More Quail Adventures

Since Travis has been out of school, we have been taking advantage of the time and quail hunting. Travis went last week with Nick Starley and ran into an interesting quail. Nick found a male quail next to a bush. He walked up to it trying to get it to flush, ready to shoot. The bird never moved-it just stood there. So Nick reached down and picked it up. Travis came over and they took pictures with the bird. As soon as they were done, the bird took off. It was like it finally realized something was wrong. Very weird. Never would happen in a million years, but it did.

Then on Sat Travis, Eddie and I went out again and I successfully shot 3 birds!! I was sooo excited! One I shot on the ground, which is kind of cheating, but I really wanted to get at least one. Then the next one I shot was in a huge group and I didn't even know I got one because I was too busy watching the rest of them fly away. So I walked up to it and it was still in the process of dying, all flapping around muscles twitching and everything. I couldn't help up squeal like a girl and couldn't pick it up. Eddie had to come over and finish it off for me and put it in my bag. It still flopped around in my backpack a couple times which made me, again squeal like a girl. The last one I got was totally legit- shot in the air, killed right away. I picked it up by the foot and walked away that day with 3 quail for me, 4 for Travis and 1 for Eddie. I was proud :)

2 days later Travis went out again, this time with Nick and Jon Pursur. They didn't see much, but had a great time hiking all over the place. They ended up with 3 birds. A few days later, Jon took his boys out to the same place and got 7 birds in just a couple hours! I'd have to say Trav was jealous. :) hehehe

So a month into quail season and it's been a pretty good one so far.

Halloween

This year for Halloween Travis & I went to our first costume party. Actually it's the first time we actually celebrated Halloween! In years past we were either traveling, or out of town or just hung out at Travis' family's' house. So this year we actually picked out costumes and dressed up for Halloween. I borrowed a Cleopatra costume with a black wig and everything! It was awesome! I'd never worn a wig before. Travis decided to be the swine flu. We had to drive around to a few places to find a pig snout but we finally found one and it was a classic costume. :) We also found this great set of jugs as well. We'll have to save those for another costume. :)


We had a great time at Nick & Mindy's-watching the kids do the pinata, playing the name game and eating yummy food. There were some great costumes too: Lady Gaga, a Father (priest), static, Michael Jackson, Fred, Wilma & Bam Bam, Cereal Killers, princesses, bunny, turtle, and more. Very creative. I do have to say that after while, the clip on earrings and wig did start to hurt, so some of the layers had to come off. It was fun to celebrate Halloween again, and who knows, maybe we'll do it again next year!

Ava Gibson-SnowWhite

Madison Hammond- SnowWhite

Nikki & Gwyn Hills- Static & Bunny

Nick & Cael Starley- Fred & Bam Bam Flinstone

Quail Tales

Last weekend was opening of quail hunting season. The quail hunt hasn't been good at all over the last couple years so I had my doubts this year. Travis, Eddie, and I took off Saturday morning toward the guzzlers in the southeastern part of the state. We took our ATV's and hoped for the best. All morning we drove around the two guzzlers we could remember and up and down washes. We finally found a covey of 6 birds and chased them around for a bit with no luck.


We were starting to get discouraged and probably going to wrap it up for the day when we were stopped by a game warden. She was really friendly and polite and professional. She asked to look at our chambers and our licenses in a tactful way and then she proceeded to tell us how she had been out all morning and had seen 50 coveys each at a few guzzlers that we had forgotten about. We couldn't believe it! I totally thought it was going to be like the past 2 years with barely any quail around. So she got us all amped up to go back and not head home just yet. We stopped for lunch and realized that all 3 of us should've ended up with tickets because the one gun she didn't check, Eddie's, did have a shell in the chamber, and Travis forgot to get our upland game stamps! We had our licenses, but no stamps so technically we could've only been shooting rabbits. Anyways, the stamps didn't stop us and we kept hunting.

So we went to the guzzlers she told us about and she was definitely right about the 50 quail. There were quail everywhere!! I got tons of shooting and hiking in for sure. My face and arms were sun burnt and caked with dirt from all ATV riding and hiking. After a long day of hunting, Travis ended up with 3 and Eddie with 2. It's going to be a great year for quail and finally, after 2 years of no quail, we'll get in some good bird hunting. :)

Fillmore Fun

Last weekend Travis had a long 4day Jewish Holiday weekend. So we took full advantage and headed out of town for some chukar & blue grouse hunting, ATVing, and clay pigeon shooting. We weren't able to do my cow elk hunt in September because of how busy Travis has been at school, and we weren't able to go on Travis' Dad cow elk hunt because of how busy Travis' Dad has been. So bird hunting it was.

