Pics From the War Zone

We still don't have power (of course). We are staying with some awesome friends (Adam and Sarah) who have power and internet. We go home after work and work on stuff out on the farm and then come to town at night and spend the night.

This is shed and barn


A limb on the back yard fence, this one got within a couple feet of the house. I worked for a few hours today getting our fences back to at least where they would hold in the animals, there is going to be a lot of repair to the fences.


This is the the corral by the barn, you can see a goat under the tree


This is an area I cleared out last year between us and our neighbors to plant grass, normally you could see our house looking this way


This is another area on the far side of the house that I cleared out last year and was working on planting grass this year, notice some trees are bent completely over, some are broke at the top, and some are uprooted.


Our county road.


This is me trying to stay upright on the ice while carrying a chainsaw (sounds safe doesn't it), it took me about 2-3 hours to clear our 1 mile of county road up to the highway.


This is a shot of the state highway that leads to the interstate, it was mostly one lane in and out of trees for the 7 miles. We drove over 4 downed power lines along the way.


Another shot of the highway

No Words

We are alive. I can think of no word that can express how bad things are here in Northwest Arkansas after the ice storm. This post is just to let all of you who don't live around here know that we are okay and it is really bad here. Hardly anyone has power here, the latest report said an estimated 150,000 don't have power just here in NWA. I am at work right now and we have power today here at the hospital (there wasn't power yesterday) and I have internet here at work which is nice. Our power went out on Tuesday night and by my best estimate it will be weeks before we have power. The people in town were told it would be the weekend before they might have power. This area got between 1.5 and 3 inches of ice. There are no trees left untouched, I would say 60-70% of my trees on the farm are completely destroyed. My fences are destroyed, there are limbs on all our buildings, our house had 3 limbs hit it during the night. It was really scary. Limbs and trees were breaking constantly yesterday. The good news is that so far all of our buildings at the farm are intact, the falling limbs have not caused major damage. We did have one baby goat die. I cleared our mile of county road yesterday morning and it took me around 3 hours to get a car path to the highway, there are two power lines down just on our county road. Last night we fed the animals and then we came into town before it got dark and stayed with some friends who had their power back on. The state highway between our county road and the interstate is one lane only because there are trees covering a lot of the road. I drove over 4 downed power lines on the highway. It basically looks like a tornado came through but instead of just a limited path, it took out all of Northwest Arkansas. Apparently, last night Obama declared Arkansas a Federal Disaster Area so hopefully that will help get some relief here. I will try to post pictures when I can. The Farm of Hale has changed. Please pray for all of us here, it is really bad.

Everyone's Favorite

Sorry I have not been posting much lately, not a lot is going on around here. People have been asking for more pictures of the baby goats. They are all 2-3 weeks old now and they are growing like crazy. They are being very playful at this stage which is fun. We have had lots of people come out to see them and they have been a big hit with everyone. We have one baby goat in particular that seems to be the overall favorite. It is our little brown one that I have talked about before that has the ears that stick out. It's mom has smaller ears than our other goats but they don't stick out like this baby goat's does. It just got the freak ear genes. Margo calls it our "special" goat, and one of our friends, Ashley, nicknamed it Yoda. I kind of wish it was a girl so we could keep it around but since it is a boy and won't do us any good to keep it, we will have to part with it in a few months. Here is a picture of it from today.


It's ears are like this all the time. It is even better when he runs because then his ears go straight up like a rabbit. That is his brother next to him and that one's ears are more like their mom's.

In other big news Margo's brother and sister-in-law had their baby January 15th. Her name is Ella and she weighed 10 pounds 10 ounces which I am told is very large. The only picture I have of her I took with my cell phone in the hospital the day she was born. It is not super high quality since it is from my phone but I think it is a nice picture.

Baby It's Cold Outside

As I am typing this it is 11 degrees outside with a wind chill of 3, which is pretty cold for around here. We decided to put up a couple of heat lamps for the baby goats tonight. We usually only provide heat lamps for the baby goats at night for the first day or two after they are born and only if it is cold outside. After the first couple days of being alive they can withstand pretty much any cold weather that we have around here, but it is extra cold tonight. We figured as long as we have the heat lamps and because it is unusually cold tonight we might as well turn them on for the little ones. Margo went down to check on them a few minutes ago to see if they were taking advantage of the heat lamps and almost all of them were snuggled up together under the lights. It made for a cute picture (you don't hear me us the word cute very often, so enjoy it).

