Road trip to the ESPN's Game of the Week in Norman, Oklahoma

Since we were headed to an OU game last Friday, thought we would start with a lunch of some ribs from "Billy Sims" BBQ.

The decor throughout the restaurant is all about OU's Heisman Trophy winner - Billy Sims. The ribs and smoked turkey are excellent! And they have Mug root beer as well.

Stopped in Tulsa, OK, when I saw gas for under $3 per gallon.

Saturday night in the stadium, watching pre-game festivities.

The OU marching band pumping up the home team fans.

The OU football team running onto the field before a record breaking crowd of over 86,000. 

The opening kick-off.

OU kicks its second field goal of the first half trying to catch up to Norte Dame: 10-6.

Halftime entertainment. OU fans still pumped and happy, but it wasn't to last. OU finally tied the score at 13-13 in the 4th quarter, and was moving the ball steadily up field with 5 minutes left in the game. It looked like we were in the driver's seat to win this game, then disaster struck. We lost the game.

But I still had a great time visiting with life long college friends John and Dan (who provided the tickets). The weather was pretty chilly, and I had to hike a mile to where I parked my truck, and wait in traffic for a while longer before heading home at midnight.

Gas on the way home was down to $2.98 a gallon, which is a bit of a blessing after paying $3.60 the past few months.

And win or lose, there is always Coney Islander in Tulsa selling the best coneys in the region.

BIGH

We have been doing some shooting the past few months, so it was time to clean the guns and reload the magazines. K8 loaded these.

We took over the kitchen table for a few hours last night. K7 cleaned 3 rifles, and K8 cleaned 2 pistols and loaded mags. I cleaned a few, and stayed the longest as I was converting one of our pistols from a "wet" oil cleaning system to a "dry" clean and lube system. If this "dry" system works, I may switch more of our guns to it. Regardless, after our cat went missing this week, we are in the mood to shoot any coyote or fox on sight.

Pink or purple?

This is a rose bush that S got from her Mother and transplanted next to our garden gate. It is in full bloom this week, and looking beautiful. Also smells great as well! We had better clip a few buds before the freeze hits this weekend.

Missing kitty

Our little grey cat Lizzy has been missing since Monday, which is odd since she rarely leaves the barn, yard, or chicken paddock. What happened to her? We don't know. There was a large owl hooting near by. Could have been a fox or coyote scavenging offal from the steer we butchered last Friday. She could have been sleeping in our friend's trailer when they drove off Monday morning - we went to their home 4.5 miles away and she is not there, but could have jumped out in between. We visited the animal control officer. He hasn't seen her, but will keep an eye out for her. Maybe she is making her way home to the farm? Who knows. All we know is that we miss her.

Busy Monday

We have had a family of 9 staying with us for the past week while they house-hunted in the area. They left Monday morning after a hearty breakfast of... 

...chocolate chip pancakes! 

Mid-afternoon, I heard a lot of noise in paddock #2. Seems a falcon attacked a member of our "wild" flock of chickens. K8 got a .22 rifle and headed outside. 

He took a shot at the predator, but was too late to save the little black hen. 

Late in the day, we separated "Red" from his latest girlfriend (a full sized dairy cow) and got ready to help load her up for the return journey to her own farm - hopefully pregnant. 

I was up and dressing at 0230 Tuesday morning in order to drive a friend to the St Louis airport. I was homeward bound and only 1 1/2 hours from the farm when I encountered a traffic delay caused by this wreck. We had a pretty strong thunderstorm blow through the area.

I eventually got past it and made it safely home at 0930. Had breakfast and went to bed for a while. Woke up to a beautiful sunny afternoon.

Scout campout

Scouts attended camporee Friday and Saturday.

Saturday morning flag ceremony.

"Hey, who brought their Mom to camp?"

I ran the rifle range all day Saturday, so I was not able to walk around and take pictures of the boys doing a variety of FUN activities like: knife & hatchet throwing; human Foosball; blacksmithing; croquet; badminton; frisbee golf; archery; inflatable obstacle course; paintball; etc.

Homeward bound after a supper of Subway "eat fresh" sandwiches.

Beef, its whats for dinner!

We had Mike on the farm last Friday afternoon to butcher a 2-year old, short-legged Dexter steer.

After a 14 day hang time, we will be picking up lots of steaks, roasts, hamburger, and stew meat.!

Windy Thursday with leaves and bullets blowing around...

Road coming down our farm's eastern boundary.

Road that runs along front of our farm (northern boundary).

Later in the day, we went shooting up on the hill at new pond. K8 was my training officer.

Animals

Feeding hay to the 5 young dairy cross-breds and miniature donkey.

Feeding the maternity ward of cows and sheep. Since taking this pic, we have moved the 3 young dairy heifers in with this group, and moved all to paddocks #1 and 2. We are running low on grass. Hope our fencing crew arrives soon to enclose the other half of our farm!

Tiny spider

Wednesday evening on the way to Scouts. A brief, heavy rain storm had just passed through, and we were following it eastward.

Thursday early morning, we came out of church after Seminary class to find that a tiny spider had been busy spinning a web in our truck. Web stretched from the radio to K7's seat top. 

Close-up. The miniature guy started moving fast.

He must have sensed K7's huge phobia against spiders - of any size - because he never made it to safety. He and his web disappeared immediately after this photo was taken.

Econ 101

Tuesday, 16 Oct, we finally have some grass growing on the western side of the hill, not as bright green and thick as the eastern hill side, but growing.

The standard way of collecting walnuts - bend over and pick-up!

Things slowed down a little when the cows came over looking for a treat.

We only had about 1/3 of the truck full, but it was getting late so we had to go sell them.  The boys shoveled walnuts out of the truck and into the hopper of the hulling machine. Nuts travel up a conveyor belt and drop into huller. The hulls are discarded out to the right onto the waste pile, and the nuts go out the left and are bagged (you can see stacks of full green bags in the background).

Cade and K8 did the muscle work while Brante and K7 held the "funnel" boards in place.

K7 did not like the loud motor on the hulling machine, so he tried to cover his ear. While the boys pushed the walnuts out, Brante made sure we didn't lose money by capturing any escapees that fell under the truck. The three main collectors (Brante, Cade and K8) each got $7.11. Yes, our next stop was Walmart to keep their money circulating in the national economy.

Ozark autumn sunrise

Monday, 15 October 2012. The rising sun explodes over the horizon at the start of another great day. We were driving away from town after Seminary class.

When we got home, most of the paddocks were still in shade.

So we drove up the dirt road along our east boundary to the top of our hill.

Coming back down our hill.

Stopped and took pic of rising sun through the trees.

Back down the hill. I wanted to sit and wait for various photo shots, but K7 started making noises about starving to death, so we headed home to eat breakfast.

I edited this shot by cropping it.

View from back balcony.

The sun finally got high enough to shine light over the trees onto paddock #1.