Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Hook 'em Horns
Hook 'em Horns, right Jay? This picture is from Elizabeth especially for her Uncle Danny...
Friday, February 15, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
82 degrees
I don't want to brag or anything, but it was sunny and in the low 80's here over the weekend. And I hear you guys are having a coolish combination of rain and snow? Huh? Was that right? More cold, wet weather for you? Just wondered.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Killed the Blog.....
I just wanted to protest the recent accusations that I, Jim Parrott am the author of the New Years eve family planning post that killed the family blog. Although I do fully support the post and i laughed quite hardly, it was my wife who posted.
p.s. who else thinks that since my wife went on a 3 week Oregon vacation, its justifiable to go moose hunting and spend a couple dollars next year????
p.s. who else thinks that since my wife went on a 3 week Oregon vacation, its justifiable to go moose hunting and spend a couple dollars next year????
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Parrott Family Planning
How does New Year's Eve work for everybody? Start the new year off with a bang...
uh, no pun intended.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Friday, December 7, 2007
Water fairy or water elf..?
I fear the men in our family did not heed Miami Sound Machine's warning and the rhythm did indeed get them. Click below and see.
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1223300847
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1223300847
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Monday, December 3, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
A few dead things we all need to see
Just a little moose, no big deal really. (Pardon the pun)
A little bit of the usual......a 15x12 tangled up with a perfect mainframe 4x4 with rear kickers. No big deal.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Per your request...
And here's one of my recent favorite pics...
Just for the record, I am proud of the men in our family being great providers and exquisite examples of all that is man... but we can only handle so many pictures of dead things.Monday, November 26, 2007
Mighty Hunter
This goes against my better judgement to encourage another hunting story and accompanying photos of dead animals on our family blog, HOWEVER, Danny went hunting this weekend, and just a few minutes into his hunt, he got a big buck. And right after he shot the deer we called him on his cell phone to let him know he needed to come back to the house because Taylor was sick and we needed to take him to the doctor ASAP. So he sent his dad down to the hunting spot to take care of the deer while we rushed Tay Tay to the doctor (that seems to be the way to hunt - have someone clean up after you!). I don't know a lot about hunting and dead animals, but it seems to me that maybe the horns on Danny's dear have more little pointies that the one on Jims? Does that mean anything?
Now that we've posted pictures from hunts, can someone please for the love of all post some cute kiddie pictures? A nice picture of Grace A, perhaps? Hint, hint...
Now that we've posted pictures from hunts, can someone please for the love of all post some cute kiddie pictures? A nice picture of Grace A, perhaps? Hint, hint...
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
just to encourage all you avid hunters in the family, (yes christy, i mean you) if you just keep on trying then you too can have a bloody deer on your front porch! All you need is a good ol fashioned "never give up" attitude and some sticktoitofness.
Not to be beaten by the bucks I saw on my last adventure, i returned to the very same mountain with another friend to attempt once again to provide much meat for the family. My friend has not yet killed a sitka blacktail buck in Alaska so I tried my best to let him lead the way and I tried to put him in the best spots.
Anyway, as all good stories start....we sat down in a muskeg and began to blow the deer call. A light snow was blowing in our faces which meant that the bucks in front of us wouldn't smell us. We were doing everything right but nothing was happening. I was perhaps getting a wee-bit discouraged after about 15 minutes of nothing but snow when off to our left and behind us we heard something crunching in the bushes. Try as we might we couldn't see anything, so I sent Brian down that way hoping that he would be able to see a buck trying to sneak into our location.
Now, although Brian claims I did it on purpose, what happened next was pure chance and nothing more. As brian walked away to try to locate the source of the noise behind us, suddenly directly in front of where Brian had been sitting not 60 seconds before, stepped out a nice buck. I looked for Brian but he as already too far gone to even see it so I did what had to be done and shot it.
Now the funny part of this story is that Brian later confessed that as he walked away from me he had the funny thought in his head, "what if Jim shot me in the back and left me up here?" As this thought was going through his mind and he was rationalizing it away because of how nice I am......BOOM! I shot and he very nearly jumped out of his britches.
Well, it was just fate and I had no idea that by sending Brian away I would get his buck....but thats how funny stories go.
p.s. Grace was soooooooo excited that "daddy shot a huge buck and its on our porch!!!!!" She was ecstatic.
Not to be beaten by the bucks I saw on my last adventure, i returned to the very same mountain with another friend to attempt once again to provide much meat for the family. My friend has not yet killed a sitka blacktail buck in Alaska so I tried my best to let him lead the way and I tried to put him in the best spots.
