The Screaming Viking

Traditionally the wife, kid and myself (along with whomever comes with) have gone up to the hills over Labor Day weekend to clean out and prepare the shack for hunting season.  Most people don’t quite understand the magnitude of this job.  This building was built by high school guys 40+ years ago for virtually nothing, it’s used 3 weeks out of the year…and we still don’t put much money in it.  There is a commercial I think about “Remington” country where this guy gets up in the morning and leaves this shack out in the woods for a hunt…it looks all rustic and hap hazard…I wish our place was that nice.  Given that it’s not put together all that well there gets to be quite a few animals into it.  If it’s only mice and squirrels…it’s not too bad.  There’s a bit of a mess to clean up, but over all not too bad.  The major clean up comes in when the raccoons (hence forth referred to as “coons”) get into the building.  Those little bastards tear everything apart…get in to everything…it’s horrible.  The year before last the place was a horrific mess, I’d never seen it that bad.  The main problem was we had food stuff the animals got in to.  Learning from this, we didn’t leave any food up there…and given the fact the old man died and I didn’t really go up…there wasn’t a whole lot of stuff for animals to get in.

The kid and I rode up there on 4-wheelers this summer.  We stopped in and it wasn’t too bad…clearly some animals had been in there but overall not too bad.  We went up there today to clean things out…the child walks in…and there is silence.  I went around back to turn on the propane tank for the lights…I asked her how bad it was and all I heard was “love you daddy”.  I knew it wouldn’t be good.  I walked into the building and it was a crazy mess.  We’d left a couple of pillows in there and they were tore completely apart with stuffing all over the place.  The steel cabinet was tipped over, the other one was opened.  It wasn’t good, but over all it was just a mess to throw in the garbage and sweep up.  There was no food that needed to be cleaned up…then I started looking around…. Read the rest of this entry »

There is an article on the inforum about anglers needing to buy their licenses asap incase the minn gov shuts down…what I’m wondering is if the gov is going to be shut down, who is going to bust you for not having a license?  Obviously the “I am de law!” people will be out, I assume they get paid?  dunno.  A government shutdown is such a lame ass tactic to us.  The only ones it hurts are the people…what do the state reps care, really?  It’s a shame that it takes only one vote to elect someone.  I would like it if, at the state level, the reps needed at least 1/2 the votes to win or something.  Not just a plurality but a majority of the votes.

Whatever, it’s MN…doesn’t affect me much, even less now that I’m further away from the state line.

link

ST. PAUL – Anglers who still need fishing licenses for the holiday weekend are being advised to buy them by Thursday in case Minnesota state government shuts down over the ongoing budget impasse.

The Department of Natural Resources says it expects sales of all fishing, hunting and trapping licenses will be suspended in the event of a shutdown Friday. However, it says all regulations will remain in effect and will be enforced.

But the DNR anticipates that most of its services will not be operating, including state parks. Pending a settlement or other directions from the courts, all state park facilities are set to close at 4 p.m. Thursday.

National Forest Service campgrounds and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area would not be affected by a state government shutdown and will remain open.

Saw a couple days ago on the in-forum that the $100/coyote bill debated in the ND house was defeated.  I don’t remember the exact numbers but the vote was around a 3/1 defeat.

I’m a little disappointed.  Their numbers need to be knocked down a little bit and it would have been nice to be able to make some extra money.  Nothing big, but probably enough for another rifle or something.  It seems the main arguement against it was the money for these payments would come out of a fund that is used to pay professional hunters to control game in certain areas.