Trap Line Camp

Me and the boys have a tent set up at the end of our trapline. We set up our older wall tent so that it can stay out all season. We went and stayed out there this past Friday night. The weather had been good the whole week up to that point, but Wunderground was calling for temps to drop to -30 that night. We headed out about 6 pm. Right away things went bad. We were taking our dog Kiva with us and she was following behind loose. I made the turn to head out of town and there was no dog. Oren was leading the way and didn't see me turn around. I figured he would stop when he didn't see me behind him. Ryker and I turned around to look for Kiva. We checked toward the last house, but no dog. We turned around and went back to our house. Kiva was sitting on the porch waiting patiently. Ryker held on to her as we headed back to the trail to catch up to Oren.
Back out on the trail we found Oren with his machine layed over on its side, trying to push it back upright. The trail on the road just out of town was drifted horribly. It seemed like we took an hour to get to the end of the road about 2 miles out of town. We were on our way though. It started getting dark and cold on us.
We made it to camp with no more trouble. Firewood had been cut the last time we were out there, so I put the boys on getting the fire started. I went to start the chainsaw and nothing. The recoil was not engaging. I had left the saw out there from the weekend before, so I figured it was probably something to do with the cold. I had a brief "oh crap" moment when we couldn't find the handsaw. My thought process was that as long as we had a handsaw we would be fine. I did stop to debate and thing if maybe we should just head back home, but decided that if I wasn't able to cut enough wood then we would go home then even if we had to head home at 4 am. After a short search Oren found the saw. I might have to stay up cutting wood until 2 am, but we would have wood to burn. I cut started cutting firewood and the boys got the stove going and unloaded the sled. After a short while of sawing by hand I was questioning my decision to stay. Time to check to see if the saw starts. Recoil starter engaged and saw fired right up. I was a happy camper. I went back out and finished cutting firewood. When I got back into the tent Oren was reading to Ryker using the walkie talkies. The boys figured it was too cold to stick their heads outside the sleeping bags. I got the fire ripping and we settled in for the night.

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