The flame thrower - a successful adaptation of a military weapon to farming

We had some incredible rain and flooding this year, some locals said the amount we had was a "100 year" occurrence. Time will tell. Our farm had some severe and costly fence damage. In fact the boys and I did some more repair Saturday that I hope is the last of fixing flood damaged fences for awhile. We also got rid of the last visages of the flood - lots of drift wood and debris on and under fence lines.

K8 enjoyed using a flame thrower to torch all this stuff. Certainly beats the tedious job of gathering it by hand into burn piles.

I threw this pic in so you could see the side of my truck. The big dent that K7 put behind the door and in front of the tire is GONE! Spent a week in the Body Shop and looks great, not to mention no more rusting.

Two things about this pic: first, K8 does not like being photographed, so I hollered his name to get him to look. Obviously not happy about being tricked. Secondly, I like the reflection of flames off the truck's new, shiny paint job.

We strapped the propane tank to the back of truck, and I drove slowly along the fence while K8 torched the debris. Got the job done much easier and quicker than if we had done it by hand. We will pick up the few remaining big chunks of charred wood Monday and add them to our big brush piles which we plan to burn before rain arrives this week. Our pastures are now clean again, so we can safely mow and hay them in the Spring without damaging equipment, not to mention eliminating hiding places for copperhead snakes. 

Monday work crew

Every Monday afternoon, this happy crew tackles a new project off my "Farm To Do List". Today, it was gathering all the drift wood along the fence and stream into burn piles.

After building several big burn piles, we came to the last stop - loading up several big pieces of logs. 

It took team work to get most of them into the truck.

They saved the biggest for last.

"Okay, how are we going to get this one?"

"Oh, just everyone grab onto it and lift!"

Piece of cake

We took it to a neighbor who has a wood furnace to heat their house and water, and needs lots of wood to get through the winter. It was much easier pushing it out of the truck than loading it in. K7 has a little charcoal on his face...

...and K8 has way too much on his face and hands.

After the last log was off loaded, no one was eager to give K8 a hand up.
The End.

Oh, except for washing up.

Land of Oz in the Ozarks

Our family and friends just finished a successful couple weeks of performing the Wizard of Oz, Jr (MGM), not to mention the several weeks of rehearsing. Here K7 gets final touch up help from best friend with his Scarecrow costume before heading on stage.

Time to go "Wow!" the audience.

Different night. The three farm hands waiting just off stage for the tornado scene, while the Good Witch is stretching and limbering up, since she goes on right after them. 

This is what it was like for me, the other stage hands, and the cast as we waited just behind the curtain before going into action.

I ran the big fog machine. Wearing gloves to handle the large amounts of dry ice. "S" painted the green Emerald City panels beyond me.

Here are the main stars during Photo night. We are so thankful to have such a great fine arts group like the STARS Foundation here in the isolated rural Ozarks. These youth have the opportunity to learn and perform in an impressively talented orchestra and theater group, and have lots of quality friends - most, but not all, are home schooled. These six kids come from three different towns spread over a 30 mile distance, and the Lion is the only one in the pic who attends public school full time (the Scarecrow attends 2 periods a day at local high school, then back to home school).
Here is a link to the STARS web page (K2 lent a hand in it's development):
http://thestarsfoundation.org/

The cast stayed and signed autographs after each night's performance. 

After the autographs came clean up! Yes, there were many late nights. This is K8 resting and drinking a soda with his back to the camera while the others work...

Best Friends: Tay was a Jitterbug Dancer and stagehand, K7 was Scarecrow, Maddie was a Jitterbug Dancer and stagehand, and Tia was the Good Witch. K8, who is "photo-bombing" this pic behind the girls, had four small roles and also showed promise as a budding actor, dancer, and singer.

The boy's Grand Parents were able to come up one weekend and enjoy the show.  We had a cold front arrive the same weekend. It got down right chilly.

Hilltop pasture

From where I'm standing going back into the far tree line is what we cleared in the Spring, and I bush hogged it a few times in order to gain some more pasture. You can see some cattle gazing in the background. We also added the small pond last Fall to bury the previous owner's personal dump.

Same shot, but I moved farther back away from the new pasture area.

Same spot, just looking to my right, or toward the Northwest. The hill slopes down to our stream and our lower pastures, and the homestead.

The bull decided to come see if I had any treats for him. I didn't, but he got some soon thereafter.

Sprucing up the place before winter

Last Friday was a warm 72 and sunny, so "S" painted the front door since it had taken a beating over the past 3 years. 

Just what I like - happy workers! I think I asked her if we could have chocolate cake for dinner...

K7 and I swept and reorganized in the barn. The big stack on the right are archery targets for a Scout camporee this weekend, so they will be gone soon. The big black tub just to the left of K7 is full of seeding pots and will be going into the greenhouse soon. He also cleaned off the top of the work bench.

K8 did the final lawn mowing for the year, and weed-eated around the trees and pond. 

Our favorite eatery in our local town is also the healthiest place to get a meal. We know winter is coming because these geese were headed south.

Giant elk

K8 and I had to visit the "big" city, which is the home of Bass Pro's headquarters. They recently finished an expansion of their main building and added this gigantic bronze sculpture upstairs. It is a "wow" sight as you enter the store!

Yes, I took lots of pics with my iPhone in order to get a few good shots.

The store is full of stuffed animal exhibits, ponds, waterfalls, and giant fish tanks. I usually don't buy much, but always enjoy studying the exhibits. The ponds have live fish, ducks, and turtles, plus one in the fishing department has a large alligator.

Laying in more hay for winter

We received our last 11 big round bales of hay last week, which brings us to a total of 35 big bales and 120 small square bales. Our bull "Red" was interested in the proceedings as the boys helped roll them off the trailer. I hope to sell a few cows this Fall, so we won't have so many mouths to feed through the winter.

What do the boys do after the last bale is unloaded?

Why, play of course!

I moved all the bales into the corral for secure storage away from cows and sheep.

Wanch finally adds Wabbits!

After school Thursday morning, I took K8 to pick up his first batch of rabbits. Now to teach his pup Daisy that they are "friends" and not "food"! iPhone doesn't take the best pics, but it's all I had on me . 

They are New Zealand whites.

K8 got two does and one young breeding buck. He also got a big buck for dinner one night next week.

The 3-unit hutch to his right is still vacant. I'm sure we'll fill it sooner than later. K8 is in the local high school Marine Junior ROTC unit, and wears a uniform every Thursday. He wears Marine PT gear on Mondays and Fridays for physical training - he is developing some "guns".  

Time to harvest the pig

I was going to wait another month to fatten her up just a little more, but she figured out how to escape from her pen and started roaming the pasture. I was afraid she might escape off the farm.

So I called Mike, the on-farm butcher. She is a Red Wattle breed. 

She weighed about 280 here, and ended up giving us 170 pounds of fresh, organic pork - fresh side (uncured bacon), sausage, chops, steaks, and roasts. I did not have any of it "cured", so no nitrates and salt brine, just healthy meat. Picked it up a week later. We have already eaten some of every cut, and it is all very delicious! In fact I had a cold roast pork sandwich for lunch today. Yummy!

We had cool weather this day and Mike worked in the shade. No flies, and all the offal went on the brush pile. I poured some diesel fuel on it and burnt it the same night to minimize coyotes prowling around the farm, especially since I have sheep in the next paddock.

Mom came out to watch, and ended up helping Mike with some health issues.