A review sponsored by the great folks at Glacier Glove.

Before I left for our annual fishing trip, I was contacted by the wonderful folks at Glacier Glove to do a review for one of their gloves. I don’t accept all reviews offered, but this was different … because … well …

I use a handy wipe to take little baby fish off my hook.

Over the years I’d felt guilty having my husband take all my fish off the hook.  So I’d tried using towels, handy wipes, and my sweatshirt thanks to a tip from my outdoor friend Arthur, just to give my husband a break and not be bothered.

So this trip was very relaxing for my husband and very productive for me because I had …

The Glacier Glove

Glacier Glove has many style gloves for a variety of outdoor activities from hunting gloves, fishing gloves, paddling gloves, sun gloves and cycling gloves.  The style glove that was sent to me was actually from their hunting section but I used it during my fishing trip.

And this is what my fishing glove looked like by the end of the week.

Can you tell it was put to good use? Holy fish slime guts.

The first few days I bounced around the boat in excitement that I was taking my own fish off the hook. I even had a dance for it.

By mid-week it wasn’t as exciting because I realized how good I had it when my husband was in charge of all that.

I use to be  the carefree I’m never touching a fish chick with my feet up swinging my pole in my husband’s face for him to do the dirty deed.  (In case you’re wondering, yes I’d hit him in the head a few times.)

By the end of the week I honest to goodness said …

“I don’t know what crazy person invented this stupid glove.”

Yes I said that.

Because it worked.  And it worked well!

But I liked being the princess that doesn’t take her fish off her own hook.  And now, because of the Glacier Glove, I’ll forever have to take my fish off my own hook.

And I want one of you to be just as fishing independent as me.  So tomorrow, I am giving away one pair of the Glacier Gloves to one of you!

Have a great day all … and I wouldn’t be The Hunter’s Wife if at some point during the end of my fishing trip next year, my Glacier Glove goes missing.

We have a love/hate relationship.

See the original article at TheHuntersWife.net

For those of you that weren’t reading my blog last year, I was stalking baby mallard duck eggs.  For weeks I saw the male and female hanging between our house and a neighbor’s house.  Finally we found that mother duck found the perfect bedding spot for her eggs.

And she sat.

And sat.

For weeks.

And according to several online sites about mallards, her cute little babies were to hatch within the week.

Until …

A Dirty Rotten Nasty Fox ate them.

I was horrified and heartbroken when I saw the photos from our trail cam.

So this year I’ve been waiting on their return.   I heard them one morning a couple of weeks ago and saw them in a neighbors yard once. As of last week, no sign of them at all. I’ve been searching and searching in our yard, a few neighbor’s yards, driving my car slowing around the neighborhood, secretly peeking in neighbors bushes in hopes of locating them. No luck.

Until…

I was minding my own business on Facebook when my husband walked in and said, “Marty (neighbor across the street) has duck eggs in his bushes.”

Me: Are you kidding? Why oh why would she lay her eggs over there. That’s right in the path of a running fox. His yard isn’t fenced. We have a yard with a fence and lots of bushes to protect her. Why in the world would she lay them over there?

Mark: Jody, I better not catch you over there peeking in his bushes.

Me:  Don’t you have somewhere to go?  I think you need more grass seed.

911 what’s your emergency: I think we have a peeping tom. There’s a crazy lady dressed in a black sweatsuit with her hood on peeking in our bushes. Yes you heard me right.  Not our window. Our bushes.

Maybe if I wear camouflage no one will notice me.

Have a good day all … I have sweet little baby duck eggs to find. And think I better practice my fence jumping skills.

See the original article at TheHuntersWife.net

I didn’t catch a shark but that is what 2-year-old Ella from St. Francis, MN said when she caught her first fish, a 20 lb muskie, on her cute little pink barbie fishing pole.  I luv it!

“I caught a shark!” Sounds like something I would swear I caught. Even if you’d swear it was a little tiny baby bluegill.

I love a good kids fishing story especially when it involves using a pink barbie fishing pole.

Thanks to Ben at Ben G Outdoors for sharing the link.

And word on the street is there’s a grown man in TX running around fishing with a pink barbie pole.

Have a good day all … I need to go find where Mark hid my cute little pink barbie pole.

Link and more on the story of Ella’s shark can be read at My Fox Twin Cities.

