I just received an email from a sasquatch group who reviewed my photos of sasquatch foot prints and the hand print. They said the hand print was a smudged human print. Hmmm.... I have very large man hands. I have to buy the largest men's gloves that are sold, and they're tight. The hand print on the back of my car was much, much larger than mine. The lower palm print starts on the silver paint of the car.
Then they said that my sasquatch foot prints were bear tracks, with the front and rear overlaying each other so that it appears to be a large foot print. You decide.
Bear track.
Our "bear".
Yeah. Right. I think someone is jealous. They've spent untold weeks looking for the slightest signs, and we have them flung a us.
On another note... I love Facebook. I often find nuggets of wisdom in silly memes like this.
It was gorgeous here in Bleecker today. Sunny for most of the day and warm. 70 degrees! Pam had to officiate at a volleyball game in the afternoon, so we headed off to our property to skid logs from the woods to the firewood piles to be cut and split later. Pam took chain duty and I drove Bessie the Tractor. We struggled with the big tree I cut last year. The one that shook a leaner loose off to my left, whacking me square on my noggin and breaking my neck. We were getting that tree one way or another, and eventually we did. Shortly thereafter, Earl showed up with his high torque 3 cylinder diesel tractor.
I'm glad he came over. Not only did I break the brace on my three point hitch, but I ran out of gas. Right here.
This is the wood pile of trees cut this year, to burn next.
While I was looking for sasquatch prints (nope), an owl hooted and the dogs went nuts. That white spot in the middle of the pic is Olivia.
The woods are cleaning up nicely too. I can see me putting a road down there to get Bessie in. I've got the rocks to fill the ditches.
We have more to skid out of there.
The pile in the pic below is to cut and split now. All the trees are either one or two years down and well seasoned. They'll burn well.
And these, in the pic below, are tree seeds to plant now, so whomever owns this place many years from now will have black walnuts. Black Walnut trees require a lot of sunshine and must be the dominant tree, so I need to plant them in the open, but I don't want them in the middle of our cleared area. Nuts are great, but they litter the landscape. Pam also says that horses can't eat them, although squirrels, bears, raccoon, and other critters do. Also, the green covering was used for black die, and will stain whatever it ripens on, and the hands of whomever touches it.
Maybe I'll sneak over to Earl's place and plant them there.
Yep. I've lost it. I'm seeing sasquatch signs in everything I see now.
I took the dogs to our property today. It warmed up nicely, the sun was shining, and they needed to run. I let them out of the car and all three bolted over the bank, barking like crazy. So I wandered down there and found the most distinct sasquatch print yet.
After taking the above pic, I wandered up to the screen house. Huh. The waste basket that is usually under the table was pulled out. Pulled out and full of rain water, so I laid it down to drain the water out. Then I noticed a baggie laying on the ground nearby. I picked it up. Half a baggie, actually.
Huh. Raccoon? Coyote? I looked at it closely. No fang marks. It looks like... a huge human-type bite.
You can almost see the tooth marks.
Pam looked at it later (she was reffing a volleyball game) and said she had hamburger in there before tossing it.
It's a woolly aphid, sometimes called a... FAIRY APHID! Also called Fairy Flies.
I first saw these last fall. And again this fall. They only appear in the fall. I thought they were wood ash from the woodstove. But after watching, I noticed they were very tiny insects. Fairy aphids are sucking insects that feast mainly on apple trees and hawthorns. The "wool" are actually filaments that help carry it aloft on the winds.
I am a skeptic. I'm skeptical about the Loch Ness Monster, the Lake Champlain Monster (I can give you encounter stories on that one. Click here.), UFOs, and Bigfoot. I never really thought about a sasquatch until last summer while here at the Unabomber Cabin. There was a loud, odd animal noise not far from the cabin, making the dogs bark like crazy. The dogs were outside, but wouldn't run off into the woods like they usually do to chase coyotes, deer, and whatever else is out there. So I took my camera, set it to video mode, and recorded it. What is that? I posted it on the blog and on Facebook, and no one could positively identify it. Most thought it was a coyote, some thought foxes, I thought an odd owl. I jokingly said that maybe it's Bigfoot. That got the wheels turning. Pam and I started paying attention.
If you follow this blog, you've seen several photos of footprints. I also had an amazing, gigantic hand print on the back of my car that appeared after driving down a dusty dirt road, effectively "dusting" the back of my car for fingerprints. That photo was on this blog too.
So for the past few weeks, I've been scanning the internet for photos and first person sasquatch reports. Most can be dismissed as hoaxes, and they're easy to spot. Since sasquatches are thought to be apes, most of the videos are guys in gorilla suits. The fake photographs are always fuzzy and out of focus. But some of them took me aback. If this video of a sleeping sasquatch is fake, it's very well done. Maybe it's someone in a Wookie costume.
