Valentine's Day Snow Shoe

Callum is reaching out to all of you....he sends his love!

I know it was like a week ago, but I've been so busy on vacation doing NEASC, travelling with friends, etc, that I havent had time to post as much as I wanted. And Amanda didnt post because I took the camera on my hunting trip. BUT ANYWAY.....last week Lynne and George babysat Callum so Sally and I could meander out to the woods of Mt Vernon, Maine. It was the first actual snow shoe trip Amanda and I took together this year, so it was great! While we were back in the woods, I wanted to revisit the 10 pounds of chitterlings I "left" there as my own personal gift to the woods. Look back to the blog where I first mentioned the chitterlings, so you can see what the tub looked like "before" I left it in the deep woods. I was sure that it would take until at least March for the frozen crap to thaw out enough for the coyotes to feast, but, as you can tell from the picture below, I was quite wrong..... Blow up the picture so you can see the actual teeth marks and scrapes on the hard plastic container; something obviously had a good time. I feel badly, however, since the only thing worse than raw chitterlings are FROZEN raw chitterlings. Amanda was duly impressed! NOTE: I found the container about 30 yards away from where I put it a few weeks ago. And yes, all you environmentalists, I brought the container out of the woods and recycled it properly. No squirrels are going to choke on plastic, etc.

The Willards live off of "Wings Mills Road," called such because, way back in the woods, used to be....well...."Wings Mills." George tells me it was an old grist-mill back in the day. Off the old tote road (which is Mainspeak for logging road) you can connect to the snowmobile trail....and then off of that there is another logging road deep in the woods that brings you to the mill. Its pretty impressive to come upon it when you are in the middle of the forest, and I hope you can at least make out the old steel "crank" which was powered by a water-wall in the stream. In the foreground, you can notice a few trees laying lengthwise across the picture--these are the makings of an old bridge, which I will only cross in the spring or summer....when I can actually "see" where the gaps are. There is a pretty active little stream underneath it all. In addition to Wings Mills, there was also "Rat Mill"--hence one of my favorite roads (after Crank Road, that is) called Rat Mill Hill Road. So that is your history lesson on Mt Vernon Maine for today.

Amanda kept trying to push me down in the snow....she thought she was so cute. SO....we had a wicked cute little Valentine's Day contest. Guess who won?

(check out how hot she looks in her Carhartts!)

And here is a picture I love. My beautiful wife, walking away from me....haha!

Just kidding. But I do love this picture. I just wish the trees werent there and you could see beyond the clearing....its really beautiful back there. Here, we were walking along the snowmobile trails, which, for you out of staters who dont get to often see these trails, are pretty impressive. How is that for awkward grammar? Oh, and anonymous, I have saved you the time of commenting by posting, myself, the comments you would probably write anyway. This, in turn, will leave you more time to hang out in your parent's basement, sit in rest areas waiting for dates, or push papers in your meaningless job.

1. "Wow....you push your wife down in the snow? That makes me wonder what else you do to her when no one is watching...."

2. "Great....leave a bunch of raw chitterlings out in the woods, let the animals eat them, and then let them starve to death when they come to expect that people will feed them"

3. "Jared, you are so stupid and so dumb and you do stupid and dumb things, stupid!"

4. "You think you know everything about snow shoeing, chitterlings, and Mt. Vernon history....is there any end to your arrogance?"