Well, It's Over

It should have been over a month or so ago but I just could not let those eggs go to waste. The last batches in the incubators are hatched out and they are turned off. Now we have a surplus of chicks with a small market.

People do not want to buy chickens in the heat of the summer. I don't blame them one bit. I do not want to raise chickens in the summer either but I have about 150 to 200 left. I don't even know what I got, hows that for management. The doors have been open so much and chickens run in and out, coming and going and the sure fire system we had of banding the legs in conjunction with the age and rotating the chicks from brooder #1 to brooder #2 then to yard #1 and finally ending up in yard #2, flew out the window on the second hatch.
Now I have 4 month olds running with 4 week olds, in the gardens, with the geese, with the dog, in the goat pen and even under the house. Complete disorder. And with my OCD like mind set where everything has to have a place and a order, I just put my head in my hands and go back in the house. Out of site out of mind I guess.

Just ask neighborlyplace, a blogger herself and one of the MDR blog readers that came by last night for a tour of the Mini Farm and to buy some chickens. Her first words were "Oh, Wow, there are a bunch of them".
The good thing is if I cannot sell them then in the fall I will a bunch that are laying and can sell them as layers. People want layers so I am sitting good I guess. 

It did not help that I needed to mow and clean up a few things the last storm blew around. I am not making excuses but it is hot. When I work in it all day, the last thing I want to do is come home, mow and clean the back yard. I guess that is on the books for this weekend.

Thank all yall for stopping by wishonshootingstars. It is nice to have people I never met show so much support for this young girl who is just now starting life. She will need everyone's words of wisdom and encouragement as she leaves home for the first time. Yall are real friends even thou I don't know what you look like. You can take this to the bank, if you need anything you just email or call me.
Thanks again.   

Giddy As A School Girl

There are not many times in my life where all 6'4", 285 pounds of my, little less than solid anymore, Redneck man ways breaks down and acts like a teenage school girl getting ready for her first date, but last night was an exception.
In two weeks we will be taking the oldest girl down to Texas A&M for her student conference and we will be doing the parent tour along with it. That should be enough to send any parent into a boastful state of happiness but that is for only one day.
While the girl stays at the campus, the wife and I will have two days to just be together and do things. Yall might think that is why I got all giddy, but your wrong.
Tuesday we plan to visit Washington On The Brazos to see where Texas got it's start. I have always wanted to go there and take the tour. I love history and I love Texas so this is a double thumbs up for me. That's exciting, but not giddy exciting.

Here it is, ready? While there, they have a Amish community of sorts that lives the way they did in 1833. It was featured on Texas Country Reporter a few months back and I really wanted to go and check it out.
Ok, Here's the good part, I pay them $5 to get to dressed up and work on their farm. Oh yea, who's your daddy?
I will get to run a team of oxen, make soap, spin yarn, plant crops, haul hay, use an outhouse, help cook and do it all without AC or any type of modern technology. I become the living exhibit.  How exciting is that?

Hold on a second, after typing it out and reading it back, it does not sound so fun. I am going to pay them money, to do the stuff I already do at the Mini Farm, minus the Oxen. This is a scam! Why can't I have people pay me to do my work? That's genius.  Have city folks come down and work your fields and make your stuff for you, and get paid while watching you do it.
At any rate it is worth it to say I played Amish for a day. Oh will I have some stories to tell.
I can see it now, I bet you, in a couple of years the story will go from being Amish for a few hours to living in a community for a year of so. That's funny           

Oh, one other thing, I know everyone is busy with all that you do, but if you have a minute to spare stop by 
 http://wishonshootingstars.blogspot.com/
I was going through some of my readers one day and stumbled upon this young lady's blog. I started to read it and thought to myself this young girl has her head on straight and also some amazing parents. They sounded just like me and the wife. When I saw the pic of this young lady, I realized she does have some amazing parents because they are us. Yup, it's my oldest girl and boy can write, she must have got that from her momma.  

Was That A Train Wreck?

Wow! I don't know what happen yesterday but I think a train wrecked inside my head all day. I was down and out. It hurt so bad I was almost thinking tumor or something. Needless to say not much went on except me acting like a baby. Today is a little better but I can feel it still wanting to de-rail again so I took it easy at work and tried to stay cool.
You know how us men are when it comes to being sick. We can bite the head off a rattle snake for breakfast and drink the poison for a after meal smoothie, but give us a stomach ace and we become 4 again.

The wife ran some errands for me today and one of those was picking up the water pump and thermostat for the middle girls truck. I think I might need to let this one set for a day or two because I sure don't want to that pain to come back again so soon.

