Nov 3-17 Volleyball and Deer Season

Deer Season finally started.  The cold weather went away and summer returned. Everyone was seeing deer but not much shooting. Only 1 13 inch 8 pt was taken. All the other bucks were not legal . I do have some good bucks on camera but not to be seen while hunting. On the 17th I shot two does so now I can concentrate on a big buck. We went to volleyball games and now they are over. Both Ashley and Mackenna"s team was undefeated in district. Now we have about a month long break till club volleyball starts up. 

Maggie goes to bed early

2nd Doe

1st Doe

Finally a cold morning

Peyton and Luke love a fire

Having fun

shot a nice eating hog

John Callahan (92) came to visit

David Bird fixing a pot of cabbage

Nov 1-3 A Little Mack Creek Time

 I headed to the deer lease to spend a couple of days.  Susan head to the lakehouse to host a quilting retreat. This is the first time I have spent the night up here.  Kyle and the boys came up every day. We have solved our water issues with two 275 gallon tanks.   We extended our little camp shed roof. Only going to have two walls to the North and West. We we will use tarps if needed during blowing rains.  Still need to decide our lighting issues. We are going to put up some solar lights at the skinning rack and around camp. I will bring my other generator up and string some lights also. Its way more generator than we need but I use my small one on the trailer .  My new little generator has worked very well. It has a 1.2 gallon tank and it ran 10 hrs Sunday before I put gas in it. It wasn"t empty but I didn't want to refill in the dark.  You cannot even hear it if your sitting in the camp. I don"t run it at night ( so far), it gets pretty chilly in the trailer.  The last two mornings I woke up to 40 outside and 48-50 inside. My battery powered Furrion Fridge does not draw my batteries down too much at night. My battery voltage gets down to about 12.0.  At 10.7 the fridge is supposed to cut itself off to protect itself and from depleting your battery.  Monday I left the generator off all day to see if my little solar panel would keep up. It seemed to work fine, when the compressor would kick on the voltage would drop to 12.4 but when it was off it would get back to 13.3.  I am going to put another battery wired in parallel to help with the load.  Kyle also got his floor down and sealed for his cabin. It might get finished by December (depending on lumber prices).  We are also going to start a bathhouse with a shower and toilet.  Peyton and Luke had a big time playing around camp. They kept the fire going in the fire ring and dug in the dirt and just entertained themselves. We took rides in the Ranger and saw a few deer. They sure have a lot of energy. It sure was quiet in the evenings after they left.  Since there is no grass where my trailer is I need to put something down to keep it from being a sloppy mess when it rains. Haven"t decided what I"ll put down.  I"m going to volleyball games in Beaumont tonight and will come back Friday for opening weekend.

Oct 31 Volleyball and the new Little Mack Creek

 We have been home since the end of September.  We have been going to volleyball games. Ashley is on the Kingwood freshman team and Mackenna is on the Kingwood JV team.  Its a lot easier as all the high school teams travel and play on the same night. Freshmen play at 4:30, JV 5:30, Varsity 6:30.  All the schools limit their capacity in each gym.  The girls usually buy our tickets and leave them at the desk with our names on them so we can pick them up.  They started playing before we got home but we still watched them . There is a guy who live streamed all the games on Facebook.  Not as good as being there in person but it was really great to be able to watch.   Both the Freshmen and JV are undefeated in district and only 1 loss for the season.  On another note we have been working at the deer lease making a new camp area. It will be pretty primitive this year. Because of all the storms in La. the price of lumber has gone sky high. We do have a small campshed built and a good fire ring.  We have two portable skinning racks set up. We have water tanks set at each location.  Kyle and Kevin are going to build a small cabin but due to lumber prices they won"t finish till it comes down.  I cleared out a spot where I can put my new trailer.  I"m so long it may be a challenge getting in and out.  The reality is since there is only 10 of us and everyone works (but me and one other) there won"t be a lot of folks at the same time except probably opening weekend. Some are going to tent it and others are just driving up and then going back home. I just bought an Igen2200 Westinghouse inverter/generator to run my trailer. It will run everything except my AC.  Its supposed to be fuel efficient and it is very quiet and half the price of a Honda.  We will see how it works out, my honda was great and never had a problem in 9 years untill the flood got it.  My rv fridge runs on 12v only. I do have a solar panel to charge my rv battery but do not think it will keep a fridge running for more than 3 days so I need to run the generator every day. This season will be a test ,  I may add another battery and portable solar panels. We do some boondocking in the mountains so I need to figure this out. The deer have been coming to the corn feeders both at home and the lease. I have been getting plenty of pictures. I planted about 1/2 acre of rye grass at home for the deer .  We have had one bow hunter who has killed a doe so far. 

Ashley (23)

Ashley

Mackenna (21)

Mackenna