Category Archives: Deciding to Go

James Wesley Rawles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wesley_Rawles ) gives a succinct checklist for those who decide move to the American Redoubt. The list includes:

• Develop a home-based business
• Lighten the load. Keep the practical items, but sell your junk and impractical items
• Bring your guns.
• Sell your jewelry and fancy wristwatch. Buy a Stihl chainsaw instead.
• Choose your church home wisely, seeking sound doctrine, not “programs”.
• Expect long driving distances for work and shopping.
• Begin homeschooling your children.
• Expect persecution and hardship. You will be despised for being true to your faith.
• Make a clean break by selling your house and any rental properties. You aren’t coming back.

04302018

I’m bored with showing me cutting and stripping and burning so decided to post up a small selection of pictures, mainly from my trail cameras from here in the property. So here you go, oldest to newest… BTW, use your “back button” if you click to expand the images… Just saying…

Turkey have been a common sight here in the panhandle, this pic I enjoyed because it caught this Hen in flight.

Sometimes LOTS of Turkey show at any one time. Those that have lived here for a while call them pests and they are messy when they get on the deck and in the front yard…

Circling the feeder while they wait for it to spread the corn that they seem to know it holds. And people say they are stupid!

There are heavy Deer populations here in the Panhandle and I have literally hundreds of pics; so here are a few…

Deer everywhere

Having a go at the salt lick; the locals have recommended blocks with Selenium as it isn’t to be found here… The deer seem to like it

Even at night they hit the lick. This trail cam does a good job of night shots

Deer and Turkey together, this yearling seems to be a bit confused by all the activity

But mostly they all seem to just ignore each other

Deer disagree just like all living creatures do. These two seem to be at a standstill about who gets to eat under the feeder…

Several of my common visitors seem to have significant scaring, at least I think it is scaring…

This Doe seemed to have figured out where the “food” was coming from and decided to not wait to eat. I was never able to get a picture of her doing it but she’d stand up and knock the corn loose and then eat it up off the ground. Eventually I had to raise the feeder by 4 feet and that stopped it… Smart critter…

04262018

The weather is warming, and the Sun is shining almost daily! WOW, it feels good. That is until you get a long-sleeved shirt and boots on and run a chainsaw for a few hours… That said I keep thinking of the story of the ant and the grasshopper and so far, I feel like the ant. But we will be prepared for winter and in the meantime, I’m losing weight and working muscles that I had forgotten that I even had! A nice hot tub is sounding better and better…

For all my bird chasing buddies; here in the panhandle the game birds come to you! Dove & Quail together… And while I’m having a hard time getting pictures, Grouse have been semi-regular visitors to the ranch…

Dead Trees in need of cutting, another day of fun ahead…

Another One Down…

Now lets get this thing out where we can work on it. Once again the UTV pays for itself!

Now it’s were we can get to it

Strip it down to the bark and

Add the limbs to the pile and…

… haul away the “pole” to be cut to length

And repeat… UGH!

FLASHBACK! I had an Unexpected Visitor in early March, This magnificent beast came by a couple of times in about a week but hasn’t been back since. It gets the heart pumping when something this size is mere feet away; I was on the back deck when it visited last… These shots were captured by one of my trail cameras; I love these things!

Anybody in there??


04192018

Yesterday was a day of cutting and clearing; lots of downed trees from the winter of 2017/2018. Today was the next step of cleaning up all those branches and tree parts that are aren’t even worth cutting for the wood stove…

And So It Begins

The first thing I neded was to get water to the burn spot. I hadn’t even tried to get water from these faucets but it was needed so…

Untried No Freeze Water Faucets

Down the hole I go! This is the pump house and where the pressure tank is located. I also found that there is a valve that supplies the water to the faucets in the garden area. One leaked when I opened things up, but I just hooked the hose to it and off I went…

Down The Hole I Go!

Success, Now I Have Water

And now needed I get the pile burning and keep it burning. At times this was easier said than done as the recent rains had everything rather wet AND most of this pile was green! I pinged a couple of the neighbors that had done this before for tips and wow were they spot on. It still took time and effort but I got the burn going then just had to feed the beast!











While I Was Waiting


Almost 5 hours to get this all done; and tomorrow I get to gather, cut up and burn more; MAYBE. So busy today there was no property walk or even a chance to throw a few arrows.. Such is life sometimes…