Sunday, March 28, 2010

We are at war with a GOPHER...


"License to kill gophers by the government of the United Nations. Man, free to kill gophers at will. To kill, you must know your enemy, and in this case my enemy is a varmint. And a varmint will never quit - ever. They're like the Viet Cong - Varmint Cong. So you have to fall back on superior firepower and superior intelligence. And that's all she wrote."

Carl Spackler

Couldn't resist pulling a infamous quote from the hilarious cult movie Caddy Shack! Got a call from Jan on Thursday, she spotted what she thought was a gopher on our property. When I got home, we went out there and sure enough...MORE HOLES!!! Apparently, the holes I noted finding on the property late last year and blamed on either a fox or a coyote must have been this gopher!!! Murphy's law...kept the shotgun handy all weekend but no sight of Mr. Gopher...

Gopher hunter signing out...

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Sunday sunsets...


I love sunsets...they bring a sense of tranquility and finality to my day...

The week in review...

Wow...it was so cool to have some extra sunlight today...I can tell you, our pups LOVED IT and we did too!!!

We had a really weird weather pattern this past week...FOG-DOM as I have come to refer to it!!! I honestly cannot remember an entire week of fog ALL DAY LONG, very weird and at times scary when I was on the road with EXTREMELY limited visibility!!!

Brent and his girlfriend came over on Friday night and stayed over, we played Uno and drank margarita's all night...Fun times!!!

Saturday we went over to Oshkosh to visit family. Our trips wouldn't be complete however without the stop at Manderfields Bakery in Neenah...mmmmmm....great bread and the desserts are to die for!!!

Today I spent the morning locating and removing land mines that were laid by the four-leggers during the winter...that is one of the nice things about the thaw...it uncovers the un-mentionables...hahahaha

The remainder of the day was just spent chilling, playing ball with the four-leggers and listening to the geese and crane rock-n-rollin in the fields...

Sunset shining in downstairs...

Foggggggyyyyyy...

More fogggggg...

Coned!!!

Garden minus snow...

Nitschke and Maggy chillin' in what's left of the snow...

Maggy and Molly sittin' in the welcome sunshine...

Maggy rollin' in the grass...

Mouse nesting left from the snow covering...

Mouse-ville...

more mouse trails...

Molly chillin' next to the out building...
Nitschke (top) sitting in what's left of the snow...The woodpile "finally" void of snow cover!!!

Nitschke grazing on rabbit poop!!!

Signing off for now...

Peace...R Dean

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Satisfying Sunday...

Just got back in from taking the four-leggers out for ball chucking and a general romp around the property! The girls cut their romp short as someone up the road a quarter or so mile was shooting their semi-automatic pistol!!! They don't like gunfire...kind of strange as they are full blooded Labs...go figure!!! hahaha...

But me and Nitschke stayed out and played chuck-it so he got his energy burn, but boy was he muddy as all get out once we were done. Thank goodness for a stash of old towels in the garage!!!

Enjoyed our first burgers from the cow, they were awesome!!!

Not much more to report, so "over and out" for now!!!

Peace...R Dean

Sunday morning sunrise...

First burgers from the cow...yummmmmm...

Maggy and Nitschke totally zonked out...modest he's not!!!

Saturday, March 6, 2010

It's finally meltin'...

At least it appears to be...got up in the 40's today...yeah...that's literally a heat wave for us, we sported short pants and tank-tops today...yeah I know...not a visual you want to think about...hahaha!!!

Now that the snow is starting to melt, I was successful at locating and eliminating quite a few land mines left behind from the four-leggers! Mission accomplished!!!

The only problem with the annual melting of the snow is the muddy mess it leaves behind, but...Spring is closely approaching, so I'll trade mud for snow any day of the week, mostly considering it is already March 6th!

Picked up our meat from Newton Meats today, our quarter of the cow came out to 130#'s of assorted cuts of meat, so we're stocked for the year.

Not much more to report for now...so I'll just post some pictures from todays outside adventures...

Peace...R Dean

Early morning dew on the trees...

Sunset shot looking East...

Maggy (a.k.a. Mighty Bird Hunter) caught loitering under a bird house...

Nitschke with an "orange ball"!!!

Piling snow on Nitschke...