Anyway, as all good stories start....we sat down in a muskeg and began to blow the deer call. A light snow was blowing in our faces which meant that the bucks in front of us wouldn't smell us. We were doing everything right but nothing was happening. I was perhaps getting a wee-bit discouraged after about 15 minutes of nothing but snow when off to our left and behind us we heard something crunching in the bushes. Try as we might we couldn't see anything, so I sent Brian down that way hoping that he would be able to see a buck trying to sneak into our location.
Now, although Brian claims I did it on purpose, what happened next was pure chance and nothing more. As brian walked away to try to locate the source of the noise behind us, suddenly directly in front of where Brian had been sitting not 60 seconds before, stepped out a nice buck. I looked for Brian but he as already too far gone to even see it so I did what had to be done and shot it.
Now the funny part of this story is that Brian later confessed that as he walked away from me he had the funny thought in his head, "what if Jim shot me in the back and left me up here?" As this thought was going through his mind and he was rationalizing it away because of how nice I am......BOOM! I shot and he very nearly jumped out of his britches.
Well, it was just fate and I had no idea that by sending Brian away I would get his buck....but thats how funny stories go.
p.s. Grace was soooooooo excited that "daddy shot a huge buck and its on our porch!!!!!" She was ecstatic.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
Stumped and Duped by the blacktail bucks
Today as a addendum to a very successful deer hunting season I thought it wise to take a friend from church (a coast guardsmen from florida who has never shot a living creature) on an alaskan deer hunt.
The day started well with a early morning break in the rain and a pleasant, yet difficult climb up a very steep hill. After several hours of hiking my friend finally came out with the proverbial question, "so have you killed anything this year?" The insinuation of course was that my guiding skills were lacking and that there was some uncertainty about my ability to navigate and guide a non-resident to a Sitka Blacktail Buck (which of course if he had read our family blog, he would know that i successfully assisted cousin George already this year).
Anyway, after calmly telling him that I had indeed been successful this year already, the overall attitude of our hunting party changed from pessimistic to mildly annoyed that I had apparently lost my skill as a woodsmen in recent weeks since my last hunting adventure. I offered up the encouraging words that I myself have heard on countless such hunting adventures when my feet just didn't want to pick up anymore, all my extremities were wet and cold and slightly frostbitten and my candybar supply had run low: "all we can do is keep looking." It never sounded good hearing that as a boy and as it escaped my mouth today I felt my friends pain, but what else can you do?
Anyway, slightly later in our adventure as the discouragement of wading through devil's clubs and sliding down muddy hills was setting in, we jumped up two bucks (a fork and a spike) for which neither of us was ready and both of which deftly escaped.
Now this is a tough mixing of emotions. On the one hand just seeing a deer after countless hours of laboring through very dense wet wilderness is encouraging, but to spend countless hours laboring through dense-wet wilderness and to finally see a buck (none the less two) and to have it simply run away without so much as a warning shot through the ear (thank you cousin George) is just down right discouraging.
After this initial upset my friend and I trudged for another hour or two through more dense-wet wilderness until we finally could see the logging road from whence we came at about 300 yards out. At this point in our journey we had accepted our defeat and were just bush-whacking our way through toward the road when much to my suprise and chagrin I spotted a forked horn Sitka Blacktail Buck just staring at me from about 50 feet away. RIGHT NEXT TO THE STINKING ROAD!
This was obviously the Lord blessing us and i could hardly believe it so as quickly as i could i loaded a shell in the chamber of my rifle and removed my scope covers, put the cross-hairs of my scope on his neck and pulled the trigger.......CLICK! Not Bang, not boom, but click! I still had my safety on and upon seeing all the commotion the 3rd buck of our day quickly ran away from us not knowing that had I been more in-tune with the safety mechanism of my rifle he would have "been a goner!"
Now at this point in our trip i could only shake my head and laugh uncomfortably because we had been fortunate enough to see more bucks in one morning than are often seen in a multi-day trip, but had failed to harvest any. After a brief bathroom break and a quick lament about how we should have been ready, we continued on the last 300 yards down to the road, quite encouraged and discouraged simultaneously.
With the road about 30 yards in front of us I noticed much to my glee and chagrin that yet another forked horn Sitka Blacktail Buck was standing in the middle of the logging road looking at us talking, and then a brief moment in time later running as fast as possible the other direction.
Inspired by our lack of success harvesting a deer so far in the hunt, I took after my Cousin George's example and tried the "sprint after the running deer to get another shot technique". Unfortunatly for me, the only shot that presented itself was at about 125 yards with the deer in a dead-run away from me. I did the only thing I could and quickly squeezed off a shot at the deer (hoping for a successful gluteus-maximus shot which proved successful for Cousin George on our last hunt). Unfortunatly for me, however, the 4th and final buck of our day continued running unhampered by my attempt to harvest him.
