The year of the build Part One (Posted January 10, 2022)

Alright folks, fasten your seat belts this is going to be a multi-part blog! Our last update was over a year ago via Facebook. Since not all of our friends are on social media we thought this would be a nice way to keep everyone up to date- and know we are still alive. It is also fun for Josh and I to reminisce over one... or several drinks.

As I begin to type this out it is January 9th 2022. I am in our cozy warm house and the most amazing husband cooking venison burgers. While you can probably picture a cozy finished house, and a handsome husband in a gourmet kitchen... thats not the case. Nor has it been since we moved here from Alaska! Well, I mean the handsome husband part is true! Anyways... we have done what some would consider the impossible... and it has been so rewarding in the process.

Some of you may know we're in the thick of building our home here in North Creek aka "The Heart of the Adirondacks". Theres a few things that never change; Sam works like a crazy woman and Josh burns the candle at both ends. Simply put- we get shit done! We both work 50+ hour weeks at work and then come home to take care of our chickens, turkeys, 3 dogs as well as work on our house. If you haven't gotten the picture yet; this is going to be a major update on how we moved out of the old hunting camp that was built in 2009, converted it to Sam's taxidermy shop and moved into our house!

Firstly, COVID is dumb. We had it. The New Year (2021) was welcomed with a nice dose of quarantine. Sam ended up sick in bed for a full day which was very abnormal. She complained of eye pain, and had a high fever which broke after 24 hours. Due to Josh's job he was required to get tested. Both Sam and Josh's test came back positive. We were tired for a few days but enjoyed some time here on the homestead. On January 3 we went out and cut some firewood. We got extremely winded and went back to the camp to rest. Sam made up a batch of sourdough starter and named it Rona. After a few days she whipped up a bunch of breads. Just in the knick of time where we lost our taste. Josh used his meat slicer (which was a Christmas present from 2020) for the first time and made venison French dips. It was so annoying that we couldn't taste them! We froze everything with the intention of taking them back out when we gained our taste and smell back! It was the craziest thing not being able to taste. Sam got a big kick out of giving josh lemon juice and whisky shots to see if he could make out the difference. He couldn't. We cleared some brush on the property, went bird hunting and watched the whole series of the Zoo on Netflix. Donna (Sam's mom) as well as Lynn and Bryan (Josh’s parents) delivered groceries and alcohol since the county as well as state police paid us a visit and mandated we not leave the property. Josh took the snowmachine out and did some riding. Sam ordered crafts from Amazon and made some candles and finished up some batches of homemade vanilla. We were released from quarantine mid January!

In February Sam geared up for her first taxidermy teaching adventure on the East Coast. She was asked to teach a moose clinic for Rick Krane's new taxidermy workshop. She stayed in Hindsdale New Hampshire for a week and returned completely drained. But on the positive she made a great impact on a brand new female taxidermist whom continues taxidermy to this day! Josh caught his first of many Adirondack beaver. The crawler loader that we were able to do initial clearing of the property, broke an axel and we haven’t found time to fix it. Beretta and colt pulled the water to the chickens throughout the winter.

In March Sam went to Alaska and got to play. Kidding! She worked her tail off with her friend Andrea, Owner of AK's Adventures n Taxidermy. She mounted 9 different animals in 10 days. She would have 10 for 10 but there was that pesky snowshoe hare. Sam enjoyed a couple relaxing days checking out a great northern light show and spending time with the Wood family exploring hatchers pass and doing some world class sledding! Josh had the opportunity to help out a fellow trapper who was having quite a hard time catching a destructive beaver. Josh was successful removing the beaver and gained a new trapping friend, a legend in North River. Josh prepared for sapping season and when Sam returned from Alaska we tapped Maple trees. At the end of March we made two gallons of syrup under a “Sam-rigged” sugar shack.

April showers didn't bring May flowers because in April we started preparing for our house build! We rented excavators and Josh cleared a half acre of land where we decided to build the house. We hauled the chicken coop to another section of field and put up our temporary electric fence. We roughed in where our road would go to the house. It was muddy. Very very muddy. We put in culverts and quickly learned how to crown roads properly! We have been successfully keeping chickens and turkeys on our 156 acres of heaven for 2 years now. On April 23 we hatched out our first batch of eggs. 36 in total, with a few smaller clutches of turkeys in the next remaining weeks. We learned some hard lessons with turkeys. Mainly, they are not the smartest bird in the barn. After a few sad losses, some rescues, and a whole lot of love we expanded our flock and kicked them out to the coop! It was a very happy day. I mean after all.. we raised all these birds in the 576 square foot hunting camp! You try getting some sleep with 36 birds peeping at you all night long. We bought 100 Cornish cross chicks from the Amish and it all started again. To relieve a little of the madness Sam did a little metal detecting and Josh played on natures jungle gym.

On May 8th Josh and his dad took the boat out on Lake George in the morning to do a little salmon fishing. Josh saw a young tom turkey attempt a flight across the south end of the lake (3/4 of a mile). They saw the bird hit the water and immediately went to his rescue! They revived the bird from stress/hypothermia and sent him on his way. On May 9th we celebrated Mother’s Day at Texas Road house with "Saint Donna" then went on a shopping spree at tractor supply. Afterwards Josh and Sam took a little time off to do some fishing on Indian Lake. On May 14 Josh received registration for the old Jeep that came with our property and we took the 1982 CJ7 Renegade on the road for the first time. May 23 Josh dug our foundation, the power line ditch, and the water line ditch. After renting so much equipment we decided we didn’t need two trucks and wanted to start investing in our own equiptment. On May 28th Josh sold his truck and we bought a tractor. The tractors proven to be more useful than a third hand! By this time our meat birds were getting quite hefty, and stinky. Sam cleaned out the chicken tractor weekly shoveling pounds of manure. As always there are losses due to Mother Nature. We lost some due to cold weather, trampling, and a pesky mink (we got the mink!) We butchered 90 chickens from May 30th-June 6th. We sold about 60 birds and ended up keeping the rest to fill our freezer.

Hold onto your socks because the rest of the year might just blow them off! To be continued...