Let There Be Meat

WARNING!  Hunting related photos with dead animals!  Turn back now if you are vegan or squeamish!

 Over the weekend, DH got a deer with his crossbow.  Which is really good, as the amount of red meat in our freezer was dwindling down to worrisome levels.  I've seen the prices of beef in the grocery store lately, and I for sure don't want to try to fit that into the budget!

So, on Saturday when DH came in early from the evening hunt to tell me he'd shot a buck, we got excited.  And a little fearful too, as hitting one with an arrow doesn't always mean you will recover a dead deer.  The crossbow bolts are somewhat more of a sure harvest, but shot placement still matters most of all.  

We ate the dinner I had started cooking while DH was out hunting, giving the deer time to lay down and bleed out (as opposed to chasing a wounded deer).  By the time dinner had been eaten, it was a little more than an hour after after DH had shot the deer, so we went out to track it.  It was totally dark by then, and we were both relieved when we followed the bloodtrail through the woods and found this:

A nice 8-point whitetail deer, all piled up (aka deceased).

He was in among some brush and downed trees, and it took a bit of effort for DH, wearing a harness, to drag him--with me trying to both light the way with a flashlight and keep the buck's antlers from catching on the logs we drug him over, as well as his front legs from wedging themselves around small trees--the 60 or so yards to where DH has left the tractor, having driven that as far off the path in the woods as it could fit.

Forty-five minutes or so later, we had the buck field dressed, brought up to the shop, rinsed out inside, and got him hung on the game scale.

OSHA, don't look.

(yes, I am lifting DH in the tractor bucket rather than getting a ladder)

148 pounds.  Not a huge buck, but will still give us a decent amount of meat (roughly 70+ pounds).  That will keep us in red meat for a while.  

Of course we are hoping to get at least one more deer this year, I'll be joining the hunt on Sunday when firearm deer season begins.

Faline's Socks

 I finished knitting the socks I was making for Faline.  Her birthday is right around the corner, so it was good to get them completed, not just so they are ready for gift giving now versus at Christmas, but also because the timing I had calculated for making them worked out exactly.  Good to know I've still got an accurate grip on how long things take me, personally (compared to when I am collaborating with others.)

This summer, when she mentioned wanting Amma to make her some socks, Faline stated than pink would be a good color.  So of course at the time I went to my stash I looked to see if I had any pink sock yarn, and I did!  Let it be known I have waaaaayyyyy too much sock yarn.  Unless I live for at least 30 more years and keep the ability to use my fingers and knit the entire thirty years.  Then I might actually use it all up.

18 gallon tote of just sock yarn

I found not one, not two, but three different pink yarn options.  I settled on a tonal one that has a nice bubble gum pink in it.  Irrefutably pink (compared to a paler tonal with very light pink that was one of the other options).

color in this photo is washed out

With my yarn decided, I set out to find a pattern I thought Faline would approve of.  Like her Amma, she's kind of picky.  I all ready knew she doesn't see lace as lacey but as having holes, so anything with yarnovers was out.  I figured a plain rib would probably not be exciting to her, and a plain stockinette possibly not stretchy enough.

What I settled on was the Transversal pattern from the book Splendid Soles.  Somewhat stretchy, no yarnovers, and with an interesting design. I went with the directions for the women's small, and made the foot length for a youth size 2.

I stated knitting the first sock in September, with plans to finish that one in about a month and start the second one in October, to be totally finished in early November.  And that's how it worked out.  (Can you tell I'm very happy about that?)

Unblocked

Blocked.

Fingers crossed that Faline will find them pink enough, and comfortable enough, to be wearable.

Another Gardening Season in the Books

This was not a good gardening year for me. I planted a lot, and harvested very little.  We had quite a pest problem, mostly of the deer kind, but also some woodchucks.  It seemed like every time things would sprout and start growing well, they'd get eaten down to the ground.  Then the plants would try again, sending out new shoots, just to get raided in the night and eaten down again.

