Hello Fellow Outdoors Enthusiast,
     Welcome to abZorba

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Where does the name "abZorba" come from?

    I had a cat named Zorba and he would eat kitty treats and many other flavorful tidbits in two or three bites. I would ask him if he even tasted the treats.
   My friend would say he "ab-Zorba'd" his food. I laughed and was very amused by the word play.

  When it came time to give my first domain a unique name, I thought abZorba would be unique and amusing, if only to me. The domain has been around for eight years and it has been though many changes in that time.

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Hi. I'm Kip. Yup, that's my name all right.

It's certainly helped make me who I am today by being on the unique side. Basically, I'm city kid turned hunter. My beginnings were downright entertaining. I'll share some of those times in future stories. Mostly, I'd like to give you an idea of who I am right now.

   I'm a little over the half century mark, showin' a bit 'o wear, but still on the move. I've hunted Minnesota whitetails a little over 30 years. I went on my third elk hunt last fall in Colorado. The first one was in 2003. I've done a little upland bird and waterfowl hunting, some fishing (with the kids), but not nearly as much as I'd like by this time in my life. I've only had a little spare time and spent most of it on whitetail.

   The heart of this website is for those who love the outdoors and are on a budget. A person's first thought might be about money, but time can also be a budgeted commodity. Working multiple jobs, raising a family, gas money being scarce, and automotive reliability all play into what a hunter can do and how far he or she can go. I've even been limited by the temperature of the air blowing through the holes in my car and truck bodies.

   I've had my struggles with these things and found ways to compensate. Borrowing a ride, a gun, and a shoulder to whine on. Getting time off work and away from the family responsibilities. Ingenuity, creative time accounting, borrowing and calling in favors, and the occasional sleight of hand helped. Those times still bring me a smile and some chuckles.

   Another part of budgeting is setting goals to attain. If you're out on the mesas or mountains of this beautiful land, simple survival can be an admirable goal. If you're hunting a small parcel of land, well now, breakfast and lunch at the cabin and a nice hot dinner down the road is good. Adding a deer rounds out the season nicely. For me, there's more to hunting than just collecting antlers, getting an animal every year, and so on. What are reasonable goals for the type of hunting you're doing?

   Looking back to when I started hunting, I believe I received a blessing and didn't realize it at the time. Either because I was a newby to hunting or because "someone watching over me" knew better, I didn't harvest my first deer for eleven years. I learned to be quiet and what it means to be truly quiet, inside and out. I've had a gray squirrel run up my arm on a deer stand railing to get to the tree behind me. Chickadees have peered upside-down at my face after landing on the bill of my cap. I've had a North woods wolf prowl beneath my feet and not find me.

   Finding solace and peace away from the grind of "normal" society became my first reward of hunting. Hunting to bring food home is secondary for me. I've been open-eyed amazed at the Circle of Life around me. Every turn of a corner brings something new, adding to the richness of my life. It's earned me the nickname of "Sir Prize" (surprise) from Lenise. I think that's funny coming from someone with the moniker of Miss Adventure.

   I hope you find this website interesting, entertaining, but mostly a place to learn and share.

Remember to Do, Be, Live, and Journey. If ya stand still, you'll rust.

Hello and Welcome from Ms Adventure,

   I've been fishing since I was four and I learned the value of being able to read a body of water, find and catch fish without the use of a lot of fancy equipment.
   I own the Minnesota standard issue, AlumaCraft fourteen footer, shallow-draw with a 7.5 hp Johnson engine. It's not fast, but it gets me around the lakes and even into some places the "big boys" cannot go.

   I've been camping and hiking for nearly a quarter of a century. A lot of the equipment has changed over the past 25 years, but there are some aspects of camping and hiking that remains the same.

   I've been out hunting for about three years, but I have been studying hunting for about 15 years. Studying is nothing like actually getting out there and doing it, but what I had read and watched was invaluable when I finally had a chance to get out and actually hunt.
   Kip was the first person to take me out hunting for deer.

   For nearly 35 years, I've also enjoyed recreational biking, along with inline skating for over a decade.

    My dear brother, Leon, was always amazed by the "adventures" I would go on by myself. After listening to one of my more harrowing stories, Leon gave me the nickname, "Miss Adventure" and I wear the nickname with pride.