+4=11

We had two more baby goats yesterday and two this morning. This brings our total up to 11. We have one more goat that has not had babies but she will probably not have hers for another month or so. We started out good having equal numbers of girls and boys but these last four were all boys. So we have 4 girls and 7 boys, sounds like a future barbecue to me. We got some action photos of the goat having her babies last night, so they are a little graphic.

Here is the goat starting to have the second baby, those are little feet sticking out.


Here is the baby freshly out, still mostly in it's fluid sack


Here is mama cleaning it up, and that is it's brother in the background


This is one of the boys born today while we were at church


Here is other brother that was born today. He was our biggest baby. We averaged around 6 pounds for most of the babies. He weighed in at a hefty 9.1 pounds.


We had several friends and some of my co-workers and their families come out this weekend to see the babies.

This is one of my co-workers, Cathy, holding one of the babies born last night. For those of you who know our goats, this is Crazy's baby. Crazy has smaller ears that stick out a little. Well, this poor baby got the ear stick out gene and her ears are longer, it makes her look a little "special"


This is some friends of ours daughter, Sophie

When it rains, it pours....goats

Holy baby goats. We are growing like crazy. We have two goats that I thought were going to be our first goats to have babies but they weren't. I thought for sure these two were going to have them today because they are looking close (if you know what I mean). But they didn't, it turns out they are going to be almost the last ones to have theirs, because three(yes three) more goats had babies today. Two of them were a complete surprise because we thought they were another couple weeks off. The first one we discovered that had babies today was one of our goats we have had since we moved out here (thanks Trav). She had two babies that might be the cutest babies ever. They were all dry and up nursing and walking around with no problems when we got home. We took them and put them in the barn with their mom and then Margo went to feed hay to the rest of the goats and cow and I went to go cut some wood. Margo came running back from the hay feeder to tell me we had a surprise. One of our other goats we weren't expecting to have babies yet had two babies. We have a set of white twin nanny goats we got last year that this is their first year to have babies and it was one of those that had the babies. I thought it was crazy not only that she had them this soon but also that she had two babies. Usually the first year goats only have one baby, and she was not that big either. When we went over there to catch them we noticed that both of the twin nannies were bleating like they were calling for their baby. And then it hit us....the pregnant twins had their babies on the same day. How crazy is that. They each had one baby and we had no idea which one went with which goat because the twins look a lot alike and the babies looked a lot alike and they were all together and the babies weren't for sure who they belonged to, they were going to both mamas. It was very confusing. We took them over to the barn and just had to watch them until we saw which baby nursed which mom and then we separated them into separate stalls. We will make them stay separate for a few days so they can all get figured out who belongs to who. I just hope we got it right. We now have 7 baby goats total and I am expecting we are going to have 5 more. So, I need all of you people out there to help. I need you all to come out and pet and play with the baby goats. The more they are handled by many different people now the more tame they will be when they grow up and I want them pretty tame. Please come help. I am sure you are all saying, get on with it, we want to see pictures. Well here you go.

Here are the twins that were born today, they are super cute. The boy is chocolate brown with one white foot and a white place on his head and the girl is mostly white with brown splotches.


Here is one of the twins' baby. It is a male


Here is the other one's baby, it is a female

The Brother

I am finally getting around to putting up some pictures of the brother to the little female goat we had in the house the other day. The brother did not have any issues after being born and is doing great. By the way we were able to leave the little female with her mom and brother last night in the barn (with a heat lamp) and all day today. She is doing just fine so far, maybe a little behind her brother but I think she will catch up. Here are some pics.

