Well, I had planned on spending a week in upstate New York chasing bear and deer, several days chasing PA Black bear between muzzleloader and the regular/extended rifle season, plus the regular whitetail plans I do every year.

But ... Those plans have had to be cancelled. The wife and I ended up with emergency custody of my wife's cousins kid. Hearing in October to hopefully give us full custody. Between the big changes at home, and added expenses I've decided to cancel those trips this year.

The plus to all of this is that I've suddenly got a brand new youth hunter in my family. He's 14, seems to be a good kid and is excited about getting to hunt. He's working on Ohio's online safety course right now. I'd rather do an in person one, but time isn't on our side as the PA youth season is about a month away.

He of course needed a rifle (good excuse, right?) And I wanted something that would be legal and useable for him in both PA(no semi autos) and Ohio (straight walled only). So after looking at several different rifles I settled on an UGLY Savage 110 Hog Hunter in .350 Legend I'm excited to get this scoped and see what she will do. He's excited to. It's ugly but I think it'll be a nice little rifle for him.




-Jake

He is a lucky kid. Good-on-ya!

That’s a great thing to do Jake. I hope that it all works out for you and your wife. Nothing wrong with putting your priorities in a different perspective. There’s always another time. Just think you can now teach him to hunt with you as well. I actually don’t mind a Savage ugly looking or not. If it shoots straight and fits him well then you really can’t ask for more.. Good luck..

I hope so. We have a pretty small 3 bedroom house on a couple acres in the country. Our plan all along was to either buy somewhere else with more land or stay here and build onto it this year.... Well, the housing prices in this area have exploded and so has the cost to build. So we decided to put it off until the market looks a little better for us.

Then we added her cousin. So now there's 6 of us in this 1200 square feet. I keep reminding myself that my grandparents all had 8 or more siblings each and grew up in smaller houses than I've got now.

But it's tight. We're adjusting and figuring it out.

-Jake

That's tough having to change your hunting plans but I believe that your new plan will be much more fulfilling. Good on ya for taking the young man in and being his mentor !

Good for you Jake....family first

He will have a great mentor! Best of Luck.

Do you have any localized saw mills in your area? I know here I can get rough cut lumber right off a saw mill a lot cheaper then buying it from any outlet. Those big stores and the guys on top controlling wood prices has put everyone over the barrel.. It’s hard for contractors as well when trying to bid on a job because the prices keep changing constantly. But if you shop around those back yard saw mills you can be surprised at what you find out. That can cut costs and then look into camp grade lumber for the finishing work on the inside. I just thought I would toss that out there in case you decide to add anything on..

I'm bout to kick the chickens out of their coop and move out there lol. More room.

We'll figure it out. Supposed to meet with a contractor later this week to discuss some options.

-Jake

God bless Jake. You're doing something good that will have a huge impact on those kids' lives and yours. And you get another hunter in the family to bring home meat. Win-win!