In Hot Pursuit of a Lion

My friend Falyn's Dad, Mike, is an avid Lion Hunter. On Saturday he and his dogs pursued a lion that ledged up right off of the Lake Road. It was up in the rocks on the west side of the lake road across from the big cliff, aka Jennies Jump, aka Poison Point, aka where Jessie Miles wreck, aka the 'aahhaaaa part' (as Kelsie called it in her youth.) Anyway, never mind the names.
Mike called Falyn to come up and check it out since it was only 100 yards off the road and easy to see. so she called me and some other friends and we headed up. I have only seen 2 Lions in my day, both of which ran in front of me as I was driving in a vehicle. One of which I hit about 1/2 mile south from the location of the ledged up lion. Needless to say I jumped at this opportunity! I was so excited to see my first live lion up close and personal.

Now, I have a major fear of lions and know one day I will be attacked by one of these evil creatures. Whenever I go into the great outdoors I am packin' my pistol in preparation for that one time when I will fall victim to a lion. It will probably rip out my juggler before I can whip out the pistol, but having a pistol does give me some sort of false security. This trip I did not have a gun, and I was only armed with my camera. This is all beside the point, I am just telling you this to let you know how afraid of Lions I am.

So... back to the story. The previous mentioned lion was perched upon a rock, which was very visible from the road. We took some pictures from there then hiked up the hill above the Mountain lion to call the dogs off. Man my heart was pounding as we neared the lion, 1/4 because I was excited but 3/4 because of the trek up the hill and being out of shape. We got up within about 25 yards of the big Tom cat, when Mike and 2 other guys went closer to peel the dogs aways from the lion. The lion took a couple steps towards them, I took a couple steps away. Before Mike could round up all 5 of of his dogs the cat lept from its roost and sprung down the hill to get away from the dogs and guys standing 10 feet away from him. The chase was on again! The dogs chased the lion down the steep rocky hill, across the lake road, through the river, and to the woods (to Grandmothers house they go....) anyway, it ran up a hill and straight up a tree for safety. The dogs had the lion treed, so we made our way up another gruesome, slick north slope. One time I fell waist deep in the snow, but made it out alive and with snow in my boots and britches. We arrived at the location and looked up to admire the cougar 20 feet above our heads hissing and growling. One crazy, foolish SOB, named Matt, climbing the tree for a better look. He eventually got about 4 feet from the lion when hisssssss, swat... the lion took a swipe at him missing him by a meer foot, (We laughed about it once we noticed Matts face was still in tact.) After that Matt decided to back off and climb back down the tree. We observed the lion and took many a photographs then made our trek back down the slip and slide hill. After a few falls and using our rear ends as sleds we made it back to the truck. Thus ending a successful day of pursuing a fearsome Mountain Lion and living to tell about it.

The view from the road...

Zoomed in of course!

This is My Favorite Picture

He is growling at the dogs

The View from Above

Look at how long his tail is, I also love this pic

The Lion and the Hounds

The Lion Treed

Look closely in the Tree and you can see Matt and the Lion above his head a few feet

Oops!

As you know I am a student at Southern Utah University, and I have classes all day on Tuesday and Thursday. On Tuesday at 3pm- 5pm I have a Special Education class then on Thursday from 3pm-4pm I have a Secondary Education class.

Today, being Tuesday, when 3 pm rolled around I went to my class and everything seemed normal, but slowly I noticed things were wrong. The first thing I noticed was that all of the people I knew from that class were missing, well no big deal, I figured they were sick or something. With about 15 minutes left in class the role finally made its way around to me and I was preparing to put my signature next to my name, but I could not locate it. I looked in the B's and it was not listed under Barton, nor was it listed anywhere.

Then it hit me and I literally was laughing out loud. I was in my Thursday 3pm class and not my Tuesday 3pm class. The class that I was in was taught by the same teacher, infact it was the same class just the wrong day. haha! I got up and left since I was laughing at myself (Those who laugh at themselves shall never cease to be amused!) I quickly proceeded to the right 3pm class. I was 40 minutes late, but after class I apologized to the teacher about being late. She forgave me, at least I think, considering that she was laughing at my story!

