Cherry Christmas

Normally, I go to the grocery store or butcher shop to by a Christmas Turkey or Ham. Being as I got my Christmas Turkey a few weeks earlier, I decided to try something different; I whacked Christmas dinner myself. I has a wonderful time outdoors, taking in all that Mother Nature could send my way. I braved the cold and headed out along the river to hunt some ducks. As luck would have it, I had ample opportunity and made good on every shot. I will say that after watching some extremely stout brown trout hovering in the deep pools, I had a back up plan that would have made good use of my fishing pole in the back of the truck.

Cover your eyes if your squeamish about this stuff, but let's face it, that's how you get from point a to point b! You may not recognise them with out their feathers, but those are the two in the middle.

If you gently start humming the song "Akuna Mutata", from the movie Lion King, I'll continue on with the story. I have four beautiful fruit trees in the yard. The birds all love the cherry tree and we all share as does the bear and the rest of us eat fruit from them all; apple, plumb and crab apple respectively. I decided to use some of the tart cherries to make a reduction for the ducks.

I am employing the latest technology in smellavision. I you wiggle your cursor over the pot of cherry sauce (Ala scratch and sniff) you will actually begin to smell the love.
Dinner capped off with a crispy duck, cooked to perfection, some home canned pickled red beets and for desert? What else, home made cherry pie. Ah, the color. Oh, the delightful smell and yum yum the taste.

200 mile, Mountain Man Run

If last weekend taught me anything, it's that if it's going to be warm and sunny, it ain't duck hunting weather. So if it's too nice to hunt ducks, might as well get the bike out and go for a ride. One of my favorite rides to take during the winter months in Montana, is the mountain man run. I called my pal Chad and he was itching to log some saddle time as much as I was, so we were off.
    The ride starts off at the base of the Absorkees and heads due north on U.S.89 toward White Sulphur Springs. It's not long before you get flanked by the Crazy Mountains and the Bridger's. (Named after mountain man,Jim Bridger) A man they said shot elk three miles away with bullets cast out salt; so when he got up to 'em the meat would be cured!
     Soon after you get north of Wilsal, (Home of the "Black Jack Ditch"), you have to stop and have your picture taken (or your bike if you're camera shy like me) with Thunder Jack. He's a statue paying homage to the mountain men of the Rockies. After that, the road opens up and you have smooth sailing, all the way up to White Sulphur Springs. If you blink along the way, you will miss the little town of Ringling. A town named after John Ringling of Ringling Brothers Circus. The family owned quite a chunk of property there at one time. Jimmy Buffet even wrote a song about it called, Ringling,Ringling.

     Not far past the little circus town, you head straight for the Castle Mountains that welcome you to White Sulphur Springs (WSS). Not much going on there, so we stopped for lunch at the Truck Stop Cafe. A couple of strange looks from the locals as we walked to our seats dressed more like snow mobile rider instead of bikers. After some good beef stew and corn bread, we headed out to the snow packed parking lot and decided to keep heading north. Funny thing about that truck stop is they keep their fine china stacked outside. Not sure what that is all about, but I took a mint out of one cup and put some pennies into another.

Normally, I like to head east to one of the reservoirs, to have my picture (my bike actually) taken next to the ice fishing shanty's. Today, we decided to head north towards Great Falls and stop by the Showdown Ski Lodge to taunt the sledders with our bikes. As we headed north into the Little Belt Mountains and through Lewis and Clark National Forrest we ran into too much ice and snow and had to pull a u turn. When the thermometer on Chads bike started to read 28 degrees, we decided that one or two bikes on their side would provide the local sled heads with more yahoo fodder than we were willing to part with. Besides what kind, if any sympathy would either of us receive for getting hurt while attempting to summit Kings Hill on motorcycles, December 17th?
   We made a b-line right back to WSS and took the nestea plunge at the WSS Motel. It's an outdoor pool that is supplied by natural hot springs all year long.

Swanky, it ain't! But if you loved the 70's, man, you'll love this place. They just added a new pool that has lots of curves and good seating, along with a mock water fall. The 104 degree water felt good on the bones and the real challenge proved to be getting dressed in all our warm gear, without over heating.
   Piling on layers, riding up into the mountains, taking a winters dip in some hot springs. Sounds like a mountain man day to me.

From Carpe Diem to Damn Skippy!