Here is the brother


And here they are together

Next

Well, we had more baby goats born today. It was kind of a surprise. We knew this goat was getting close but thought two other goats were going to have their's first. There is a story to go along with these though, one about did not make it. One of the problems with having baby goats at this time of year is if it is really cold the babies can get hypothermic quick, especially since they come out all wet. It is especially true for the first baby to come out with twins because the mama does not work on drying it off until she gets the other one out and that few minutes makes a big difference on a 5 pound wet baby goat when it is 35 degrees outside. Back to the story of these babies. When we got home I went and checked on them and one of the baby goats was standing next to the mom and the other one was laying all sprawled out not moving. I thought it was dead at first but when I got up close to it, it let out a really faint sound and then I saw it's eye move a little. I picked it up and it was freezing cold and a little stiff and could not move. I ran it into the house and we dried it off good and put it in a plastic bag up to it's head and put it in the bag in some really warm water to try and get it warmed up. After several minutes of that we took it out and rubbed it really good with a towel to try and get it's blood pumping and we set it in front of a heater. It starting to perk up a little and make more movements and a little noise. I went out and milked it's mama a little and squirted some milk in it's mouth and it swallowed it which was good. We kept warming it up for an hour or two and it finally nursed from a bottle with a nipple on it. After a while we took it down to the mama and let it nurse from the mom, which it did, which was a really good sign. We brought it back in and put it by the fire, which is where it is now, and let it watch the Fiesta Bowl game with us. It is starting to stand a little on it's own now and wag it's tail. I think it is going to make it, it is a little girl by the way. I think we will probably keep it in the house tonight out of the cold and if it keeps improving we will put it with it's mom tomorrow. It's sibling is doing just fine, it is a boy, and is out in the barn with his mom. The boy weighed just over 6 pounds and the girl is 4.5 pounds.

Here it is nursing from a bottle. It kind of looks like I am strangling it but I am just holding it's head in place.


This is when it was first starting to stand on its own.


I will try to post pictures of her brother tomorrow when I can get some while it is light outside.

Big News

Yes, our first kid. I hope you are all as excited as we are. We thought it would never happen but last night it finally did. It was born around 6pm and weighed six pounds and it's a girl. There were actually two born but one did not make it. The mama birthed them in a place with a lot of loose dirt and we think the one that died got dirt stuck all to it and around it's mouth when it came out wet and got choked. Very sad. The other one is doing great though. We have four more mamas that are due any day as well. So, before too long we will have lots of little ones running around. Now for some pics.

Looks just like Margo




Here is mama with the baby nursing

Merry Christmas To All

From the Farm of Hale

Happy Christmas

I thought I would share some entertainment related christmas things with all of you. First of all, I am sure you have all heard it, but here is the funniest rendition of a Christmas song I have ever heard. Click here to listen, it gets funnier as it goes along.

I also thought I would make a list of my top 10 favorite Christmas movies. I also put clips from the movies in case you want to watch. Feel free to leave me a comment about your favorite Christmas movies in case they are different than mine.

10. The Nightmare Before Christmas



9. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original)



8. Scrooged



7. A Christmas Carol



6. A Christmas Story



5. Home Alone



4. Elf



3. It's a Wonderful Life



2. Love Actually



1. Christmas Vacation

Cabinet Maker

I finished a project a week or so ago and I am finally getting around to posting about it. I built us a cabinet to put in our kitchen. We have had a metal stand in the kitchen by the back door that held pots and pans and had the microwave on the top. We don't have that much cabinet space or countertop space in the kitchen. I was tired of the cheap metal stand look so I decided to build a cabinet to put there instead. My plan was to build a cabinet that matched our other cabinets so it looked like it was there originally. This did not work out. First of all, our countertops are formica. I called the company to see if I could get a top to put on my cabinet so it would match but unfortunately they stopped making that color in 2006. I decided just to make the top out of the same wood as the rest of the cabinet. By the way, our cabinets are cedar. I had a hard time finding a cedar that matched the cedar the other cabinets are made with. I found a cedar (western cedar) that I thought was it so I built the cabinet out of it. After finishing the cabinet and finishing it, it turns out that it is not the exact some color as the others. I am not sure if it is due to the wood, the age of the wood, or the finish I put on it. Since it did not turn out to color match exactly I was a little unsure if I wanted to install it or not, even after all the work. Margo (with a little help from Adam) finally talked me into believing it would be fine and better than what we already had. So, I finally got it installed. It does not look too bad, and it has more space in it which is nice. Here are the pics.

Here is the old stand. It served it's purpose. If anyone wants it, I will make you a great deal on it. It has two adjustable shelves and a wood top, I think it is Martha Stewart brand.




Here is the newly completed cabinet.