I read the blog of an area sasquatch researcher who finally, after repeated trips, had a very brief encounter. He was standing watch with night vision googles with a group in Hamilton County, not far from here. He saw what he believes was a sasquatch, spooked, who ran away from him very quickly. He was so shaken that he dropped his goggles. Based on the time he saw it, about two seconds from the time it appeared until it disappeared, measurements show that it was travelling at 28 MPH. And it moved noiselessly. Through the woods, silently, you wonder? Well, Indians were said to be able to do the same thing, and claimed that white men made all kinds of racket when they traveled through a forest. So I guess if your survival means you must be stealthy, you learn how to move quietly.
No, I still don't have any photos on the game cam, and Harry (and the Hendersons) haven't shown up on my doorstep, but I am now a solid believer that there is something out there. Something ape-like, but not mountain gorilla like. Mountain gorillas walk upright, but also use their hands for balance. This is something that walks upright, like a human. But it is certainly not human, not if it can run at 28 MPH. That's pretty fast, especially in the woods. Fast enough to catch young deer.
I also found two eye witness sasquatch sighting reports from Caroga Lake, which is only about 8 miles from here. Another from Mayfield, just down the mountain, reports that a father and young son found huge footprints travelling across a field. The sasquatch must have been running. The prints were 12 to 14 feet apart. Think about that.
So I've decided to really research the sasquatch, to try to separate fact from fiction. I've ordered several books from Amazon. Books that don't sound half baked. I've also been contacted by a few sasquatch groups. One from Georgia seems pretty sincere, and they're sending me a DVD (gratis) about how to track and gather evidence of a sasquatch.
Yeah, I completely understand. Some of you think I've quaffed a few too many victory beers after sniffing boat paint. That's probably true, but it doesn't change anything. Those photos are still convincing, especially the hand print.
We're leaving here in early November so I'm running out of time. Sammy (yep, I've named our sasquatch) might have to wait until next year.
I took the dogs over to our property this afternoon. As is my habit, I wandered down to the deer trail to look for deer tracks. There was a small set, either a small doe or a fawn. Then I saw these.
When I first saw them, they were very distinct. In the few minutes I took to fetch my camera, they were fading to what you see above. By the time Earl, Judi, and Bill came over to see them, they were almost gone. But in the pics above, if you look carefully, you can see toes, arched feet, and heels. The top pic is a left foot, the second a right.
Walking back up the hill, I noticed that the bright LED light that burns 24/7 was gone. As it turns out, it wasn't gone. Something pulled on the electric cord that leads to it, pulling the light up to the top of the screen.
If you look, you can see the cord running from the top of the screen (under the roof) and to a tree. That's about seven feet off the ground. No, no footprints out there.
If you're going to live in Bleecker, you have to know how to cut down trees. It's the law. Earl had a stand of Birch trees that had one bent precariously over his dog houses, kennel, and driveway. He decided he wanted firewood more than those Birch trees, so down they came. He cut them all except for the one overhanging his kennel, and yesterday Bill and I gave him a hand. Yes, beer was involved.
Earl and I had disassembled and reassembled my old 1980 Sear Craftsman chainsaw. It was a very fine saw in its day, much better than the cheap crap that's sold today. The Jonsered I bought at Tractor Supply last year ran for just a couple of hours before dying. I had to replace the coil, which I did and got it running again this year. As Earl is fond of saying, "Must be that cheap Chinese crap". So we fixed my ancient Craftsman, and we decided to test it by cutting down that Birch tree.
First, Bill climbed a ladder as high as he dared and tied a rope around the tree. The other end was tied (by me, using my best sailor half hitches) to Earl's tractor. This was to drop the tree so it wouldn't hit the chain link kennel. First, Earl used the tractor to roll a dog house out of the way so that he had an escape route. Trees can kick when they fall, and you want to be well away from them.
Once a tree is down, it's firewood.
We need firewood here in Bleecker at this time of year. Today's high is forecast to be only in the mid-forties. Our time here is winding down, and it is time to think about getting ready to head south. First though, we need to make sure we have our trees felled for next year's wood stove season. It takes a year to properly season firewood.
We bought a used Troy-Bilt rototiller from our friends Jim and Laurie. They've been gardening so long that they no longer need it. Their soil is so active with worms and such that it is tilled naturally. We've been gardening for only one year, and need it, believe me. Our ground is so rocky that it would be a stretch to call it soil.
It's an old Troy-Bilt, "Horse". I had one about 35 years ago when I lived in Saratoga, and then sold it when I moved to Johnstown. It has the exact same options of electric start and front bumpers. I may have bought my own rototiller back.
