The Hunt

Yesterday I picked up a drill press & arc welder from Carl. He sold me both for $250. I thought it was a pretty good deal. Josh wanted to run out and buy a mask and probably won’t stop pestering me till I do. He also spent a considerable time on YouTube browsing welding videos the rest of the day and invited his friends over to see “his” new tools. Wow, what rednecks we are.

I also got a 55 gallon drum, my new burning barrel. I’ve wanted one since we moved in, now I can put my tiny little burning…uh…barrel?...away. It actually is an aluminum pipe coupling I found in the garage, about 18 inches in diameter and 16” high, but it had worked as a burning barrel for the time being. I knew if I waited long enough, I’d get one for free. He gave me hundreds of feet of ½ inch watering tubing for my future garden too, with the small drip tubes already run from it, I couldn’t even fit it all in the truck; I need to make a trip back sometime. I’m psyched about getting that, since its way to dry to ever grow a garden here without extensive watering.

I told him when he gets back in the spring I want to buy some of his cattle gates and cattle guard off him. I hope to have some sort of barnyard put in by then, and that will come in handy.

Today a couple of friends came out to go deer hunting. They saw plenty of deer, but didn’t even get a shot off. They had a buck tag and mostly does came around today. However we got a good chuckle watching from in the house as a huge 7 point buck came up over the berm just 40 feet behind them. His rack was really nice, but they didn’t even see him, they were looking with binoculars the other direction. We kept hoping they’d turn around and look, but he walked right on by them unnoticed. If we had just gotten a picture, it was priceless! I’ve seen that big buck on our land several times over the past few weeks. There have actually been two of them; I’ve seen them fighting lately, they are in rut. Both are nice sized bucks with large racks. Too bad they couldn’t have taken one home. They hope to make it back tomorrow before church to bag one.

I found a generator today on Craigslist and we went to take a look. But, the poster had slightly embellished his description of it, it was older and more used than he had alluded to; too bad since we drove almost 2 hours one way to see it. Well Steve loves a road trip so not all was lost. It was nice couple time too. I’m sure it was a good generator with a lot of life left in it, but I had a hesitation when I saw it, and being a good idea to listen when you have a check about something, we passed on it. I’m sure something better will come along in the right time. I would like to have one since we are on a well and if we lose power, we lose water. Or at the least, someone has to hike up to the cistern and start hauling buckets back to the house in the snow and 80 mph winds. I’d rather opt for the generator! Hopefully we won’t lose power, but it would be nice to have when we go to build the barn, so we can run a power nailer and such off it. But, for now, the barn is in the future as well.