Memorial Day Weekend at the Cabin

On Saturday, May 23rd, I loaded up my 2 girls and tubs full of activities in the truck and headed for the cabin. The previous trip with both girls did not go well mostly because they just would not get along with each other, but I did everything I could to make sure this trip was better. Even though there was a lot of bad weather in the forecast, we lucked out and only dealt with a few small storms. 

I only had a couple of small jobs to get done so we kicked things off with planting some Egyptian wheat plot screen. I pushed the garden tiller while the girls carried the seed and spreader. The girls were a big help as Bridget learned how to work the spreader and Abigail actually spread the seed on the small field all by herself. We took a couple of point and shoot cameras along to keep the girls busy while there wasn't anything for them to help with and it worked like a charm. 

Abigail spread the seed on the small
field all by herself!

All ready to plant some plot screen

Bridget learning to work the spreader

The girls played in the cabin for awhile while I ran the drag over the freshly planted plot screen and checked on all of the food plots. With all of the recent rains, everything was growing well but I was most impressed by the soybean plot. The entire acre of soybeans was up and growing very well. All of the clover plots from last fall had exploded and were knee high as well. The oats were continuing to grow and the clover in the cabin food plot was up and growing very well too. I'm very excited that I have the extra time this year to take extra care of the food plots and look forward to reaping the rewards this fall. 

Clover in the cabin food plot

Fall planted clover on the small field is over knee high

Ridge food plot clover

Soybeans are up and growing!

The rest of the day included lots of ATV rides, pulling trail camera cards and cooking dinner and smores over the fire. It was a beautiful day out and all of us had a lot of fun! The girls even spent time playing catch nicely with each other while I enjoyed some time relaxing by the fire. 

ATV Rides

Pizza for dinner

Roasting marshmallows

Enjoying some smores before bedtime

After a good night of sleep, we awoke ready for another day of fun. It was already quite warm and humid outside when we woke up so I decided to get my work done while the girls ate breakfast and got ready for the day. I got out the power washer and power washed the entire outside of the cabin. The cabin has wood siding on it and I honestly have never done anything with it in the past 8 years and it is starting to look pretty rough. It looked very refreshed after a good washing and it ready for a coat of Thompson's Water Seal on a future trip.

After I was done, I loaded the girls into the truck and we headed about a mile down the road to the parking area of the DNR land. We then hiked between 1/4 - 1/2 mile down the hill to a 10 acre lake to do some fishing. We had some luck right off the bat and both girls caught some bluegills. We even kept 2 bigger ones to take home (because the girls really wanted to). Both girls did a great job fishing and we were able to stay for over an hour before making our way back up the muddy path to the truck. Back at the cabin we had some lunch and then spent the first part of the afternoon playing outside. 

Proud girls with their catch

Hiking back up to the truck

Result of power washing the cabin

After a few ATV rides, the girls headed inside to read while I mowed the lawn and drive. Part way through the sky started to get really dark and by the time I finished I could hear rumbling in the distance. We spent the remainder of the evening inside, safe from the storms, playing games and using the microwave to cook dinner instead of the fire. After dinner, we settled in to watch "The Greatest Showman" before washing up and getting ready for bed. 

I made sausage, eggs, and toast for breakfast in the morning and then packed and loaded the truck in the drizzling rain. Before we left, we took a couple of quick rides on the ATV to hold us over until the next trip down. A lot of memories were made and we all had a great time.

Enjoying some breakfast

Cooking some breakfast

Turkey Hunting Success

On May 15th I headed for the cabin for one last try at turkey hunting for the year. The 4th, and final, spring season ended on the 17th and I was hoping to close the deal. My trail cameras had been showing a pretty consistent morning and evening pattern of turkeys moving through the big field food plot so I decided to focus my energy there. On Friday evening I saw 6 turkeys while hunting the big field, but sadly they were all hens. 

One of the hens that I saw on Friday evening

I spent the remainder of the evening getting about 1/3 of the flooring installed in the cabin. I was amazed at how easily the vinyl plank flooring went down and the nice thing is the cabin was fairly square and I didn't have much to work around other than the bathroom wall. The most difficult part was actually moving all of the furniture around to make enough space to work. 

Floor about 1/3 done on Friday

Used the ATV jack and a couple pieces of flooring as a
ramp to get the bunk bed up onto the new floor

On Saturday morning I again heard a tom gobbling to the west in the same area as the previous weekend. This time I approached from a different side and got set up in the direction that he headed last time. After flying down, he again headed in the other direction. I spent some time walking around trying to strike up another bird but didn't hear another gobble. I decided to head back and keep plugging away at the floor. 

