flies are here with a vengeance.  The fiddleheads are also up on the flat across from the house.