Big & Lil Pig

So I have decided against naming the pigs this time around.  So I refer to the pigs as Big Pig, for the bigger one and Lil Pig for the little one.  They seem to like it. :)

 

The pigs are doing great and starting to become much friendlier.  They of course love feeding time and run around like crazies when they see one of us coming with the yellow bucket with their feed in it.

 

Big Pig (l) & Lil Pig (r)

 

I decided to measure the pigs also last weekend. This took much longer than I thought it would.  They were very weary of the tape measure.  They didn't want it near them and then they decided they wanted to try to eat it to see if it was food.  Finally after about 20 minutes I got their measurements.

 

Big Pig - 105lbs

Lil Pig - 75lbs

 

They are will be 5 months old on December 15th.  They are growing well and love their feed and any extra's we give them.  Mostly our leftovers.  This pair of pigs are funny too because they love to eat hay.  They go crazy when they see me bringing in hay to their pen.  I shake it all out in their bedding area and they go in an lay down and start munching away.

 

Check back in another month or so to see how much they have grown.

 

 



Chuck & Tbone

Last weekend I was out taking some measurements of the goats so I decided to measure the cows too.

 

They are about 7 1/2 months old now and doing great.  Just plugging along with growing.  I don't think I realized how long it takes to grow a cow to full size.

 

To help with the feed bill we have decided to cut back a little on their grain.  Most people don't feed grain at all until a few months before the cows are going to be butchered. We thought that it couldn't hurt to continuously feed them grain over the winter to help with keeping them growing.

 

Tbone (back) & Chuck (front) eating some hay

 

I went ahead and measured them and they are currently at the approximate weights.

 

Chuck - 480lbs

Tbone - 415lbs

 

They are both growing nice and slowly and eating everything we give them.  Hopefully one of them will be ready to go to the butcher in spring.

Welker Turns 1

Welker, 1 years old

 

On December 4th, Welker turned 1 years old.  He is doing excellent.  He is with our other buck Brady full time and they have finally become buddies.

 

Welker weighs 80lbs.  He is still a little on the small side in my opinion but he eats well and is growing every day.  I also think its hard to judge just how much he has grown since he is always standing next to Brady who is a full year older than Welker, therefore much larger than him too.

 

We are in anticipation waiting for Welker's first kids to be born here.  He bred  Priscilla who is due January 21, 2013, these babies will be our first purebred Nubians born here.  Also he bred Maddie, who is due January 29, 2013.  We are really hoping for spotted babies but we will just have to wait and see.

 

For now Welker is doing wonderful.  Walks on a lead and goes where ever I say without a fuss.  He stands extremely well for hoof trimmings. He is friendly and loves to have attention.

 

Check back in a few months to see his babies.

Second Deer of the Season

We got another deer a few weekends back.

 

Buck

 

I am so thankful that we got this buck.  It has helped fill our freezer.  We got about 8 big packages of steaks.  All the other meat was canned.  We were able to get 18 wide mouth pint jars of canned venison.  Jamie & Hailey love it.  They make venison stew or just heat it up with some onions and peppers and eat it with egg noodles. They are both happy that we have some stored up for the next year.

Hailey likes to pose with the deer

 

I am still out hunting here and there, hoping to get a big buck.  Not sure if the tall 6 is still around but I would love to get him and mount him on the wall.  That way Jamie & I both have a deer hanging on the wall.



First Deer of the Season

Jamie finally got his first deer of the season during muzzle loader.

 

Jamie & his deer

 

Jamie had taken some time off of work for hunting. He had gone out every morning and evening for 4 days straight.  Finally he got this beautiful buck on the 5th morning.

 

There is an interesting story that goes along with this deer.  We had seen him numerous times on the trail camera pictures and had named him Scar.  He had a very long scar on the side of his body, probably from fighting with another buck.  Archery is the first type of hunting you can do when deer season opens.  Jamie actually shot this very deer with his bow.  The deer had run away and was never found.  Jamie was feeling awful thinking he had wounded a deer and it was just going to lie down somewhere and die.  Thankfully a few weeks later we saw him again on the trail camera doing just fine.  Scar ended up showing up at the right time for Jamie to shoot him during muzzle loader.