Long Week

As you can tell from our lack of posting, we have been very busy this week. We have had lots of activities going on from razorback basketball games to broadway shows to hanging out with friends. The only evening we have been home all week was on Monday. I also had to take a class at work the past two days called ACLS that I was a little stressed out about, so I spent all my spare time this week studying for it. Basically ACLS is a step beyond basic CPR training. You will all be happy to know that I passed and I can now shock the crap out of you if you have cardiac arrest. Clear. One of the things we did on Thursday night was go to a show at the Walton Arts Center. The show was Spamalot which was a part of their broadway series this year. Spamalot is based on the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail and the broadway show won the Tony Award for best musical a few years ago. I really like Monty Python and especially Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It was one of my favorite movies in junior high and high school, I used to watch it all the time and I still quote it all the time. I think I may quote it as much or more than any other movie. In fact, in my high school drama class, my good friend Travis and I reenacted a scene from the movie for one of our assignments. Anyway, the show on Thursday night was really good. It had some added stuff and was a little different from the movie but was still very funny and we really enjoyed it. I would recommend it to any of you if it comes to your town. As a side note, the girl who plays the lady of the lake on the North American tour is from Fayetteville. I will try to get back to more regular farm posting soon. Until then, enjoy this clip from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Christmas related post #2-Gifts

I posted about this last year on the blog so you might remember it. I just wanted to give some ideas to all of you for Christmas gifts.

First of all, consider purchasing fair trade products. For those of you who are not familiar with Fair Trade here is a quick description...

Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based model of international trade which promotes the payment of a fair price as well as social and environmental standards in areas related to the production of a wide variety of goods. The movement focuses in particular on exports from developing countries to developed countries, most notably handicrafts and agricultural products. Fair trade's strategic intent is to deliberately work with marginalized producers and workers in order to help them move from a position of vulnerability to security and economic self-sufficiency.

There are several websites devoted to selling these products. Some of our good friends Dylan and Molly have a company that sells some products from India online. It is called Asha Imports and they have products that are made by poor people in India to enable them get out of the slums and out of the sex trade. Their products are really cool. You should also check out all the fair trade product websites below and consider buying some of their products for your friends and family this Christmas. By purchasing fair trade products, your helping to free more and more people from impoverished circumstances. If you live in Northwest Arkansas, the gift shop up at the Mt Sequoyah Conference Center sells lots of fair trade items.

www.ashaimports.com

www.worldofgood.com

www.saribari.com

www.tenthousandvillages.com

Another great thing would be to donate to a non-profit that helps people in need like LifeSource. They help families in need in Northwest Arkansas. Or you could donate to a non-profit in your area. You could also give to a missionary to help them continue to be able to spread the good news. If you don't know any missionaries, we know several we can recommend.

Another great thing you can do this Christmas is to give to World Vision or Heifer International. You can go on their website and buy practical things for impoverished individuals in other countries. Things like livestock, clothing, medical kits, etc. You can even buy a goat for an impoverished family, in honor of the Farm of Hale.

For any of you wanting to get Margo or I a gift, these kinds of things would mean more to us than anything else. Why not consider helping those less fortunate this year for Christmas.

Which Came First

When we got baby chicks back in the spring a couple of them turned out to be roosters even though we ordered all hens. I don't want a rooster because they make a lot of noise (crowing at 5am which is annoying) and I don't need one. For those non-farm people out there, you don't need a rooster to get eggs from the hens. The only thing the rooster does is make the egg fertilized (kind of like people) so you can make baby chicks. But back to my story....So the chicks are now grown and I still had one rooster left driving me crazy crowing at 5am. I finally decided to do something about it today. I have never butchered chickens before but I thought I would give it a try. There are two ways to do it, one is to pluck them which involves putting the chicken in boiling water and plucking out all the feathers and from what I hear is not fun at all and stinky. The other way is to skin them like you would any other animal when you butcher it. This is the method I chose. It actually was not too hard to do and turned out pretty good I think. First I cut off it's head, then let the blood drain, cut off the legs, tail, and part of the wings. I then skinned it and gutted it. Here are a few pics, don't worry they are not very graphic.

Here he is, he has no idea what awaits him.


Here he is after cutting his head off, he flopped around quite a bit and then I hung him up to drain the blood.


And here is the finished product. I think we will boil him up and make a big pot of chicken and dumplings. My favorite.

Funny Animals

Not much going on around the farm these days. Winter is a slower time for things to happen that are blog worthy. I am working on some projects currently that I will post about soon. Until then I thought I would post a video to keep you the reader interested and coming back. Margo and I saw these a while back and thought they were funny and who doesn't like funny animal videos. I especially love the second one of the panda. I don't know why but it kills me every time I see it, I can't stop laughing for several minutes.

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