Snip, Snip!

My hair was getting so dang long and scraggly, so I decided I should cut 4 to 5 inches off, which is nothing when your hair is as long as mine. Then I got to thinkin', you know if I am going to cut 5 inches then why the hell not make it 10 inches to donate to 'Locks of Love.'
Thus, I pondered on it for a month, and had my mom and Kelsie measure it a bunch of times to see how short my hair would be. After measuring 20 or 30 times we determined that I could still have a pony-tail, which is a#1 in my book. I was still not sure, but made an appointment with my #1 hair-doer Genny and told her my thoughts. I told her that I will not know for sure until she gets the official measurement. Well, after she measured it and determined I could successfully put it in a pony-tail, I said, "Let's just do it, and do it quick, before I change my mind."
snip snip!!!
And there it was shorter than I can ever remember my hair being. I knew I had to do it or I would be mad at myself for not going through with it, and to be honest, I kinda like it (but don't tell any one I said that, haha!)

The Short Pony-tail

and a lil shout out to the blog stalkers, Karen and Tammy!

Our New Kitchen

The Barton household finally has a decent Kitchen! The construction began in the spring, and was completely finished just in time for us to have Thanksgiving.

I love the Kitchen, and it is exactly what we have always needed; our old kitchen was way too small and boring. My Dad did an awesome job, he is amazing!

Walking into the old kitchen, which is now the dining room,

The Table

(the door going into the new kitchen is where the old sink & cabinets use to be)New Roll-Top DeskThe China-Hutch

(Where the fridge and stove use to be.)

The East side of the kitchen

and the island

The West side of the kitchen (we have a dishwasher now... movin on up!)

HUNTIN'

The Deer Hunt is over now, but my gosh it was a good one! I got a nice 4 point, Kelsie/my mom got a big 2 point. My cousin Brogon and Beverly both got their 1st deer which were both 2 points. Kelsie Gut her first deer, and she enjoyed it! And of course there was breakfast........de-freakin-liosious.

Look at how good that food is

Dad grillin' up the HashbrownsDerek and I cookinKelsie and BevBronson, Kelsie, My mom, and I in the jeep. A couple of years ago I built that bench that me and my mom are sitting on. We call it the Crows Nest.Beverlys husband Duke was working so we took her to shoot her 1st buck.Kelsie guttin it, I know it is sick!sorry, but I had to put this pic up. It shows how gross Kelsie is. That thing in her hand is called a heart, which was once inside that deer.KLC is a messBrogons 1st buck. A 2 point... nope now it is a 2 by spikeIf you look close you can see the antler he shot off. the side closest to him.

The last night neither my mom nor Kelsie had shot a buck. We wanted to find them one. Whenever we are hunting we go with our feelings of where the deer might be, just something funny we do. With about an hour left of daylight, I said, "you guys lets head up Sheep to the guzzler and maybe we will catch a buck crossing." So, we did and when we got up by the guzzler Bronson said, "oh ya, I have a good feeling about this too.

With about a half an hour of day light left Kelsie spotted a deer headed towards the guzzler on a ridge. I look in the binos ans said, "It's a buck, a good buck!" Kelsie and my mom jumped out and loaded a bullet. My mom told Kelsie to tell her when she was ready and that they needed to shoot at the same time. So, when they were both ready I did a lil count down...3...2...1...BOOM!! They shot at almost the exact same time and I was watching in the binoculars and yelled, "YOU GOT HIM!" He jumped up and ran, but didn't go too far. We don't know who hit it, or if they both hit it, but Kelsie Tagged it.

This was a perfect ending to a great hunt!

