I’ve been planning dinner at Wolfkeep all week, I was so excited about it. We made a veritable FEAST! I was aiming for between 8 - 12 people, and some very large canines =) Everything worked out swell, definitely not 12 people, but we sure had enough food!

Per Mariah’s father’s suggestions, we made a lamb roast on a bed of gold and purple potatoes, carrots, yams, and these funky oblong onions. Loaded with garlic and rosemary, all soaked in red burgundy wine.

We had a huge pot of garlic and butter mashed potatoes, a loaf of leek sourdough bread. Two crisp salads Maya made with all sorts of goodies. A pot of parsnip, leek and cracked pepper soup, baked asparagus and carrots brushed in pepper and olive oil, Maya’s fermented hummus, and a jar of my sesame sauerkraut.

A sweetpotato and yam pie with pecans for desert, I’ve never made a pie before, it wasn’t so bad! Owen and I went up early in the day, working on our elk hide. Built a frame out of some 10 ft 2×4’s we liberated at a nearby construction site, and nailed the elk hide up. Carl had a small antelope brain outside, and we had half a frozen whitetail brain in the car. Carl put them in a coffeecan and blended them into a gooey gunk. Owen and I then painted the blended elk brains all the grain side and the membrane side.

Carl has several teepee’s down by the enclosure. We chose the largest one to smoke the hide in. It had a deep firepit dug out of the center and a nordic frame rope bed on the side. We started a small cedar fire and warmed the place up a bit, after it had all burned down to a bed of coals, we took our bag of scavenged punk wood, or wood that is pretty well rotten, and covered the coals with it. The smoke came on fast and thick, we climbed outside and laced everything up.

Owen showed me how to manuever the poles to close the top flap, and we headed back up to the keep for dinner.

I had a headache most of the night, but it was so good to see everyone, and have a nice dinner. Lily and Rachel had never seen the wolves before, and Lily was really excited when she learned Carl was a boxer too. Lots of good gifts traded hands too, Carl gave Owen a book on natives and a leather needle, Owen gave carl a dogwood deer effigy, Carl gave me a thick carhart suit that was too small for him and shared some really nice pot with me. We left Carl a huge bowl of food in his fridge, and headed back to Missoula around nine.

I want to go and get close to the wolves next time. The blogger-pressure in my head told me to take pictures of EVERYTHING, and I told it to fuck off and leave me alone. I won.

A few weeks back, Owen and I got a nice Antelope buck hide from our pal Steve on the hunting trip. We scraped most of the membrane right away, and about 70% of the grain. Soaked in water for probably about a week, then bucked it in a lye solution for a day, scraped the rest of the membrane off and still couldn’t get several large patches of grain along the edges. We decided to go ahead anyway. The hide came out of the lye with a VERY rubbery texture, Owen had read on PaleoPlanet forums that it needed to be neutralized before braining. We’d never had lye before, and never had to neutralize anything. But it was decided that we’d just soak it in vinegar/water for 20 minutes or so.

After 2 hours of V

After 20 minutes, we took it out, wrung it, and decided it was starting to look better, so we just threw it back in the vinegar :P Was about 50/50 5% apple vinegar and hose water. An hour, maybe one and a half later…and when we tried to wring the hide out… it was even MORE rubbery then before. We tried and tried and tried until our hands were frozen stiff and our resolve was shattered…

The hide went in the brain solution anyways. About a day of soaking and we returned to red-brown to start working our prize. After pulling it out, we noticed there were significant patches of grain still along the edges, we tried to scrape a few of them off with the post and draw-knives, but it was very slow and unproductive. We began to stretch the hide. Gripping hard and pulling between us, putting our full weight into it, the hide grew in size. We start using a few tree snubs to work it, then as the center (no grain there) began to get dry we took it inside to work it against the table. Within an hour, the center was pretty soft and beautiful…only some really minor rough spots…three ours later everything was dry but the parts where the grain was left was still more or less sopping wet.

We worked it till around midnight then headed home for bed. Sure enough, the next morning the grain had shriveled, dried into a hard crust around the edges, and the two big patches, but the rest of the hide was more or less really soft with only a hint of cardboard feel. Obviously removing ALL of the grain must be the crucial point…but I’m confused how people do it.

We worked it really hard, only giving up on the grain after the draw-knives prettymuch returned zero progress. We did soak this hide in LYE for at least a day beforehand…may have even been a couple. Probably about 1.5 cups of pure lye in 10-12 gallons of water. There must be more to the story (there always is), and I’m trying to find someone who has seen that part of the story before so they can tell me how it goes from here =)

Now

We have an elk hide still soaking in the same brains, it looks much better..hopefully we’ll get to see it soon. Back to PaleoPlanet I guess, thankgod for PaleoPlanet.

Helena this weekend. Elk, lots of butchering. A hide too. need lye. Dry Socket. eck flegm. OWWW!!!! Meds, happies, pills, and poppers. Fuzz buzz fuzz, back at worik, nurse rinses it out, equips me. yes, I can has power too! More painkillers.

Worked for a bit today on making an adsense site. I told myself I want to make just one, to go through the process. Test out the waters so to speak. I’m thinking I am going to use wordpress to manage the content, I’ll probably just write it for sake of simplitude. I pulled a good list of keywords out of google’s tool, registered a domain name, bought some related content on onedollarwiki.com, and installed wordpress. Until my boss Alex, pointedly asked me if I had work to be doing. I really rub him wrong when I’m off task. I understand why, if I was paying someone by the hour to be doing work, I’d have pretty solid views on what they did with their that time too.