I've always considered myself, somewhat of an opportunist. If you ask me to play chess, I'll almost always pick the black pawn. Simply put, I'm comfortable with you going first. I know when to pump the breaks and I know when to mash the gas pedal and strictly steer.I had no clue what the day had in store for me.
   This past Sunday I headed out looking for ducks. The sun was shinning and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. I remember putting on sun screen before I left. What in the world could I have been thinking? In spite of everything telling me this was not a day conducive to duck destiny, I had the endless feeling, It was going to be a golden day. After a good 2 1/2 hours of walking along the creek and peering over the embankment to the river, I saw 6 ducks. Four of them took off for the friendly skies while I was every bit of 100 yards away. The other two were a mile high and bent for leather. (or chapstick)....(you know, for their bill) Duh?
Tired, I walked lazily back to the truck. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flock of turkeys, doing what turkeys do; setting up a table to start a game of 3 card Monte. No, I'm just kidding. They were moseying across a field. Quickly, I changed my duck rounds out for goose rounds and began to put the sneak on. The closer I got, the lower I belly crawled to the ground. In my best turkey voice, I putted and clucked and chirped. As I laied flat on the ground, the flock made it's way over to me and just like that, BANG, Tom's your Uncle!
     In order to share the love, I rang up a few friends and we decided to cook up the turkey, Colonal Sanders style. That's right, FRIED! My friend, Al the Bear, took charge and Monday night was to be teamed up with football and turkey dinner. That night Al and I plucked the bird and dressed him out. Monday Night Football AND fresh turkey? C'MON MAN!

The first thing we did Monday night was to coat the turkey with some chunky peanut butter before we dunked him into the hot oil. This is great, I can't wait to do it to my chicken strips!
After keeping the Tom submerged until his temperature was 165 degrees, we pulled him out to rest.
While we waited, my pal Shellie (with a p) made some buttermilk onion rings and we cooked up some redskin potato fries as well. As I began to carve the turkey a crazy thing happened......................................(enter dream sequence distortion waves)

As I began to carve the turkey, I noticed the appearance of what looked like herbs and spices. I asked if someone had stuffed the bird when I was not looking, and they all looked at me quite odd. I knew I had dressed the bird and stuffed him in a cotton sack and hung him over night in my garage. I took him out of the bag on Monday and smeared peanut butter on him and put him promptly into the molten oil. He had never been out of my site!
What had actually happened was I forgot to remove the crop. The crop is actually an expanded section of the esophagus. It is a place where turkeys, and some other species of birds, store whole food, before sending it down to be ground up in their gizzard. This crop was bigger than a baseball and jam packed with corn, wheat and grass. The aroma was heavenly and the flavor enhanced the meat like nothing I've ever tasted. While some folks were a bit "put off" I figured, the turkey mearly stuffed himself with 100 percent natural organic fixens. Yum Yum.

 Sometimes the best laid plans of both turkeys and men, often go awry.

Life's too long to eat bad food or share good food bad people.

Current Events; "Speed Blogging"

Since my last blog, there has been lots going on and I have failed to keep the keyboard clicking. In lieu of that, here is an attempt on speed blogging.

The moose ended up spending 3 weeks in the back yard. It was fun to watch him wake up in the morning and roll around like the dog. When it snowed or rained, he would wake in the morning and shake all the water or snow off. So cool to see. He even followed me home one day as I pulled into the garage, he ran up the driveway.

My pal Murphy went to West Yellowstone and texted me a picture of the Pizza Pie he got at Wild West Pizzeria   http://www.wildwestpizza.com/ That inspired me to bake a pie of my own

The weather turned a bit ducky, so...............I headed out looking for ducks with Mr. Baker and Mr. Speckelsworth. I bet we put up well over a hundred ducks. While hitting 6 out of 100 wouldn't get you a batting title, or even the bottom of the batting order, it makes for a scrumptious dinner. Tonight's dinner? Lightly breaded, lightly fried, strips strips of duck breast. If you think that sounds delicious, wait till you hear about last night cook out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got a different call this past Saturday. While I am accustom to being on call 24/7 for work, I too am accustom to being on call for adventure. Sometimes the call of the wild starts off sounding remarkably like my cell phone ring tone, "Shipping off to Boston" by the Dropkick Murphy's.
My pal Beau called at 5:30a.m. and said he and his brother were setting up to take pictures of the full, lunar eclipse, and he knew if he didn't call me I would have said, you guessed it, "Why didn't you call me?"
I scrambled to get dressed because Mother Nature waits for no one. Come to think I may have, at one time or another scrambled to get undresses for that same reason. But that's a whole other blog.
As soon a JD puts his pics up on flicker, I'll send you all a link. I've seen them already and they are "WAY COOL".
Oh yeah, I spent 5 solid days chasing elk around. I was into them all day every day. One day I watched a heard of well over 1000! My pal that works for the state Fish and Wildlife was so impressed, he called a co-worker biologist to take off in the plane and photograph them. The other days, in a totally different location, I watched, easy 800 at a time. And yet a third day a heard of only a hundred or so. Bulls of every size for miles! And no, not in Yellowstone Park.

I did manage to put the sneak on this old school tractor! It's a prize for the eyes.
And rounding off a hectic two weeks was a wonderful Thanksgiving Dinner. Great friends, my family and lots to be thankful for. I texted all the guys that I get to work with and told them I was thankful for all they do. Their replies were among the highlights of my holiday. I'm so blessed.