See the original article at TheHuntersWife.net

I’m not a bowler.  I’ve never been on a bowling team, owned a bowling shirt or my own bowling bowl.  I’d drop it on my toe.  I’ve only gone bowling for the fun of it all.  Like for midnight bowling … with drinks.  Except this past Saturday no drinks were involved when my sister and I took my niece bowling.

Addison loved bowling …

And I forgot my camera so I used my cell phone.

I wanted to get a good action picture of our little bowler to send to her Mom so without thinking and never hearing my sister yelling, “DON’T STEP OVER THE BLACK LINE” … umm … well … I stepped over the black line.

Dear inexperienced bowlers;  Never EVER step over the black line.

As soon as I stepped over the black line, the thing beeped. That is to let you know you are out of bowling bounds and you shouldn’t cheat.  Except I think it should have a speaker that says …

DO NOT STEP OVER THE BLACK LINE OR YOUR @$$ WILL WIPE OUT.

And that is where my @$$ fell.

Have you ever stepped over the black line?  It’s like a whole new world over there.  Slippery when wet doesn’t even compare. That @hit is greased up and I couldn’t get up.

I’ve fallen and can’t get up.

Is that statement ever true.

But I seriously couldn’t.

I couldn’t even crawl.

There’s a reason those lanes look shiny.  And it isn’t from the lights.

You’d think my sister would run to my rescue and help pull me over that stupid black line, but her @ss sat there laughing.

Poor Addison said, “Auntie JoJo can we go home now.”

Auntie Jojo, “Sure baby just as soon as I crawl out of grease land.”

I obviously was concerned about getting that once in a lifetime photo because when I looked back at my pictures I saw this …

Apparently I was able to snap a picture on my way down.

And apparently by the bruise on my hip I was more concerned about not breaking my phone than my hip.

911 can we help you: “Um hi.  This is the bowling alley, some stupid crazy lady just stepped over the black line and fell and thinks she broke her hip.”

Have a good day all … I think I need to get the medical alert thingy for seniors.

See the original article at TheHuntersWife.net

It’s been a very busy month and I was hoping to get myself caught up this weekend and back on track but …

This cute little chicklet showed up for the weekend …

And after we found a broken robin egg on the ground, we spent hours outdoors taking nature walks looking for more robin eggs.

But I promise … even if I have to stay up until midnight tonight … I will have a post here tomorrow about how I fell and couldn’t get up.

Have a wonderful day all!

See the original article at TheHuntersWife.net

Before I left for vacation I asked a few bloggers if they’d like to do a guest post here at The Hunter’s Wife.  Nancy Jo Adams from Shenanigans From the Field sent me this guest post a couple of weeks ago.  I thought today would be the perfect day  to share it with my readers.

Saturday morning was a slow morning in the blind as I sat on the edge of a field in hopes of seeing the Grand Poopah; a name I dubbed the trophy bird that we filmed on this land earlier this season. As I sat there listening…and watching the weeds grow…my beloved Crackie vibrated in my cargo pant pocket. I thought to myself, I guess now would be the perfect time to catch up with what is waiting in my inbox. It was well after fly-down time and we had not heard a tom in over thirty minutes which was a tell-tale sign that they were “henned-up”.

As I looked through the messages in my inbox I ran across a Facebook message from Jody aka the Hunter’s Wife. Interesting, I am going to have to read this one now; knowing that it was going to bring a chuckle or a pondering thought. The message was asking if I wanted to write a guest post. Guest post? Shoot yeah, I want the opportunity to write a guest post on Jody’s blog.

As I sat there thinking how ironic that was…an avid “if I will eat it-I will hunt it” hunter writing a guest post in a blog by a camo-loving, crappie fishing, cupcake baking non-hunter. This can’t be too hard–not so long ago, I WAS a hunter’s wife so I have experience here; I think.

So I sat and pondered for a little bit and it must have been the dew dampened earth permeating my nostrils, or the beam of sunshine that crept through a crack in the blind window that warmed my shoulder, or maybe even the song birds serenading me with a tune they were programmed to sing before their first light–I don’t know what it was exactly but the thought that Jody was missing out on all of these things was sad to me. The thrill of seeing an animal in their natural habitat unknowing of your presence, the communication of the animals among each other, the interaction between a caller and a tom as that tom methodically displays all of his grandeur; the colors ricocheting off his feathers of gold, copper, beige and the stark red, white and blue of his head. The sound, which cannot be explained in words, of a gobble as it rattles the stillness of a cool morning and the building anticipation while watching a tom strutting into your decoy setup; gobbling the entire way. The heart pounding moment that you raise your gun in attempt to harvest that tom and the wing flapping, dust flying moment right after the shot as you run out to get a better look at your prize harvest.

