As expected

True to form I have neglected this blog and failed to document any of the happenings over the past few months. I'm sure random e-mails, photos, and google chats will serve to remind me. Life, in the meantime, has gone on and is playing hardball. The cards filling my dad's mantle, desk, and kitchen counter tell a story of commitment, honor, integrity, and unyielding love and empowerment. I'm overwhelmed. We're struggling with how to proceed. Live life with some level of normalcy? Enjoy each other's company. I'm angry at the snow and the weather for keeping us cooped up right now. Travel, although fun and somewhat refreshing, is a poor substitute for being warm and happy at home, able to work hard and build onto life. I'm struggling with finding a rhythm to my days. Work is calling and I must answer, I want to answer, but motivation is fleeting. I seek distractions with fervor. I can't shake the feeling there is something productive I could be doing to help the situation around here and find myself tackling any small problem or mess or detail just to feel useful and productive. Soon, deadlines will loom and work will force itself upon me. Strangely looking forward to it. I know all of this will change my life, but I've yet to figure out how or how much. There are a range of possibilities. This is among many silver linings.

Opening Day

Guns loaded, gear prepped
Liquored anticipation
Will dawn prove fruitful?

Foundational concern

For the (very) few of you who read this from time to time, this post is more for me - so I apologize if I don't make an effort to be especially clear.

I've been in school for a long time. That, by itself, is not frustrating. I've accepted that this "road" takes times. I'm convinced it is was the only road for me and I'm committed to it. However, I'm stuck up against a frustrating wall of statistics that's halting progress on all of the many projects I need to finish before graduating or publishing or feeling successful in any way.
What's more frustrating, is that most people ignore this problem and I could be much, much further "ahead" if I, too, was willing to ignore it. The bottom line,however, is that the way we found landowners to participate in our survey is biased toward owners with larger properties and we must correct for this bias as part of any analysis. The nagging and discouraging fact that won't allow me to ignore this is that it is not a small bias. And it impacts almost everything. Size matters, ha.
There is a silver lining in this. No one doing forest landowner research has bothered to pay attention to this before. Everyone doing forest landowner research uses USFS data and results - which are similarly biased. Showing this and the affect on results will be huge. And that's what will keep me going.
But the survey went out 2 and a half YEARS ago. Fuck. And I can't even run basic statistics on the data...how many landowners own for timber? What percentage have harvested? How many post their land? All of this is wrapped up in acreage and currently, "unwrappable."
I look like I'm not making any progress. Fact is, I'm unwilling to build analysis, conclusions, nor papers on a knowingly unstable foundation. And I'm making a lot of progress toward defining and correcting for this foundational problem.
As I work on characterizing this problem and work through paths to address it, I'm realizing there are some types of analysis I can do in the meantime (show the relationship between acreage and other variables, look at our visit data and line up potential analysis - some may be doable now).

I'm frustrated with this basic problem. I'm unwilling to move forward on a crumbling foundation. I'm tired of looking like a slouch, though. I hope it was clear to my committee, during my comps, that I am thinking about these issues, I am thinking about how to analyze this quantitative data, I do have new ideas about landowners and their approach to ownership and management of their forests. But in good conscience, I can't move these ideas forward until I know my analysis will be correct. Beyond the fact that the results would be wrong, it's dishonest, unprofessional, and paying it attention will change the way PFL research is done.

3000 words

Halloween Deer

The trick-or-treaters (a mob in the thousands that descend as vultures on Centre Hall to devour sweet and chocolate with god-awful speed) invaded on Thursday, October 30th this year, to avoid any conflict with all important Penn's Valley football scheduled, almost religiously, for Friday night. Good thing, too, as I got to go hunting Friday night.

Headed up to Treaster afte working on my colloquium presentation all day. Was a bit jittery from the pot and a half of coffee I'd drank during the day, but made my way out to the permanent stand around 4:00. It was a beautiful day. Blue sky, no clouds, a touch warmer than the past few days, and the last of the fall foliage hanging on for just a little while longer. I had a really good feeling about the evening - I knew something was going to happen. For some reason I kept picturing the hole a broadhead makes in hide.

