ADVENTure

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know that I usually write a post every year around this time that has to do with Christmas. It usually has to do with celebrating the real meaning of Christmas, how it is over commercialized, trying to be less materialistic, and trying to do more to help others. I may have another post later on that has to do with some of that but for this one I want to focus a little on celebrating the real meaning of Christmas. In case you don't know the real meaning, just look at the first 6 letters of the word and you can figure it out. It is the celebration of Jesus birth. I am not going to get into a lot of religious talk here but I wanted to tell you about something our church is recommending people do to help celebrate the holiday right. They recommended celebrating advent and doing advent readings. I had never heard of this before but Margo had. None of the churches I have attended before had ever talked about this and Margo said it had been a long time since she had heard it talked about. I am sure some of you may know about it and you may participate which is awesome. Here is what it is in case you don't know. Advent is a season in the Christian church in which we celebrate Jesus birth and at the same time, look forward to his second coming. It is a a season of joyous expectation as well as a a time for serious reflections as we prepare for Christ's return. The most common way to celebrate advent is by following a schedule of advent readings. You can also light a advent candle wreath. I think this is a great way to help celebrate Christmas for the right reason. If you are interested in this and want to do the advent readings there is a link to an advent calender on our church's website, just click here to get to it and you can print it out if you want. You better act fast though because the first reading started today.

Thanksgivin'

For Thanksgiving this year Margo and I went to my Aunt Freddie's house in Waldron (Arkansas). She is my dad's older sister and her and my uncle recently moved down there. My cousin (her daughter) Cindy and her husband also live down there. My other cousin Tim and his family were there from Atlanta as well. We thought it would be a good chance to see this part of the family (especially since we don't get to see Tim and his family very often). Anyway, we spent Thursday down there visiting and eating. It was a very nice time. After lunch all the cousins went for a drive out in the country, and when I say country I mean out in the middle of no where. I was born and raised in the country in Arkansas and some of the places we passed were scary to me. I think they might have filmed part of Deliverance in this area, seriously.


We drove to a recreational area called Knoppers Ford. It was a very pleasant area with a nice creek. We hung out there for a little bit and took some pictures. I thought I would share some of the pics of everyone. Sadly, I did not get a picture of my Aunt and Uncle.

From back to front, here is Tim, Elizabeth, Grace, and Vivian


Here is left to right, Justin, Larry, Cindy, and Whitney


And here is Margo and I reenacting engagement pictures

Feed My Sheep

We have been keeping the sheep separate from the goats on the farm lately, just like in the Bible. We had to start feeding hay since the grass has died for the winter. The goats aren't very good at sharing with the sheep and tend to pick on them. It is not a fair fight because the goats have weapons (horns) and the sheep don't. So, I decided to keep them separate for a while. This will also allow me to try to tame the sheep down a little more while they are separated from the goats. Anyway, since I am feeding the sheep separate, I decided I needed to build them a hay feeder. I built a nice one last year for the goats and cow that I am still using. Goats and sheep tend to waste hay because they will lay in it and use the bathroom in it and then not eat it. The hay feeder helps keep them from doing that. I just needed something small for the sheep because there are only 3 of them, so I just put something together real quick, nothing fancy. I ended up using one of my tomato cages to hold the hay and it sits in a box I built. This helps conserve hay by having a place to hold it instead of putting it on the ground and as they are eating it the loose stuff falls into the box and they can eat out of there as well. I can also move it around easily.

Here it is. I told you it is nothing fancy, but the sheep seem to like it just fine.

Happy Birthday!

Happy 28th Birthday Josh!

Ha Ha

This past Saturday Margo and I went and saw some comedians at the Walton Arts Center. It was the Bob and Tom Comedy All Stars Tour. Bob and Tom is a nationwide syndicated morning radio show. They have lots of different comedians on there every morning. Margo and I listen to it every day on the way to work, it is really funny. You should definitely listen to it on a radio station in your area. They do a comedy tour around the nation that features some of the comedians they have on their show. I have been waiting for them to come close to us and they finally came to Fayetteville on Saturday night. The show lasted 2.5 hours and featured the comedians Costaki Economopoulos, Henry Phillips, Greg Warren, Donnie Baker, Bob Zany, Greg Hahn, and Drew Hastings. They were all really, really funny. It is so hard to pick the one I liked the best they were all so good. But my favorites were probably Bob Zany, Greg Warren, and Greg Hahn. I highly recommend that if this comedy tour comes to a city near you that you go, it is worth every penny. Just be aware that they are a little raunchy and foul mouthed. I found some videos online of a couple of the guys that I thought I would share, there may or may not be some cussing in the videos.

This one is of Greg Warren



This one is of Drew Hastings, he did some funny farm stuff which we related to.



And these two are of Greg Hahn, I think I laughed the most during his routine. If anyone has ADHD, this guy definitely does. He was going crazy the whole time he was up there.