The blatant contradictory emotions we were both experiencing on the 30 minute walk back to the vehicle was nothing less than comical. How can you not be happy with going hunting for 8 hours and seeing 4 bucks, all the while within eye-sight of downtown Ketchikan? Yet also, how can you be satisfied with seeing 4 bucks in one short hunt and not having the skill or luck to harvest even one?
These are the tangled struggles a young hunter faces in todays complex world.
The day started well with a early morning break in the rain and a pleasant, yet difficult climb up a very steep hill. After several hours of hiking my friend finally came out with the proverbial question, "so have you killed anything this year?" The insinuation of course was that my guiding skills were lacking and that there was some uncertainty about my ability to navigate and guide a non-resident to a Sitka Blacktail Buck (which of course if he had read our family blog, he would know that i successfully assisted cousin George already this year).
Anyway, after calmly telling him that I had indeed been successful this year already, the overall attitude of our hunting party changed from pessimistic to mildly annoyed that I had apparently lost my skill as a woodsmen in recent weeks since my last hunting adventure. I offered up the encouraging words that I myself have heard on countless such hunting adventures when my feet just didn't want to pick up anymore, all my extremities were wet and cold and slightly frostbitten and my candybar supply had run low: "all we can do is keep looking." It never sounded good hearing that as a boy and as it escaped my mouth today I felt my friends pain, but what else can you do?
Anyway, slightly later in our adventure as the discouragement of wading through devil's clubs and sliding down muddy hills was setting in, we jumped up two bucks (a fork and a spike) for which neither of us was ready and both of which deftly escaped.
Now this is a tough mixing of emotions. On the one hand just seeing a deer after countless hours of laboring through very dense wet wilderness is encouraging, but to spend countless hours laboring through dense-wet wilderness and to finally see a buck (none the less two) and to have it simply run away without so much as a warning shot through the ear (thank you cousin George) is just down right discouraging.
After this initial upset my friend and I trudged for another hour or two through more dense-wet wilderness until we finally could see the logging road from whence we came at about 300 yards out. At this point in our journey we had accepted our defeat and were just bush-whacking our way through toward the road when much to my suprise and chagrin I spotted a forked horn Sitka Blacktail Buck just staring at me from about 50 feet away. RIGHT NEXT TO THE STINKING ROAD!
This was obviously the Lord blessing us and i could hardly believe it so as quickly as i could i loaded a shell in the chamber of my rifle and removed my scope covers, put the cross-hairs of my scope on his neck and pulled the trigger.......CLICK! Not Bang, not boom, but click! I still had my safety on and upon seeing all the commotion the 3rd buck of our day quickly ran away from us not knowing that had I been more in-tune with the safety mechanism of my rifle he would have "been a goner!"
Now at this point in our trip i could only shake my head and laugh uncomfortably because we had been fortunate enough to see more bucks in one morning than are often seen in a multi-day trip, but had failed to harvest any. After a brief bathroom break and a quick lament about how we should have been ready, we continued on the last 300 yards down to the road, quite encouraged and discouraged simultaneously.
With the road about 30 yards in front of us I noticed much to my glee and chagrin that yet another forked horn Sitka Blacktail Buck was standing in the middle of the logging road looking at us talking, and then a brief moment in time later running as fast as possible the other direction.
Inspired by our lack of success harvesting a deer so far in the hunt, I took after my Cousin George's example and tried the "sprint after the running deer to get another shot technique". Unfortunatly for me, the only shot that presented itself was at about 125 yards with the deer in a dead-run away from me. I did the only thing I could and quickly squeezed off a shot at the deer (hoping for a successful gluteus-maximus shot which proved successful for Cousin George on our last hunt). Unfortunatly for me, however, the 4th and final buck of our day continued running unhampered by my attempt to harvest him.
The blatant contradictory emotions we were both experiencing on the 30 minute walk back to the vehicle was nothing less than comical. How can you not be happy with going hunting for 8 hours and seeing 4 bucks, all the while within eye-sight of downtown Ketchikan? Yet also, how can you be satisfied with seeing 4 bucks in one short hunt and not having the skill or luck to harvest even one?
These are the tangled struggles a young hunter faces in todays complex world.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
The Ear
Meant to respond to Katy's comment about the location of the ear. I took the pierced ear home as a momento. It is now hanging (unbeknownst to Julie, seriously) on the edge of the tree fort facing the window of our guest bathroom. It's been there for a week, and nobody has noticed it yet. I think it will be a good conversation piece and excuse for me to tell my hunting story to any guest who asks about it.
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