Turkey hunting adventure, 2014

The first of May our family was all packed up and headed up to the NY finger lakes area for our annual Spring turkey hunting vacation.  We decided to add in the NY portion of our trip again because there was a cabin available for us to stay at. I'm so glad that we did because we had such a lovely time there!  The cabin we stayed at is actually really nice. There's electric and plumbing and a kitchen and bathroom and bedrooms, it's fancy compared to where we usually stay on our vacations!

The pond:

Our friends who own this cabin live about a half mile down the road and keep some of their goats at the barn on this property.  The kids LOVED the goats. They went out to the barn to look at and pet them about 20 times a day :P

They even gave them all names, even thought they were already named by their owners, haha.  They kept calling them "their goats" and would watch the Cheneys milk and feed them twice a day while we were there.

Since we were up there for Ricky to go turkey hunting he went out first thing every morning and hunted for a little and then come back for breakfast with us and go back out again until noon.  The kids and I went on a couple walks, in between rain storms.

The one walk we went on we met 4 different dogs that were all friendly, thank goodness... people just leave their dogs out most of the day since it's so rural.  We also found a pottery place that had a sign out that said they were open.  We walked up the driveway to check it out and I was really glad we did! The people were really nice and even gave us a tour and answered all of the kids questions about pottery!  Thursday night we went over to say hi to our friends, whose cabin we were staying in, and they ended up inviting us to stay for dinner.  They were having a party for their granddaughter and so we stayed and helped them party :P The kids had lots of fun running around together and chasing all the animals.  Friday after dinner we went over to their son's house, right down the road to see the new dairy cow that they were getting.

They had just gotten home with it when we got there so it needed some adjusting still but was very nice.

This adorable calf came with it...

Joanna really needs to live on a farm somewhere, she loves all the animals so much!

The horse and the new cow getting acquainted:

Our friend Michelle was so nice to get her one horse out and give everyone rides!

Chase got to go first...

Joanna followed them all around the whole time, she was determined not to miss her turn!

I was shocked that Katy actually wanted a ride this time!  When my friend Ronda had a pony she wouldn't go near it.  She actually cried when her turn was over this time!

Petting the horse:

Ricky made me take a ride too :P

Saturday after Ricky went hunting we drove over to the Windmill farm and craft market and walked around there for a while.  We then drove over to our Mennonite farmer friends up there and visited with them for a couple hours.  We always love visiting them and I got lots of good ideas and tips for my garden from Doris before we left :)
That evening we went back over to Tim and Michelle's to see if we could catch the cow milking.  We got there right as they were finishing up and all the kids were able to give it a try.

Sunday morning we packed up all our things and cleaned up the cabin and then hit the road for the next part of our trip... Elk County, PA.We met Ricky's parent's there around 3 in the afternoon and settled in to our cabins.  I think Ricky's parents had a nicer bathroom than we did but ours wasn't THAT bad, and not a far walk from the cabin.  We had our very own bathroom assigned to our cabin with a lock and key and everything! It was nice to be able to leave our stuff in there all week and not worry about waiting on other people or anything.

We've tent camped a lot at Parker Dam State Park but this was the first time staying in their cabins.  I was impressed with them!  The cabin we had was pretty roomy, clean and well lit.  All the cabins were tucked away nicely in the woods too and back a private driveway that the kids could bike on if they wanted to.

Our cabin happened to be right by this little stream and patch of woods that the kids spent most of their time in.

It was so nice to sit on our porch or by the fire with a book and be able to watch them play in the stream and woods.  I actually got to finish 3 books on this vacation! I think we need a stream in our backyard!

The first few days I was able to go out turkey hunting with Ricky while his parent's stayed home with the kids.  We would hear a bunch gobbling in the mornings on their roosts but then couldn't get any to come to us.  The last day I went out with him I almost called a turkey in to where I was sitting. It was probably 60 yards away from me and then I shifted to get in a good shooting position and it must have heard me and got spooked, I could hear it, gobbling his head off the whole way down the hill going away from me.
In the afternoons we would go out elk spotting or fishing,

We stopped for dinner in Benezette one night...

haha! Our waitress was actually pretty nice :P
and we had to go wash our clothes halfway through the trip as well. The kids always think the laundromat is such a great adventure.  It was a lovely day so we sat outside while our clothes dried. Joanna said, "mom, take our picture, Chase and I are BEST friends!"

So cute.  We fished at the Parker Dam lake every day and ended up eating a lot of trout!  We also got to sit around the fire in the evenings, one of my favorite things to do.  Ricky and his dad made this ridiculous fire...

We ended up burning all those logs by the end of the week though :P

[nice face Joanna]

The kids and I also spent a lot of time at the Ranger Station.  It was a nice walk or short bike ride away and they have a great place set up with lots of educational movies and books.  The kids would pick out a movie to watch while I'd read a book about nature.  Their favorite movie was the one about spiders, they actually watched it two times and now they inspect every spider that they see to try and figure out what kind it is and make sure to trap it and set it free if it's in the house!
I think it was Thursday morning that Ricky came home with a turkey that he shot, hooray!

It was a huge gobbler with a 9" beard and 1" spurs. Ricky was very happy and felt much more relaxed with his hunting the rest of the trip :)

His parent's left Friday morning and then we ended up leaving Saturday morning because it was supposed to rain all day.  Actually I think it ended up not raining and being nice but I was ready to come home.  Katy cried when we left she said multiple times that she thought we should stay there forever :P  A fun time was had by all, that's for sure!