Truthfully, other than a few select areas of the garden, I just kind of gave up after we got back from our Myrtle Beach trip in July.  In fact, some parts of the garden got plowed under at the beginning of August because it was clear, at that point, that the plants were not going to have time to mature and produce anything even if the varmint pressure had been greatly alleviated by then. 

For future years, we are going to have to take a hard stance on keeping the deer OUT of our garden.  A mesh fence seems a simple solution, until you take into account the size of the garden (roughly 125' x 75'), the fact that deer can jump a six foot tall fence from a standstill (I've seen them do it at other farms), and the need to get a tractor and implements into and out of the garden in more than one spot (so, large gates that are also super tall and have mesh to keep deer and other things from crawling under or through the bars on the gate).  Because there's no point in buying materials and putting in the labor to build a fence if it won't be impenetrable to the wildlife that we are trying to keep out.  

Anyhoo, this is what we did manage to get at least a small harvest of:

Asparagus.  The deer don't typically eat this, so we got to eat as much as I could remember to check on during the short and quick growing season.

Garlic.  It was a really good year for garlic.  Toad helped me cut the bulbs from the stalks once they were all dried down, and he was amazed at how big some of the garlic was.  We chose the biggest heads of each variety and I planted those for my 2027 crop.

Onions.  While they weren't huge, I did harvest almost every onion I planted.  Especially the Red Rivers.

Cucumbers.  For the first year in about four years, I had a good cucumber crop.  Not huge, but enough that I canned enough pickles to get us through until next year.

Grapes.  It was a big grape crop, although earlier than expected.  DS2 picked about half to make wine with, and I missed the rest because I was too busy to get out there and pick them before the critters did.

Tomatoes.  I got a very few tomatoes.  Mostly the cherry/snack sized varieties, and really only about a dozen of those.  My tomato plants got repeatedly eaten early in the season, even with tomato cages around them, and not very many of the plants recovered enough to even put out blossoms.

Green peppers.  Same stoy as the tomatoes, only with less of a harvest.  Four?  Three? Peppers total.

Turnips.  Far from a banner crop, my turnips actually did better than in previous years when I planted them.  Most were not huge though; in mid-October when we decided to put the garden to bed for the winter I pulled what was left and came up with a couple almost-baseball sized turnips and the rest being a little bit bigger than a golf ball.

Potatoes.  I feel like I really did my potatoes an injustice this year.  I didn't get them hilled when they were supposed to be, and as a result they didn't produce much.  Each plant gave me at least one potato, and some gave me four to six, but for the most part it was a puny crop.  As always, the red skinned potatoes were the most abundant.

Live and learn.  The season is over, all the stakes and tomato cages pulled and put away, and the garden turned under until next spring.  As they say in sports "There's always next season."

Thankful Thursday, November 5th

 Many years ago, in November, I did a Thankful post on Thursdays.  I'm going to try to do that again this year.

Today, I am thankful for:

*A new grandson!  I'm still trying to wrap my head around how DS2 and Surprise managed to keep this a secret until after he was born, but overall I'm just so excited to have another grandbaby.

*The socks I'm knitting for Faline's birthday are almost done.  Which is good, because her birthday is coming up later this month.

*We finally got a little rain.  It's been a very dry fall so far, which has been really helpful for getting outdoor pre-winter chores done, but things are very very dry here.  So rain is welcome.

*DH's colonoscopy went well.  As the Snickers commercial goes "You're not you when you're hungry," and DH becomes rather a bear when he's hungry.  So doing the whole special diet days ahead of time plus the liquids only restriction the day before plus the icky prep drink made him a rather difficult person to be around.  Add in the fact that he has needle-phobia (trypanophobia according to Google) and he was a bundle of nerves--but veins that were incredibly hard to get an IV started in--in addition to being extremely hangry.  The scoping itself was anti-climactic and he doesn't need to do this again for seven years.  I am extra, extra thankful for that!

*A really good book.  I got ahold of my library's brand new copy of Bonnie Garmus's new novel and it is indescribably good.  If you read her first book, Lessons in Chemistry, and loved it, you definitely will like this one.

