Ahhh, look who caught his first-ever fur! Jerad with a large male raccoon.

October 24, 2016 - Monday
30 degrees/clear/calm winds
Pentoga Road

I was half day dreaming Sunday morning when I pulled up to the first trap and saw something move. Could it be? Might it? Should it? Really?

Jerad caught the first critter in his life as a trapper. The coon, a good-sized male, sat and looked at me, wondering who this thing was that sat on his four-wheeler looking back.

I called Jerad and told him it was time to begin part two of trapping school, dispatching the animal, skinning, fleshing, and stretching the hide. 

Jerad was like a kid at Christmas with his first catch. We soon headed back to the shop where the real fun began.

It been a few years since I've skinned and fleshed a raccoon and found myself telling Jerad how it should be, not necessarily how I was doing it.

Jerad wasn't slow in taking the fleshing tool and doing the really hard work, separating the flesh and fat from the hide.

In the end, he had a nice pelt that we stretched on the board to dry.

It was well after noon before Sargie and I hopped in the car and headed to town. We did some grocery shopping, took advantage of a sale at our local drug store, picked up box of fried chicken, and of course, got her Coke. We later drove north fifteen miles on back roads, seeing farms new to us and enjoying the day.

We received a beautiful picture from Sargie's sister, Nancy, of a double rainbow over Foster City (where Milligan Mountain is located) following a rain on Friday.

Downtown Foster City
Pat's Market, the general store that Sargie's dad owned and ran, was in the white building, second from the left. The earnings helped to feed the family of ten for many years.

Luke sent some great photos of Coleman playing in this weekend's game for the Mighty Mustangs.

#54 - Coleman playing middle linebacker

That's Coleman on the player in purple after making a tackle

Coleman's not the only athlete in the family. Here's Abigail stealing home in her softball game played this past weekend.

It seems as though it was a busy weekend in the Pennington households, both in Maine and the UP.

Sargie's back to work today. I'm going for my walk then will work on the splitter cart. I think I'm going to try to drag the trailer out of the water this afternoon using the four wheeler. I wouldn't mind picking up another load or ten of wood at the plant and regardless, I don't want the trailer to freeze in the ice and remain there over the winter months. How will I transport my ice shack to the lake?

It's time to get Sargie going and think about the day ahead. 

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...

I received this picture from Grady's mommy, Mel, who said he had a lot of fun carving the pumpkins we left on Saturday. Mel said he especially enjoyed trying to throw goo at everyone.