Happy New year to all!

I am beginning to see the backside of this wonderful cold that I picked up on the 20th of Dec. The only blessing is, that I managed to keep it away from Karen. No touching, sleeping in a chair when I could sleep that is. I'm not sure if the severity of the thing is evolution of the germs or devolution of my wrinkled old ass. In any case I appear to finally be able to sleep long enough to have to go pee sometime in the wee hours of the morning.

Karen managed to get over her Candida or thrush, under her partial. We haven't heard yet as to the rescheduling of her surgery. I just glad that they postponed it.

All in all it has been a good year for us. Plenty of friends visiting, and in general things have improved. Its good to find that there is a possibility that Karen can get some of her energy back. Yes the prospects are scary, but it would be nice to have my pardner and best friend back again to share in all the fun.

The weather has moderated for us, and we are just about through the months with the shittiest weather. Just January left then the promise of sunshine and good weather.

I decided that I wasn't going to put any effort in Coyote hunting this year even though I bought a "gillie" suit that would render me invisible if I don't move too much. You will notice that the only thing you can see is my face, which I did not cover for the picture.

I went out once to a pond in the back country thinking that there should be a pack of Coyotes working it, but spent all evening with various calls and saw nothing. I had a grown young of the year come up in the field that I had to shoot, and skin, but I just haven't gotten enough ambition to try to add to it. I do keep an eye out however and get up to look out the windows to make sure that we don't have any visitors.

This evening about 4 pm Karen decided that she wanted to get into the hot tub. So we shed our clothes and piled in. We were having a conversation about whether the moon was full tonight or not, and I see a Coyote peering around the end of the Fifth Wheel. I peeled out of the side of the tub, ducked behind the cover and went streaking around the house and in the front door. The little .17 seemed to close 2017 quite nicely for him.

The funny part is that it seems to be an old dog, as his teeth were worn down quite a bit. Apparently he forgot that there are places that one does not go.

Of course that required me to skin the sucker, but actually the thought of it was tougher than the actual job.

It is our wish that all of you have a great new year!