Pictures of the Homestead

Our cabin. 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, laundry room, and kitchen/living area make up the 890 sqft of space.

A decent screened in porch in the back.

  

I have no idea where the orange blob came from on this picture. Weird.

And this folks, is what you call Cowboy Toilet Paper. If I ever run out of Charmin, I've got back up!

Cold Date Night

The moon has been full and bright the last few nights and we took advantage of that to go hog hunting. I was actually in bed and Justin had been out walking around in the moonlight when he came upon a herd of hogs. He ran back to the house to get his rifle and informed me of his find. I threw on a sweatshirt (already had on sweatpants), rubber boots, and grabbed the AR-15 from Justin and we made our way back to where the hogs had been. It was such a clear, bright night and the weather was cold but not freezing. It was beautiful. The hogs had disappeared for the moment, but we could hear them snorting around. We decided to sit in the field (on the ground by the fence) and wait. We sat out there for quite awhile but the hogs never came back within our sight. The hunt was a bust, but, even with the adrenaline rush of hunting, it was oddly calming and relaxing. I love being out in nature; listening, feeling, watching - honing my senses to be heightened and aware of my surroundings. And I got to do it with my hubby. How's that for a date night?

I took this picture standing in the very back corner of our property. We sat out along this fence line.

Still in the corner, here's the adjoining fence. The hogs were under the trees in the center of this picture.

I took the one less traveled by

Everyday when I walk on one of the paths I have found carved through our woods, "The Road Not Taken," by Robert Frost runs through my head. It's one of my favorite poems. So far I have only found 2 discernible walking paths and have tried to follow some other game trails but I can't get very far. The majority of our land is heavily wooded - so much so that I can't just meander through. I need a chainsaw!

One of the paths; I love walking through these 2 trees for some reason.

Here is a picture from the other trail. Watch your head! My walks are more like hikes.

And here is a picture if I just turn to the side while on the trails; it gives you a sense of how thick the underbrush is:

A little mud on the tires

In the words of Brad Paisley,

"And then with a little luck, we might just get stuck,
Let's get a little mud on the tires."

This is what Justin managed to do on Saturday morning:

Oh yes he did.

He's under a beautiful old oak tree but I don't think Justin really cared yesterday.

Luckily, we have friends in the area with 4 wheel drive who were able to pull him out later in the afternoon. For the record, I told him the ground was still really soft from the rain we've had this week and I didn't think it was a good idea. But he wanted to try and pull a decaying log out and get it to the burn pile, so my advice was ignored. So how was your Saturday?

Just a Swingin'

This is what it's all about. Swinging on my front porch with a glass of wine, my son, and listening to the rain hit the roof. This is how a rainy afternoon should be spent.

Emergency Room

I successfully found the ER Saturday night with Levi. We aren't sure what he did, but he was supposed to be in bed and going to sleep. All of a sudden he was screaming murder. After running in, we discovered his arm hurt. He screamed if we moved it, touched it, etc. We thought for sure it was broken and so we loaded him up in the car and I rushed to the local hospital in Columbus. It really didn't take much longer than 15 minutes to get there and I put a movie on in the car to keep Levi distracted (it worked). We were seen right away and the nurses and doctor were really nice. Levi was still screaming when the nurse looked at him and she thought it was broken too. But not long after that, he started playing with the zipper on his pj's - with his "hurt" arm. Then proceeded to crawl on the floor and growl. And give the doctor high fives with it when he finally came in.  Needless to say, it hurt him like the dickens for a little while and then was magically better. They gave him some Tylenol with codeine (which seemed to have zero effect on him) and we went back home. I really thought I would be posting a picture of him with his arm in a cast, but I am happy I am not. Guess we are meeting our deductible early this year. And now I know where to go the next time...

Carrion

WARNING! Slightly disturbing pictures below for the weak of stomach!

Bella came running up to me with this lovely treat in her mouth:

Yes, that is a deer hoof. So I followed her to find where she got it from and found this:

We also found the kill site right by our fire pit and one of the feeder stations. And the drag marks to where these remains were found. There was a family of deer with 2 fawns who would come to our feeders - now there are only 2 deer that show up. We are not sure what did this and even tried calling the game warden but he didn't answer. This was not the result of man. Coyotes? Mountain lion? Any ideas?