Borrowed Underwear

I’m curious to find out if he comes home with whitey-tighties or silky boxers.  Just what do our friends in the great north wear under their Mackinaws?  My destitute husband is living in borrowed underwear and outerwear ever since his spike camp burned to the ground in Canada while he was hunting a Lynx.  In a very Theodore Roosevelt kind of way, he has soldiered on.

He and his guide were five hours north of Vancouver, off grid, in the bush, spotting cats and killing time.  Then all hell broke loose.  Over the ridge, in a valley, blue smoke belched skyward.  Their horses spooked.  Nervous energy filled their lungs.  The two men split up.  John stayed in the mountains, glassing sheep and cat hunting, while the guide circled back to camp.  An hour later, the truth came riding back with just a sad look.   Up in smoke went the tales:  his worn Pendleton merino-wool shirt with the shoulder repair after a near miss with a wolverine, the spare boots that saved his life in the arctic circle after he went all Chuck Norris on a polar bear with a roundhouse kick to the jaw, and gone, sadly, is his lucky rabbit’s foot whose luck, obviously, ran out.

So far, as he tells it, he is getting by by the skin of his teeth.  They are trapping their meals and doing everything short of going all “Brokeback Mountain” to stay warm.   He has a smart horse this time, which is about the only good thing that has happened.

There will be no more word from him until Monday, January 4, 2015.

Sugar Momma

Last time he went out, he slept in a cave. So a simple fire should be a piece of cake.

Ever since his wallet filled with identification, cash, and pictures of his wife burned to the ground in an outpost cabin in Canada along with his U.S. Passport, I’ve been making calls to the United States Consulate in Vancouver to figure out how to get my husband back into the States.  I’m kind of thinking about leaving him there, but someone has to take out the garbage on Wednesdays.

What I learned from the agents is that I am married to a man who is technically destitute.  They have a label for people overseas who have lost their passports and money and now John has been labeled destitute.  He doesn’t know this yet.  When he gets out of the bush and heads to the U.S. Consulate in the rental car that (I hope!) is full of gas, he will learn the ugly truth.  He will have to stand in the “destitute” line:  I can’t get enough of that word –and he will figure out real quick who his Sugar Momma is.

Yes, I’m laughing.   In hindsight, he probably should have paid more attention to the American Express slogan, “Never leave home without it.”  Hopefully the outfitter he is with is still feeding him and will probably fill up his car with gas and give him lunch money and tell him not to talk to strangers.   Sugar Momma is working the deal on this end, and somehow, this big swamp buck hunter will get home in one piece.  No fear.

All That Glitters Isn’t Gold

When my husband goes on a hunting trip, we have a deal.  Don’t call home from the bush unless something is wrong.  I’m confident that when my man is dressed in camouflage with pockets full of bullets and his tootsies are flanked in Sorel Conquest boots, that something is going to die.

He left Michigan two days ago.  Today my phone rang, his ID popped up, and my heart sunk.  I answered the phone with one question, “What’s wrong?”

He was out on the mountain range in British Columbia, about five hour’s drive north of Vancouver, hunting a lynx.  His guide noticed blue smoke on the horizon and left John to “go check it out.”  It was a warmer day and he was dressed lightly:  no need for the heavy parkas, the Kelty backpacking frame, or things like money and identification.  They were off grid, catching cats.  In the meantime, John spotted several sheep, a bobcat, and some wild horses.

When the guide returned, his face was ashen.  The entire outpost cabin had burned to the ground.  All they had left were the clothes on their backs and nightfall was coming.  Both men made it back somehow to the outfitter’s homestead in Lilliooet, where they lit a fire and started making calls.

My husband is very resourceful.

He will find clean underwear.

He will find or make all necessary outerwear.   He will come home with a lynx.

As long as he has a firearm and no broken bones, I’m good with it.

Tomorrow I will start calling his not-so-favorite entity: the federal government, to find out how to get him back into the country without a passport, any money, a driver’s license, or a credit card.    I sure hope they don’t look at his Facebook posts or this could be a very long process!

#totallyscrewed

I Want to Be My Dog

Every day I love on my dog, Remi, and whisper sweet bits and encouragement into her ear.  Can you kiss a dog too much?  Then there are days when I cup her flabby cheeks in my hands, look into her eyes with pure adoration, and get rewarded with an audible “toot” and a nasal assault that makes me jump off the couch and run.

We begin and end each day the same way:  cuddled up under a mountain of blankies, stuck together like peas and carrots.  Now I’m not saying I’ve never sought revenge with the ‘ol Dutch Oven trick, but overall, we get by just fine.  Most mornings start out obnoxiously.  I play dead, hoping she will go back to sleep, and she escalates bad behaviors that begin with staring at me while I’m fake sleeping, pawing at my boobs (which generally gets me to at least move in an act of self-preservation) and ends up with her trying to sit on my head.  She knows no shame.

We go out to check and feed the chickens and goats.  This is when she takes a hot, steaming dump in the side yard, close enough to the pathway, that I get to smell it.  Then we go “running”.  She runs, I drive.  Once she has ticked a couple of miles, I can escape to run errands, drive tractors, or go to work.  If she even thinks I am leaving her behind, she cowers down at my back tires, pulling a Helen Keller, and doesn’t respond to any commands.  I have to go out there, tell her to knock it off, and give her a quick boot in the butt.

