Squirrel Hunting & Hornets nests

Well, it's the first day of 2015, and I decided I'd kick it off with a morning hunt.  I thought I'd go to my usual spot for squirrels, and then pop over to another field area and see if I could kick out any rabbits.  So, I packed my .17 caliber and my 12 gauge in the truck, with a bunch of wool layers and headed over to Patuxent River State Park.  It was pretty damned cold this morning.  When I stepped out of the truck, it was only 17ºF.  It was so cold, that the earth was frozen solid and ice crystals clung to the tall grass and weeds.  I took advantage of the sun's horizontal rays whenever I stopped to look and listen for my furry friends.  I did see one large squirrel, just as I entered the woods, but I was still too close to the houses that sit on the edge of the public land I was hunting.  I was more than 150 yards away from the houses, but I didn't feel comfortable shooting, so I let him go.

After walking for a while, I came across the remains of a deer.  It was the same deer I had seen exactly 327 days ago, while hunting squirrels in this area.  Check out the amount of decay that took place since then: [Time warp back to February 8, 2014].

These photos remind me of the importance of regular brushing and flossing.  

The area that I hunt, at Patuxent River State park, is too small to ever need a map and compass, still I always carry one.  This morning I took my new Suunto KB-14, which Debbie gave to me for Christmas.  I really love it, and have had my eye on it for a couple of years now.  You could describe it as a simplified lensatic compass.  Used by surveyors and forestry folks alike, it is a liquid filled, aluminum-bodied compass with an optical feature that makes it very easy to accurately shoot an azimuth.  You simply hold it up to your eye, aim the compass at your target by looking over the top of it, and look through the lens to read the azimuth (70º as shown above).  It's got some other cool features, like a standard tripod mount (for those surveyors out there) and super robust construction.  It's lighter than it looks too; which is awesome.

After a couple of hours exploring the woods and occasionally looking for the elusive grey squirrel, I packed it up and headed over to the fields I had planned on kicking through, in search of rabbits.  I exchanged my .17 caliber for my 12 gauge and loaded it with a couple No 6, low brass shells.  I spent the next couple of hours meandering fields and hedge rows, kicking brush piles but had no luck.  Still, it was a beautiful walk.  I happened across a bald faced hornets' nest which was really neat to find.  The top of it was frosted with a light layer of sparkling ice crystals.  Boldly, I shook the nest.  I wasn't really sure if the wasps were still inside or not.  Thinking that the nest would look great perched atop my gun cabinet (Its no wonder I am not an interior decorator) I used my small Kabar to cut the sapling it was fixed to, and carried it back to the truck with me.  After researching, I learned that most hornets flee the nest by October each year, and they do not reuse the nests.  

 (As usual, click the images to see them larger, and in all their glory)

I'm baaaaack.

Well, I'm back in the US.  I got back on the 15th, but have been too busy to blog.  Life has just been so busy lately.  I never mentioned that I got a promotion a couple of months ago.  So now I'm the Quality Assurance Manager.  I'm happy about it, but its been a hell of a chance.  My scope of work is much larger now, and I have a lot of direct reports to manage.  Hopefully, things will settle down.  It's been 60 hour work weeks since I got the promotion and I feel like I'm drowning.  Ugh.  Anyway, it's good to be back.  Germany was amazing and I'm so thankful that I got the opportunity to go and experience another great part of Europe.  I made a friend over there, that I'm sure will come visit this spring/summer.  I have a lot of photos to process from my trip, namely my Alpine photos I took on the free weekend I had over there.  There's just no time these days!  Here it is, Christmas Eve already!

Manikins in Munich

Happened upon this store while waiting for my laundry to dry this weekend in Munich. Creepy. Cool. Wish I could have gotten inside for some more interesting shots!

Munich Graffiti

Saturday morning, I had to wash my laundry, which was a fun experience in and of Itself. I'm no stranger to the use of laundromats. I used my phone to locate the nearest one, which was only a few kilometers away, and then drove myself there in the car I borrowed from my company. (Have I mentioned that I work for a great company?) While my clothes were washing, I took a walk around the neighborhood, and soon found myself under a main thoroughfare snapping photos of some funky graffiti. I could not stay long. I had to get back to grab my clothes out of the drier, but here are some photos I took, Saturday morning, before I drove up into the Alps ...

Christkindlemarkt & wiener schnitzel

Today’s training (The reason I'm here in Munich) was fun andinformative. I met some great colleagues who, I'm sure, will be helpful with issues I have to deal with in the future. My training ended around 4:30 and after tackling several emails, I was out of the building by 6:00, and on my way back to the hotel. I quickly ditched my work gear, changed clothes, grabbed my camera and headed down to Marienplatz; the center of Munich. 

When I got off the U3 U-bahn at the Marienplatz station, I emerged to find Christkindlmarkt fully underway and I meandered through the little Christmas booths admiring the ornaments and Christmas wares. The market itself, is much larger than I had imagined. People drank hot cocoa, beer, and other beverages out of ceramic mugs while they enjoyed the night. The new town hall (“new”, though built between 1867 & 1908) with its majestic decor loomed high above everybody below. What a beautiful city.

I wandered the streets, taking snapshots of this & that until I realized I was hungry… or perhaps thirsty. I happened to be standing outside the Hackerhaus when I realized my thirst for an authentic German beer. So I popped inside and sat down. Looking over the menu, I swallowed my American Tourist pride and order a liter of pilsner and a plate of wiener schnitzel. I then swallowed the liter of beer.