I get so damned bored, and the allure of das internets takes over. Given it’s a pretty uninspired allure, but it beats heckling symantec enterprise tech support about their buggy products they sold us for gallons of cash. I don’t want to drive Alex up the wall. He’s really cool, and fun, and works way too hard, but he has a family and that’s all he knows. And he does a really good job at what he does.

I either have to not work on my sites…which is totally bunk, because usually I just get distracted reading and [trying to] absorb gounds of infomation, rather then actually doing much. Or, pay attention to whether Alex is in the building, and stay 100% on task while he’s present. Feeling relentlessly rebellious with a righteous dose of apathy today I’m going to try the second option.

Truth is, working a job sucks. I don’t have a degree, I’m not really sure whether that would be any better. Yeah, I’d have a larger check every few weeks, but I’d still have to contribute 1/3 of my existence to colonizing human creativity and shelling it out to likely suitors. Schools not really any better. I don’t want to work anymore, but I don’t really have any other choices if I want to stay in Missoula.

I will try to not think about it. There are so many other things I can address right now, fretting of things I can’t fix…tsk tsk. I love my father, I think he feels the same way about work, but he has this attitude that there is nothing to be done about it, except set yourself up to be higher in the system. That is not entirely true…he also told me the trick is just to find something you love. There is some truth in that I think. If I were fully energetically engaged all day long, I wouldn’t give a shit about money. But that seems like something so remote right now. I have rent due today, and not enough money to pay it…bills, I don’t think I’ve paid the electricity bill in three monthes. But I’m not in debt…I just owe people a fair hunk of money. =)

I have no rights to complain, about anything. There are so many people out there that have much more pressing concerns then their rent and electricity bills. I’m going to make along just fine…as long as I keep that job hah!…There are many positive things in my life that don’t get appreciated. It’s a terribly well-spread story. As a little boy, my mother would ask me to tell her ten things I am grateful for as we were going to sleep. I resented it as totally not-important and a waste of time. These days, I’m not so sure.

I live with the most wonderful young woman I’ve ever known, she is radiant, glowing with care and love. She is fun to be around, very well centered and balanced, but incredibly tough and adventurous. In a wild dream, we would be people of the earth, caring for it’s bounty and laughing into eternity. We work well together as a domestic couple of humans too. We have little (perception) money, but we have access to foods and nourishment that most of the world, and all of America has forbidden to them through one means or another.

We could have anything we desire, I could have anything I desire. If I was willing to work for it. If I wanted to get a degree, I could easily have one with no student loans when it was all over. How many people have that opportunity? To go to school and be able to walk away with no debts. That is extremely lucky. How many people fought tooth and claw for their rights to even attend school, for that opportunity, how many dedicated years of their efforts, energy, intent, and dreams to that fantasy of education.

There is a whole slew of terms that need apply. My parents don’t even bring them up at the dinner table…at the rarity that I show up for dinner, they have been divorced forever. Both remarried, some children involved here and there. Both make good money, work very hard, for themselves. They are somewhat secretly hoping that I will come to my senses and hop back on the schooltrain. Who knows…all this talk about taking things for granted, and I’m starting to feel a wan fondness for good ol’ school. It wouldn’t last long. Two weeks back in the system, and I’d freak the fuck out and lick somebody on the face. It feels good to be writing again. Thanks Celina for the comment the other day. I think very highly of you. You can be my blogsister if you like, Morgan won’t mind she is really cool and probably about your age. I am very impressed with how saavy you are for being so young, and your schooldirt reminds me of all the people I don’t know any longer.

Thanks Rachel the Imaginer for your magic…and care to the tinier moments. You take the time, and I drop the jar. Shatter-ed! I’m so lucky to be around your lifeblood. It’s about time I put some pictures up. A rocky ledge overlooking Missoula, and a picture from the Occidental Plateau outside Jefferson City. Montana, all my dreams are belong to you. huhur =)

Don at work gave Owen and I an Elk hide / head that his buddy in Dillon shot about three weeks ago. We were almost done tanning our whitetail hide with hair left on…we scraped the meat and membrane and fat off and threw the thing into our buckling black bucket to soak for a bit. A bit turned into three weeks, and last night we pulled it out ready to scrape the hair and grain off…HOLY HELL! It smelled rotten…it was rotten. We poured the rancid water out in the far corner of the yard and went to work. The grain layer came off fairly easily, but it still took us several hours into the dark to get it all off. The cold was encroaching, and i went inside to hold my hands under the facet to thaw them out several times. Kane kept mild company with us and not even he tried to go for these hide scraps. We got used to the smell after a bit, and talked about our hide and about going antelope hunting with my father this weekend. We switched off a few times, but Owen did most of the scraping, and I re-positioned and stretched it tight for him. I went inside and sat with Bill and his colville girlfriend for a moment after rinsing my hands again…they told me I stank, and we watched a short music video on you-tube with cheerleaders in gasmasks. The music was okay…but I really liked the cheerleaders in gasmasks dancing around.

Back to the hide. Another hour or so of scraping and we were satisfied, discussed what should be done with it at this point since we’d be gone over the weekend. Decided to just throw it back in the water, and let it soak…Owen told me that when he tans at home, he goes and crawls in bed with Ashley right afterwards and she growls at him or gives him the stinky eye. I told him how I ambush Mariah and stick my tongue up her nose…not enjoy…eewww ewww, she usually runs away and doesn’t let me close to her for a while.

It is tomorrow now, and I am at work. I didn’t take a shower beforehand, I just smudged myself with lavender and put some eucalyptus oil on my wrists. Haven’t caught any complaints yet…We’re leaving tonight when I get off, I still have to pack. My dad says it is a four or five hour drive.

I’m trying to fix a botched install of symantec’s backupexec 10d…I’ll go find Alex…he will know how to deal with it. Pitter Patter…