Deer Hunting - Opening Weekend 2023

A strange Opener.   We made elaborate plans....only to have them go out the window.  One hunter had to bow out due to family obligations.  Another, although feeling ok, had been recently ill and had a positive Covid test.  This was a deal breaker for yet another hunter with a new baby at home.

Also, the weather was weird and warm.  And....deer numbers are down due to a late winter storm in April.  Do these sound like excuses?  Perhaps offered by someone who had not even seen a deer?*

Yes.

There are more hunters in our little patch of the woods.  On Opening Morning a kid had a stand set up just up the deer trail from my favorite spot.  Not a problem really, its public land.  But he shot two deer (this is legal, one buck one doe) that should have been strolling down the path to my stand.  Various other minor set backs cropped up later in the weekend.  A glitchy gps.  A solitary hunter who for some reason decided to park himself directly in the shooting lane from my favorite stand.  (I let him have the area, public land again, but when I went past hours later I noted he had moved again.  He just seems to be wandering around scaring the deer to no purpose).

Ah well.  My oldest son got a deer.  We will have another go at them tomorrow.  But definitely a sub par hunting year for us.

View from a tree stand number one.  The shadows make it look like I was thirty feet up!

View from a tree stand number two.  One morning I had a stand where, in theory, I would shoot across this river at unsuspecting deer on the other bank.  In theory.

A positive Covid test poses a few challenges for a host.  The young couple had their dinner and beverage out on the screen porch.  They seemed pretty happy.

We'll see what Monday has for us.  As the pictures show the weather has been ridiculously nice.  This has been pleasant but deer actually prefer gloomy weather.  This bright sunshine has not been helpful.

Guess that sounds like another excuse.

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* Technically I have seen deer.  But either outside of legal hours or in places I can't shoot 'em. They are out there....my grand daughter noticed four of them loitering outside the cabin and banged on the window to get them to move along.  Sigh.

Orange Sunset

Opening Morning of Deer Hunting awaits.  The other hunters and support staff are all in route, but at present its just me and the dog as the sun sets on Friday evening.

I've been up for a few days already.  It has been nice and quiet but there are a few things to attend to before the official opening of Deer Camp.

Trail cams need to be consulted....

A nice buck, probably an 8 pointer.  If the next thing the camera snapped had antlers they'd look like a chandelier...

I was not scowling because of my last round of target practice.  I was out at about 100 yards and looking straight into the sun for these shots.  I'd call it 4 for 4.

When you miss the bullseye both left and right, up and down it means the rifle is sighted in nicely. Its the rifleperson who is at fault.  But this should suffice.

Dog loves it Up North.  He sniffs at, I presume, coyote dribbles.  He barks at squirrels.  He rolls around on his back and then stretches out in a pose I call SuperDog.

Note the blaze orange flag on his leash.  I don't think anyone would take a shot at a deer that small but you never know so he stays on leash and flagged.

The Bay Theater

I've developed a degree of interest in vintage movie theaters.  Once commonplace they are becoming rara avis.  On a trip to Ashland Wisconsin a few weeks back I ran across this gem. 

Behold The Bay Theater.  And while it does not exactly overlook Chequamegon Bay of Lake Michigan, you can see it from the corner.  You can find a thumbnail history at Cinema Treasures.

In the first half of the 20th Century the not particularly large town of Ashland had four movie theaters of which The Bay, built in 1937, is the only survivor.  Here's what it looked like in 1963.  A fancy, substantial front paired with a rather more workaday main section.  The wall of the latter currently has a nice mural of area military service men and women.

Once a single 650 seat theater it has now been split up into six screens.  That allows them to show a variety of features.  When I walked past on a drizzly afternoon there were parents bringing small children in for a matinee.

I hope they read the signs carefully before selecting which room to enter......

Little Robots Pushing Things

Barely controlled chaos with middle school kids driving little sumo style pushing robots.  My elaborate three on three format went out the window when we had both equipment failures and a last minute scratch.  Hey, the equipment is twenty years old, so not surprising.

But two on two or three on two matches both worked quite well.  Kids found that having one less robot getting in the way actually kind of hindered them.  There was some good driving and some of the matches were pretty exciting.  When they can carom that big green 5 point ball in at the last minute that's really fun....