 

Jamie's deer -9 point

 

Jamie with Scar

 

This deer came just at the right time.  We had finished our last package of venison in the freezer just a few weeks ago.

 

Jamie got the deer skinned out and it hung for a few days for the meat to age.  Then he went to work cutting it up.

 

We ended up with 12 packages of deer steaks.  Each package will feed us for one meal.

 

Venison Steaks

 

With the rest of the deer meat, Hailey and Jamie ground it into burger.

 

 Hailey grinding venison meat

 

We ended up with 13 1lb packages of ground venison.

 

Ground Venison burger

 

 Jamie liked this deer so much he decided to mount it.  Jamie decided he wanted to try to do an European mount himself.  He researched how to do it quite a bit and got it done.  It came out great.

 

European Mount that Jamie did himself.

 

It's nice to have some venison in the freezer now but I'm still hoping that Jamie will get a few more deer this season for our family.

 

 

 

 



The End of the Garden 2012

Well the garden is done for the year.  Hailey and I went out last weekend and picked the rest of what was left.  Not much out there except Hailey's cabbage and some jalapeno and green bell peppers.

 

Jalapeno & Green Bell Peppers

 

Hailey's cabbage

 

What was really exciting was Hailey's cabbage.

 

Hailey with her cabbage

 

Hailey got her cabbage as a little bitty plant from school in 3rd grade.  They were giving out cabbage plants to the 3rd graders to promote taking care of something.  She did super with her plant.  She took very good care of it making sure she watered it everyday.  For awhile we thought it was going to die.  Some type of bug kept eating holes in it.  It stayed alive and after a couple of months it was finally big and strong enough to move out into the garden.  Hailey still continued to check on it to make sure it was growing.

 

Our first hard frost was coming so Hailey and I went out into the garden and finally picked it.  She was super excited at how big it got.  She was really proud and said that she thinks she should grow cabbage again for our garden next year.

 

She took off the outside leaves and fed them to the goats for a treat. We have the cabbage in the fridge and Hailey wants to eat it with cornbeef.

 

I am already thinking about next years garden. For the past two years we have bought tomato and pepper plants.  I'm hoping to have enough time to start those plants from seeds for our garden next year.  We also should have enough compost for the whole garden come spring.  Hopefully we won't have such a drought next year and the garden will do better.



First Year Hunting

Jamie has been hunting for years now.  With the kids getting older they are becoming more interested in hunting also.

 

Last season, Hailey sat out with Jamie while he was hunting.  This year she wanted to actually hunt.  Drew thought he would like to also.  So we decided to invest in a gun that both the kids and I could handle and shoot.

 

We bought a 243 Rifle with a scope.  This gun is super light weight.  It is only 1 shot so very easy to load.  I was excited to actually have a gun that I could take out of the gun safe and know how to handle, load and unload and actually shoot without it hurting my shoulder.

 

The kids and I started practicing shooting right away when we got the gun back in August.

 

This is us all shooting for the first time.

 

Me shooting

Drew shooting the target, the little white mark downhill

Hailey shooting, even is a dress, that's my girl :)

 

The kids and I practiced shooting a few other times on the weekends up until hunting season started.  Want to know something?  Hailey is the best shot out of all of us.

 

The weekend of October 27th was youth weekend here.  Which means that only youths can hunt on the weekend.  Hailey was the first to go out Saturday morning.  She did a great job getting up and ready with Jamie.  They did see some deer but not close enough to shoot.

 

Hailey ready for hunting

 

Drew went out with Jamie Saturday afternoon.  They didn't see anything but then Drew went out with Jamie on Sunday morning.  They did end up seeing a deer, but it appeared so quickly then walked off that Drew didn't have enough time to shoot.

 

Drew ready for hunting

 

Both kids had a great time.  I know that Jamie loves spending time with the kids and teaching them about hunting which is one of his passions.

 

Rifle season should be starting soon and there will also be one more youth weekend before hunting season is over.  The kids are excited about going out hunting again.

 

I'm patiently waiting for rifle season to start also so I can go hunting for my first time too.