When you are all alone!

Ba Bum Ba Bum

They stone ya when you’re givin’ the Bone!

Ba Bum Ba Bum

They stone ya when you’re young and Able!

Ba Bum Ba Bum

They stone ya when you’re dead and on the Table!

Ba Bum Ba Bum

Everybody must get STOVED!

As with so many things here at Sportsmen’s Camp change and improvement can appear glacial. But that is really not the case at all! (especially when viewed from a geological perspective – but I digress) Change in many of our guests’ eyes is an enemy here at camp – they want things to be as they were when they were kids. That is true for many, but the same people also say things like “Gee this wood stove sucks – its hard to light, doesn’t put out much heat, and requires such small pieces of wood that I have to split wood for an hour just to get the fire going”. I always say, “Splitting wood always gets you warm”. But that was not their  intention. They want a wood stove that works properly. So here I am at camp like a quiet white dwarf star collecting comments and materials over the years until… the Chandrasekhar Limit is reached … then I burst into a SUPER NOVA of action – dah tah DAH! Cabins 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9 are all getting new stoves! Dah tah DAH!

Here is a picture of the “new” stove in cabin #6. It is sooo sweeet! It warms quickly, goes all night and will take a long one… Just like Janet! Ba dum tump! All the replacement stoves are not new but they will be great additions to the camp since they will all take longer wood, throw good heat and will be more durable. They aren’t new but they are in great shape (just like Jack). So I hope that everyone will welcome these changes – I know many memories will be lost with the old stoves but you can recount your exploits of yore as you warm your cold hands in the heat from the new stove. Like “Boy do you remember that old stove that was here? It didn’t work worth a damn and that asshole (Jack) wouldn’t change it for 20 fucking years!” Well maybe like that anyway.

Things are beautiful here at camp this fall the weather is holding pretty nicely and I am getting a lot of things done I’ve wanted to do for years. The water is even staying warm enough for some good fishing! Janet has settled into her fall routine again too. Working till the wee hours of the night on the books swearing about how we don’t have any money and then…

waking bright and early at 11:30 to amuse Baxter TWD by playing yatzee on the couch until I have a fire and breakfast/lunch made. Janet’s quote of the day to Baxter TWD – “It won’t be too much longer till we have to go back and be normal people”. Aww don’t get your hopes up Janet we’ll never be normal!

Is this heaven? No it’s Sportsmen’s Camp.

The Money??

We are now dealing with a dilemma here at camp. The Diesel has developed an oil leak and it is very near the time when it will require a rebuild. However the diesel is starting easily, not smoking and running beautifully – knock on wood (as jack raps his forehead with his knuckles) so it could run a couple more years easily if it were not for the approximately quart a day leak. I am presently collecting the dripping oil and putting it back in the engine so there is minimal waste but leaks never get better. Soooo we’re looking at getting an entirely new generator set for delivery in the spring and using it next summer. The manifold benefits are that we will have a new unit, it will be more quiet, it should be more efficient, and most importantly we will then have redundancy with respect to power here at camp. It will take a substantial amount of stress from my life (and Janet’s) over the summer! Next spring after installation of the new generator I will take the old one apart and replace all of the offending leaking gaskets and have it for a backup unit and save a boat load of money on the work. Now the rub – the new unit will cost a substantial amount of money – we are looking at 10 to 15K dollars (American/Canadian its all the same dude!) Jeeeesh! We don’t have that kinda a money to throw around so we’ll have to fleece our guests far more efficiently or find alternate means of raising the funds!

So we have embarked on a new policy to minimize any new damage to our rental equipment by cutting down trees.

And we are now accepting corporate and individual sponsorship for all the buildings and structures here at the camp. As you can see we’ve already gotten sponsorship for the beloved “deep drop”!

I am now repainting the “Sportsmen’s Camp fish sign” and am soliciting bids for sponsorship of the sign. Imagine it “The Mellon Bank Fish Sign” – “The Paine Webber fish sign” or say the “Phish Phry phish sign” (he has contacts yaknow!) or “The Blunted Poet’z fish sign” or “The George W. Bush fish sign sponsored by Brian Buss”? Heh he he he! What a cool idea! We are also selling the naming rights to the new and old generator! So don’t crowd kids – there’s plenty of things to be sponsored for everybody just send your checks and money orders in now!

Seriously though dear reader we will be going to our banker “hat in hand” for some money so if you happen onto a diesel generator set that is about 20kw primary power source (ie. not a standby light duty device) at a good price let us know! Thanks.

In my maiden form bra.

But it was really so warm today that I had a T shirt on! I took down the large jack-pine that was blocking the satellite Internet and shading the patio today. I took the limbs off of the back side yesterday so that it would be weighted to the side that I wanted to drop it. But yesterday it was blowing like a son of a bitch so I didn’t dare drop it then as it may go somewhere unplanned. I dropped it within inches of my planned location with the Help of Bob Z. and Janet on the pull line. Then the work began – it took me about 6 hours to dispose of all the branches and move all the wood to the wood pile. The “Line Pullers” took off like a couple cats that got tagged on the ass with a kerosene filled paint brush! But hey they had things to do so I can’t really bitch. But its all gone now and the twigs have been raked almost as well as if Paul, Bob and Charlie were here! It only took about 5 times as long.

I am now having a Jito. Thats a Mojito without the mint and I think I’ll make another before I write about the bear hunt stats. MMM thats better.

