Constant Updates

Great White Dispatch
Notes from Damn Near Canada
No. 9
11/12/08
1500

Constant Updates….

Things are finally settling down here. After almost three months of getting settled (house stuff, job hunts, winter preparation…), we’re finally at a place where it’s just…normal. Just in time for the Big Bad Winter.

The last two weeks were all kinds of rotten. I officially started a new job (www.confluencemarketing.net – check it out!), had to put in a week of intense training at the casino (if you ever play Three Card Poker, you are a loser), bought an old 4WD truck, all while getting things in order for winter, being horribly sick and staying out of Airika’s way as she crammed for her Minnesota State license test. It was kinda hectic.

And just when things started easing to a halt…this:

Luckily, I am now prepared. Bring it on, you old bastard:

I did manage to get out and take some pictures with The World’s Oldest Digital Camera. Here’s a few snaps from the main (only) road between us and town. If I wasn’t so lazy, I’d have done this when there were still some leaves on the trees. It’s quite picturesque around here in the fall. Too bad I missed it…

About five miles from home, there's this farm set in possibly the best location ever. They've got the bluff in the background, a lake in the foreground, and it's all framed by the railroad tracks. Just friggin' beautiful. I wish I had a wide-angle lens to really do some justice here.
Some bluffs. First one is Barns Bluff, which sits 350 feet above the earf, but it seems much higher when you're up there. This greets us every time we head into town. Halloween night, some jackass set it on fire. It was something to see, flames reaching for the sky as I drove to work at 2 in the a.m.

Not sure if this one has an official name. Airika calls it Cecil. I'd ask why, but I'm not sure there's a reason.

Here’s possibly the last sunset I’ll be snapping till May. I mean, I have to trudge ALL THE WAY into the driveway to get shots like these. Not quite worth it when it snows.

Of course, I can’t get out of here without a critter update. I’ll run it down checklist-style:

-Tilly very nearly caught herself a turkey. She took off into the woods and all I heard was a surprised turkey guffaw before seeing the silly bird fly-crashing through the woods, snapping Weimeraner in hot pursuit. If you’ve never seen a wild turkey flee for its life, let me tell you: high comedy. Tilly, as always, is a failure as a hunter. She can’t climb trees:

-We’d been here two and a half months, and never laid eyes on a coyote. HEARD the bastards often enough, always at night as a herd of the yipping and chittering cretins mauled a rabbit or turkey or badger or something. But they remained unseen until this past Monday morning. We’re getting ready for work on the morning of the snowstorm, looking out our kitchen window when this big, ugly prick trots out of the woods in broad daylight and more or less stops in the front yard. I swear he looked right at us, saying, “Yeah. This is MY house, bitches.” Then he ambled off without a care in the world. I couldn’t produce the camera fast enough, sadly.

-Finally, my obligatory deer picture. This one was taken through a filthy window with a shitty camera, so there you have it. These three are regular visitors. They seem to dig the whole corn I throw out for ‘em. I believe these three are named Tooty, Frooty and Kat Von Deer, but I wasn’t close enough to be sure.