Excellent Junk

I had grand plans for this morning.  I was going to get up early and hit the trails, collecting footage for a short mountain bike video.  However, I didn't get out of bed too awful early this morning (Last night's White Russians put the kibosh on that plan - Damn you!  You delicious concoction!).  Still, I made it to the trails, in Union Mills, by 9:30 and had some fun collecting footage in the woods.  I don't think I got enough action to put together anything interesting but we'll see.  I had picked up a Gorillapod from Adorama, specifically for this purpose.  It worked like a charm today.  I was able to wrap it around trees and logs and get some low angle shots with my Micro four thirds camera.  So, the day was spent riding for a few minutes, stopping, looking around and then either getting off and setting up the camera, or pedaling on to repeat the process.  Its fun to collect footage.  You want to collect neat footage; pretty footage; interesting footage; sunlit nature scenery footage.  You don't want boring footage.  So it's a challenge to be creative out in the woods; a fun challenge.  

I've said this before, but I really like finding junk piles in the middle of the woods.  I usually find them when I'm hunting and will spend a while rooting around to see what there is to see.  Junk piles are just inherently interesting.  Today's pile was awesome.  I was glad I had my camera with me.  The toy gun is probably, the coolest looking item I've found in a long time.  Old telephones are always cool to find, bottles are always nice, but toys take the cake, in my book.

I dig the old Tropicana bottle.  And what the hell is Upper 10?  I had to Google it.  Wikipedia tells me that it first debuted in 1933.  Its similar to 7UP/Sierra Mist etc and it's still sold outside of the US.  Weird name.

Several items (shoes, cans, bottles) had moss growing inside of them, among other things.  Spiders seem to like bottles; they make excellent homes.  Several bottles I picked up, held spiders inside them.  And this creepy puppy also caught my eye.  I love the enthusiastic look on his decaying face.

Fat bike maiden voyage! (Trek Farley)

Disclaimer: I need to preface this post by saying that these are my initial impressions of this bike. It’s my first fat bike, so I’m learning of the new and different ride qualities that a fat bike provides. That said; I’m already looking forward to comparing these initial thoughts to those which will come later, a month or two down the road.

Yesterday I picked up my new fat bike, a Trek Farley, which I ordered from Race Pace Bicycles.  I took it from the shop, directly to the trail head at Hashawha, my local trail network.  Weather conditions were absolutely perfect for a nice spring ride.  When I pulled into the parking lot, it was a beautiful 65°F and the sun was beaming (as was the grin on my face).  I wasted no time stripping the reflectors from the frame and spokes and socked my Crank Brothers pedals on.  After deflating the tires to down around 12 psi, I hopped on and set off down the singletrack.  

Having never ridden a fat bike off-road before, the first thing I noticed was how soft the ride was.  The tires produced a large hollow sound and the feeling was like that of a dialed in soft tail.  It felt like I was floating down the trail.  My tires gobbled up roots, rocks and divots as if they weren't even there.  I attribute this to the large volume of air and also the wheel's angle of attack.  Though it's a 26" wheel, the huge tires make this bike, effectively, a 29er.  Though the ride was soft and "floaty", the bike handled like any other nice hard tail.  I noticed absolutely no difference in acceleration efforts.  I could stomp the pedals and shoot right forward.  Getting air felt "normal", as if I were on any other 26" bike.  (And I did loft this bike more than a few times!)

The trail conditions were almost perfect.  I say almost, because some sections were a little too soft.  I felt a little guilty for trudging through the muck, but felt that my fat tires weren't doing as much damage as would regular width tires on most other bikes.  And speaking of mud, that is one area where I noticed this bike had no real advantage.  Even with all this surface area, I had a hard time getting traction in slimy mud.  On the other hand, I noticed that I did not loose traction in any other instance!  I climbed some really steep hills, on loose dirt and my rear wheel didn't spin out once. I didn't have to focus on keeping the front wheel down as much either.  It was awesome.

The trails in Hashawha were were well kept. A lot of work had been done since the damaging ice storm Westminster experienced a few weeks ago.  Several downed trees and limbs had been cleared from the main trails, yet when I reached the more remote trails around the perimeter, it was another story.  I had to stop every 100 yards or so, to fight my way through the trail.  If I had a small trail saw, I would have enjoyed clearing some of the trails.  This made for some hard going.

Unfortunately, my ride ended with a mechanical issue.  About a mile from the trail head, I noticed some chain suck.  At first, I didn't pay it any mind because my chain and chainrings were caked in mud, and that's usually a key ingredient for chain suck.  But when it happened the second and third time, I stopped to look at the teeth on my chainrings.  I thought, maybe I had bent one and it was pulling the chain up the backside of the chainring.  This wasn't the case.  Instead, my rear derailleur had "locked itself".  The Sram X9 Type II rear derailleur features a locking feature that locks the cage, removing all spring tension so that you can easily remove your rear wheel.  I never had issues removing wheels in the past.  I think anyone that rides knows to shift down to the smallest cog before you remove your rear wheel.  A little forward pressure on the cage clears it out of the way of the wheel you're removing but hey, what do I know?  At any rate, I could not figure out how to "unlock" the cage and so I had to coast and push my way to back to the truck.  Oh well, lesson learned! 

I am loving this fat bike and cannot wait to get back out on the trails!