Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Fish Day


If you want fish in your pond then you can't miss FISH DAY. We missed that day in February so we can't miss this one. A truck will show up full of fish you can pick from, like an ice cream truck type of deal. They put the live fish in baggies and fill with air for the trip home. We are hoping to get some catfish, bass and blue gill for our ponds.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Poppy Morning





Poppy is enjoying his morning walk to our mailbox with Hickory, Osa and me.

Black Gold


Our wonderful farmer/neighbor came by and told us about planting time in the Ozarks. In the spring we should be getting the ground clear and the soil amended to grow our crops. He used to raise goats and he had "black gold" where his goat barn used to be. Old dark composted manure all we wanted if we came over before the rains started. So we drove our trailer to his barn and started shoveling. Then my dog Hickory showed up, he had followed us to the farm. The farmer owns two large dogs that would eat my city dog in a second; so I tossed Hick into the trailer for his own protection. Now we are ready for growing season with our share of black gold full of fat red worms.

A Fish Tale




Since we have some ponds on our property we wanted to have some fish in them. A next door neighbor offered us some blue gill from his pond to feed the larger fish. He let us borrow his fish trap and he placed it for us. We checked the trap two times but each time it was empty. We discovered his blue gill were too large to fit in his trap. So we are going to use fishing poles and worms and catch them that way. In the meantime we saw a clutch of bull frog eggs in the shallows. Very healthy ponds around here in the Ozarks!

The Woodshed




This weekend we got more knowledge from a neighbor about firewood. After you cut your trees and logs you need to let the wood dry out for burning. Stacking wood in a lean to or garage is not a good idea. The wood needs airflow to dry out and a roof to keep out the rain. We stacked our wood in a lean to and it does not get dry enough to burn in our wood stove. These photos are of our neighbors woodshed. It is uphill, close to the house and open with a tin roof. His wood is dry and ready to burn or "seasoned". So we are going to have to build one like this for our property. Now we are leaning why people have so many small buildings on their land. Each one has a special purpose; especially the woodshed.

Shooting Saturday



This weekend we went rifle shopping. If you live in the country you need a rifle. Coyotes, wild dogs, and other predators are some of the things you have protect your livestock from. We ended up buying a used a 243 WIN rifle from the local gun store.We needed to practice using this new gun safely and our town has a very nice Conservation shooting range free to the public. They provide the paper targets and 25, 50 and 100 foot earth berm ranges. These were well used ranges with a lot of spent shells to study. With bullets costing over $1.00 each we practiced with discretion. It was cold, overcast and the rifle was very loud! I am glad we wore ear plugs.