Here’s the problem:  the whole time I am away, I want to be back home with the dumb-dumb.  I want to feel her soft head against my cheek, hold her in my lap, or breathe in her incredible great smell.  Does anyone else love to smell their dog’s ears and paws?

Slo-Mo Run

Finally, I roll up the driveway and, there in the window glass,  I spy a white, wiggling body and an intent brown head staring at me with huge chocolate eyes.   She is saved. Each time.   That’s how dogs think–that you are leaving them forever.  There is a flurry of hugs and kisses and greetings in my Mommy sing-song voice followed up with a stop at the treat jar and fifty shades of fetch.

Reunited, we settle into evening routines.  Remi watches me cook, hoping I drop something, and I always do.  If it is summer time, we go out to the lake after dinner and she goes swimming. Mmmm…wet dog smell.   In the winter, we go for another run with the car.  In between, we go camping as much as we can and hike the north woods together.  She has a little plaid jacket to wear around the campfires on cool nights and a life jacket to wear when we are out fishing on the boat.  Then there are days when we paddle our canoe.  She is my Lieutenant Dan. 

Of course, Daddy is her hero.  She sees him 1/10th of her day, but as soon as he walks in the door, I’m reduced to douche bag status.  She hopes he is going bird hunting.  Every day.  Every time.  watch?v=3TB5p6D-V9s&feature=youtu.be

It dawned on me that Remi has the perfect life.  She even has a big chest and a little behind that would make Pamela Anderson jealous.  There are no little kids in our home to pull what is left of her tail, there’s an endless supply of love, holes to dig, fields to run, and lots of vacations.  In my next life, I want to be my dog!

Making Cat Food

Traverse City has one of Michigan’s best kept secrets.  King and CoHo Salmon are processed into cat food at the Weir factory, located in the heart of the downtown warehouse district , along the Boardman River on Hall Street, by utilizing a river trap system.   20 – 30 lb. salmon swim into the river from Lake Michigan to spawn and eventually die as part of their normal life cycle.  To preserve the beautiful city beaches, the state allows the factory to harvest these fish in a series of troughs.  

But the big fun is watching the huge fish make their way, leap by leap, up the churning water of the fish ladder into the facility’s three holding bays, where they cruise back and forth like caged tigers and splash at people.  Each year, anywhere from 3,000 to 13,000 salmon are trapped and harvested at the Weir, while other species are returned to the water and allowed to continue their journey upstream.

It might not seem very sportsmanlike to catch huge salmon this way, but if the city did not harvest them, then each fall, as these fish swim into the river , the sandy Grand Traverse Bay beaches would be littered with smelly, dead fish.  It is a win-win situation.  The fish are going to die anyway, so their meat is turned into a tasty Tabby treat for ditch tigers across the U.S.A.

I found the trap system and the fish fascinating…but then my eye caught the sight of a real parking lot beauty…an old Airstream trailer which was converted and put into service as a food vendor.  Whoop-whoop!

As Good As It Gets

Had a hot date with a coupla 20 lb. King Salmons last weekend, river kings,  which were spawning in the Big Manistee River on the west side of the state.  These fish are about four years old and are returning up stream to spawn and die after having lived and matured in Lake Michigan.  They are silver and shiny (like Airstreams!) when they are growing but by the time they swim up river, they become dark speckled, splotched and blackish as their flesh rots away in the dying process.  The life cycle of salmon is gruesome.  Google it.

Lance, proprietor of Scout Trout Charters, just might be the best river man on the waters up there.  I say that, because he handled his boat and the waterway AND my meltdown with grace.  Yes, I had a full blown meltdown/breakdown.  These fish broke me.  They beat me up and  I cried like a little girl when I lost ANOTHER one of them after a good fight.  I tried not to let it happen.  I bit my lip.   I tried to think happy thoughts.  Then, flushed with humiliation, heat rising off my cheeks, the dam broke and the crocodile tears just kept rolling down.  Did I mention Leroy?  He fishes with Adam in the big Lake Michigan tournaments.  It was a “special” moment for him too.   I might be smiling in the pictures, but it was a rough day.

The guys tried to give me a “charity rod”–one where they had done the actual hooking and were willing to let me reel the fish in. You know, “just the tip, just for a minute, to see how it feels.”   I shot Lance “the look” and he backed right down.  Because no. Because hell no.   That’s way too lame for a grown woman who owns her own bass boat even if she is beet red, busted, and sniffling with snots.

The difference between pan fishing and salmon fishing is like the difference between a high school football player and an NFL player.  Salmon fishing is true sport fishing.  The rest is all practice.  The rods and reels are awkward and heavy.  River salmon fishing is a combination of catching a drift as one does with a fly rod but also casting using a bait caster.  For me, everything was on the wrong side of my body.  The reel was on top and needed to be cranked with the right hand–totally opposite of a spinning rod.  I lost more fish than I got.

In an act of conservation, we let all the ladies go to lay their eggs.  We kept three big males, each between 15 – 18 lbs.  That’s six sides which feeds 12 people and that’s as good as it gets on this trip.

I lied.  The best part was afterwards, when I climbed into the back seat of Lance’s truck, and saw this sticker.