Our Asian Ladies

I wanted to share some info about an pest we have here on the farm. It is the Asian Lady Beetle (Harmonia axyridis). They look a lot like a Ladybug but are different; their color and spot pattern vary from the Ladybug. They were first introduced in the United States in the early 1900's but did not take hold until the 1980's. The reason they were brought here was to control aphids that destroy crops. They actually do this really well and are a very good bug for crop farmers and gardeners so they are not a pest to them. They are more of a house pest. Let me explain....In the winter they try to find a warm place to stay. One of the main places they like to go is into houses, they will get in the siding and around windows and doors and usually find their way indoors no matter how airtight you think your house is. They aren't destructive to houses or anything, they just fly around in the house and crawl all over the inside walls and windows. It is pretty annoying. We had never known about them or had problems with them until we moved out to the farm. Some of you that came to our house last winter may remember seeing them inside and seeing us vacuum them up trying to get rid of them. That is one of the best ways to get them out once they are in the house, vacuum them up. The only problem with our house is we have like 20 foot high walls and it is impossible to reach the high part of the walls and ceilings to get to them. So, during the winter they are always buzzing around inside and it is annoying. A week or so ago when it was really warm one day I noticed that the beetles were swarming on the outside of the house and starting to work their way in. I did some quick research online and one of the ways they recommended to control them is spray insecticide on the outside of your house which will keep them away. The insecticide they recommended is ones with permethrin. I just happened to have some of this because that is what I use to spray the animals to control flies. So, I sprayed it on the outside of the house. I think it did the trick because since that time I have not seen anymore of them coming inside. This makes us really happy.

Deer Camp

Margo and I went hunting this past weekend. Margo's family (on her mom's side) owns a lot of timberland (some of which we hope to inherit one day) down is south Arkansas near Fordyce in a little community called Jacinto. They have a deer camp down there that everyone uses as the home base. There is a central building with a kitchen and bathroom and everyone brings their RVs to stay in and parks them around the building. There are a bunch of people at this deer camp, maybe around 20-30 people but not everyone hunts. This is like our fourth time to go down there and it is a lot of fun. Most of the people there are older and have good stories. The stands we hunt out of are permanent stands and are semi enclosed and have roofs which is nice. There is at least one stand that I saw that even has a recliner in it. Unfortunately though I did not bring home a deer. I did shoot one and I am 99% sure I hit it but I could not find a blood trail nor could I find the dead deer. When I shot it, it jumped strait up and was flailing around it's right front leg like I had shot it in the shoulder, and then it ran off. I am guessing the bullet did not go all the way through and that is the reason there was no blood trail. It was very disappointing. Several other people got deer, I think there had been 11 killed so far when we left. The biggest one killed was an 8 point and there were a few of those. So I did get my fill of gutting deer, although they have a fancy contraption that makes it really easy to skin them. Overall, it was an enjoyable weekend. Here are some pics from the weekend but I will warn you some are kind of graphic.

Here is the little central building at the camp


Here is people's RVs and the outdoor fire pit


Here is a picture taken from the stand I was in. The picture isn't great quality because I took it with my cell phone


Here is another pic from the stand, you can see a food plot in the distance in the trees


Here is Margo's Uncle Ed with a deer he killed. He is one of my favorite people to be around because he is really nice and always has good stories and funny things to say.


Here is Margo's dad and one of the deer he killed


Here is the fancy skinning contraption. Basically all you have to do is cut around the deer's neck and hook it up to this machine and crank it and it pulls the hide completely off with very little work or cutting. It is really pretty cool, if any of you hunters would like to know more about it just let me know, I have more pictures of it.


Here is me cutting around one of the deer's necks to get it ready to be skinned


Here is the walk in cooler they have to hang up the carcases

Accessories

As I talked about in my last post, because we got the ATV so cheap, I have been able to buy some useful accessories for it.

First of all, I bought a small trailer to pull behind it. I needed something to haul wood, rocks, dirt, hay, and other things in. I put an ad on craigslist under the wanted section and a guy called me about one he had. I ended up buying it from him. It is a homemade trailer but is well built and sturdy. It is about 4 feet long by 3 feet wide. It sits pretty high off the ground so it will go over stumps and rocks and stuff. The best thing was it only cost me $30 which is really cheap compared to the ones for sale at the stores.

Here it is inaction hauling wood


I also got a 3 way ball hitch. It has a ball on it to hook a normal trailer to like my bigger trailer, a hole for a pin to go through like what the new trailer uses, and a loop to hook other stuff to.


I also wanted a basket of some sort on the front to carry stuff in like tools or what have you. The ones they sell at stores are metal pipe or mesh and run anywhere from $50-$150. I decided to build my own out of wood (2x6's) because I figured it would work just as good. It turned out good and is really solid, and it only cost me $5 to build. You will also notice some Y shaped bracket type things mounted on top of the rack. They are gun and/or tool holders that I bought. You just set your gun or shovel or whatever in there and there are little straps that hold it in there. They are handy little things.