Look Forward and Walking Backwards

Looking forward but walking backwards is how I've felt about this blog in recent years. I am always looking forward and planning great things for it but it never quit makes to everyone to read. It either gets delayed/put off to the point of the post being out of season or completely lost in the abyss of my mind. So, I could sit here again and say how I am going to rededicate myself to my writings but I've done that before and it has not turned out the best. Then again I could completely scrap my blog and call it quits not like it is far from that with the lack of posting in the past year. Then again I like blogging and it does lead to me connecting with so many great people, so scarping it is not option. That leaves me with, well it leaves me with where I am at now. I post when I can, albeit hopefully I can pick up the pace this year, and if that does not work you can always find me on social media. Between my Twitter (@FoggyMtnMeander) and Facebook page (Foggy Mountain Meanderings) there isn't a shortage of updates and there's always a constant flow of pictures from Instagram (@foggymtnmeander) on both.

Basically what I am saying is I had a great 2013, it allowed me to harvest my first turkey amongst many other great experience in the outdoors this year. So here is to a great 2014 for everyone out there.

Below are just a few of my favorite pictures from the previous year.

Random Ramblings: Halloween Edition

It's been a long while since I've done a Random Ramblings. What better time to start doing one again that Halloween! Like I said in the Bear of an Adventure post, I have been slacking but I am going to try get start getting back into the swing of posting more regularly. I'm going to lay out a few things in this following post for everyone to looks forward to or not. This will be our own little form of Trick-or-Treat, if there is something that you see that you want to see sooner, let me know and you just might get your treat posted first, or I might have to trick you into holding out to the last one. That is the beauty of this day...

• Gear Reviews: I have a bunch of them still in the works. If you have been following along you know I have the been testing Seemz Scent Elimination System products and a Moultrie M-80 trail camera. The Seemz product testing is still going on, but the Moultrie M-80 is finally coming to an end so look forward to that in the near future! Not only that but I also have the Leatherman Kick finished review coming up soon also. A few other goodies I've collected along the way also, but for those you'll have to wait and find out.

• Recipes: A long, long time ago I promised my recipe for Black Berry jam, I haven't forgotten. I also have a quick 60 Second Venison Marinade that is always good to add a kick to your deer steaks or any steaks for that matter. 

•  Don't forget we still have a contest going on! You can still enter to win a Boone & Crockett Club Membership until Nov. 6, 2011 at 11:59 PM.

• A big thank you needs to go out to Paul, The Healthy Outdoorsman, for including me in his Top 11 Outdoor Blogs. 

• This is a little bit of old news, but I'll share it anyways. A week ago, the day after we went on a Bear of an Adventure, one of the guys who went with us, James, shot this great looking 8-point on the property next to Foggy Mountain. 

• Good luck and be safe out there hunting while the rut is getting ready to kick into high gear!

Random Ramblings #4

Hmm.. It seems I've been in a semi-posting slump. I'm not sure if I'd even call it a slump, it's not that I don't have anything to write in my posts or am at a lack of words (if you know me very well, you know that never happens). It's actually the exact opposite, I've been running around doing so much stuff lately, my blogging has been lacking. But I'm back at it and now to catch everyone up to speed...

• This past weekend started out pretty relaxing on Friday night. The weather finally dried up enough we were able to head to a friend house for a cookout and campfire afterwards.

• After a relaxing Friday evening the majority of the weekend turned into a whirl-wind of family events. It started out with my grandparent's 60th Wedding Anniversary, which most of the family was in for. It went over really well and I even managed to snap a few good pictures. On Sunday, as I'm sure everyone knows, it was Mother's Day. Per my mom's wishes we had a low key day and went out for pizza and ice cream that evening. That wasn't the finish of everything though, Monday was my mom's birthday also, after work we all got together and grilled out and just enjoyed the evening together.

• Even with all the family events this weekend I was able to squeeze some time in Saturday morning for a turkey hunt. That's really all there is to say about it. I listened to them gobble all morning and even got them to respond to me on and off for a hour or so, but they wanted nothing to do with me or anything near me. Maybe they knew what I was there trying to do.

