Trapping

We have been having a problem with groundhogs around here for the past year. They were digging large holes in our yard that they would dig back out if we filled then in. Finally, I set out two conibear (body grip) traps at two of the entrances. I then blocked up the rest of the holes, forcing them through my sets. I chose to use a blind set without bait and see how that would do. I checked the sets each morning and evening and on the second evening my second set had a groundhog. He was about a foot and a half long and shaped like a hog with fur. I skinned it cased, fleshed it, stretched it, dried it with the claws, ears, face and tail on. Its pretty cool looking. I'll post a picture of the pelt when its finished drying.

Jacob's critique of Pandora's Box

Pandora's Box

Pandora's Box is a classical Greek Myth. Its original author is unknown. In the past, many people have retold this myth. This one was retold by Lori Verstegen. Interestingly enough, some later versions have the box containing all the blessings of life and when Pandora opens the lid all of the blessings fly away leaving the earth a desolate place. The setting begins in heaven on Mt. Olympus which is home for all the major Greek gods. It then shifts to the ravishing green earth when lovely Pandora is given away.

In the story, the main characters are Zeus, Pandora, and Epimethius. Zeus, king of all the Greek gods, finds himself irate at Prometheus. Cunningly, Zeus constructs the first woman, Pandora, in order to bring sin and sorrow into the world below. Zeus created Pandora to be exceedingly beautiful and verily gifted. He also fashioned her character with foolishness, mischievousness, and idleness. His scheme was to give her to Epimethius, the brother of Prometheus, a stubborn and weak man, so his plan could be carried out.

The conflict of the story begins with crafty Zeus plotting revenge. He feels indignant because Prometheus stole fire from Mt Olympus and brought it down to earth. Zeus created Pandora irresistible to draw in the foolish Epimethius. Smoothly, his plan works. However, before Pandora leaves for earth, she is given a beautifully decorated box by all of the gods. Tantalizing her, they sternly warned her not to open it. Not even a peep! During the course of the next day, Hermes takes Pandora as a gift from Zeus to Epimethius, who on seeing her beauty and believing himself to be fortuitous, immediately takes her into his home. Prometheus had warned him about trusting in Zeus, but to no avail. He had to have her. Hermes boldly bade both of them never to open the adorned box.

The climax of the story occurs when Pandora's curiosity takes over and she opens the forbidden
box. Epimethius was standing in the doorway like Adam did in the garden. Curiously, he did not stop her, but scrutinized with excitement because he to wanted to know what was in the box. As soon as Pandora opened the lid just a hair, all of the sins an sorrows spread throughout the land. It satisfied Zeus. Tragically his revenge on mankind was complete. The theme of this story is that curiosity can lead to disobedience, and disobedience can lead to harm, and harm can hurt others.

The story cleverly reveals the nature of man and the nature of sin. For example, when Pandora's curiosity takes over her self-control and she examines the contents of the box, the reader identifies with the desire to know what is in it also. Pandora was strictly warned not to open the box, but Zeus understood the nature of man's lack of self-control and knew she would disobey, causing sin to enter the world. The reader clearly understands the dangers of curiosity and the harmfulness of disobedience.

Jacob's critique of "The Monkey and the Fox"

THE MONKEY AND THE FOX

The Monkey and the Fox is an Aesop fable retold by Eric Carle. It was published by Orchard Books in 1988. The setting of the story opens up in the steaming jungle with all of the animals gathered around. Tragically, the beloved old king of the jungle had died. Among the animals present, they needed to elect a new king as wise as the old one.

The main characters in this story are the Monkey and the Fox. The Monkey smoothly preformed as an imposter of the king, but had no sense at all. The Fox was very wise, not being tricked by the Monkey's impersonation of the old king, but he slyly served as a traitor to the new king.

The rising action of the story begins with the Fox earnestly desiring to remove the Monkey from his position because he was an unwise king. A little while after the Monkey became king, the Fox noticed a trap set in the forest and thought of a plan to get rid of the imperious Monkey. One day he slyly strolled up to the king and bravely declared he had spotted something strange in the forest. The nosy Monkey swooped off with the Fox to inspect the tantalizing curiosity which the Fox had talked about.

The climax occurs when the Monkey reaches for the banana in the middle of the net which falls over him. He was caught! The towns people, who had hidden in the bushes, jumped out, seized him, and carefully carried him to their zoo. During the next day, the Fox visited the zoo. Furiously the king exclaimed, "You traitor. You have betrayed your king."

"No." Sneered the Fox, "You have betrayed yourself."

The lesson of this story shows that a king who falls for the first trap set for him can’t serve his animals well. And that is the truth.

