CREATIVE

There comes a time in the life of a redneck mountaineer, when the creative juices flow, and given enough burlap sacks,

milk crates,

Worn out ice chests,

Tarp straps,

and old antifreeze jugs, that he can create a masterpiece. Here is my offering into the world of fine art ! Tomorrow we will parade all of this plunder, actually a pitiful and tacky flaunting of material wealth, all the way over to Lake Greeson !

WOO HOO ! We is a’ goin’ fishin’ ! It’s the start of JUGFEST2010.

We will be at Weston Point, Kirby Landing, ya’ll bring yer’ bag chairs and we’ll enjoy the wonderful Arkansas Spring time.

PROUD

It ain’t very often that I choose to let someone speak for me. However, I came across this from Baxter Black, American Citizen and Cowboy Poet. He just about hits all of the high spots for me. Here he is:

We all owe a powerful debt to those who have served, and those that are serving America !

QUALITY

Though we have never been big fans of living large, we have always felt that if one didn’t study their purchases for it’s longevity and keeping it’s serviceability, we would be shorting our selves in the long run by not spending enough money initially.

Or in Ouachita mountaineer’s terms, ya’ gets what ya’ pays fer’.

Such an example came home to us today while getting ready to go to the lake. Let’s back up and get the whole picture.

In December of 09’, we were working for Amazon dot com in their Coffeyville Kansas facility, and camped at Elk City Lake State Park. A beautiful setting with wide, wonderful campsites. We just loved it !

December had been particularly wet and cold with intermittent freezes. As we prepared to leave just before CHRISTmas, we tore down our sun room and rolled it up neatly into our storage tubes. As a Norther was blowing in, we left out just ahead of the storm and headed south. Here is a look at the sun room and the storage tubes on the Jeep:

Beautiful campsite ! And it’s being paid for as part of our employment at Amazon.com.

Now, fast forward several months and thousands of miles down the road.  After Wintering up on Padre Island in South Texas, we are at home in Arkansas getting ready to go to Jugfest2010 at Lake Greeson. As we open the storage tubes a horrible stench fills the air, totally astonishing us !

It was exactly like the worst smelling black water dump station episode that you can imagine ! We have always felt that we had no control over the actions of those that had used a campsite ahead of us, so we always use a ground cover system at the entrance to our Oliver. This time it paid off big time.

There is no doubt that someone had a bad sewer spill at that site. Though aired out and dried well before storage, the ground cloth had became slightly moist from condensation while in the tubes. This made the at one time saturated with ground water, ground cover smell just exactly like the ground it had been on.

Thank goodness for the quality of the materials that Sewing Susan uses in her sun rooms ! After a quick wash in a trash can and hanging out on the clothes line, they are as good as new. The different looking items in the trash can, are some throw rugs that were stored in the tubes with the sun room.

The bottom line for us is, buy the best quality that we can afford.

CALCIUM

My old retired drug dog and huntin’ buddy, Dillon, has always been a Squirrel dog. As a youngster he was fast enough to be able to occasionally catch a Squirrel on the ground. I didn’t encourage that at all while he was a working dog, but, he’s retired now, after riding with me for eight and a half years.

Poco and Patch are also Squirrel dogs. Patch stays home while we are away, living in the barn and spends her days treeing Squirrels around the home place. They have a buddy that they infected with the Squirrel huntin’ desire, Oscar, who some folks mistake for a silly little foo foo lap dog. Here is a look at Oscar on his Spring break: OSCAR'S SPRING BREAK But they know the difference, and when high up in the Rocky Mountains, they all team up to tree the elusive Golden squirrel.

We almost never take a squirrel around our home place. Instead we feed them and try to provide their needs. The simple logic of that is that the squirrels, because of their gregarious nature, are the ones that actually train the dogs.  Currently, Betty is feeding them sunflower seeds to improve the quality of their fur coat to help them make the Winter. I usually take old deer antlers and place them where the Squirrels can access them to help with their need for Calcium.

However, the dogs are home now and Patch has enough help that the Squirrels are staying up higher in the trees away from the dogs. Consequently they are starting to work on the old antlers that are hanging up high on the front of the dog kennel.

On the back side of this left beam there is a drop tine. It must be different somehow and the Squirrels have left it alone and have been gnawing upon harder to get to parts of the antler.

The Squirrels have became less than afraid of humans and interact with them in close proximity, so it may soon be time to re instill some fear back into them. A tough love thing. This short video shows a Squirrel gnawing on an antler when I walk up, talking to him all of the time. Listen at the very start of the video and you can hear his sharp teeth rasping as he gnaws on the antler:

DRIFT

During our Winter’s stay at the Padre Island National Seashore, we made many trips down the beach. We were always amazed at the stuff that would drift up over night. Sometimes we would sit there gawking at some new item, speculating at it’s point of origin, or, how it even got in the water in the first place. Here is a few of those items.

What’s left of a pleasure boat hull.

Picnic table.

Jet Ski Hull.

This was the wheels, tires, rear axle and all, we wondered if maybe the rest of the truck was down there, out of sight, under the sand.

Life Boat hull.

ITINERARY

Woo Hoo ! Today we finalized the last of our jobs for this year ! We look forward to seeing all of our friends up in the valley again this year at the Reynolds station. Here is what our agenda looks like:
Larry & Betty Harmon
Vandervoort, Ar 71972
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2010 mountainborn  Itinerary
May to September= Managing a 50 campsite campground above 10 thousand feet in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado
September to October= Sugar Beet Harvest at Reynolds North Dakota near the Canadian Border
November to December= Amazon dot com's CHRISTmas rush Season in Campbellsville KY
January to March, of 2011= Padre Island National seashore Texas looking for work or fishing, which ever comes first
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We ran into Rich and Rosie Smith, from the Reynolds Beet Piling Station, earlier this year down on the Padre Island National seashore and had a great time visiting with them.

READY

Systems all checked. We are ready for them catfish ! Jugfest2010 Lake Greeson Kirby Landing.