• As par with this time of year we started keeping out the flower gardens and I found my old best friend the weed eater again. This year I have one more thing added to the spring to-do list. It was to till our first garden, I have had "pot gardens" (no, not that kind of pot) before, but I have never really taken the time to plant a full on garden. It looks like this is going to be a fun adventure. I do have some experience as I had stated, but if anyone has any advice on gardens I'm all ears.

• On the way home this evening I was looking at the river and it is starting to look like it is going to be prefer fishing level this weekend. Shortly after getting home I got the text message that they had just stocked the river with channel cats, looks like we are going to be camping sooner than we thought this year. 

Everyone Still Remember Me?

I sure hope so. Haha.. I'm back now, all the moving is done, well at least from Cassie's old apartment to my house. We still have a little rearranging to do furniture and storage wise, but that shouldn't effect my blogging. Moving onto what everyone is really here for, I am going to do a Random Ramblings style post, but I just didn't feel it was worth of the official title, so hang on for a quick catch up and preview of what's to come.

• Even with all the moving this weekend, I managed to squeeze in a mini half-day fishing trip in Saturday morning, pictures and story to come.

• After I got back from fishing Saturday, Cassie took a break from unpacking and we had lunch and watched the Mountaineers lose to Kentucky. Not to mention the total meltdown by the Big East have taken a major hit on my bracket, but luckily I'm still close the top in my pools so far.

• I have some great news to fill everyone in on and it will let me check another thing off my Goals for 2011.

• Two weekends ago Cassie, my parents, and I managed to all get out for a afternoon of shooting, and yes this included shooting my new Glock. Be ready for the second part of the review soon, as well as a possible guest appearance.

• I almost have my recap of the 2011 WV Hunting, Fishing, and Outdoor Sports Show done, and since everyone has waited so patiently, I will have special announcement to make during that post. 

• I want to welcome all of my new Followers to this blog, on Twitter, and on Facebook. And to thanks everyone that has been reading and commenting on my adventures thus far. I never could have fathomed that my little blog would expand from a semi-personal journal of my adventures to what it had become. I would like to thank everyone again that has/had a part in it and especially all of those who keep reading!! Thank you!!

Random Ramblings: III

Well this isn't want I had planned on posting this weekend. I had this wonderful idea of taking everyone with me along on my  trip to get a new toy (ok, it's not a toy and you may already have a clue what it is), and then testing it out. This would be all well and good, except that fact that I didn't get even as far as leaving my house this weekend. I was hit with my own personal version of the plague, I will spare you the details, but it reminded me of those college mornings you swore you weren't drinking again, only I didn't drink the night before.

• If you hadn't gathered it yet, I have a few post planned here in the near future with my new purchase, well once I get the time to go get it now since I wasn't able to this weekend. If you haven't guessed it yet, I'll give you a clue, go look at what I did last weekend and the question I asked.

• I haven't forgot about the product reviews I had promised everyone either, they're still in the works. I have actually played with part of the stuff and am working on a write up for it. Just like most of you know, real life takes over sometimes. 

• New weekend is the 2011 WV Hunting, Fishing, & Outdoor Sports Show, that I wrote about back in January. Everyone knows where I will be next weekend for sure.

Image Credit:
Noise on the Line

• John over at Noise on the Line, a blog for Fish Creek Spinners, is doing a great monthly give-aways on some spinners. If you are interested in entering here is the link, don't be shy.

• Don't forget you can always find us on Facebook at our Fan Page or on Twitter at @FoggyMtnMeander. The twitter account is lock, but request to follow and I'll be sure to accept it soon there after.

• And lastly with this post, either late tonight or sometime tomorrow morning, Foggy Mountain Meanderings should hit 5,000 page views. This is insane for me to think about that it has only been two months since I submitted my blog to the Outdoor Blogger Network, and I have already reached this milestone. Thank you all who visit and participate with this blog.

Random Ramblings 2.0

Mid way through January I did a post entitled "Random Ramblings," well it's about that time again. Time to play a little catch up and give a little look into the future.

Just like Momma made 'em, wait she did.. 

