Well hi there, journal. Hope you are doing well.

I picked up a big red fox that had been hit by a car yesterday. Not too much damage and his skull seems intact so I'm pretty excited. The only other fox skull I have is from a tiny adolescent red fox. It still has baby teeth. This new one is going to dwarf him.

Other than that, not much going on in scavenger land. My big coyote skull from the one I picked up on the side of the road earlier this year and skinned is finally finished. Turned out beautifully aside from a broken zygomatic arch from a bullet wound.

It's ridiculously cold here today. Winter's fast approaching.

I forgot about this journal again. I am lame.

...I also forgot that I have a dead snake in the freezer.

Next to the orange juice.

This might not end well.

That is all.

I picked up a deer skull and partial skeleton I've been letting rot since December a couple weeks ago. A few days later I found a young raccoon carcass while out for an evening walk. Have found a few miscellaneous bits and pieces since then as well.

The skull of the coyote that I skinned earlier this year is nearly done too. It's in pretty good shape, just need to do some repair work on one zygomatic arch that was damaged, I guess when he was shot. (I found him on the side of the road. I thought he had been hit but I found a bullet hole when I was skinning him. Guess he ran or was just dumped.) Also have a nice male possum skull that's nearly finished as well. Possum skulls are bitches to work with, for me at least. They always fall apart and have to be totally rebuilt. Oh well, they look really cool. :)

That deer skull I picked up is going to need a lot of work too. Apparently, he had a nice set of antlers at some point. Until someone came along and sawed them off. Whoever did this damaged the rest of the skull in the process so that will need to be fixed. I think I'm going to try and do an antler transplant for the poor guy too.

I love my hobby. It's basically a combination of continuous scavenger hunts, puzzle solving, restoration, and science.

Black racer snakes, snapping turtle hatchlings, and ancient box turtles make for a fun time at the EAC. :)

I had a total nerdgasm yesterday. I've collected rocks and fossils since I was a kid (yeah, yet another level to my geekiness.) And I had an uncle that passed away several years ago that had the absolute motherload of rock collections. It was truly a thing of beauty. He had rocks from every state in the US and from numerous countries around the world. Gorgeous fossils of ferns and shells, geodes of numerous sizes and shapes, mica, slate, shale with more fossils, lava rocks, crystals of a variety of color and size, just all kinds of stuff. I've not enough of a rock hound to even know what a lot of them were, but I just know it was a massive collection and that they were very pretty.

Anyway, I ended up with several boxes of these rocks after he passed away and I have cherished them for years. But I never really knew what happened to the rest of his collection. I just figured they were distributed through out the never-ending family I have on that side. I was mistaken.

Today I fount his entire collection. Entire. Collection.

No exaggeration, this bucket of rocks probably weighed 300+ pounds. It took me nearly half and hour to get it onto a dolly and move it. The rocks, fossils, and sea shells in it boggle my mind. I need to take pictures of them because it's just insane the colors and textures on some of them.

So I was a very happy nerd yesterday. And will be for quite a while. Thank you, Uncle!

I went to the EAC (Emily's Awesome Creek) this afternoon for a bit of hiking and fishing. While wandering around this little muddy area I call 'Turtle Lagoon' I managed to sink up to my knees in mud not one, not two, but four times. Managed to save my boots every time but I lost my socks. Go figure. Did catch a young snapping turtle and a red-eared slider hatchling while I was there so it was worth it. The slider was a little bigger than a quarter. :)

I saw something that I've never seen in person before down there today. Two Horse Hair Worms. Creepy looking little buggers, especially considering one of them nearly wrapped himself around my bare toes before I saw him.

Also saw Indigo Buntings, a Red-tailed Hawk, Blue Heron, heard a Kingfisher, and lots of other birdies. And I caught three small mouth bass and a pretty Rock bass. Also caught a bunch of minnows for Cat Stevens, my catfish. He's happy now.

It was a good day. :)

I'm really horrible at coming up with new journal titles. So I guess I'll just use song titles when I'm completely stuck.

Found an adorable little white tail buck skull at a flea market last weekend. Deer skulls, especially ones with any semblance of antlers, always seem to be outrageously priced at flea markets and yards sales. I guess because they are usually trophies of whoever is selling them and they are just exceptionally attached to them. Or just greedy. ;) Anyway, got this little guy with his 8-point antlers for just fifteen bucks. Not bad, especially considering I saw one about the same size and shape a few weeks back for $75. Named him Bucky and he holds my sunglasses for me when I'm not wearing them.

I'm planning to round all of my skulls up and take another group shot of them soon. The collection has grown considerably since I last did that.

Off topic, but I screwed up my right pointer finger yesterday. I guess I damaged a nerve it or something because it's been pins and needles from the tip to the first knuckle all yesterday and today. The very tip feels like its raw or something. I seriously hope that goes away soon. Makes for hard times drawing, writing, and typing.

I found a dead little garter snake on the road this morning. Don't know what happened to him because he was in perfect shape, aside being dead of course. He was less than a foot long so I decided against trying to saved him for bones. I've tried that before and they are just so small I can't do anything with them. So I thought I would try my hand at skinning him. Lord knows I need more practice in that department.

It went pretty well, especially considering my lack of experience. The only thing I've ever skinned with the intention of keeping was my big coyote earlier this year. This little guy was exceptionally smaller, plus reptile skin is pretty thin and delicate. But I did it and hopefully it will turn out nice. I've got it pinned, salted, and out in the sun for a while now. Might post pics if it turns out.

Well, once again, I'm going to try and do better with updating this journal. But, I'm going to try something a little different.

I think I'm going to use it to log my critter encounters and scavenging (bone collecting) (mis)adventures. So lets see how that all goes. :)

To start things off, bones! It never ceases to amaze me where you can find bones. Up in trees, under car hoods, in attics, flea markets and yard sales(of course), barns, roads, yards, creeks, they turn up everywhere! So I really shouldn't have been surprised to nearly vacuum up a partial possum skull when I was cleaning out the giant outdoor fireplace today. No other bones, just the beat up skull. And I also bruised the hell out of my ass when I fell on a pipe while collecting some miniscule tiger salamander vertebrae this afternoon. I bet I'm the first person to have ever done that! Go me!

As for animal antics, I caught three American toads (bufo americanus) during American Literature class Wednesday night. Earlier that day I caught one around the back porch that had some serious Kruegerian scars on his back. Looked like his entire lower back had been torn off, but it seemed to have healed nicely. Amphibians are really amazing healers. I remember this enormous bull frog that used to live in a tiny pond in my backyard as a kid. He had very distinct markings and I remembered going out nights with my flash light to spy on him. Anyway, one day I saw him out on a rock with his guts hanging out a couple of inches behind him. Something had torn a hole in his side. I figured that was it for the poor guy so imagine my surprise when I saw him again a few weeks later, happy and healthy with a gnarly black-blue scar on his side.

Eat your heart out, Wolverine! ;)