Ok, so this is kind of a long story, but I am going to try to shortin’ it up. If you don’t wanna read it you don’t have to, just skip down to the rest of the post.. I just thought I would type it because, well I can, and also maybe if any hunters out there want to read it. I am just thinking that Uncle Richard will enjoy it

Opening morning my Dad, Derek, and I went out on four-wheelers and my Mom, Bron, and Kelsie went in the truck. My Dad said he was going to go down into the flats and Derek said he was going to go through Sky Valley to the bottom of the flats where he had seen some nice bucks on the muzzleloader hunt. Before I left Derek told me that if I am down in the flats to go look in the draws that run down to Sky Valley in case he scares some bucks up to me. I had seen a few does and fawns in the morning then I decided to go look through the draws Derek was talking about. The first one I went to look in there was a hunter, and in the second one there was also a hunter. I then went to the next draw and didn’t see a hunter, but a buck standing behind a tree. He was about 350 yards away and I could see antlers, so I decided to shoot at him. I leaned over the fourwheeler and shot at his neck, since I could only see his head and neck. I totally missed and he took of full speed up the hill back towards the north. Two other bucks ran with him, but they were smaller. I shot 2 more shots at him and missed. He was running fast and was getting away quick. My fourth shot knocked him to the ground and he rolled about 50 feet down the hill. I was hoping he was dead, but he jumped up and tried to run back up hill and couldn’t. I was glad he headed down hill, which is a good sign that he was hit hard. I was trying to watch him and reload at the same time. He ran to the bottom of the draw before I could get reloaded.

I called my Dad and Derek and told them I had shot a buck and they headed over. Derek was the guy in the draw next to me so he just walked over. I began my descent down the drawn when all of a sudden I see our white truck pull up. My mom, Bron, and Kels jump out. I figured that my Dad had called them to come and help. So I just said, “I need Help finding him.” (they were like “Jonie, Jonie!” and I said, “Help me Help Me!” Not really but after words Bronson said that it was it reminded him of when I said I needed help.)

My dad didn’t call them; they just saw my fourwheeler up on the ridge and came to see what I was doing. So I explained to them where I had shot and they started lookin for blood. They never found blood, but did find were he rolled down the hill. We figured he was gut shot since there wasn’t blood.

I continued walking in the bottom of the draw when I soon met up with Derek. He told me that earlier in the morning he had missed a nice buck with 4 other bucks in the draw next to this one. He also said that he ran into Stan, the UPS man, and he had also missed a nice buck. So, Derek, Dad, and I kept walking down the draw to find him. All of a sudden Stan comes walking through and Derek said something to Stan that I thought was hilarious, he said, “Stan we are too late, she beat us to him!” Stan was not happy for himself, but he was for me.

At the bottom of the draw it widens up into Sky Valley with a wash running east and west. My dad went west, Derek went east and I zig-zagged back and forth. All the sudden I hear Derek yell, “ Jonie I jumped him.” I went over there and Derek said he saw the buck jump up and he ran off before he could get a shot. So, Derek and I took of walking down the wash. I was on one side and he on the other. About a half mile down the wash I was getting discouraged that we would never find him, and I could tell the Derek was too, but we kept trudging on. We walked about another half mile when I heard on the other side of the wash something crashing about. My heart began to pound and I cocked the ol Lever Action and was ready to shoot. I yelled to Derek, “Derek! I hear him, He is in the wash but I can’t see him.” Then I got a glimpse of him and he was trying to run, but he was hunched over so I knew he wasn’t going far. The buck saw Derek and then looked at me and froze where he was at, we had him trapped.

Derek Yelled back that he could see him too, and I said, “Get down I am going to shoot, oh I am shaking! Are you down? I am shooting”
Derek yelled, “I am down, Just shoot.” BOOM! I shot. He was 30 yards away and I was shaking so bad that I hit him in the back leg. Kinda Embarrassing.
Derek said to shoot him again.
I said “I gotta sit down, I am shaking way too bad.”
I shot him and he was down. Derek was the first one too him and he said, “Good job Jonie, way to go!” we were both so excited that we had got him after walking forever and being so discouraged that we would never find him. The buck was still kinda breathing so I let Derek give him one more shot to completely kill him. Derek ran back to get a fourwheeler and to find service to call the rest of the fam and tell them that we had finally got him!

Afterwards Derek just kept laughing about how I told him to get down and how I said I was so shaky. In fact, five days later, he is still laughing about it.

I like this pic cause it makes him look bigger than he really is.

21 inch 4x4

The Camera was in a weird mode, so this pic looks funny, but I like it.

Loadin' em in the truck