Saturday, February 28, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 283, February 28, 2015

A shot of the parking lot up at the school - filled with Hondas (generic for ALL 4-wheelers), and snowmachines (snowmobiles)...  This is how you know the basketball tournament is still going on - you look at the parking lot.






Friday, February 27, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 282, February 27, 2015

The boys, chasing each other down the hall while mom warmed up for the basketball tournament at the high school this weekend...Warren's a bit faster, still.. :)

Thursday, February 26, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 281, February 26, 2015

Today's pics are of a porcupine - or rather, removing the quills from a porcupine.  Take a block of styrofoam, impale the quills against the grain, and then they can be removed easily.  There are lots of uses for these - in beadwork (as part of the art or as a needle) and other crafts.  Currently, they fetch roughly 5-6$ an ounce on the fur market, and the guard hairs (those long yellow ones) are around 12-15$ an ounce.  Neither one of these stacks up quickly, but if you consider the bait (or food - they can be tasty) value the porcupine has, and then add in the crafting value, they are worth chasing while you are already out there anyway.

Basically the entire body is covered with quills except for the legs down near the paws and the belly area...  To simply look you wouldn't know it... they just look furry:

But pull back the hair and you get the idea.  There's THOUSANDS of 'em... (ice chunk for reference this is the same spot as the pic above)

Take the foam, make sure your hands aren't sticking out over the sides, and go for it:


And then you can remove them easily..


Wednesday, February 25, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 280, February 25, 2015

 Today marked the 2nd Annual RURE student exchange Fur Workshop, held in my classroom.  Students got to work on Wild fur in all stages, from skinning to fleshing to stretching.  Here's a shot of the scene before everyone arrived...

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 279, February 24, 2015

More outside happiness in today's pic, as Warren took advantage of a short but welcome squall that brought us a dusting of snow.  He brought the heavy work trucks out to celebrate...

Monday, February 23, 2015

Sunday, February 22, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 277, February 22, 2015

Made a check today that likely signals the end of the season is near.  After getting snow on Friday to bolster what little we did have, we then got two days of rain and now there is almost no snow.  Uppa and I decided to go get a bunch of our traps from locations that will be getting really hairy to reach here in a hurry.  Today we crossed multiple stretches of water already, and this week is supposed to be above freezing all week.  It was time.  Here are two shots I took from the GoPro of crossing a pond adorned with a beaver lodge, both taken during the crossing.  First one looking ahead, second one looking back...


Saturday, February 21, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 276, February 21, 2015

Here is the beaver lodge (it's out there) and accompanying slough I pulled a set from last weekend - after chipping through nearly a FOOT of ice to get it out.  Now, it is just a bunch of open water with limited ice coverage.  Heck, a castor mound set would work here at this point...this weather is just RIDICULOUS...

Friday, February 20, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 275, February 20, 2015

"What the heck is this!?" you ask?...well...it's kind of what it looks like... it's a 'toilet'.  An otter toilet, to be exact.   That means, in otter terms, a place where they come out of the ice and well, you know.  Generally there will be things like bones and fish skin, etc. there too...as you can make out here, if you're interested enough to look closely at this sort of thing... S O P in this scenario is to place a 280 or 330 conibear, laid upon sticks, right over the hole.   This (the sticks) is to keep it from freezing down into the snow - the sun warms up the dark trap during the days and it then melts down into the snow and will freeze during the overnight drop in temps.  But the next time they pop their head up out of the hole....Whack!   Otterly simple.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 274, February 19, 2015

Wolf-killed moose #2 for the blog this year...this thing was just obliterated, with packed in trails leading in from all directions...we've got snares and traps set...

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 273, February 18, 2015

While travelling home tonight after checking the wolf sets on one of the downstream islands, I came across this sight and stopped to snap a pic.  Back in PA you could always spot the 'browse line' where deer clipped off every branch up to a certain height in their winter 'yard' areas or high population areas.  This is a top-down "browse line" - this time, started by moose.  You get a good idea of the height off the ground their heads are when you notice the line of snapped off willows they munched on...

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 272, February 17, 2015

Today while coming back from checking traps I had the fortune of falling in behind the dog races, here on the final day of racing. I popped out of the slough just in time to meet up with the chase vehicles...and you don't pass the chase vehicles... Just in front of me here are two of those, and the rest of the dots on out to the horizon are mushers and their teams...blew up a second pic to show them a bit better, even if blurry...there are a total of 7 'dots', two chasers and five dog teams in sight.