Trav and I left Thursday morning and headed for Minersville to do some chukar hunting in the area. We arrived mid day and hiked and rode the ATV all afternoon with no luck. So as the sun was setting we headed into Beaver for the night. We stayed at a small, run-down type hotel for the night. And of course we had Mexican for dinner, Travis' favorite cuisine selection. It was actually a really good sit down restaurant. Definitely would recommend it especially for a small town. The next morning we headed north to Fillmore to do some blue grouse hunting in the surrounding mountains for the day and meet up with our good friends Mindy & Nick and their family in the evening and for the rest of the weekend. The ATV ride that day was full of all sorts of terrain-crossing streams, dodging cows, snow, mud, and gorgeous aspen stands. We stopped a few times to hunt, but never came across any grouse. Bummer.

That night we met Nick's family and heard the local tales of the Moroni hieroglyphics up the canyon. His grandma is the specialist in town and knows all about them and continued to tell us about them all weekend. Supposedly the hieroglyphics do not match any kind of native american writings or anything else, so some people think it was Moroni passing through as he was fleeing the Lamanities on his way to Cumorah.
Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to go chukar hunting. We went with some long-distant relatives of Nick up into the hills South of Fillmore. Parts of the landscape looked great for chukar hunting, but we ended up hiking all morning through a lot of the not so good parts. We had 3 german short hairs with us, but they really weren't trained very well and never found us any birds. So as we were headed back to the road that would lead us to meet up with the trucks, Travis jump a huge covey of chukar. Half the covey took off to the west and north and the other half, about 15, came up the ridge towards me and over my head heading north as well. Since the birds were directly over my head and one of the guys we were hunting with was directly in front of me, I didn't get a shot off, but it was nice to finally see something, and I knew Travis had at least one down. We didn't have time to follow the birds since we were heading south towards the trucks. So we got back to the trucks and Travis decided he needed to pop-a-squat. As he was pulling his pants down he jumped a chukar. A couple guys had their guns on them and took a shot, but nothing. A minute later another one flew out. So I grabbed Travis' gun for him and ran it over to him so he could chase the birds down. The guys took off while I stayed back and watched. Travis ended up with a total of 3 birds and everyone else zero. I was so proud. :)
That afternoon Travis, Nick, Mindy, Nick's Dad & I went on a nice ATV ride to the top of one of the surrounding peaks. It was gorgeous out and we got to see lots of deer. On our way back, Nick comes to a halting screech because he spotted a blue grouse right on the side of the road! So Travis jumps off the 4wheeler, approaches the bird to get it to fly and took 2 shots and it got away! It flew right in front of a bush so he couldn't even see it on the second shot! But it was still exciting to finally find one.

The evening was filled with a delicious dinner by Nick's mom, a warm fire, and chit chatting. The next day we watched a little of general conference and again had a great brunch. We decided to get in some shooting and went clay pigeon shooting. Can I just say I really like shooting!.. It's just so fun and a great challenge.
The end of the trip was our guided tour of the hieroglyphics. They were pretty interesting, and that's about it. :) We had to go see them though since we were staying with the expert. We finished the trip with a delicious supper compliments of Nick's mom. It was so nice doing all sorts of outdoorsy events and staying at an old house in a small Utah town. I felt like I was so far from reality. It was a perfect break and just what both Travis and I needed.

Nascar Trucks

Trav & I were invited to the Nascar Truck Race by our friends Nick & Mindy. We went with Shane & Jentry as well and all experienced our first Nascar event (except Nick who had been to Nascar a couple times before). It was amazing really how fast they go and how LOUD it is there. People seriously had ear plugs and everything. I do have to say that it's kind of dizzying to watch some of the time too. We each chose a truck to win and had fun watching "our" truck even though we didn't know a thing about the truck. None of the trucks any of us chose won though, but it was still fun to watch. The best part was watching the wrecks-well they weren't really wrecks; the trucks would come around the last corner and their back tires would spin out and they'd go flying across the track and grass. Somehow all the other trucks were able to avoid the truck skidding across the track without getting hit. So none of them flipped or anything like that, but it was still really cool to see them spin out. As I was watching I kept thinking about Disney's Cars. :) I love that movie and it's my only exposure to car racing. Ha-too silly, I know. It was so nice getting out and doing something different here in town. We had a good time. :)

September Mush

It's been our count down month this month til the end of this session for Travis. It's his last month of classes and we've been just trying to survive through the flood of exams. So on the weekends, we've been painting, working on the truck, spending time with Travis' family, trying to keep Lily away from the coyotes, and headed out to spring mountain ranch for their outdoor musical, Working.

I've been pretty busy at work this month as well, so I've spent many an evening relaxing. Other week day evening activities include Travis' 3hr nap after class, piano lessons, institute, dinners which have been coming out more successfully now that I've complied a menu the weekend before, and TV shows including Everybody Loves Raymond, Seinfeld, Friends, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, So You Think You Can Dance, and gLee. Travis & I have also been taking late evening jogs, since 9pm was about the earliest you could go out without dying of heat.

So really, not too many "adventures" this month, but I wanted to have a post remembering what we had been up to this month.

Me at my American Insitute for Architects Event. Busy, busy, busy but in a good way. :)