Saturday we advertised one of our buck pygmy goats for free. Nobody ever wants to buy a buck goat but plenty of people want it if it's free. I had one lady want me to deliver it and I told her that I was not going to deliver a free goat. She could not understand why.
The reason I am telling yall this is because it seems that everyone wants to text instead of calling me no days. I am not a text-er and when I tried to call them back, they would not answer the phone. I was finally able to get rid of the free goat and also was able to convince the people they needed to buy one of the does to keep the buck company. All through texting.
That was the first time I have ever sold animals by only texting. When the people arrived, I didn't have anything to say to them and neither did they say much to me. They just loaded up, paid and went on their way. When they left, they started texting again on how much they appreciated everything.
I don't understand it.
  

Covered In It Again

For some reason I thought my days of being covered in grease were long gone. I was wrong.

Back in the day I worked on old truck by fixen them up and selling them to make an extra dime here and there. The last projects I had were some old Broncos that I knew I would never sell but in the end I had to for the down payment on the Mini Farm. Even though I never got them all the way done, they still made a small profit. I knew right then the wind was out of my sail on working on old vehicles.

I got the truck for the middle girl a couple of weeks ago and knew I was going to have to do a little work on it and I really did not know why, but I was dreading it. By now all my tools have collected some rust from lack of use and most were put away in places that were not all that accessible anymore. Plus I do not have the ideal place anymore like a concrete floor and shade to do any major work. I think that is why I was dreading it the most. I have to roll around on the ground out in the sun, in the summer.

So I bit the bullet and got started yesterday and just like I figured the further I got into it the more I found wrong.      
We started off putting some better tires on it and while the wheels were off I saw it needed new breaks so we put new breaks on it. The starter was dragging making it hard to start so we also put a new one of those on as well.

While I was under the truck I noticed water dripping. I found the source to be the water pump.
In the old days a water pump was not that hard to change out. On the newer trucks though, you almost have to loosen the back bumper to get it off. The picture above is the whole front of the motor now sitting in the back of the truck and it all had to come off just for this little thing to be removed pictured to the left. 
While I am already there, I am going to go ahead and replace the thermostat and also found some bad rub spots on the radiator hoses so those will be replaced as well. Speaking of radiators, It looks as if this one has a hole in it down on the side in a place where it can not be fixed so a new one of those is now needed.
The good news is, with a complete new Cooling System (radiator, hoses, water pump, thermostat), Starter, Battery, Battery Cables, Tires, Breaks, Belt, Exhaust System, Plugs and Plug Wires this should be a sound truck.

If I would not have gotten it at the deal I did, I think I would have towed it back to my buddy's and left it.
But on the other hand, I am having fun doing it. It is nice to bust my knuckles again and see just how far I can still throw a ratchet.    

The Living List And The Crossroad

The Bible is called the living word of God because it speaks to us in different ways at different times of our lives. No matter what we are looking for or whatever we are going through in our daily struggles, the Bible has something on it. We may have read a passage a hundred times before and then one day it will just click and mean something totally different than we have ever thought before, a deeper understanding so to speak.

I am not comparing my project list to the Bible by no means but in a scene, it does the same thing. A year and a half ago I made a list of all the projects that needed to be done to achieve my five year plan. In just a short couple of months that plan changed to a seven year plan and several more projects were added.
I re-visit my original project list on a monthly basis either adding or removing projects to soot the need of where I am going and what I am doing. I even have a sketch of what the final product or the finished outcome will look like. I have even taken the time to prioritize each item and also break down every project into a parts list with the estimated total cost for each. It is an OCD thing I think.

I don't know if it a mood thing or a maturity thing and it could even be an influenced thing but reading over my project list again this month I noticed my direction might have change some because the list is not where I really want to end up.
For instance, there is a big possibility I might not even be living where I am at in three to five years so why would I want to build structures that cannot be moved. On the other hand if I am here for another twenty years, I will be kicking myself for not building them. I have already put a lot of effort and expense into the Mini Farm and most of it cannot go with me if I need to go. Some recent events have came up to where I need to rethink all this.       
Plus, most of my thoughts and plans have turned toward survival mode and about half of the projects are for functionality and producing products to make money, not surviving. Oh I guess they could be used for living if need be but I would still have to rely on electric off the pole to survive for long periods of time to make it work.  I could focus on just the projects that have to do with being more self sufficient and then see where we go from there but a lot of those are stationary projects that would have to left.

Next on the list is the outdoor kitchen. I really want to build it but the wife says we might need to wait and see what the next few months have in store for us and focus on our food, medical and living storage instead. I don't want to wait, but on the other hand I want all that other stuff done now too. The kitchen will cost an estimated $1500 to build and it will not be able to be moved. My dream kitchen will be someones else.

