2009 Pheasant Opener

This past weekend the boys and I headed down Strasburg way for the pheasant hunting season opener. Saturday arrived cold and brisk - it was 20 deg. and windy when we headed out in the morning. We had three hunters and ended up with three pheasants. Gerrit went along the whole while and stayed in the pickup about half the time and walked with us the other half. We needed him to walk some areas where three people just are not enough. He carried his BB gun and one time thought he was separated from the group, so he shot it off hoping we would hear it and find him. I didn't take the camera with while hunting so I don't have any pictures of our excursions.

Donovan mostly stayed with Grandma at the house. Most of his time was spent coloring, working in a word find book, and looking at the globe. He also had dog walking duty in the morning and took Sadie out for a bathroom breaks numerous times.

Speaking of which, now may be a good time to post pictures of one of the cutest dogs around - our Sadie. Her time at the farm can be put into one of the four following categories: playing with her toys, chewing on her pork hide stick, sleeping, and looking out the living room window. The pictures below were taken within a five minute time frame. No, I'm just kidding. Overall, she was a very good dog for the visit.

Hunting and Halloween Masks

Our pheasant hunting excursion this past Saturday went pretty well. We had seven guys hunting - myself, two of my brothers, my dad, and three of my nephews. We finished up hunting by mid-afternoon and not too long after that it started raining steadily. Before that we had just sprinkles here and there. My dad and brother sort of have three different farm areas and we hunt all three. There is the Compaan farm, the Slagh farm, and the main farm yard that both my brother and dad occupy.

Our little hunting party ended up with eleven birds. I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, as they say, and took down only one Chinese Ringneck. Once you start missing it seems you lose some confidence. After the last shot of the day my gun jammed up (gummed up - needs cleaning), and I couldn't get the shell out. I had to walk back to the house with a loaded gun and take it apart to remove the shell.

My shotgun is a Winchester Model 12 12-gauge. After my grandpa Slagh passed away in 1995 I bought it from my grandma. I just looked it up online and, according to the serial number, it was made in 1947.

Since it was raining on and off, I didn't take my camera along during hunting. On Saturday evening I took the halloween masks out and got some photos of those. My mom has old plastic masks saved from when we were kids and it is fun to pull those out each year.

Donovan modeled the Chewbacca mask. What cute eyes Chewbacca has!

Gerrit donned the pirate mask for us. Arrr!

This always makes me chuckle a bit. The lips on this Batman mask weren't dark enough so my mom used fingernail polish on them and ended up creating a Batman with lipstick. Funny.

This is me modeling a mask I remember wearing in college. Gerrit put it on for a picture but Mom said my fat head fills it out more and makes it look better. Well, she didn't say it quite like that.

Neither of my boys would put on this Batgirl mask, so I just held it up for a photograph. My sister, Lisa, wore this one.

I also looked through my mom and dad's old records. That was fun, too. As kids we used to listen to a lot of those. Here Dad is perusing some 78's.

This was from Sunday - lime jello with pears. I just thought the orbs looked interesting in the transparent green jello, so I took a picture.