Molly relaxing after "her" long day...

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Where did you go???

Oh...I'm so bummed...

I have lost a "follower"...hmmmm...was it something I said, didn't say or simply a lack of interesting things to say??? Probably the latter! Getting someone to follow your blog is like finding a new customer, you do all you can to keep attract them to your product, and if you lose them, trying to get them back is literally impossible!!!

And Lemonade Adventures...Faith, what happened, we so much enjoyed your posts, but haven't seen anything on your blog for a month...We hope you and your family are okay!!!

And last but not least...where is the Dancing Chicken Farm??? It vanished into thin air...Tracey...come back, we miss you...you had so much to say! How are the pups, the chickens...???

Peace...R Dean

Catching up...

I cannot believe it is already March and we still have SNOW! Not only do we still have ton's of it on the ground, it actually snowed almost the entire day last Sunday, albeit light, but it still SNOWED!! When is it going to stop? I don't want to sound superstitious, but I shaved off my beard this morning, in hope that it would bring warm weather because my facial hair is no longer! I'll keep you posted!

A lot has happened since my last post, maybe not earth shattering, but important to me...so I'll try to bring the blog up to date...

Surgery...

We had the girls spayed two weeks ago and on Tuesday they had their stitches removed. Talk about happy dogs, they were finally allowed to go out together and play, and boy did they play, and play, and play. Nitschke even was able to join in the fun with them by getting beat up! I think they missed beating the boy up, but he enjoyed it and maybe even deserved some of it too! Molly is still suffering a bit, she had a cyst removed from her tail, so she is sporting some stylish gauze as it heals...I call it "tail art" ;-)

Pretending to ignore her tail until the two legger leaves the room!

In vogue!

Birds of Prey...

I got a big surprise recently when I came upon a large eagle on the side of the road, right up the road from our homestead. He or she was eating the remains of some sort of critter right next to the road! I'm assuming the critter, which looked like a coon had been hit by a car, which puzzled me...I had previously believed that they only preyed on living prey, not prey already dead! But having the opportunity to stumble upon a bird of this magnificance was just breathtaking...AND to find out later from some other folk that live around my area that they too had been spotting a pair of eagles was even more thrilling! If I can get some photo ops of them I will definitely post them to the blog! I'm on it!!

Oppossom...

Last weekend I was chucking the ball for Nitschke when all of a sudden he stopped cold in his tracks! He just stared intently into the tree line, so I knew something was there. I started walking toward him and I could immediately see something in the sumac's and it became clear it was a big oppossom. I called him back (probably with great fear in my voice) and he came back very obediently (Nitschke and obedient in the same sentence..kind of an oxymoron)...hahaha...Anyway, I went back into the house for my gun because my first thought was that oppossom's don't come out during the day, so I concluded it must be sick. By the time I got back, it had made significant progress of getting out of dodge, so a couple hisses from me to startle it and it packed it up and headed back into the woods. Kind of a good outcome for all of us, I really didn't want to shoot it anyway!

Candy...

I had to make a quick trip to Port Washington yesterday afternoon for business and came upon a unique little candy store in downtown Port Washington called The Chocolate Chisel. John, the fellow I was meeting for business actually owns the candy store too, and let me tell you, this is no typical candy store you see in your local mall. I got a lesson in "chocolate 101" from Pat, who works at the store and I learned more things about chocolate's than I ever knew existed. Pat was also kind enough to recommend and assemble a beautiful gift package of a variety of chocolates for Jan. I've attached a picture of the artwork, and yes, these are real chocolate candies! If you ever visit Port Washington Wisconsin, make sure you stop by the The Chocolate Chisel to pick out your assortment and peruse the beautiful pewter artwork that John designs and casts himself on the premises!



Backpacker Magazine...

Well, I'll end my rambling for today...but before I sign-off, I have to tell you the most exciting news of all...I just got my annual Backpacker Magazine Editor's Choice Awards Gear Guide Edition...oh yeah...the gear junkie is now happy and content...lot's of cool things this year to peruse, getting really lightweight too, so if you are into backpacking, you can ignore this last rant...because you already knew about it...Made me realize I better get my butt out to the Ice Age Trail SOON!!!

Peace...


Labels