With the recent storms, I can see now that we will not be able to rely solely on the gardens to produce for our needs. They will be an added supply but cannot be the primary so that means more storage space and more shelves that have to be stocked.
I need to build a underground storage room for all the food and supplies but there we go again, a structure that cannot be moved when or if we do. If we store everything in the house and the house gets blown away in a tornado then we are helpless because all the supplies will be gone as well. A shipping container gets to hot to store food in plus they are about $4000 dollars.  A cellar cost about the same and I do not want to put that much money into something and just leave it.

I am at a crossroad, standing at the intersection scratching my head wondering which way to go. Either way I go I know I will kick myself for going that way. There is never a middle ground with me, it is either all or nothing, one way or the other and most of the times I find out after it is to late I just walked around the same circle I was just on finding myself right back in the same spot making the same decisions I did before.

The Bible tells us not to store up our earthy treasures but when I starve to death I am afraid he is doing to say, "You dummy, I gave you the knowledge to survive and you didn't"

Counting Losses

Another bad storm blew through last bring more high winds and heavy down pours.
More corn is down and this time we did have some animal losses.I have about 75 six week old chickens in yard #1 and last night when I put them up they were spread out really good. I guess the storm spooked them and they all huddled in the corner and the ones on the bottom were trampled. Counting the losses was around $80.
It really makes you sick when you open the door and see it. I don't know what I could have done any different. As soon as they get past this age they will start roosting on the perches and not the ground.

Other than that just more stuff was blown over and knocked down. Some of the house had a little siding damage but it is all fixable.
No storms tonight so we might finally get some sleep.         
 
No work again today has landed me right back behind this computer working on my special secret project that will be releasing in a few weeks. It should be a hit.

To Small To Eat

Storms blew through here with a vengeance last night bring 80 mile and hour winds, hail and rain falling sideways. In town there were building ripped to shreds and trees up rooted throughout town.  
Thank goodness the Mini Farm escaped with little damage.

Here is a picture of a small amount of the corn that was uprooted. I did not want to harvest the corn this way but I went ahead and pulled off the little 3" ears. There were not enough to bring out the canning equipment and the ears were to small to really, eat so I just fed them to the chickens. I only have three corn stalks standing now and that will not be enough to last all winter, maybe just a meal or two. Store bought corn here I come.  

 All the tomato plants are laying on their sides. I have 12 plants in all and not a one is still standing. They are still rooted so I think I will leave them the way they are and not take the risk of standing them up and breaking the stalks.

Pepper plants are the same way. I can still cage these without fear of breakage and maybe they will be ok.

Even the Sweet potato plants were beat up really bad from the hail but I guess it could have all been worse.







On a positive note nothing drowned, the barns are still standing and rain barrels are full.

Tonight is round two with some really bad stuff heading this way so wish us luck.

If I Had Better, I Can't Remember When

 Fathers day weekend is one of my most favorite weekends of the year. For one reason, the stuff that I do that I usually get yelled at for is ok during this two day weekend. Another is, I don't have to do anything I don't want too, but most of all it is where everyone is generally nice to me.

Yesterday what I thought was going to be a really messed up day yesterday turned into a pretty good one. After the middle girl was done with her test (that was later explained to me as a test she has to take so she can take dual credit courses) me, her and the youngest went to the zoo. I had a great time with them and wished to whole family could have came along.

After we got home from the zoo I had a little surprise for the middle daughter. She has been working real hard now for about two months and doing real good at her job. She got her driving permit last month and of course has been talking about how she was going to save and get a truck. A buddy of mine had this pickup and did not need it so he made me a great deal on it and I thought it would be perfect for a teenage girl. It has a couple of whiskey dents here and there and it needs a little TLC, but all in all I think it will work just fine. She spent all morning out there cleaning and adding her own little touches to it and could not stop smiling when she was driving it around. So this weekend I am the best Dad ever in her eyes.

Last nights Fathers Day and Anniversary supper we did for Mom and Dad was a big hit. Almost the whole family was there and they really appreciated it.
It is good that we all can get together like that as much as we do without to many problems. It was not always like that though. When we were all young and bringing new mates into the family it was just like throwing a new hen in the hen house. The pecking order gets all messed up and there is always fights and gossip.
We all have been together for a long time now and all that stupid stuff is pretty much gone. There are still some "Butting of Heads" every now and then, but we all now where each others buttons are and try to fall just shy of pushing them.
Take one of my sister-in-laws for instance, we are both very outspoken people and we tend to offend whoever we talk to, sometimes. If you are not offended, then you haven't talked with us long enough. The only way we show that we like each other is when we hurl insults at one another. This goes on from the moment we see each other till the time one of us leaves. Sometimes she gets the upper hand and sometimes I do. In the end everyone is happy because we take it out on each other and not anyone else. It may sound strange but we found something that works.       