Around 6:00 I saw some movement about 100yrds away at the corner of the thicket. I had brought my binoulars with me and glassing showed a small spike with brilliantly yellow antlers and a good size doe making their way down the trail. It was directly down-wind and I assumed this would end poorly, without a shot - me getting busted by my bad breath :)

Instead of walking directly down the trail, these two moved diagonally into the thicket - good from a wind direction perspective, but bad from a "oh shit, they're going to just walk away" perspective. I could see now there were at least four deer in the pack and I must have missed the first (or last) two - still unsure. As they were all headed further down into the thicket I decided they would just disappear if I didn't spark their curiousity. Whether it was the coffee, my undevoted attention to work, laziness, or stupidity, I'd forgotten a bunch of gear at home, including my bleat call. Instead, I turned my head the opposite direction (didn't want to yell right at them) and bleatted a couple times. I was happy to see it didn't immediately scare them off and even more happy when it looked like one of them was coming up to check the area out.

One doe peeled off from the group. She slowly made her way through the red maple saplings and briars stopping for minutes at a time to check the wind and listen for anything strange. One more bleat changed her mind when she turned back to join the others. As she reached the edge of the thicket I pulled up the bow, ready to draw. I don't think she saw me move, but that deer looked directly up at me right then. I held as still as I could for the whole 5 min she watched me. With the bow fully extended my arm slowly started to shake - I thought this was it - she's going to see me, or smell me, or stand here so long I won't be able to shoot. Thankfully, I was wrong.

Don't know if she gave up trying to figure out what I was or was turning around to join the others, but she took a couple steps to her right giving me a full broad-side view. I wasn't going to wait to watch her walk away so as soon as her eyes were behind a few leaves, still clinging to their branches, I drew. I knew she was further in the thicket than I had hoped when I envisioned the shot from my stand, but it was a perfect shot at just under 20yrds. I put the 20yrd pin on the top of her back, slowly let the bow drop until that point was just behind the shoulder and let the arrow fly. The arrow must have been deflected by a small branch or something, but it didn't hit where I had aimed. Instead, it clipped her directly in the back and she dropped immediately to the ground. I'd hit her in the spine and she had no movement in her hind quarters. She tried to get up and move, but found herself lodged against a tree. It didn't take long for the broadhead to cause enough bleeding for her to expire. I did throw another arrow at her to try putting her down for good, but she was even further into the thicket now and that arrow too was deflected, this time finding a solid maple sapling instead of the bread basket I'd aimed for. I waited about 15min before climbing down.

Again, whatever the reason, I didn't have any of my needed gear on me. No knife, no headlamp (it was quickly getting dark), and no tarp to put her on in the back of the 4runner. I headed back to the car and then home to get the gear. Long after dark I headed back into the woods and found her again, cleaned and brought her home.

Good to get a tag filled early. Makes the rest of archery relaxing. Allows me to focus on buck hunting. Allows me to watch deer more instead of searching for the first good shot. Looking forward to the last two weeks...