There was rain in the forecast so I set up my saw outside under a pop up canopy, but of course it didn't end up raining until later during the night. I spent the next few hours finishing up the flooring install and even got lucky enough that I didn't have any horizontal cuts to make at all. After finishing the flooring I got to work on the baseboard install. The most annoying part of the baseboard was that the east and west walls had about 1 inch of 3/4 inch plywood sticking out at floor level forcing me to use 2x2s while the north and south walls only required 1x2s. With all of the cuts, it took me longer than I expected but I did get the base boards installed as well.

Finished installing the floor 

Installing baseboard in the bathroom

Not to toot my own horn here, but I absolutely love the finished product. Originally I was on the fence about installing the flooring this year but I'm glad I did. The cabin doesn't even remotely resemble what it did before and it is just a much more comfortable space to be. In addition, the new layout provides so much more open space and utilizes the small space that we do have very well.

Bathroom finished product

Finished product

Finished Product

Finished Product

With the interior work on the cabin complete, I turned my focus 100% to trying to fill my turkey tag. I again set up on the big field for the evening and once again, had a parade of hens walk by me but no toms. I had a feeling that if I just stuck with it, eventually a tom would show up. As the sun began to set, I headed back to the cabin to start a fire and cook supper. Venison tenderloin, carrots, and potatoes were on the menu and turned out delicious. While they cooked, I actually worked on replanting several of the mounds in my garden that had been dug up by squirrels over the past week. 

Pair of hens only 25 yards away

Dinner!

On Sunday morning, I woke up to rain showers and fell back asleep for a little bit. Around 6am I headed for the big field blind knowing that this was my last opportunity and sad that it was raining. With the rain and wind, there were no birds gobbling so I was just hoping that the turkeys would follow a similar pattern and work through the big field. I was rewarded a short time later when I noticed turkeys heading my way from behind the blind. There were 2 hens, a jake, and a tom and of course the tom was lagging behind the rest. They took their time moving down the field but finally the hens and jake made their way around the front of the blind. The tom seemed content to hand out behind the blind and I was worried one of the other turkeys might end up scared by the decoys or catch sight of me in the blind. With only a 4 inch x 6 inch peep hole in the back door of the blind, I slowly turned and stuck about 8 inches of my shotgun out the hole. As soon as the tom stuck his head up I shot and he dropped in his tracks. It was the last day of the season, and a crappy day for turkey hunting, but my persistence payed off. 

Turkeys headed my way

More fresh meat for the freezer!

The rain finally stopped mid morning and with the wind, the grass was drying off pretty fast. After getting my turkey processed and in the cooler, I decided to get the yard and drive mowed before heading home. It was a great weekend that wrapped up a very productive spring at the cabin. The interior remodel was complete and I had managed to fill a turkey tag for the 2nd year in a row. 

Turkey Hunting and Food Plots

On the 2nd weekend of May I headed to the cabin with a 4th season turkey tag in my pocket and good intentions of planting food plots and a garden (even though what I really wanted to do was lay the new flooring). On Friday evening, I headed out to try and find some turkeys but was fairly unsuccessful. I did manage to stumble on a few morel mushrooms to bring home for Erin though. 

Found a small pile of fungus

Saturday morning I managed to hear 3 different toms roosted but they were all in different directions. I went after the closest one and set up pretty close to him but he ended up working off in a different direction. I tried to go after one of the other birds but he stopped gobbling after I got set up and never came into my decoys. With the morning hunt a bust, I headed back for the cabin to get started on planting food plots. I had a lot to get done as I had to till and plant 1 acre of soybeans on the big field, till and plant the small cabin food plot and get the garden planted. 

I started with the soybeans first. This year I opted to use liquid calcium to neutralize the soil instead of spreading a ton (literally) of pellet lime. Afterwards, I attached the spreader to spread dry fertilizer before running the disc over it. I have not tilled this portion of the field for several years so it took a couple of passes with the disc. I then broadcast the soybeans and lightly ran the disc over the field again to cover them. I finished it off by broadcasting alice white clover to help fill in where the soybeans don't grow well. All in all, it took me a couple of hours to get this 1 acre planted by myself. 

ATV disc hard at work

Soybeans loaded in the spreader

1 acre of soybeans planted

I'm very excited for this soybean food plot as I learned a lot when I planted them 2 years ago and am more confident in my attempt this time. I also know that they are a huge draw to deer throughout the fall and into the early winter.

Next up was the small cabin food plot that sits along the drive behind the cabin. My woods butt up to the neighboring county land behind the cabin and deer travel through there a lot. It is one of my favorite places to have a camera and even though the food plot is probably about 1/16 of an acre in size it does a good job of giving them a reason to keep coming through that spot. The area is too small for the disc so I put dad's garden tiller to work after spreading some fertilizer. The plot has been planted to clover but I noticed this spring that weeds and grass had choked most of the clover out and it was time to replant. After tilling, I broadcast a clover blend (red and white clovers) and then used the drag harrow to cover the seed.

