Gotta Love Your Neighbors, Right?

Usually sleeping in on the weekends means getting up around 6:00 or 6:30 but for some reason this weekend has been different. Yesterday I slept in till 8 and this morning was not going to be any different until the phone rang about 7:00 and it was our neighbor screaming "GET OUT, GET OUT NOW!" Of course the first action was to jump up and look outside and when I saw a small portion of the Western sky lowering around us and her barn was blowing away, her frantic words were running through my head. By this time the wife had everyone up and running to the truck with me right behind.
A few minutes of driving around and not seeing a funnel of any sorts, the wife called the neighbor lady back and asked why we had to leave the house. She simply said, "I didn't say get out, I said get up".
It was high winds that's for sure and the neighbors barn did not fair well but there was no reason for an emergency evacuation like that.
God love neighbors, because nobody else does.
It did open my eyes to needing to put together a "Done Bugged Out Bag" already in the truck and ready to go because I didn't even have time to put my shoes on. 

Yesterday was not very productive except most of the day was spent mowing. Already this year I have mowed 4 times and it is not even into the growing season good yet. The price of gas has made it cost about $20 to mow and it has been a weekly event now.
The wife also dragged me out to pick up some more chickens late yesterday afternoon. We got a good deal on some Heavy Breed Cochins if we bought them all. Now we have the breeding stock for that breed as well.

One of the wife's customers called yesterday and their pygmy goat was having troubles kidding. She had already had one baby but the second was stuck and already dead. We went over and I did all I could do but the baby's head was bent back and it was turned with one front leg sticking out and the other turned sideways. I tried and tried but without cutting the momma open, the baby was not coming out. The vets up here do not answer calls on the weekends for goats so they were left with putting the momma down. It was a sad deal.
For going over and helping, they tried to give us a pot belly pig.
We did not take that pig.





 Last week the wife and I were driving around and spotted this little ornamental water tank. We both thought is was cute and all that but did not think much more about it until it hit me.
I have been designing a small smoke house for a while now and each design I come up with, in the end I really do not like. Well, here it is, my new design. A smoke house disguised as a water tank.
I do not want to build a huge smoke house because who could afford the meat to fill it up anyway.
Mine will be a little closer to the ground and the fire box will sit off to the side with a 4" pipe to connect the two.
I spent most of the day today building the round part and almost have it done. The door was the tricky part.  
Hot smoke cooks the food while cold smoke preserves it. I already have all the hot smoke cookers I need so why not have a cold one too. Now I will be able to make my own bacon and cure my own hams, summer sausage and you name it.  
I would have had pics of the part I built but I did not want to get the camera out in the rain.

Yall have a good week.