The shaman gets blown away

[shaman]

It's been a busy day.

Dad came over and helped me. Two chainsaws made short work of the  big stuff. I now have firewood for the winter, plus some pear and wild cherry for the smoker.

When the storm hit on Sunday, I was up in a treestand doing maintenance.  I had not thought the storm was going to hit so soon-- it wasn't clouding up-- so I just hurried on and went to the next stand.  Yikes!!!

We drove home to Cincinnati during some of the worst of it.  Trees were falling. Limbs as big as my arm were flying across I-71.  As we got closer to home a lot of streets were blocked.  We lost a few trees, but luckily none of the big ones and the house sustained no damage.

Here are some gadgets that really made life easier for us:

1)  Hand Crank Flashlight -- All the batteries were weak in the house, but this was really all we needed. I got mine at Walmart.
2)  Hand Crank Radio -- I got one as an Xmas present.  It did a great job. Mine got AM/FM plus TV Sound and the NOAA Weather station.  I think this one came from Radio Shack.
3)  12 V Inverter -- After we could get out in the car, I was using a 350 watt inverter to charge my laptop battery.  On the last day of the outage I hooked up the Inverter to my trolling motor battery and ran the laptop off that.
4)  Coleman Fluorescent lantern -- Mine's 13 years old.  It lit up a whole room until we got the candle or oil lamp lit.  It was great in the bathroom at night.

One thing is for sure:  when officials tell you to hunker down. DO IT!

My neighbors all got bored by mid-morning on Monday and went out driving. One lady got 15 miles from home looking for gasoline and got overwrought by the combination of long gas lines and damage.  She had a panic attack, flooded out the mini van and her husband had to come get her.  Another woman got weird and drove off, leaving her distraught teenage daughter wandering the neighborhood trying to find sympathy.   I drove out Tuesday and found gas right off.  My only trip out on Monday was late in the day-- a quick trip to the liquor store, but I called ahead first to see if they were open.

Oh yeah:  a good single malt scotch is an excellent tonic in situations like this. While the rest of the neighborhood was in a snit, I was quietly reflecting out on my back deck. I plan on adding a couple of gallons to my emergency provisions.

Shaman, what did you miss most?
As soon as it was prudent to do so, I went out and filled up my truck at a Speedway and bought 2 hotdogs and a large fountain drink.  I don't know why, but that hotdog and Pepsi tasted mighty good.  I'm still waiting for milk to go back on sale.

[vambo991]

This Glenlivet is for you, Sham

[GTOHunter]

Shaman...I always enjoy reading your stories of Hunting and now your Survival Stories.[:D] It is funny how you miss certain things when the electricity goes out...! [&:] [;)] We had the high winds here in Missouri also,had to pick up limbs around the yards,clean up the mess and trim a few tree limbs with the chain saw that were split...in town it was worse with all the older Maple tree's lots of people were without electricity but for some strange reason we didn't loose it out here in the Country?I know of several people that left out ealry that morning for Church and ended up with blocked driveways when they returned home after the storm.
 
After the hurricane passed I ended up taking a walk in the woods with my chain saw and cut up several tree's that blew over early this summer from a previous storm and I found several more new tree's that were damaged and blown over from the hurricane....so we will have plenty of fireplace wood this winter and wood for Camping too!

[shaman]

Thanks guys!

We had a camping weekend planned at the farm.  My neighbor went over mid-week and checked-- didn't see anything wrong. We went ahead and chanced it.  Sure enough, Bracken County KY was hardly touched by the winds and the power never went off.

All told we had a dozen or so up at the house for the weekend. I'd invited the whole Cincinnati Caledonian Pipe & Drum band down.  Some folks had to stay, because their power still wasn't back on.  However we had a nice turnout.

It was too dry to have a big campfire back in the woods, but folks pitched their tents around the house and had just as good a time. Two of the members had never shot a firearm before and brought their heirloom pistols down.  I gave them a firearm safety lecture and then put them to work at the range.  Then one of the serious collectors showed up and we got to  shooting serious stuff-- all told six hours of shooting.  Those bagpipers love to shoot!

The big question remained: What had happened to my tree stands in all this?

I have 5 Hunter's View 15' buddy stands and other assorted ladders up.  I had taken down two this year, given them fresh paint jobs and put them back up. I was dying to see what happened with the storm.

While I was at it, I took my GPS, a compass and marking tape.  Since Moose turned 16 this year , he's able to hunt by himself as an adult.   That added an extra level of complexity to the situation.  One or two tenths of a mile is nothing for a 30-06. In most cases, because they are elevated stands, a simple rule would suffice:  "Don't fire above your belt line." However, I figured having a visual reminder would be a good ideal.

As I visited each stand site, I made a waypoint on the GPS.  Then, after I'd been to all of the stands, I went back and shot an azimuth with the compass to each stand.  I now have red marker tape on a tree representing the bearing from each stand to each other stand. 

Oh yeah, damage! I'd almost forgotten.  The bottom line was that one stand, the one one I'd put up just for Moose ,  had a bent shooting rail where it contacts the tree. However, all the buddy stands get that bend after they've been up a while.  It's only cosmetic.