back from oz ~

 I made it back from my couple days in Oz spending time with my Wizard.

 ~ this is a photo of "the cabin" I took last year ~

Truthfully ... it's was more like a couple days in the swamps following a stinky old trapper man around.  I'm not saying my husband stinks; but the lures he carries in the back of his truck for trapping have a pretty strong odor sometimes.  That doesn't bother me though.  I've been around trappers and trapping my whole life.  Our family and the generations before (on both my side of the family and Dear Hubby's side of the family) have always subsidized our incomes through the fur industry.  

What does bother me though, is ending the day out in the woods on the trap line ~  only to go back to a stinkier hunting shack ~ that's so filthy dirty.  Whenever I go up there, about once a year, I get that compulsive feeling of needing to clean it.  This year was different.   I decided to leave it instead of cleaning and come home and clean my own house.  But... by time I drove back to my house and walked through the doors of home sweet home ... I decided my own house is spotless and I didn't have to clean it.  Really ... it's not spotless, by no means ... but in comparison to what I just spent two days at ~ it's lookin' pretty darn good.

 The cabin is owned by Dear Hubby and six other guys.  It's their hunting shack ... their place to 'get away' from it all.  Slim doesn't hunt with those guys though, he just has part ownership in the cabin and goes up there for a couple weeks the end of October / first part of November for trapping season.

That big red table that they use as the poker table is an old electrical utility spool covered with vinyl material stapled on to it.  It's dirty and greasy, grimey and stinky.  Last year I used four SOS pads to scour it off so you could see that it's even red!  That big cook stove / griddle in the back ground ... I won't even gross you out with what that looked like before I cleaned it. Last year I spent four hours scouring it with degreaser.  My hand were raw by time I got it looking good enough to cook off of. 

The refrigerator had things that were unrecognizable.  The freezer out on the porch, which was unplugged, had a loaf of french bread in it that looked like a big giant fuzzy caterpillar ready to crawl.  I won't even tell you what I think about their bathroom.  It should be surrounded with yellow police caution tape!

Don't even get me started on the upholstered material in the place ... like the three sofas.  ewwwww yuck is putting it very mildly ... and the carpeting ... looks like a dog puked on it in a few places ... I'm not kidding ... it's gross.  One spot even looks like it has porcupine quills in it .... I didn't investigate.  The best way to clean this place would be a match and a gallon of gasoline.

My big trapper man Slim did put out some mouse traps and caught 20 of them this week.  He said I'm just a little over sensitive about the mice ... they won't hurt you.  Okay honey... I know they won't hurt me; but it really grosses me out to see you guys just shake their shit off the bed then crawl in it ... like they were never there ... and what's that funny little stain on the pillow case beside the poo ... mouse pee??? ewwwww 

Slim goes up to that cabin once a year ... and he even admits it's hard sometimes to go there.  I would go with him in the past for a couple of weeks at a time; but every time I spent it scouring and cleaning.  Not anymore.  The rest of the crew ~ are going to be quite surprised in a few weeks when they all show up for hunting season and find out that I didn't stay and clean up the place for them ... like I have in the past.   Those guys are up there all the time in the summer ~ and apparently it doesn't bother them.

At least Slim is clean ... and our bed is clean up there.  We never leave bedding behind and always take up fresh sheets.  Seriously, you should see some of the other beds ... yuck... it's really gross!!  How can people be such pigs.  All I know ... it's their mess and I'm not the housekeeper anymore. 

Slim and I would love to find another place.  This timeshare isn't working out.

Okay ... enough on that subject ... I know ... sometimes I get long winded and riled up.  Going to that cabin just doesn't relax me.  Could you imagine if I would have stayed a whole week!!  or 3 weeks like Slim is??  I'd be dead.  Seriously,  I can't wait until we are no longer part of that place.   Neither can Slim.

 On the other hand ...

I did enjoy going out trapping with Slim.  I just love walking through the woods with him.

Here's a shot of him in his camo, blending in, as he's walking through the trees.

Now you can see him ...  with his big rubber boots and gauntlet gloves.  He wears those gloves while setting beaver traps to keep his scent off of them and to keep his hands warm and dry. 

 

This is one of the ponds he set up.  Do you see the beaver house in the background?

Also, notice the ice on the pond already.  Yeppers... that's ice you're looking at ... from the shoreline all the way back to where you see a change in the water line.  It was only 24 degrees out this morning. 

 

The landowner wants Slim to get the beaver out of there because they keep flooding his road.  This is just a couple nights damage of a dam that they are working on.  That's right in the middle of the the road that the property owner has to drive on that goes through his land. 

This next picture ~ I took last year while up there by this same pond.  It's a our friend, Porky, holding the chewed off stump of one of the MANY trees that the beaver chewed up on this property.

One night ...

We put the trail camera behind our friend Leo's cabin to see what's lurking around.

Look at the size of these 3 masked bandits ...

Have you ever seen such fat raccoons!

I don't know what Leo's feeding them critters; but look at the size of the squirrel he has by him too.

Those critters are plumped ...  Seriously,  they look like they're on steroids.

Okay... enough rambling on my part for today.

Until next time...
So it goes in my neck of the woods.
~mel