 Everyone seemed to have a pretty good time.

"Vintage" robot T shirts as prizes.

During a break for field reset the high school team's competition robot grabbed a few things for show then lead the families of the middle school kids back to our workshop for a look at what we assume will be the future for many of them.

The Return of Machines Behaving Badly......

It's been a long time.  Too long.

A couple of decades back I started a DIY robotics class at the middle school.  "Machines Behaving Badly" involved 24 kids in 6th - 8th grades each building a 3 pound combat robot out of scrap materials and unrealistic expectations.  It was immensely popular.  When the modern age came along and sign up was on the internet it once filled in 90 seconds.

The rules were the essence of simplicity.  No flame throwers, no hand grenades, and no live animals.  Two minute matches, double elimination with the Final having a degree of Finality as there usually would be a waiving of event rules.  No time clock.  No judges to rule on performance.  Thunderdome Rules.  Two Bots enter, One Bot leaves.

Ah, good times.  The degree of enthusiasm and creativity it generated were the foundation of the high school FIRST team.  The proposed 20th anniversary Machines Behaving Badly Smash it All Grand Finale Event was supposed to happen in 2020.  It was done in by Covid lockdown and post Covid my robotics energies have since been directed in other directions.

But this year the Robot School students finished their major project a bit early so I decided to give them a treat.  Lets revive Machines Behaving Badly.

Oh, not in its most exuberant form.  No weapons, this will be a pushing match only and held on a table top instead of our enclosed arena.  But it is an opportunity to merge the Old Ways with a bit of FIRST format.  So, three versus three, red versus blue and with a complicated bit of gameplay that requires both individual driving skill and thoughtful cooperation.

We started out with just a few robots pushing things around on a small table...

Then moved up to FIRST robotics style 3 on 3 matches, Red versus Blue.  The goal was to push objects of variable difficulty into milk crates for scoring points.

After a few practice rounds the kids did get much better.  But some objects defied their efforts.  From far back in the Combat Robot days I dredged up the little guy who once sat atop our famous robot Turbo Gnome.  He's no pushover....

Tournament on Tuesday.  Should be Nostalgic, Nonsensical Fun.

From the Department of Dubious Ideas

Hunting season opener a week from tomorrow.  This looks a bit sketchy but is actually a nice comfortable tree stand with good stability.  Deer numbers appear down this year but at least I'll be waiting them out in comfort.

Puts me to mind of the Stylites.  If you've not heard of them they were early Christian mystics who spent their lives sitting on top of stone columns.  As they were current in the latter Roman era and into the early middle ages there was no shortage of these sittin' around unused.  

I'm not in official hunting garb in this early November photo.  Starting a week from tomorrow I'll be Stylin' it Stylite Style.......

Tree Shaped Tombstones - Fairchild Wisconsin

Fairchild Wisconsin is one of many little communities that got off to a good start but never really hit a "boom".  It's a sleepy little place in 2023.  But it has a nice cemetery and must have had a Woodman's lodge of one variety or another.

A nice specimen.  The American Flag in the background and the subtle GAR star lower right are appropriate.  Fairchild was named after a Colonel Lucius Fairchild who lost an arm at Gettysburg but went on to become Governor of Wisconsin.

Here's an oddity.  You see these "Book and Tree" variants pretty often.  But this one appeared to be leaning out at a weird angle...

It's probably just leaning forward and about to tip over.  Glad it did not happen when we were inspecting it.  A few rows over we have one in a more typical, i.e. stable, configuration.

Swell stone carving on this one.  I've seen hundreds of these things by now and they still amaze me.

I'm always trying to figure out stories.  The style seen here with a forked branch is often a married couple.  Commonly there will be one branch on each fork reaching out for all eternity towards its mate.  But here....one name and one branch....

Note the letter C carved into a cut off branch.  That was not the initial of the man buried here.  Was "C" the long lost Love of his Life?  The One that Got Away?  The carved verse is particularly mournful and all about meeting again in the next life.  Alas we can't really know.  But from the various implements down at the base of the monument we do know he was a Woodman.