Wow! I wondered to myself, “What would it take to get Jody into the woods to experience all this?”

But like a needle SCREECHING across a record, glass SHATTERING on concrete, or two pots CLANGING together….I popped back to reality. WHAT WAS I THINKING??? I could just see it now…calamity in the field. I could just envision the morning now:

Turkey: {Gobbling from the tree!}
Jody: What was that racket?
Nancy Jo: That was a gobble. Didn’t it give you chills and make your hair on your arms stand on end?
Jody: More like raised the hair on the nape of my neck…what a racket!
Nancy Jo: Look at that beautiful sunrise!
Jody: Great! Now it is going to get hot and muggy. My hair is going to be a wreck!
Nancy Jo: The birds are on the ground now. We should see them any minute.
Jody: What is that smell? Peww..It smells musky!
Nancy Jo: That is the damp ground from the dew. Smells fresh, eh?
Jody: Like fresh mildew. Is this smell going to stay in my clothes and hair?
Nancy Jo: That sun beam coming through the window feels good doesn’t it? Warms you clean to the core.
Jody: Look at all that dust and pollen blowing in the air…ewww….is that going to stay in my clothes and hair?
Nancy Jo: Look Jody!! Look, the tom is headed our way.
Jody: Oh my!! What an ugly bird! He looks like a buzzard!!
Nancy Jo: Look! Look at that! He is strutting, putting on a show for the decoys! Isn’t that the neatest thing? Simply beautiful!
Jody: Is that a bug on my pant leg?? Oh! Oh! Is that a TICK? Get it off!! Get it off of me!!
Nancy Jo: Shhhh!! You are going to scare off the tom.
Jody: I am bored! Do you have any games on Crackie? How about the Internet? Anything?
Turkey: {Gobbles.} {Struts.} {Gobbles.} {Struts.} {Gobbles.} {Strut.}
Jody: What a racket! Can you get him to shut up? Shoo him away or something. Make him stop all that non-sense. What does he think he is doing anyways with all that poofing up and charades he is doing?
Nancy Jo: He is strutting for the decoys. I am fixing to make him quiet, dead quiet.
Nancy Jo: Raises her gun. Clicks the safety off and prepares to make a cluck to make the tom alert for the shot.
Jody: WAIT! ARE YOU GOING TO SHOOT HIM?
Nancy Jo: Yep! Look at that beautiful beard on him. I sure hope he has nice long spurs too!
Jody: NO!! You can’t shoot that BEAUTIFUL bird. Look how cute he is all puffed out. Look at the wonderful colors reflecting off of him. Look how pretty his pony tail is. He is so patriotic looking with that red, white, and blue head….NO!! You can’t shoot him!! No! No!
Nancy Jo: He is a trophy bird Jody—I can’t shoo him off!! He will also make an awesome honey bourbon grilled turkey breast.
Jody: No!! As she rises to stick her head out of the blind…shoo bird, shoo… get out of here–waving her arms frantically in the air.
Turkey: {Putt!} {Putt!}
Nancy Jo: As I watch tail feathers waggling, beard flopping from side to side and the bird disappear over the terrace in a dead run, I click the safety on and lower my gun, shaking my head as I slump my shoulders.
Jody: With a big smile on her face. See, that wasn’t hard at all. I’m hungry. Let’s go see if we can find a cupcake some place. Does my hair look okay?

Yeah, what was I thinking?? Like the song birds, programmed for a predetermined sound before hatching…some women are born NOT to be in the woods with a gun sitting in their lap, sun on their shoulder, damp earth permeating their nostrils, and anticipation keeping them glued to their seat for hours on end as they ponder many things… crazy things at times.

Nancy Jo Adams – Shenanigans From the Field

Thank you Nancy Jo.

To my readers: Nancy Jo is a great follow on Facebook. That showoff outdoor chick does nothing but hunt.

See the original article at TheHuntersWife.net