"Nullum Gratuitum Prandium"

Fall means hunt'n so it's time, once again, for Steve Hiebert and I to head out into the wilds of Paul and Carols Craig property for an elk muzzleloader hunt. I might as well cut to the chase and admit that the hunting was a complete failure. After a full week of hunting I only saw one elk. It was a big cow elk(for which I had the proper license), it was about 5 meters away, and I could have shot it...several time in fact. More on that later.

Paul was the only person to actually see more than one animal and did actually take a shot but missed completely. Carol saw a piece of a back running through the brush at 100 meters and that about sums up the hunting experience. Not sure why they weren't in there this year. That issue was the topic of many discussions through out the week but, of course, it's all speculation. Animals choose where they are for their own reasons, and that's why they call it Hunting.

We did get a lot done helping Paul on home improvements. First up was the Brennan Diversion. Paul bought water rights on a small creek running adjacent to the property, and decided to pipe it over to the cabin. The exact reason for this is still up in the air, but for now he intends to fill an old beaver pond next to the house. Over labor day I helped clear some timber to make way for the pipeline, and this week we did the final tie-in to bring the water over the hill. Paul and Carol were pretty happy when we kicked on the pump for the first time and actually got water. Steve was instrumental in helping establish "flow" as well. My part was measuring water depth in the pond after a margarita or two.

We also tinkered with some other projects: cell phone antenna, satellite dish for Internet connection, solar battery charging, and house fly elimination.

Oh yeah... if you didn't figure out the riddle of the cow elk I saw but didn't shoot, don't feel bad. No one else did either. It was already dead! After watching bird activity in one particular spot on the property all week I finally investigated, and found the corpus. Cause of death unknown, and due to the state of decomposition, it will stay that way.

Rifle season is up next so more opportunities for that free lunch remain. If you like the t-shirt check out this website.