My Fathers day gift to myself is, I decided not to sweat. I did some work on the new truck this morning with the girl and for the rest of the day I am not going back out in the 104 degree heat. I even put on my lounging shorts and everyone knows that means I am going to do nothing. Those shorts don't come out very often but when they do they mean it.
I will tell yall this, Redneck girls know what a Redneck Dad wants for Fathers day. I got a package of socks, a new pair of wire cutters and a brand new fiberglass handled sledge hammer. What else could a guy need.
I think this is the best one yet. Every body is full, happy, cool and smiling.

I hope all yalls Father day goes as good as mine has. Have a great day and a better week.

Here are some pictures of the storm that blew in last night and no we did not get a drop of rain from it.   

   

Really Busy Weekend, But......

It looks like I will not have a spare minute this weekend to do what needs to be done on the Mini Farm, but the stuff I am doing is stuff that really, really needs to be done, do you follow?

Tomorrow I will be spending five hours at a test center with my middle girl. I can not tell you what kind of test she is taking or even what it's for. I know it cost $75 dollars and it takes five hours. That is $15 an hour these people are making per child for a test that is school required for the kids to take I do not have a clue what for. That sounds kinda like a government job.
After the big test I have to rush home and get everything ready for a special Fathers day supper me and my brother are doing for our Dad. This small gathering is also for heir anniversary so it has double meaning.
I am trying to get what needs to be cooked, cooked tonight so all I have to do is heat and go.
So that's how my Saturday will be spent. It's not being productive on the farm and it's not going to make me any money but the family time I will get is priceless.

Sunday will be spent at church and with all my girls, nothing else. That's living right there.

One quick note. If you get a chance to catch up on some blog reading you ought to go over and check out the blog Standing Outside Looking In  He is a Southern veteran with a big streak of independence and the newest member of the MDR family. Stop by and give him a real Redneck welcome.

         

To Hot To Do........

So far this week is has been to hot to do anything but stay cool. I have a big weekend planned and will share it with yall tomorrow.
In the mean time, stay cool.

That Figures

I put up the link for the Modern Day Redneck T-Shirts about four months ago and was wondering why nobody has bought a single one. I know if I was not the MDR himself I would have already owned every design (I guess since I am I should anyway). So it got me to thinking that I had better check on why this is not working out like I had planned.
I finally had the chance to devote to it today and quickly noticed when you clicked on the link it took you to the site but nothing was on there to buy. After several minutes of searching for the customer service number I called and of corse it was a simple mistake that, you guessed it, I made.
I never noticed it because I was always logged in when I hit the link and it took me right to my design center.
Now the shop is up and running and you can choose from 10 different designs and can put them on anything from a coffee cup to a handbag. Please let me know if it works or not. I don't want to wait another four months to catch it. You can click on the shirt or the bold words "YES I WANT TO BE A REDNECK"
If you were wondering, all proceeds go right back into the Mini Farm and all it's many projects.

I am also working on something else I am calling my "secret project" when it's to hot to do anything outside. I will keep you updated but I can tell yall this, you will love it.     

Good News and Bad

The good news is the AC is up and running and now life can get back to normal. The bad news is, life can get back to normal.
I guess it takes doing some hard time to be thankful of what you got and also makes you think that maybe we don't need half the stuff we do have. I don't guess I would want to live in a camper and grill out every night of the week from now on or piss ant dishes and food back and forth from the house to the camper more than a couple of days at a time but I tell you this, being homeless (so to speak) every now and then makes you really wonder if you need that big TV or all those fancy kitchen gadgets.

I know what your thinking, "Dude, it was for only a weekend" and you are right, but if the repair guy would not have worked out a deal for us then it could have been a month or so. Thank goodness we had animals to sell. It took everything we made this weekend from the Mini Farm sell plus a little to get back into the house.

Is that not what  the animals are for. I look at it as they are an investment for just those hard times. You might even say they are my living savings account. Yes it is a high risk savings account but they did their job again this time. When "It" happens they are there for food, money or trade. I did have to make some deals and sell some for less than I would have any other time but in the end they did their job.

We still have about 200 chickens, 4 geese, 15 goats, 29 quail, a incubator full of eggs and a garden full of food. I could stand to sell off about 100 more chickens and a couple of goats and be just fine.


It was a tough weekend but in the end I think we came out of a little stronger and we did learn a thing or two in the process so it was a win win.


There has been a few new members to the MDR family and I wanted to give a big welcome to them. You know who you are and I sure do thank yall for becoming part of all this mess. If yall need anything just let me know. Drop me an e-mail or just leave a comment and I will always respond.
Thanks again for being a part of  Modern Day Redneck.