Monday, February 16, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 271, February 16, 2015

Harvested some Chaga for the teapot today.  For those not familiar, this is a fungus that grows on birch trees.  Makes a great cup of tea that, the research would suggest, is great for you, too.
More info can be found here:  Some general info on Chaga   And some more links of peer reviewed research, for those further interested:    anti-cancer activity study  and   G0/G1 arrest and apoptosis in human hepatoma HepG2 cells  and   adipocyte differentiation

So what does this stuff look like?  Here's some right 'cheer:





Not the tastiest looking stuff, I'll grant you that...but I chipped off a bunch with my axe while out on the trapline today, and I'm going to drink it. :)  Grind the stuff up, (like coffee, coarser or finer as you choose) place about 1.5 cups of the grind into a gallon of water overnight on low in the crockpot.  (DO...NOT...ALLOW IT TO BOIL..as that literature above you will tell you)   Strain off the fines and sludge next day, store sealed in fridge until you want to heat up a cup, and away you go.  Something I have not tried yet is to make a tincture in alcohol.  We shall see...

Sunday, February 15, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 270, February 15, 2015

We skied across the river today and let the boys run amok in the willows to enjoy the great weather.  Snapped this profile shot of Abram and right away took it to be the pic of the day.

Saturday, February 14, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 269, February 14, 2015

Took Warren to his first ever manaq contest today...and he scored with a catch in the first ten minutes.  He took to it like a Hummel...  27.5 inches for his first pike through the ice isn't too shabby.

First, the money shot of a proud boy and his fish!

And some more shots of the day...
"Anticipation" revisited, Pappy - you know what I'm saying... :)




Friday, February 13, 2015

Thursday, February 12, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 267, February 12, 2015

Today was the first day of Open Class mushing at the carnival.  Snapped some shots of the mushers leaving, instead of returning, this time.  Here was a female musher just seconds after she left the starting line, picking up speed...

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 266, February 11, 2015

Still waiting for those wolves to pass back through their area since making sets...while we are waiting, we decided to make another.  This time, a snare bait station set instead...

First we drug part of a carcass (the wolf kill from a few posts back) behind each machine on our way to the set...


Then we set up the station at a series of intersecting trails in the willows.  The toughest part here was finding willows that seemed strong enough to feel comfortable anchoring to...there weren't many that fit the bill...but before we were done, eight snares were guarding this beautiful mess...


Tuesday, February 10, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 265, February 10, 2015

The carnival bumped things up a notch today with the elementary and high school level, five-dog races.  A beautiful day, not as cold as yesterday.  Lots of excitement including tipped sleds and run away dog teams.  The 'hounds (not really hounds, of course) were fired up and ready to run!!  Here are a few different mushers coming in to the finish.
















Monday, February 9, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 264, February 9, 2015

Today marks the the first day of the week and a half long Spring "Carnival" here in Russian Mission.  This is an event where all things Yup'ik eskimo tradition are celebrated.  There will be footraces, snowmachine races, dog sledding races, and manaq (ice fishing) contests, to name a few.  Most all the villages on the Yukon have their own, and just about everyone who can get out of the house will participate in one capacity or another.  Today was nearly 30 below with the wind, and it didn't even slow down the one-dog races for the kids - there was still a great turnout.

Coming in to the finish:

Waiting their turn... these boxes are the main method of transporting large groups of dogs that aren't pulling a sled.

Sunday, February 8, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 263, February 8, 2015

A winter shot of part of the 'ville today.  Taken standing on a lake, where we launched our boat next to this one all summer long.  It will, of course, be there waiting when the ice thaws and the water comes back up in spring, ready to go.  Maybe with a cowling on that motor though... :)

Saturday, February 7, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 262, February 7, 2015

A shot during class of some students skinning a marten.  Gotta love this kind of hands-on science!

Friday, February 6, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 261, February 6, 2015

The wolfin' saga continues.   Here is a shot of a wolf kill.  As is plain to see, they are not the warm fuzzy critters many would have you believe.  The whole area leading up to the kill looked like a bomb went off - a hell of a fight.  And then, after bringing the animal down, all they ate was part of the tongue and a few pounds of meat off the rump.  Sure, they'll be back - but they didn't have to be too hungry to kill now did they?


Thursday, February 5, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 260, February 5, 2015

The wolf pee post from the other day, now set.  Had to cover that drag more, but you get the idea.  Trap is set and covered in this pic, sled dog pee-snow applied.  Hope it pisses them off...

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 259, February 4, 2015

Some of the trapping class out making a fox bait station snare setup.   The cell phones come out even here :)  Hope to have some pics of when it connects here in a bit, but it always seems to take a couple weeks or so to convince the fox to commit...

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

A Year In The Life - Day 258, February 3, 2015

A bonafide natural wolf pee post.  :D   This is gonna have an MB750 on it...and soon...