Pam and I picked it up with the horse trailer. Very appropriate for a Troy-Bilt "Horse".
Jim also tossed a small 2500 watt generator in with the deal. Cool
Earl and Bill came by, and after quaffing a couple of beers, we decided to ponder the possibility of removing the top of Bleecker Mountain from my foundation. After looking at this pic, I decided that I'm getting slightly thin on top.
That's me on the left (standing on a huge piece of granite), then Earl, and Bill. Jack hammer? Dynamite? Nitroglycerine? Atomic bomb?
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Wow, what a beautiful day yesterday was. 78 degrees.
Pam and I took advantage of the nice weather to haul some trees from over the bank to our "2015 firewood pile" and "2015 polebarn pole pile".
This is the top of the tree that whacked me upside my head and broke my neck. The little one on the right. It broke off when we tried to haul it up the bank. Revenge is sweet.
Bessie the Tractor is awesome. This little tractor was actually able to pull those trees up a hill, where Pam unhooked the chain or rope and I pushed them on a pile with Bessie's front bucket.
My old friend (emphasis on old) Bob commented yesterday about the danger of a spark from our bonfire igniting the woods. This is where we have our bonfires. A spark would have to travel a long way!
A very rare photo of Olivia napping. 99.99% of the time on our property, she's running all over the woods hunting.
Today we're picking up an old Troy Built model Horse rototiller from our friends Jim and Laurie. We'll haul it in the horse trailer. That's also a handy thing, that horse trailer. Besides horses and hay, it hauls anything that fits.
I think that one of our favorite things to do on our little slice of the Adirondacks is to have a bonfire. Pam and I had lots of paper stuff to burn, which we do instead of putting it out in the trash, where it would help fill in the county landfill.
We can burn some serious logs with all this paper.
The other day, Pam was crop dusting. Not with an airplane, and not with insecticide, but with ashes from our wood stove. Pam read somewhere that ashes are great for berry plants, and so dumped a bucket of them on her blueberry bushes.
This is Sassy the Cat. Since she had kittens and after we got her spayed afterwards, she turned from all fangs and claws into a normal, lovable house cat. She's almost at the pain-in-the-neck stage.
Our time here on the mountain is winding down, and it is time to start getting things ready for winter. I used the post hole digger to drill the garden. Drill the garden? Yep. The post hole digger also brings rocks up to the surface (when it is not breaking shear pins). We're expanding the garden next year and I'm getting it ready to rototill. Its easier to replace shear pins than tines.
The post hole digger is heavy and I wanted to keep it vertical. I set it on a pallet, and used another pallet with hay baling twine from end to end to keep it vertical. All I need to do next is to unpin it from the tractor's three point hitch. Which I did.
Well, it didn't work exactly as planned, but it worked.
While sitting on the deck with Earl and Bill, quaffing a few victory beers after cutting down some trees (yes, I did), I noticed animal tracks on the new deck.
They look like cat tracks, but smaller. Much smaller. Judi's cats are all pretty big, so it might be a stray. Maybe its the Bleecker Sasquatch's pet. And no, the game camera pointed at the well for the past week hasn't picked up anything but dogs and cars.
The day started off like all the others. The dogs sleep soundly until 8 AM or so, when Olivia the German Shorthaired Pointer decides she needs to go outside and bark at things.
We ran some errands off the mountain, as we often do, and then returned to the Unabomber Cabin. The three dogs act as if we've been gone for months, greeting us with wagging tails and kisses. They then look at us with great anticipation. Are we going to the property? Are we? Are we going to get in the car and go to the property? Huh? Huh? Huh?
Yes.
Ruby loves toys. Anything will do. Balls, old Mickey Mouse slippers, or even sticks (the bigger the better).
And Olivia, the hunting dog, hunts.
We had some rain, and then the most beautiful, brilliant rainbow appeared for just a few minutes...
Just stunning...
And if you look closely at the photo above, you can see a double rainbow.
It was another gorgeous day in Bleecker today. High 60s and sunny. After lunch, I took myself and the dogs from our Unabomber Rental Cabin to our property, which has a nice view of the mountains across the valley. But on leaving the cabin, I first had to put the tarp back on the well that Bigfoot removed. Again.
Isn't that a nice view? It will be better once I cut more of the trees. We're leaving the big, full trees and cutting the tall scrawny ones. This will enable the full trees to be even fuller.
Even though our leaves are past peak, it is still very colorful. That's part of our driveway in the pic below.
.
Pam's blueberry bushes have pretty red leaves.
I just liked this shot of one of my rock walls, with the trees off in the distance.
Tomorrow (Saturday) will be cool and rainy. It will be a good day to stay home and watch movies.
