Well, last week was a pretty busy week for me. It started off with us coming to an agreement with our neighbors (at the house) to buy 8.8 acres of land from them. They have 17.4 acres now and don’t think they need that much land, so we’re going to buy it to keep from having any other neighbors move in. Probably paying too much for it, but it is the tract that is closest to our house so this gives us a nice buffer zone now. Hopefully we will be able to close on it within the next month or so. That will put us up to 51 acres of land around the house.
I scraped my hand while cleaning my fish tank on Sunday, and didn’t think much about it since I’ve done the same thing dozens of times, but the next day it was starting to look infected. By Tuesday it was pretty bad and my entire hand was swollen and red. Wednesday morning it was even worse so I went to the Dr. He prescribed 2 different antibiotics and it really didn’t start to get much better until Friday evening. It’s almost back to normal now.
Watching the weather forecasts, there was a 50% chance of rain on Wednesday so I decided to go down and plant the 33 acres of wheat on Tuesday. My hand was too sore to do much with at work (I was barely able to type) but I felt like I would be able to drive the tractor with it. Last time I was down there planting I had put 600lbs of wheat in the grain drill thinking that it would stay dry instead of hauling it back and forth to the trailer like I did with the other 900lbs. I checked it and everything looked good so I started planting. After running about 5 acres I checked and on one side hardly any wheat had gone through the drill and on the other side it was about 1/2 gone. I was messing with some settings so I thought somehow it wasn't set right so I went around a few more times and the one side still wasn't planting much and so I dug down in the seed and discovered big patches of sprouted seed down in the bottom of the drill clogging several of the openings. Evidently some water had gotten into the drill and puddle up in the bottom and caused the problem. I cleaned it out and everything worked fairly well from there out.
After an hour, my tractor started to run poorly, and it seemed like a fuel delivery problem. I normally pull the grain drill in 6th gear without any issues, and it was bogging down badly in 6th gear and even struggling in 5th gear a little. I cleaned the radiator, and air filter, then messed with the fuel bleed valve and then cleaned my fuel filter and that seemed to solve the problem for a while. I didn’t really have much to clean the filter with though. I was just taking it out and blowing through it – you gotta love the taste of diesel fuel in the morning! The second time I cleaned it I dropped it in the dirt. Not a good thing. I ended up having to finish in 5th gear and even dropped into 4th a couple times. At less than $3 and a whopping 2 minute change out time, I probably should keep a spare fuel filter with the tractor.
I finally got done planting about 30 minutes after dark with 1,500lbs of wheat seed in the ground. I ended up running out of seed with about 1 acre to go in the middle of the field, but I am planning on planting that in something else this spring anyway. I’m actually starting to get the settings on the drill figured out. The seed bed was pretty ugly (I just had them disc in all the standing vegetation including tumbleweeds, old sorghum, etc.) but hopefully it will turn out alright. After missing the first rain in the forecast, it rained on it pretty good late Wednesday night, and it was a good thing I got it planted because it would have been too wet to plant it this weekend like I had planned on originally.
Okay, I’ve written a novel already and no pictures!
I still had other projects to get done on the land so I still went down there this weekend. Friday worked perfectly, with me getting down there and sitting in the new blind for a little over an hour and then shooting a 150lb boar pig. I stayed in the blind until after dark and saw several coyotes (they were 400+ yards away), and a few deer, but nothing that would have been a shooter even if it had been deer season (it opens November 7th). We still have a LOT of pig in the freezer, and my neighbors to the north of me were there at their hunting camp so I asked them if they wanted the pig and they said sure. That saved me from messing with it and I didn't want to waste it, so I gave it to them. It should be a good eater.
Hunted again Saturday morning and not much going on. Shot at a coyote with my .22 Mag, and I think I hit it, but it ran off. Put up a new tripod stand on the edge of the fields that I planted a few weeks ago, most of the deer activity I’ve been seeing is on those fields so I think that will be a hot spot in a couple weeks still. While I was working on it a coyote came out into the field about 100 yards away and I was behind some cactus so it just saw some movement but couldn’t figure out what it was so it came over to investigate. It got about 25 yards away and I stood up and shot at it with my .22LR pistol, but I missed it. I put some camo netting on it to help it blend in and I think the end result was pretty good.