Being opposite in character, the Monkey and the Fox, unveils for us the nature of humans. In this story the Monkey was foolish and the Fox was wise, but yet they were both proud. The Fox showed pride by thinking he knew what was best for the animals, but yet he was not loyal to his king. The same can be true with people. The Monkey thought he would make a exquisite king, foolish though he was. Being wise does not mean you won't make mistakes. We need to be careful not to think to highly of ourselves less we also become foolish. The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who heeds counsel is wise. Proverbs 12:15

Snow Fall

My mom has been wanting me to get these pictures up, so I decided to put them together into a movie along with some video clips we took. The music playing in the background is called "First Snow Fall." Hope you'll like it.

"His" mercies are new every morning...and evening!

Thursday evening found us finishing up the remainders of celebrating my 41st birthday, when the night took an unexpected and critical turn. After devouring a fantastic meal that involved shrimp (no we don't usually eat these bottom feeders!), Coy began feeling sick. A few hours later he forcefully expelled his dinner and we were hoping everything would then be okay, but that was only the beginning of what would be a long night. His throat began swelling and we knew he was having an anaphylactic attack. Bruce immediately rushed him to the emergency room where, much to his delight, he commanded center stage. Within 5 minutes he was stuck with an epiPen, hooked up to monitors, and made to "swallow" another set of pills. Thankfully, the med's helped him make a quick turnaround and we are pleased to announce he is still with us! Thank you Jesus our divine Healer!!

Final Deer of the Season

Well, on the last day of 2009 I bagged the final deer for the Bakers.

I was hunting a food plot at a climber spot that I had been tending to over the last month and a half. 2:30 PM found me 16 feet up in a tall pine tree over looking the food plot. On one end of the plot was a bunch of corn on the ground and on the other end grew luscious grass. Deer tracks covered the plot. Around 4:45 PM, after a little rain, the buck came out of the woods from my far left and headed through some high grass toward the corn. As soon as he emerged from the high grass he began circling the food plot at a trot. Fearing he would leave me without a shot I grunted at him and he stopped............. The rest is history, the deer only ran 6 yards.

200 lbs Buck

Well, this morning I climbed into my stand to face a wall of fog. But as the morning progressed the fog burned away. While it was still foggy and a little dark I could make out a deer coming my way. I got up my gun and looked at it through the scope. It was a big deer but it was limping and it appeared to have a lame leg. As for antler, well all i could see was one good beam because it was broadside. I had passed up a spike the previous evening (which my mom was not happy about) so i decided to take this one. After waiting a hour and a half after the shot i got down and looked for blood. I found it and trailed it to my deer. But what a state of shock I was in to find a HUGE deer laying before me. We estimated it to be about 200 lbs and three years old. The antlers we very different though. On one side it had a good 6 inch beam and on the other side it had a mess of 8-9 short points. I had a time of it getting that deer processed.

Jacob shot his first deer!!!!!

Tuesday evening caught Jay and I (Coy) in a tree stand on the edge of a power-line overlooking a food plot. About 10 minutes before dark, we spotted 3 does crossing the power-line at about 150 yards to our left. Jay got the gun up but decided it was to far and dark for his shooting capabilities. No more then 3 minutes after this decision we heard movement on the right and a large spike walked out broadside. After stopping him with some grunts, Jay's .243 Remington roared. After finding the deer about 25 yards away we realized he doubled lunged him through the heart and broke a shoulder. Patience is truly a virtue.

This was Jay's first deer and it was a big one.

DEER!!!!

Finally we kill us some food. I shot a spike (with my new rifle) and Zac shot his first deer ever!!

After Zac shot his deer we had to track it about 100 yards into thick brush which was a challenge but a good experience for Zac.

Coy's 16!

We had a phenomenal week celebrating Coy's 16th birthday. It started out with Coy opening several large boxes that only contained notes leading him to various places in the house. He may be 16, but we still love our silly games! The look on his face below is a fearful grimace that we are really toying with him and there's not really a gun in the box. Ha! The next pic shows the "I can't believe it's really a gun" look. He received a Remington Model 770 .270, camo, steel barrel - very cool rifle! Then later that day the Baker grands dropped in for a visit and took everyone out to dinner followed by his birthday cheesecake.

Just when we thought all the surprises were over the Sellers grands showed up as a surprise to us all and we had another fun filled time with them for a couple of days. One of the things Coy wanted to do for his special day was to take me on my first hunt. Early Monday morning we crept into our stand to wait. We saw deer that morning , but they were to far off and moving to fast. We enjoyed our hours in the cold together even still. That evening Nani and Papa took everyone out for dinner. Also, Coy went for his driver's test, received his license and is now driving ALONE! Yikes!

Mom's Garden

We decided to try our hand at a Fall garden this year since we had so much fun in the Spring. It is absolutely maintenance free! We are growing pie pumpkins, cabbage, broccoli, lettuce, carrots and peas. We have tons of peppers left over from the earlier garden also.

BakerVideoProduction

Dear family and friends,

I am moving all the movies that we do from this blog to another blog.

That blog is bakervideoproductions.blogspot.com

Please go to see some of them.

WARNING: this blog is not going to be updated very much because it takes a while to make a movie.