Thanksgiving!?

Happy belated Thanksgiving to you all!
We received LOTS of wet heavy snow on the day before... about 1 1/2 feet in 24 hours, during which we removed snow at least 3 times. All of the snow in the pictures came from one storm. And we are expecting another foot of snow later tomorrow, if you can believe it.

We ended up hosting a Thanksgiving gathering at our house. Since there were only four of us, Mom and brother Mark and us, it was easier to do an unorthodox no-turkey dinner at our place, including popcorn and toast (with homemade grape jelly) after Charlie Brown.

For the main feast, we had venison and salmon tacos with our usual Mexican fixings plus cranberry salsa and wild rice with morel mushrooms. We thought the original pilgrims would be proud of our table filled with our own catches (venison and salmon) and gatherings (grapes and mushrooms). But to be honest, we were most thankful that we never lost power at our house and that Joe's snow blower worked hard to clear our driveway.

Date with a Dead Deer

Joe's deer season lasted 3 days this year... but it was a good thing because he couldn't take time off from work this week. Still, he managed to have a morning off today to go on a little date. Our main destination was a new pastry shop 30 minutes south, but we first went to drop off Joe's deer to get butchered and processed. The temperatures have gone up, warm enough to rain today though it soon changed to light snow.

On such a wet grey morning it was delightful to have coffee and croissants and to visit with our good friend. A nice little recharge before the weekend is here.

Deer Season

It's hard to remember Joe sighted his deer rifle in his Hawaiian shirt the last weekend of October. This November has been pretty cold, temps dipping down to zero as in our normal January or February. A week prior to the opening day of deer season Joe got 20 inches of snow where he hunts, while we received only dusting up on the hill at our house (a rare occasion). 

Joe did have a very good reason to be excited about deer season though. A beautiful 8-pointer showed up regularly on his trail cam, chasing after does. The only problem was that he and all other deer moved around exclusively during the night. 

 The first two days of deer season were uneventful... as expected.

Day 3: this morning Joe shot this respectable 5-point. I wish I had gone along to take a nap again like yesterday... but I had a feeling that Joe might get a buck if I stayed home. Now we are going off to have celebratory drinks.