Fawns

 Hey, twice in one day. What's up with that? I was talking to my sister and walked back to the bedroom and saw the twins out back. Well they walked right up to the house and the buck actually stepped up on the patio.

 I went out to the garage an quietly pushed up the window and stuck the camera outside.

 He had stepped off the patio by then, but was still in the corner eating stuff.

 here's the doe outside our bedroom window.

Here's the buck in the same spot. Can you see his little nubbins? They hung around out there for over an hour. Cool.

This has been the nightly scene since Gramma went overseas. I need a bigger chair. Aloha.

Farm stuff

Hey. We've had frost here the last three mornings, but it got up to 70 yesterday. Gramma comes home from Switzerland tomorrow, so we are happy. :) Fall is one of my favorite times, with cool mornings and warm afternoons. It also brings more wildlife out in search of food to put on fat for winter. The last 5 days we have been visited by a turkey family. Mama and 5 young ones have been coming into the backyard.

 The ever watchful eye of Mama turkey.

 Sometimes they move into the hayfield on the west side. I'm not sure what they saw, but the kids headed for the woods and Mama started to head towards the house with her neck stretched out, head up high and her eyes watching something. She got about ten feet from the house when she saw me in the window and headed back to her brood. Pretty funny and I have no idea what she was looking at.

 Here is "Sparkle The Mighty Hunter".

This is what she was stalking. Talk about grandious dreams. Well, as you can surmise she didn't stand a chance, but it was fun for me and Heide to watch her try. We sold a quarter of beef to my friend Mike and he called last night to let me know that he bbq'd two steaks and they were tasty and tender. Yay! I figured they would be, but it's good to hear. Next year we'll have them cut the steaks thicker. Any way that's all for now. Thanks for watching and be sure to patronize your local retailers.

Meat, fawns and cranes

Picked up the meat today.

 Here's half. Filled Jess' small freezer right up to the top.

 Here's the other half. With our chickens and other stuff in there it's packed and the door is heavy. The hanging weight was 560 lbs. so he weighed almost 1,000 lbs. live. That's a couple hundred pounds more than the last one. I had a steak from it tonight and I have two words for it. YUM O.

 Here's one of the twin fawns we've been watching all summer. As you can see they've lost their spots. One is a doe and one is a buck.

 They were about thirty feet from the deck here. Heidi looks out the patio door and whines while her tail quivers at Mach 1.

We've had a lot of cranes again this year. They're really big and really noisy. It's fun to watch them in the fields and they don't seem to be too afraid of people which is too bad because they started a hunting season on them last year. Who knows, maybe they taste like chicken. Sayounara.

Reloading

 Well, Minnesota's other major holiday is almost upon us. "Deer Season" starts in about month and a half.

 This is the rifle my father bought right after the war. A .300 Savage in a Savage Model 99. He carried this for as long as he hunted and harvested an awful lot of deer with it. I've been carrying it ever since and have harvested an awful lot of deer with it. I've carried it for over thirty years. Man I'm old. Anyway, I finally ran out of the old "handloads" quite a few years ago and have been shooting factory ammo. Well, it's getting hard to find and expensive.

 So I bought some new reloading equipment and built a reloading bench. I haven't reloaded since before my Dad passed and had some reaquainting to do. Turned out to be fun.

I now have fifty rounds of deer cartridges Which will probably last me quite awhile.

Took me about thirty rounds to get my load right because I got ahead of myself and made ten rounds at a time, when I should have made three or four. But I was having fun. Got it figured out though and the last six were good. Couldn't quite cover them with a quarter, but I could with a fifty cent piece. Not too bad for an old guy with an old gun at 100 yards. If I see a deer this year I think I got a chance. I think I need to reload some pistol rounds now.       See Ya.

Happy Birthday Gramma

Happy Birthday Gramma!

Yes today is Gramma's birthday. Ain't she a cutie? Still is too.

 

As a birthday present I'm getting her some "real" Swiss chocolate, however she has to go there to get it. Here she is packing for the trip.

 

Her she is heading off to the airport. Actually she's going there for work. She just gets to leave on her birthday. Now I have to eat the cake and ice cream myself. She's going to be gone until the 27th. So I'll be here all alone, by myself, with no one to talk to except the dogs, and the cats, and the horses, and the chickens, and the cows. Poor Grampa. Happy Birthday Gramma, come home safe, we love you.

WINNER! Chicken naming contest.

 Well, all the entries are in. I had hoped for more, but it wasn't to be.  Anyway, after much deliberation and an arm wrestling match, we have a WINNER! Congratulations goes to...........Matthew! WOO HOO! Our little hen's name is now Clarabelle. Thank you Matthew. I was leaning a little toward Marshmallow (right Mom?) and Gramma was leaning a bit toward Henrietta (Get it?) but in the end Clarabelle won out. Here's three pics of her and we would like the winner to pick which one he likes best.

#1

 

#2

                                                                              #3

Whichever it is we'll make a print and get it to you. Thanks again, I had fun. In other news Gramma and I separated Le Beef from the other cows today, this will make it easier to get him into the trailer for his appointment next week. Good timing as we're all out of beef from the last one. Anyway th-th-th-th-that's all folks.

The lake, eggs and contest

I went to the lake on Wednesday and came home on Friday. I put four vents in the cabinette to hopefully stop the mildew problem. We would like to put a regular couch back in there, because lawn chairs just don't cut it. Also the last two winters have been hard on the boat launch. there was a log by the shore that the ice has pushed into the shoreline and actually buried into the ground. About three feet of it stuck out into the boat launch. So I had dig it out and dig out rocks so I could cut it off with the chain saw. It was about a foot in diameter. So I didn't even get the boat in until Thursday afternoon. Anyway here's afew pics of the lake for those of you who haven't been there for awhile.

 

This is from where I've been catching fish.

 

 

 

Early morning fog.

 

 

Our place.

 

 

Bucket-O'-Fish.

 

 

 

The new chickens started laying eggs. Small ones of course.

 

  

Here it is in the pan with two regular eggs. One of the hens layed an egg in the hay in the horses bale feeder and I found four today in the barn garbage can on top of the bale twine I throw in there when I put out a bale. Some of them are laying in the nest box, but I think I'm going to leave them in the coop for a few days to see if they all start to lay in the box. Oh yeah, I think I'll put a lid on the garbage can. Now, on to the chicken naming contest. We received ten suggestions so far and since its been over a week I guess there won't be anymore. So we narrowed down to two. We have to decide between the two and Gramma likes one and I like the other. I'll let you know..................Bye.