Toftrees Pheasants

Got back from DC today where Libby ran her marathon. She qualified for the Boston Marathon and ran at an amazing 8:20 mile pace. After heading to school, doing some work, and attending the always-exciting colloquium, I took the dogs out to Toftrees for a quick tromp. As they dogs had just spent 2 days in at Lyon's Kennels they were rowdy and raring to go. Unfortunately, although I had most of my gear loaded up, I'd forgotten any footwear besides the slip-on, "dress" shoes I'd worn to school. Not one to let such a minor matter get in my way, we headed out anyway figuring we'd just avoid wet and muddy spots...
A bird shot behind us fell within Porter's zone of awareness and was quickly retrieved - I had to bring it back to the party that had shot it and apologize for my dog's over zealousness and greed. Not unusual...
We parted and the dogs quickly got on some good scent - a running rooster. Porter was on it's tail and finally got the running bird up in the middle of some honeysuckle. One shot and the bird fell into the middle of the tangled vegetation. I could see Porter in there with the bird in his mouth unwilling yet to exit the protection offered by the bushes and relinquish his prize to me. I put T on heel and Porter quickly followed, bird in tow. A soft "give" got the bird from his mouth, although a good number of feathers remained. So funny to watch them get those out.
A long walk then, around the edge of the property, found us on the backside of "big ugly." Along one row the dogs got birdy and, after working for a while, pushed up a hen on the far side of a row of small aspens. I passed on the shot both because there was too much in my way and I'd hoped to fill the vest with two roosters today.
Another hen was busted up from along one of the water pipes; no point, no running, just bumped. Let that one fly, too.
As we approached big ugly, I sent the dogs into the cover on the right. I rounded the corner to the right and sent Porter, who had exited the cover, into one of the rows on my left. Hadn't heard T exit or move recently so I checked back to my right and caught glimpse of him on point. Headed into the cover. As I got close, two roosters flushed - one shot took down the one to my right. As I looked back toward T, I saw the second rooster falter...perhaps injured by another hunter? T was on it in a flash. Not wanting to get in trouble for having three birds, I called T off and retrieved the bird I'd just shot. I don't know what happened to that injured bird although it's likely T put it out of it's misery (if his summer groudhogs are any evidence). Too bad the game laws wouldn't allow for me to put that bird to use - I'm sure it will get "used," though, by some animal.
I've been enjoying the grouse woods (got one last week), but it was nice to be back at Toftrees and hear the cackle of roosters. And of course, walking back to the truck with tail feathers poking out the vest front is always nice.

First Bird '08

The heavy frost of the morning gave way to an unusually warm, blue-sky, fall day. Started the day on campus in colloquium, but left quickly afterwards and played hooky with Paul for the rest of the day. For his birthday I bought a 100 rounds of sporting clays at Warriors Mark Shooting Preserve. We headed down there with a couple shotguns and a pile of shells for the afternoon. I’d never shot a sporting clay course – 18 stations with throwers set at different angles, positions, and speeds. Pairs of clays are shot from each station in either following or report fashion – the former being two clays thrown in rapid succession, the latter, two clays thrown in sequence with the second clay thrown upon the report of the gun firing at the first clay. We each shot 100 rounds with varying success – many of the stations had clays flying at severe angles and speed and removed from the station a good 50 yards or more. It really made you think hard about the arc of your swing, the lead time, and overall form. Timing, too, was big from some of the very distant throwers. I think the final tally was 56 for Paul and 61 for me. Certainly a lot of room for improvement, but definitely something I hope to do again soon.

We took a quick drive around the preserve after talking with the owner for a bit. They have beautiful fields and some thick lowland areas for hunting. One guy was out hunting his lab – made me jealous. We also got a chance to watch a pair of hen pheasants feeding in one of the cut rows. You don’t get to see that much so we watched through the binoculars for a while before heading home.

On our way home, we stopped and peered into Spruce Creek along the Harpster property where Jimmy Carter fishes. Huge browns and rainbows dashed for cover under the bridge. As we pulled away, a Bald Eagle soared along the stream channel just overhead lit brilliantly by the afternoon sun.

At home I found wired dogs, crazy from a day being cooped up, and an urge to take the DeHaan out for a walk. I’d used the Remington all day at WM as shells are much easier to come by and cheaper than for the 16ga. Plus, seeing those pheasant gave me an itch for the flush of a bird. As light was fading, I quickly loaded up the dogs and headed up to Greens Valley for a quick hunt. We worked the pines just to the left of the side road – nothing – then headed up to the right of the side road gate. On the edge of the side hill thicket the dogs flushed a woodcock. It went fluttering up and off to my left as the gun rose and fired. I didn’t see it go down, but was pretty sure I’d made a good shot. “Dead bird” got the dogs going and quickly on the downed timberdoodle. First bird of the year. Tried to take some time with the dogs to enjoy the moment and get them riled up by our first kill. The dogs, however, needing no more encouragement, weren’t happy about a break in the action and although interested in the bird were more anxious to get going again. We circled through the thicket and worked the cover until dark – no more flushes here today. Maybe later this week…