The current bear count – is 30 bears taken and 32 hunters – so we don’t know if the 100% will hold it is Thursday though. The weather has been beautiful here the last few days! Warm and sunny and it appears as though it will hold for about another week! I just don’t want to go home! We haven’t had a fire in the stove for the last 4 days! I didn’t get fishing today But I am going out tomorrow dammit!

Here are some pictures from the past year that did not make the blog but I thought deserved merit and besides I needed the practice with the new publishing system.

The incredibly rare “fish pointer”.

The incredibly rare “bud fish” of Spyder Lake

It’s not that big!

Baxter and Beanie after a grueling day at camp

What’s funnier than a monkey fucking a football?

Two Monkey’s fucking a football.

Devo visits Sportsmen’s Camp

Breakfast of Champions

BeanieZilla attacks

Noooo..He’s not pampered!

Conehead and Cowboy go fishing

Mike wants to make Peking Pressed Bear!

The good news is that the 100% bear record is still running strong! 27 bears 27 hunters! One of the baits has had seven bears taken off of it! Six more hunters to go. The bad news is that Mike didn’t get bear 27 with a rifle, a bow, or a muzzle loader. He had to get his bear with a steam roller! Check out the picture! He said something about wanting to make Peking Pressed Bear with a tangy plum sauce! He also said that he had to “bone the bear!” Gee, I thought he got a male bear! Badump tump! Jeeeeesus! These bear hunters are a strange crew!

The weather has been cooler but not all that bad. I went fishing the other day after a nasty north wind went through and all I caught was a bunch of little bass! Imagine that Janet wanted fish for supper and I was unable to get supper in2 hours of fishing! This is a godamn outrage! Oh well I try again this week!

23 Bears in 26 Days

A new record for Bob and Harvey.  Way to go guys – you are the best at what you do.  Here are a few pictures for all you bear hunters out there.  This week’s crew has killed four bears in the last 24 hours.  There are only 3 hunters left this week and five days left to maintain 100 %.  Wish em luck!

Thanks for the photos, John.

Another thing I don’t like.

The only thing that remains the same is change. So when The Omnipotent Ying decreed that the “Blog must move” – move we did! I didn’t say I liked it! But on close examination it appears that this publishing program is easier to work with – to put pictures on – to screen out asshole (pineman) and spam and conservative comments and it has all the good features of the old one too. Hey, we got new tires on the boat trailer – that’s change – right? They aren’t really new tires. I picked up a nice set of raised white letter truck tires at the dump and put those on the trailer and they look kinda spiffy and I don’t have to pump them up before I use the trailer anymore. But I still like the old bias ply tires that came with trailer – they were probably on the trailer for 40 years and they looked retro and – well I miss them. Ok, ok, I’ll probably get used to the “new” tires in 10 years so what the hell.

The bear hunt is still going strong with 100%! The hunters have killed (harvested) 20 bears. There was even a bear over 260 lbs taken this week. The weather has been beautiful too. The water temperatures are staying up and the weed beds are still producing nice fish. Al and Deb just pulled in so there will be lots of drinking at the fire tonight. We located some perch in the beds south of elephant rock a couple days ago and had a very good perch dinner. Paul, Bob and Charlie are helping me get some heavy lifting done, we’ve taken down about five trees in camp that were dying and gotten in some fire wood. We have one more tree to take down but today we’re off to Fryingpan and Hangingstone Lakes via the Manridge road (with the new tires on the boat trailer – look at the raised white letters, cool eh?). I’ll report on the outcome later so be cool and don’t go changing!

But the GROANING!

As indicated by Brian – The Love Master’s concession comment, Janet Queen of the North has once again prevailed over another overconfident philistine. It was indeed a hard fought contest. It was all over in 6 plus hours. That is to say that The Love Master had ~ 2 swallows remaining in his 19th beer when he passed out and Janet finished her 19th beer. But the numbers do not tell the entire story. The struggle “see-sawed” through the afternoon. Toward the ¾ point of the struggle Janet appeared “on the ropes” slurring her speech and struggling to her feet to drain her bladder. Even Bob Z thought she was about to give up the ghost! But The Evil Captain Janeeto (from the planet Janetron) called Scotty down in “Liver Engineering” and demanded “We need warp drive in 5 minutes, to be sustained for an hour!!!” Scotty replied, “Aye aye, Captain, but I nay know if she’ll hold together!” Evil Captain Janeeto replied, “I don’t care if ya gotta hold the engines together with binder twine the honor of Sportsmen’s Camp is on the line!” “You’ll have warp 9 Cap’n!” was Scotty’s reply. By contrast Captain Love Master (of the good ship – Philistine Misadventure) was blithely cruising along at warp 5 when he got a call – “This is Liver Engineering – Houston, we have a problem!” “What seems to be the problem Engineering?” Replied Captain Love Master. “The crystals – the crystals their a-crackin’ Cap’n (“Warp Core shut down and implosion in 30 seconds … 29 seconds… 28 seconds” – computer in the background) she’s comin’ apart at the seams!” was Scotty’s reply. At this point The Love Master passed from incoherent babbling to a comatose state. With just two swallows of beer in the can!

So ended the first (and hopefully last) Sportsmen’s Camp Invitational Swill Swilling Contest! Technically Janet won – but I can assure you all there were no winners in this contest! Don’t try this at home kids! Leave this kind of IDIOCY to professionals!