What did you pay for gas last week?

I took a friend to the VA hospital in St Louis last week. This is the price we paid per gallon on the out skirts of the city- $2.28!

Thanksgiving Week, 2014

***WARNING***

If you don't like eating meat, and/or don't appreciate what it takes to put meat on the table to feed your family, do not proceed any further. 

Photos #1, 2, 4, and 5 are considered too graphic by the Obama administration for the typical low information voter to handle, and might cause: confusion, doubt, excitement, lightheaded-ness, hunger pains, nausea, or vomiting - depending on your pioneer core values of self reliance.

My wife prefers to eat vegan most of the time, but she is also a very practical farm wife. She approves of the following pictures that depict the manly art of hunting and butchering.

***You Have Been Warned***

My son-in-law Danny got an 11 point buck the first day home from college.

My daughter K3 and grandson Wiley admiring the huge buck. Danny will be back at Christmas break to add a few more to the freezer.

If you think that's gross, don't hang around the baby delivery room. Bit of a mess, but then you end up with something like these young "bucks", both 3 months old, only a week apart in age.

Now back to some gross pics...

No, this is not the buck - way too small. I asked K7 and Danny to butcher a young ram so we could donate the meat to folks at Church.

Danny has done this a few hundred times, so he was helping K7 get more practice before he heads off to medical school in a few years. The dogs waited patiently for scraps.

Home made yorkshire pudding as a side dish to our Thanksgiving Day feast.

K3 preparing Aunt Patty's cranberry soda drink. Sorry, but I enjoyed our feast so much that I totally forgot to take any more photos. Hope you had a great day with an incredible meal!

The day after Thanksgiving, our boys turned my office into Game Central.

Moved in a table and created a War Room to play some simulation, strategy, conqueror the world, war game. Yes, that is a cast on K2's right arm - broke it again! Same one he broke back in March. Darn!

It lasted a few days, and was a good, healthy, and fun way to bond as brothers. We have so much for which to be Thankful.

Early snow and the un-welcome guest

We got home from Church on Nov 16, and it started to snow. Opened the corral so the nursing mommas could bring their babies into the shelter of the loafing shed.

We were ready with wood outside the door...

...and a warm fire inside.

The un-welcome guest showed up the following day - my neighbor's 2,000 pound black angus bull. He could smell our momma cows in heat, so he invited himself over. Thank goodness I heard him and my smaller Dexter bull bellowing at each other across two paddocks. My bull only weighs about 1,200 pounds, but he's got sharp horns which might have evened the odds if they battled. 

It took three attempts, but my neighbor and K2 finally got him moving off our farm. I was driving my truck and honking the horn behind him, but he would run to the stream bed on the right and circle back around us. Our dog Daisy came down to help. 

I stayed in the road between our farms to keep an eye on him while my neighbor drove home to get his 4-wheeler in order to herd this guy far away from our shared boundary. We found out that he pushed under their water gap fence in the stream, crossed the road, and pushed under my water gap fence to get on my farm. It would have wrecked my breeding plan if he had gotten to any of my Dexter girls.

I have been waiting for Christmas Day to move my bull in with the nursing momma cows, so we will have a batch of calves born the end of next Sep or early Oct. With this year's calves, plus the girls I already have due in the Spring, and another batch due in the Fall, we'll have several cows for sell in 2015 and 2016. 

Playing on the farm

November 12th was sunny and starting to warm up. I went looking for my farm hands, so we could get some work done. This is where I found them, swords in hand...

What the heck, I could spare a few minutes. All work and no play makes for a dull boy. I'm just glad they are using dull blades.

It was action packed, with hard hitting attack and quick defense.

It was acrobatic.

It was exciting.

But it was one-sided, and usually ended the same way...

With K8 leaving himself open to K7's swift, mortal blow.

I had to wait for K7 to win three rounds before we finally headed off to work. I'm sure there will be a re-match.

Working Farm

On Saturday, 8 Nov, we hosted 35 people on the Wanch for Emergency Response Disaster Team training. Our instructors came down from Columbia and the class started Friday night. We had four teams from south central Missouri. This group is training with a chainsaw and the group on the right, in background, near road, were moving piles of brush with a skid loader. Great experience. 

Three days later, the temperature dropped into the 30's, but I had to get hay moved onto the farm from a neighbor's.

These bales weigh about 1,200 pounds, so a tractor is a "must have" tool. Stored most of them in backyard.

"One more bale left to go."

Pre-staged a bale in each paddock, so if it gets too cold to start the tractor, we just open a gate and move the cattle. K7 was my helper opening gates and cutting the wrapping off the bales.

Early November update

After 4 years of wash-outs in the gravel, I am finally fixing the driveway that goes down and around to the back of the house. 

Our friend Brian brought the right tool - his backhoe - and his 20 years of experience to correct this nagging problem. 

He asked me to get the gravel soaking wet while he went for a few loads of road chat. It looked great after he finished, but the real test will come in the Spring when the heavy rains come. Brian said not to worry, he'll come back and make any corrections to the flow.

K8, standing in the front rank, just to the right of the black line, earned a rank promotion.

His Marine JROTC unit holds a company formation once a month - before school starts! 

I had to get up early to attend, and take these pics, but it was worth it.

How do you clean up spills in your kitchen? I have different size dogs to handle any situation, even small ones for the rare milk spill on counter tops.

I spent the 11th, Veteran's Day, moving hay from my neighbor's farm over to our place.  It was pretty cold driving fast into the wind, and I had to add a thicker coat after the first bale.

Only got 12 bales this time. Should last us through New Year's.

A budding young tree surgeon

Early morning, Saturday, 1 November, was beautiful, but chilly. I scheduled some firewood cutting in the southwest corner of the farm - an area I hired cleared with a bull dozer 1 1/2 years ago. We had two large oaks laying on the ground that needed cutting and splitting, plus this giant oak branch that has caused me a few a headaches while bush hogging beneath it. I sent I personal tree surgeon, K8, up to drop it.

K8 has the right combination of liking a tough challenge (I don't want to say totally fearless) and using enough caution (he's definitely not wreck less) to be successful. Could he have used a safety line, and tied one end around his waist and the other around the tree behind him? Yes, and I suggested it to him, but I occasionally trust his judgement. As he gets older, I will have to trust him more and more.

The tree surgeon's tool - a good chainsaw with a sharp and properly adjusted chain.

In the background, you can see our truck, which K6 had just brought up.

K8 successfully accomplished this mission - he dropped the branch safely on the ground where he planned to do it, and did not injure himself, his equipment or anyone or thing. We got a decent amount of firewood from this big oak limb. In the future, I can safely drive the tractor and bush hog this area without having to either avoid it or duck under the big branch. 

With the help of a few good friends, we got quite a bit of firewood cut and stacked this day. Sure beats wasting our Saturday morning watching cartoons on TV.

Taking time to smell the sunsets...

Sunset on 6 September. Living in the country allows me more opportunities of looking at the sky, and fortunately, I always have my iphone with me. 

Moonrise over our pond, on the same evening. K8 also has an eye for beauty.

Sunset on 7 September, from our upper back deck.

Crossing the local rail tracks on 23 September. 

My camera can not do justice to the spectrum of beautiful colors I saw the evening of 14 October. Once the sun goes down, the crystal clear sky is full of bright stars, planets, satellites, and the occasional shooting star - but you have to be looking to catch a glimpse of those fast babies.