• Shouldn't the day after the Super Bowl be a National Holiday, or at least a delayed start to the day? And no, before everyone thinks it, I didn't even have a beer last night, but more of a food induced comma is how I'd describe it. I hope everyone was able to send some quality time with their friends and family while watching the Super Bowl or the commercials and halftime show, which ever one you are really there for. As for my family, we were rooting for the Packers so it turned out to be a great night. We had some great food also, thanks to my Dad, that included everything from homemade shredded beef in enchilada sauce with Spanish rice, Texas Caviar (I'll be having a post on making this one in the near future), and Chicken Wing Dip to the amazing Sausage Dip, Cassie made. And my mom conquered the desserts with some cookies and Puppy Chow ( if you haven't tried this you need to!!).

• If you guys like product reviews, I am planning to have a few coming your way soon! Everything from clothes to tackle and even some odds and ends, so you'll need to stay tuned for further updates.

• This past Friday our Facebook Page was featured on the Outdoor Blogger Network's OBN Notes 2/4 post. I encourage all of you that haven't visited our Facebook Page to take a look over there and go ahead and click the "Like" button if you haven't done so yet. Don't forget you can find me on twitter also at @foggymtnmeander

• I know that because I am going to say this now it's never going to happen, but Jay and I were talking this weekend about trying to fish. The waters were still a little to high to be braved this past weekend, but we are still trying to get out there and fish in the next few weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to catch one in February to be able to start working on another one of my Goals for 2011.

• To end this a special Thank You needs to go out to JM over at Something's Fishy. He has a semi-regular post called the "Sunday Shout Out," and this past Sunday's was about myself and Foggy Mountain Meanderings. If you'd like to read his post you can find it here.

Random Ramblings

Today's post is a hodge-podge of thoughts, happenings, and things that just quite didn't make it to be a full post or even thought in my head for that matter. Instead of inserting a bunch of filler right here and making you read more nonsense that what is about to happen, I'm just going to cut to the chase. I'm going to do this in a bulleted list, it seems to me the most clean cut way to break up these ideas. You can run now if you want to remain safe, I won't blame you. Haha.. 

• First and foremost, I promise I will finish with the Deer Jerky recipe tonight, it seems like I've been promising this for a week now (oh wait I have been), but there were a few things that took longer this week so, it should be up tomorrow.

• Sometime today, Jay said he'd be kind enough to run and retrieve my trail camera that we had set up close to my tree stand still. I'm hoping for one the bears didn't get to it again, but with all the snow I'm guessing they didn't. Two, I'm anxious to see what kind of pictures there are on there, maybe one of a buck with a half rack or even half of it just hanging on or maybe we'll start getting some early turkey sign considering we're going turkey hunting on this property for the first time this spring. Either way you guys are going to be seeing some trail cam pictures here in the near future.

• Anyone else sick of the snow, I don't mind it, but when there's no sun and it just snows, that's what I get tired of it. So guess what The Weather Channel is calling for tonight more snow!! Another 3"-5" tonight with more tomorrow. I'm thankful Jay's getting that Trail Cam down now before I can't get to it again.

• As you all know I've been part of the Outdoor Blogger Network (OBN) for a few weeks now and have been reading it for months. They recently had a post on Facebook and increasing you traffic on your blog and how to create a Facebook page for your blog, I had been contemplating this idea for a while and with the gentle nudge of this post I decided to finally break down and do it. It's still in the infancy stages and most of the likes are friends and family, but I'm working on trying to understand everything more with it, so bare with me. If you would like to visit the Foggy Mountain Meanderings Facebook page you can find the Facebook Box in the column on this right side of this page or click here. If you really like it and are a member of Facebook you can go ahead "Like" it!!

• One more social networking tid-bit as well, I'm sure you saw the Twitter feed under the Facebook box, if you are interested in an live updates on my adventures, random thoughts and ideas, or my commentary on WVU sports, you can follow me @foggymtnmeander. Not to mention there are a lot, I mean A LOT, of other great outdoor bloggers to follow on twitter also. Just to give you a few to follow: Tommy from "Following Ghost", Kari  from "I Don't Wear Pink Camo to the Woods", and Dennis from "Adventures... with Dad". There are a few to get you started, sorry if I left you out. I'm planning on doing a whole post on Twitter related stuff and the random characters on there. If I didn't get you this time, be warned I'll be sure to get on the next one. Haha. 

Thank you everyone for hanging in there on the first post of this nature, I'm not sure if I like yet or not. It'd be great to hear everyones opinions and thoughts.