Worldwide Publication Holds my Photos

A couple months back I was fortunate enough to be selected to have a photo shoot for Lewis Machine & Tool, a local company who manufactures weapons for military, law enforcement and civilian use worldwide. They wanted a woman who hunts and knows how to hold a weapon. I thought this would be a "once in a lifetime" opportunity so I said I was game. The 2010 catalog is now in print and can be viewed here:

http://www.lewismachine.net/media/2010_LMT_Catalog.pdf

My photos are on pages 19 and 30 (or 21 and 32, depending on how you view it). Thought I would share my 2 seconds of fame ;-)

Advent Stockings

I had planned on posting this earlier but haven't had much down time lately. This year I started a new fun tradition for Skyler. It is simple. I bought 10 Christmas socks and used numbered clothespins to attach each one to a piece of string. As we count down the last 10 days until Christmas - - Skyler gets to open a "stocking" each day. I just put a simple item in each sock but Skyler is really excited to receive them! It is something fun that seems to extend our Christmas celebration. Thanks Ali for your inspiration on this one!!

My latest venture

In addition to rabbit hunting today with Paul and Skyler (nope, we weren't successful - only got to see one rabbit who was too wiley for us) we got to spend a good port of a beatiful day enjoying the timber. We love being able to "see" where all of the critters have been - because of the snow.


While Paul went bow hunting for deer tonight I worked on my latest venture. The natural expansion of my photo art is that now I have been matting and framing people's pictures/artwork they would like to hang in their home. Here are some I have been working on and I have about ten more to do (sorry for the awful pic - I took this tonight with the flash and it made it look weird). I am learning as I go and certainly wish I had started out with the knowledge I have now, because now they are going much smoother, quicker and look better than my first tries.

Also worked on many Christmas presents. I made tutu's for each of my little nieces to open for Christmas in addition to other gifts.

Also, I cooked up our pheasant meat tonight and we all agreed it was delicious!! Gotta get some more of them critters before the season closes!

Pheasant Hunting

Had such a fun time today! Skyler got out of school early today, but before she did, Paul and I had the morning off and we had a date morning - so we did what we always do - we went hunting. This time it was pheasant hunting. We had an awesome time hunting behind two great dogs (Jack and Ginger - a little confusing at times - as you might imagine - someone is yelling at a dog - I think they're yelling at me. . .). This isn't the first time I have hunted behind a dog named Ginger so I am starting to get over it. Wow, we got GREAT exercise. We were plowing through snow and grasses that were very THICK and as tall as me for about 3 hours straight. SOOO much fun! I have to thank Paul for including me when a lot of husbands would have enjoyed a day out with the guys to themselves. I finally connected on a wild pheasant after years of going along on hunts - I am usually the last to shoot - if I shoot - and the birds are usually too far when I do shoot. This time I was a quick draw! :)


Great news! I finally found my camera (yep, again - as some know this is the 2nd time I have lost my camera) - so am able to post some of the photoart frames I have been doing. I don't have pictures of all of them - and some were for Christmas presents and I have to be careful which ones get posted -but here are a few:

Frieden

Gina

Zeitler

Red, White and Blue -- Gibson

I was so honored to get to do this photo art for the name Gibson. This is made for a couple who has faithfully served our country and, rightfully so, are very patriotic. Since I have a soft spot in my heart for those who have given so much so that we can all have the opportunities we have - - this one is special to me.

This was my first attempt at double matting. The undermatte is red so there is a trim of red around each letter and the main matte is blue. I also cut out the small box below the letters so the word Patriot shows through. Sorry for the bad picture, even under the best conditions it is hard to get good pics of these orders because of the glass on the front - - but also, I have lost my decent camera, which had pictures of a bunch of photo orders I wanted to post :-(. So this is my attempt to take pictures with Skyler's digital camera which has seen better days.

Happy Thanksgiving Week

My "flowers" from Paul :-)

Paul came home this morning after duck huntin' (2nd time in his life) with the guys (I TOTALLY wanted to go and am SO jealous. . .they got 2 Mallards - but I didn't beg very hard cuz I ALWAYS want to go hunting and figured poor Paul deserved a little time w/o me on a hunt). Anyway - he said most guys bring their wives flowers, but he brings me feathers from his kill. Thanks bud! They really are beautiful (pictured above)!

We have been pretty busy these past few days. Thurs a.m. (Thanksgiving) Paul went duck hunting for the first time in his life and I ran the Turkey Trot Race in downtown Davenport.
My friend Renee and I ran 5 miles at 9:00 a.m. (which for those of you who don't remember, Thurs morning had 20 mph wind gusts and the temps were in the 20's). Since the race started down at the Y by the river - the wind whipping off the river made it really cold waiting for the race to start - but once we started running - it didn't take long for us to warm up. I finished the race in 45 minutes (my goal was to finish between 45-50 minutes). It isn't the best time by any means - but since it is the first time in my life I have ran 5 miles (I didn't train for more than 3 miles) the fact that I ran w/o stopping is a win in my book.

Once I got home from the race, I ran to the grocery store, bought the very LAST thawed out turkey they had along with a ham and ran home to make our Thanksgiving meal. This is the first time we have been home as a family on Thanksgiving - and although we LOVE to go to Paul's aunt's for her wonderful cooking - it was also nice to be home and have a meal there. We had turkey, ham and all the fixin's - and everything was great! Skyler helped me make the pies as well as the ham and turkey before she had had enough.

When I was cleaning up after our Thanksgiving feast, I realized that our glass stove top was broken and needed replaced. A replacement cost as much as a new stove, so on Black Friday I ordered a new stove that had a HUGE rebate from Lowes. We went and picked it up on Friday night and Paul initiated it by boiling a skull on it right away.

