Mississippi PLS 3228!!!

It's official!   I passed my Mississippi Professional Land Surveyors exam!  To God be the Glory!

"Roadrunner" Ralph

My brother Ralph killed a coyote during the deer season.  One less varmint to prey on the calves and fawns...Beep Beep!

View from the deer stand

My view from the "road corner" stand...complete with 30-30 Winchester Model 94 barrel in the foreground!  Anson killed his deer from this stand and I saw a big six-point here this morning (couldn't shoot him... only have an antlerless tag left)

Son-in-law's first deer!

Well...at 7:00am this morning my son-in-law, Anson Miller killed his first deer!  He thought it was a doe but when we got to examining it we found it was a button-buck.  For a young man that has never really been hunting, he came through like a trooper!  He field-dressed it (with detailed instructions and very little help), skinned it out (likewise with more help) and quartered it up (mostly me!).  We will package it tomorrow.  He is now qualified to give the Ozark Deer Season (ODS) greeting...

"Git-che-a-deer"

 

Crazy Squirrels!

Just one of the 17,537 squirrels around my deer stand this morning....

9 Point Buck - 1982

After a hiatus of around twenty year, I am going to the "deer woods" tomorrow.  My son-in-law, Anson, is really hyped about going since this is is first year.  He is an Indiana native and just never got in to the hunting thing...until this year!!  My brother has leased land north of his house and we've been invited to hunt (and hopefully kill) some deer!

A little background...My Dad, Brother and Grandpa Riggs used to hunt together every year.  Deer season was a national holiday at the Riggs household!  The first day of deer season in 1985 my Dad didn't go out - can't really remember the excuse but that was a little odd.  When we got back home in the middle of the day there was a note on the table that Mom had taken him to the hospital.  That night he had a massive heart attack and three weeks later, December 8, he passed away.

I went out for a couple-a-three years after that but it just wasn't the same.  One morning, sitting on my deer stand, freezing my bohunkus off, I said to myself, "Self!...this has ceased to be fun and enjoyable"...So...I walked out of the woods and have only been back with my blackpowder rifle a time or two.

This is a picture of a nine-point I killed in 1982, hunting with Popo (Grandpa Riggs)...which is another story all in itself!!!

Cadastral Monument in El Dorado Springs, MO

Yours truly in El Dorado Springs, Missouri at a memorial commemorating two cadastral surveyors that worked with the General Land Office (GLO) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM).  It has almost 200 name of people from the El Dorado Springs area that worked for these two entities.  I was working on a project in the city and tied to a benchmark located in the far background.  I noticed the memorial and had Chris take this picture.

Set in top of monument