I need to remember if I put another one of these up to put most of the netting on it when it is still on the ground though, it took about the same amount of time to put the netting on it after it was in the air than it did to assemble the entire tripod on the ground! Of course the 25+ mph wind didn’t help much.
Here’s a picture of it from the other side of the small field. You can see the food plot is looking really good for only 3 weeks old. It is amazing what some rain can do!
The next project was finishing my gate at the very front of the property. At one point in it’s life, one acre in the very northeast corner was sold separately from the rest of the property. It has a fence around it but no gate to keep people from driving into that corner of the property. When I first bought the place I had a trail camera stolen and had a few indications that people were trespassing and I’ve been meaning to put a gate in for a couple years now. Gates went on sale at Tractor Supply and I bought some and actually put the gate in a month or so ago, but then noticed some tire tracks just driving around the gate so I ended up putting a fence in. When it was all said and done I probably only put in 75 to 100 feet of fence, but it was still some pretty hard work. I only put in 3 strand barbwire since the goal is more to keep people out rather than keeping cattle. Hard to see the barbwire in the picture, but it actually didn’t turn out that bad.
Sunday was the last day of fall dove season so I went out to the pond at the house for an hour or so right before dark and ended up getting 5 birds. If I was a better shot I would probably limit out every time! Our dog “Baby” who is a full blooded Rottweiler goes with me and is actually getting to be a pretty good retriever. I ended up with 41 birds for the fall season. We have a winter season over the holidays for the first time this year so I still might get to 50 before the end of the year.
Overall it was a pretty busy week. I’m actually starting to think I might be actually getting older and should slow down a little bit!
Okay, I’ve written a novel already and no pictures!
I still had other projects to get done on the land so I still went down there this weekend. Friday worked perfectly, with me getting down there and sitting in the new blind for a little over an hour and then shooting a 150lb boar pig. I stayed in the blind until after dark and saw several coyotes (they were 400+ yards away), and a few deer, but nothing that would have been a shooter even if it had been deer season (it opens November 7th). We still have a LOT of pig in the freezer, and my neighbors to the north of me were there at their hunting camp so I asked them if they wanted the pig and they said sure. That saved me from messing with it and I didn't want to waste it, so I gave it to them. It should be a good eater.
Hunted again Saturday morning and not much going on. Shot at a coyote with my .22 Mag, and I think I hit it, but it ran off. Put up a new tripod stand on the edge of the fields that I planted a few weeks ago, most of the deer activity I’ve been seeing is on those fields so I think that will be a hot spot in a couple weeks still. While I was working on it a coyote came out into the field about 100 yards away and I was behind some cactus so it just saw some movement but couldn’t figure out what it was so it came over to investigate. It got about 25 yards away and I stood up and shot at it with my .22LR pistol, but I missed it. I put some camo netting on it to help it blend in and I think the end result was pretty good.
I need to remember if I put another one of these up to put most of the netting on it when it is still on the ground though, it took about the same amount of time to put the netting on it after it was in the air than it did to assemble the entire tripod on the ground! Of course the 25+ mph wind didn’t help much.Here’s a picture of it from the other side of the small field. You can see the food plot is looking really good for only 3 weeks old. It is amazing what some rain can do!
The next project was finishing my gate at the very front of the property. At one point in it’s life, one acre in the very northeast corner was sold separately from the rest of the property. It has a fence around it but no gate to keep people from driving into that corner of the property. When I first bought the place I had a trail camera stolen and had a few indications that people were trespassing and I’ve been meaning to put a gate in for a couple years now. Gates went on sale at Tractor Supply and I bought some and actually put the gate in a month or so ago, but then noticed some tire tracks just driving around the gate so I ended up putting a fence in. When it was all said and done I probably only put in 75 to 100 feet of fence, but it was still some pretty hard work. I only put in 3 strand barbwire since the goal is more to keep people out rather than keeping cattle. Hard to see the barbwire in the picture, but it actually didn’t turn out that bad.
Sunday was the last day of fall dove season so I went out to the pond at the house for an hour or so right before dark and ended up getting 5 birds. If I was a better shot I would probably limit out every time! Our dog “Baby” who is a full blooded Rottweiler goes with me and is actually getting to be a pretty good retriever. I ended up with 41 birds for the fall season. We have a winter season over the holidays for the first time this year so I still might get to 50 before the end of the year.Overall it was a pretty busy week. I’m actually starting to think I might be actually getting older and should slow down a little bit!
That's it for now. Nathan
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