We didn't brave the stores on Black Friday - craziness avoided! I did some purchasing online of the same items they had available on sale in the stores - with free shipping!! So the thought of getting out with all those germy people didn't seem too fantastic to either Skyler or I. Now all I have to do is wait for the UPS man to come to my door and I will have a good portion of my shopping done - - all from the comfort of my own home - ahhhh!!

Saturday we had our Thanksgiving celebration with Paul's family - so from noon 'till about 7:00 - we were in Millersburg.
Here is our family picture.


Today - since Paul went duck hunting again - Skyler and I spent the morning decorating the inside and outside of our house for Christmas. I LOVE Christmas and Skyler loves to help me set everything up.

The following note was written by Skyler:
I got 3 eggs from my chickens on Friday. Saturday, there were none but then today, when Skyler went to see if there were any more eggs, there was one more!!:-)Then,lucky me,Skyler asked me if she could go and see if there were any more eggs about an hour later. I said that there probably weren't any eggs this soon. After she came back, I was surprised to see that the chickens had laid one more egg! So we now have 5 eggs in 2 days!

Spent some time working on my Photo Art orders in between times and have several ready to deliver.

Coe
Klimpel
Meeske

Tucker

Deer Season Hunting Buddy

I try not to replicate what Paul has already posted on his blog, so I won't be putting up our hunting pictures - but I had to put up a picture of my hunting buddy for the weekend. Skyler and I got to sit in a blind for about 15 hours so far this weekend. Here is my little trooper fast asleep in her chair with her facemask on. The picture didn't turn out too well, but you get the idea. Having her along hunting makes hunting season even more special than it used to be - - and it has always been pretty special to me.

Order for Christmas!!

I now have NEW Antler Alphabet Photo Art pictures for you to choose from!!

I am taking photo art orders now for Christmas. I will only be taking a limited number of orders and have already started to fill up - so contact me soon if you are interested in ordering in time for Christmas! Check out my photo art blog HERE to see all of the photo art choices in the scrolling albums on the left-hand side.

A night spent shinin' coons

Since Skyler had a sleepover - Paul and I had a date night (two weekends in a row - - amazing)!! We don't often get a night where Skyler isn't home so those nights are pretty cherished around our house. This is the last date night that is in the near future - - possibly for a long time. . .so Paul let me choose whatever I wanted to do. He mentioned that we could go coon hunting and I jumped at the chance. I LOVE to coon hunt! I did learn a lesson this time though. Paul shot the first coon which was just steps from the truck - - so pretty easy to just grab the coon and throw it in the back of the truck. But for my coon, we of course were at the absolute farthest end of the property before I spotted this coon - which meant a LONG haul carrying this guy over my shoulder. I definitely got my exercise. I just about had to ride home in the bed of the truck cuz I was absolutely covered in blood from the middle of my back to the bottom of my boots - I think coons have the most blood of any animal created. We spotted one other coon and had to bust through about 150 yards of some of the thickest puckerbrush we had ever seen - - then we got to the tree and the coon had bailed! It was kinda funny - though I don't know if Paul would agree. We had another tree with three coons in it but they were all small so we decided to leave them for another time. What a great night!

WooHoo!! Big Buck Down!

Finally - - I got a buck of a lifetime!! Since Skyler didn't have school today I had to take today off work. I decided it was a perfect opportunity for me to get a little huntin' in this am. I hunted out of my gun stand that I asked Paul to hang for me this year. In previous years, I always saw deer travelling this ridge - and I typically saw good bucks up there as well. I had also scouted and found it typically held several scrapes and rubs. So since Paul is always out to please - he was more than glad to hang my stand for me (thanks bud). I had only hunted this stand one other time this season - and when I did, I realized I hadn't cut enough shooting lanes. Paul, Skyler and I just went out this weekend to cut the last of my shooting lanes to make this stand perfect. When I heard they were calling for a W-SW wind for this morning, I knew I had to try this spot out - since that is the perfect wind for this stand.

I heard 2 bucks fighting early on, but they were quite a ways off and I only got to see movement of one of the deer as it made its way along the fence edge. I rattled a bit this morning and used my grunt tube a couple of times along with a doe bleat trying to get something to take notice - - apparently something did. . .at about 7:45 quite a ways behind me I could hear trees cracking but I wasn't sure why. Then I finally caught a glimpse of this guy making his way through the timber - tearing up trees the whole way. I got ready for a shot to my right as he was coming that way, but when he hit the bottom behind me, he turned to his left - meaning he would come out to my left. He went straight for his scrape (which I had doctored this morning with buck scent) and he started to tear that tree apart! He pulled with his antlers so hard on the hedge tree he was at, that when the branch snapped out of his antlers - it knocked him in the head. He didn't seem to mind. This scrape is only about 15 yards from my tree so I was nervous he would see me draw my bow back - but he was busy tearing the tree apart so I went for it. It took me 2 tries to draw back my bow cuz my muscles were doin a little shakin' and weren't workin' like they normally would. I got back to full draw and had time to do some more adjusting, I pushed my hat away from my ear/jaw so that I could get my anchor point at my jaw. Then I made sure my pin was set on his lungs and let her fly. He ran about 75 yards - and fell down at the last spot I saw him - - however, it was such thick brush that I didn't get to see him go down and I forced myself to sit in my tree for an hour to be sure he was dead. Once I got down and started to track - - the blood trail was awesome.

I had an interesting time gutting him out cuz my arrow with its broadhead broke off inside him when he went down and I had to work gently so I wouldn't slice my hand open.

I am so thankful that I have the opportunities to hunt like I do. I am also thankful that I have a wonderful husband who is willing to do just about anything for me that I cannot physically do - cuz he wants me to be successful. Without him I would not have gotten this buck.