Cabin food plot planted to clover

Next up was the garden. In the past, I have put the garden south of the orchard in the big field and it has always gotten overrun by foxtail and weeds. This year, since I was planting the entire big field, I opted to spray off a portion of the yard on the north end of the orchard. My hope is that I will be better able to keep weeds at bay and it will be close enough to water when needed. I ended up using the tiller on each side of the garden to plant 5 rows of sweet corn and 3 rows of potatoes. In between, I planted 4 mounds of zucchini, 6 mounds of pumpkins, and 2 mounds of watermelons. The tiller struggled to dig through the dead sod but I managed to get it turned up enough to make planting easier. 

Planting some pumpkins

After getting everything cleaned up and put away, I headed out to try to catch a bird on the way back to roost for the night. I set up on a ridge to the west of my property that had a lot of turkey sign on it and where I had watched a tom and 3 hens back in 2nd season. I sat for about 2 1/2 hours but only had hens and deer walk passed me (I have been seeing A LOT of deer while turkey hunting). After cooking some dinner over the fire I fell asleep fast after a long day. 

The next morning I woke up to 20+ mph winds. I hunted for a couple of hours but was not able to locate any birds. I set up on the big field food plot for awhile and had 2 hens come into my decoys but I just think the toms couldn't even hear my calls with all of the wind. With it being Mother's Day, I headed home early to give my wife some reprieve from the children and enjoy some family time. 

Cabin Time with Bridget

Last weekend it was Bridget's turn for a trip to the cabin. She hadn't been to the cabin since prior to starting much of the cabin remodel work and said that she absolutely loved it when we arrived. We didn't arrive until after lunch on Saturday and left on Sunday morning so it was a very quick trip but it was still a pretty good time. 

After arriving, I got to work on routing all of the base boards and getting them primed. Bridget read a Dog Man book to me the entire time as I worked. It was a beautiful day to be working outside!

Reading to me

My router table was very busy

All primed and ready to paint next trip

After unloading all of the flooring and I spent some time splitting wood and we took a ride on the ATV to pull trail camera cards (we may have taken a couple of extra laps for fun as well). We then started a fire and made pizza pie irons for dinner. 

Getting some wood split

Making pizzas for dinner

Ready for an ATV ride

After dinner it was time for some smores and sitting around the camp fire until being chased into the cabin by some lightening. We both got a good nights sleep before packing up and heading for home on Sunday morning. Mom and dad went down to the cabin later on Sunday to mow and drop off the garden tiller and soybeans for me to plant next weekend. 

Eating a Smore

Sitting by the camp fire

This was my 9th trip to the cabin so far this year and I am planning trips down the next 3 consecutive weekends as well. Those 12 trips prior to the end of May will be more than the entire number of trips that I made to the cabin in all of 2019! I absolutely love spending time down there and this is turning out to be a great year with a lot of accomplishments already done. Hopefully the work will pay off and we will be rewarded with a relaxing summer filled with even more trips down there. 

Cabin Time with Abigail

On April 25-26 I took Abigail to the cabin for an overnight trip. Now that Abigail is getting older, she is able to help with some tasks and is very interested in learning about everything that I do down there. Both girls love spending time down there and it shows as they always seem to be on their best behavior. 

On April 25th, Abigail and I headed for the cabin right after finishing breakfast. The goal for the weekend was to get all of the finish trim primed, painted and installed. Abigail was a huge help as she worked on the priming and painting while I measured and cut everything. 

Abigail working hard to prime the window trim

Window trim finished

Door trim finished

With the trim work finished, I headed outside to get started on the food plots. I managed to get 1/4 acre of perennial clover planted as well as 2 - 1/4 acre plots of annual clover and oats. The ATV with a fresh battery and disc with new bearings performed very well. It helped that the soil was not too wet or too dry to till as well. 

Tilling the small field

All planted

After a hard day of work, it was time to cook some supper, roast some smores, and relax by the fire before turning in for the night. 

Relaxing by the fire

Making pizza pie irons

The next morning, Abigail helped me spread fertilizer on all of the existing clover food plots. I also taught her how to switch SD cards in the trail cameras and she got some target shooting in with the .22. It was a great weekend and we both had a lot of fun.

Getting some target practice in

Spreading fertilizer

Pulling trail camera cards

The cabin is really coming along. With just flooring and baseboard installation left, I am hoping to finish the interior by the end of May. With upcoming weekend trips that will include turkey hunting and food plot work, that may be a bit of a stretch but we shall see.