What things are you thankful for today?

Secret, Secret, I've Got a Secret

 Actually, I was flabbergasted when a secret was revealed to me: I have another grandchild!  This makes 9 plus two step-grandkids, for a total of eleven!  This new one is a boy, bringing the score to seven boys and four girls

DS2, Surprise, and Lucky came by this weekend so Lucky could see us on Halloween and do a little trick or treating.  What they didn't tell me was that they recently welcomed another son into their family.  Those dirty rats kept a secret from us all for nine months:  that Surprise was pregnant with their second child.  

Now, when she was pregnant with Lucky, they didn't tell anyone for the first five months of the pregnancy (she had had two previous miscarriages).  So for them to not say anything right away wasn't unusual.

This time, nobody noticed that she was pregnant during our family vacation on Myrtle Beach--when she was about six months along. Surprise looked like she'd put on a little weight, but didn't have a noticeable belly, and it's not nice to ask a lady if she's gained weight (therefore, nobody asked).  So for whatever reason, they decided to wait and see how long it would take any of us to figure it out.  And since they live about 40 miles away from the majority of us and are both very busy (especially DS2, he travels a ton on his job just like DH used to), we didn't see them much between late July and now.  

DS2 and Lucky had come by a few times in September and early October, but Surprise had stayed home and we were all told she just wasn't feeling well that particular day.  No one caught on; although I did say to DH after the early October visit that I was getting suspicious that either they were having a rough patch in their marriage and that's why Surprise hadn't been around or they were hiding something from us.  Like maybe another pregnancy they didn't want to be public knowledge until they knew it was going to be a healthy full term one.

HA!  Healthy and full term he was!  And now he's going to forever have the name of Secret on my blog.

DD2 (and Honorary Son, they were Slinky Dog for Halloween) meeting Secret.

Guess what my next quilting project is going to be!

Au Revoir, Little Black Mare

 LBM, the Little Black Mare, has gone to a new home.  This is something that started in motion a couple of weeks ago, and that I wanted to wait until it was a done deal and she was at her new farm to post about.

Her owner had told me this past spring, that since she never had time to come over to this little place here and do anything with the LBM, that she was probably going to try to find her a new owner.  Meanwhile, she wanted to keep the LBM in training with me, so that the LBM would have the best possible chance at the kind of new home the owner wished to find.  

All summer and thus far into the fall, I've kept up the regular rides with the LBM, especially taking her out trail riding, as a trail riding home (rather than a horse show home) seemed like it would be the best fit for the LBM's temperament and build.

In the middle of October, I got a text from the owner, asking if I might have time to take some pictures of LBM and send to her, so that she could forward them on to a prospective buyer.  She had been in contact with this person, who had turned out to be someone she'd actually known in the past but lost touch with several years ago, and felt like he would provide an acceptable home for the LBM.

Being that I was not super busy, and it was a beautiful day, I was able to run outside, grab LBM from her pasture, brush her up and take a couple dozen pictures.  One of which is above.  After putting LBM back in her pasture, I went through the pictures, chose about 7 or 8 of the best ones, and sent them to her owner.  The owner was very pleased with the pictures (I'd done them as close to professional sale ad pictures as I could with just me to handle the horse), and the prospective buyer was too.  He requested to set up a time the following Saturday to come meet the LBM, see me ride her, and possibly ride her himself.

That day came, another awesome weather day, and everything just seemed to align perfectly.  The owner liked him.  I got a sense that he would be a good match for the LBM both personality-wise and skill-wise.  He liked the LBM.  And, importantly, the LBM seemed to really like him; she calmly did everything he asked of her even though he was a total stranger.  A match made in heaven, if you will.  

A verbal deal was made between owner and buyer, the three of us set up a date and time for him to return with a check (for the owner) and a trailer (to take the LBM to her new home in).

Five days before she was scheduled to leave, I split up the LBM and the Poetess.  They had been pasturemates since about the second week of operation as a horse farm at this little place here.  To (hopefully) make the LBM's departure a little easier on both of them, I started a pseudo weaning by separating them, but just by a fenceline.  This forced them apart, yet they could still see each other in the adjacent pasture and could touch over the fence if they felt necessary.  They took that right in stride, often grazing calmly on opposite ends of their pastures from each other, not at all worried that they could no longer be side by side all day.

The first 10 minutes of separate pastures.

Because the LBM's owner had prepaid for October's training sessions, I continued to work the LBM as scheduled.  I did adjust the focus of the rides to less arena work and 90% riding outside the arena.  Her new owner was hoping, as long as the weather stayed favorable, to maybe take her on some trail rides with his friends and their horses yet this fall.  So I rode her all over my property, looking at every thing that could possibly be spooky and trekking right on past it without any blow-ups or getting eaten by any monsters (like the buck we scared up in the woods).  

On our last ride around the property, I took some pictures from on her back, with plans to share them with her owner (seller).

On the path between my pastures and the neighbor's grain field.

In the back side of my woods.

On November first, the sale was completed.  The LBM followed her new owner into his horse trailer, and away she went to her new life.  The Poetess watched, intermittently called out for her friend in the first two hours after the LBM departed, then settled back to grazing.  Exactly the reaction I'd hoped she would have when I decided to separate them days ahead of time to make the final separation less traumatic for them both.

Goodbye, Little Black Mare.  I'm so excited for your new life of adventuring and exploring more trails with your new owner.

Books Read in 2026: October

 Freckles by Cecelia Ahern. I love Cecelia Ahern's novels.  Unfortunately, there are a few that I cannot get from my library because not only does that particular library system (county with about a dozen branches) not own a copy, apparently no library in Michigan that participates in the state interlibrary loan system does either.  So I will in such instances buy a used copy off eBay.  This is one of those 'hard to get' novels: I had to buy it.  In a way, I found the novel much different than her others; most of it reads rather dark and depressing.  I hurt for the main character and hoped that the hole she seemed to be falling/digging herself into via her personal choices wasn't going to end badly.  I won't spoil the story, but the closer I got to the end of the book the more I liked it and I could see the author's trademark storyline (or, at least what I count on her books to contain) become revealed.

One For The Money by Janet Evanovich.  Other than a short Christmas-themed novel, I had not read any of this widely known author's books.  While I hadn't been very impressed with that one holiday book I did read, I've heard glowing recommedations about this series and I was determined to finally give it a real try myself.  Well, turned out I DNF'ed it after about three attempts to read it.  Just not my style, I guess.  A bit too crass, and fluffy at the same time.  Sorry Janet Evanovich fans, Stephanie Plum is just not for me.  In a way, I guess that's a good thing, as now I don't have to worry about getting ahold of the two dozen-some books about her.

Murder on Millionaires' Row by Erin Lindsey.  This is a book I had picked up at a book swap either this spring or last fall.  Set in the late 1890's, it sounded like it could be interesting. For most of the book, I really liked it.  There were a few parts I found a bit unrealistic (interactions between classes, genders and races being specifically mentioned appropriate for the time period, yet a page later being more modern day), and I was willing to overlook them because it was fast paced and I was interested in solving the whodunit portion, as it is supposedly a mystery book.  After more than 250 pages, I just couldn't go on.  Not only were the interpersonal depictions getting annoyingly modern, the paranormal aspect of the story that had just been a passing mention in the beginning--and I thought went along with the time period as lots of people at that time believed in spirits, etc.--kind of took over and depictions of that detracted from the whole mystery aspect for me.  Paranormal is not my genre, and I lost interest in finding out whodunit.  I was really disappointed because the book had started so promisingly and I had been looking forward to a mystery set within that time period.

The Jump by Natalie Keller Reinert.  I stumbled across this one at my local library, saw the horse on the cover, read the blurb, and it sounded appealing.  It sucked me in.  Comparing my personal experiences through 40+ years, I found this book to be believable (horse themed fiction books written by people with little to none actual horse farm/training experience drive me up the wall) and accurate in its decriptions.  Can't wait to look up more by this author!