2009 Hunting

One doe, one buck, and one doe to go! I've never hunted, neither has Dad, but God saw fit to bless us with two dear in one week. And Levi has until January 31 to shoot another doe!

The story goes something like this: Dad, the Eden family and I had been out all day scaring all the mule deer bucks out of the county, and I was sleepy. 3 AM isn't a wonderful time to wake up. So Dad and I were going up our driveway (yes...THE driveway) and we see Mom pointing and making all these weird signs like she saw something I should shoot. I hadn't filled my doe tag yet, so I woke up from my nap and grabbed my grandpa's rifle from the back of the truck, threw a couple rounds in, and started looking around. Sure enough, there was a big ole doe right behind the chicken coop...looking right at me...35-40 yards away.

The hammer went back, the rifle went up, I knelt down, and she just stood there. Now, you have to understand-I had this idea that I was going to save the hide and tan it-so I lined up the cross-hairs right in between her eyes. Hair triggers (really light trigger pull) are simply awesome, you never think about pulling the trigger, it just happens. And when it happened, she dropped like a rock. A half hour later the sun set and left us with the task of processing our first animal...in the snow, in the dark, on the ground.

At the moment, I can't find any pictures of this doe, but when I do, you'll see them!

That was Wednesday, on Friday I skipped violin and went out into the National Forest hoping and praying that God would walk a legal buck in front of me on the last day of my tag. I was being really noisy, the snow was crunchy, the wind was going the wrong way, it was too late in the morning, and I was in a terrible mood! But three does jumped out in front of me ("Oh, bummer, now I've scared them all away..."), about five minutes later those three, and one more got spooked again. I just sat down to let them cool off a bit and about 10 minutes later I kept moving...you guessed it...spooking 5 deer, the fifth looked like it might be wearing a rack! Slowly, I kept going, with my scent blowing all over them and my boots doing their best to impersonate an elephant herd. I came up to a rise in the terrain only to find the deer already running. I watched carefully, counting four does. "You must have been seeing things, dummy, there's no fifth deer...". My foul mood got fouler. But the Lord provides! 80-ish yards, one shot, and he was down. I was looking at him thinking "Man! That's a huge forkhorn! Or maybe it's a three point!" but either way, he was legal.



If God has one for you, He'll bring it to you! Our freezer is now full, and you just can't beat the price on this meat! We even have some to spare, and like I said before...Levi still has a doe to bag!!!

Roosters

We had the Adams over to help us get rid of some roosters. It was a lot of fun, and a great experience. We ordered one rooster with all the hens, and we ended up having four in the end. These boys were noisy!! So, we now have the original rooster, and three rather scrawny meals.

It is a fundamental error to suppose that farming is neither a business nor a profession. It is a business which requires the highest business talent, it is a profession which requires the best technical skill.....No other profession requires such a variety of learning, such as insight into Nature, such skill of a technical kind in order to be successful, as the profession of farming.


--Harvey W. Wiley in The Lure of the Land

Guinevere, or Gwen, Previously Gooey

"Now isn't that cute?" Yeah, but she's also a serious mouse killer! Tougher than not-so-tough Sven, smaller than every desirable critter on the property, and entirely way too cute!

Melody, Harmony, and a Rooster

We have a few extra roosters that will soon become meals, but in the mean time they're with the goats. Both the girls enjoy the feathery company, and the roosters...well...I don't think they think, period.

"Svenamus"

Sven enjoying the hard life of a country cat.

My Rabbits

I got four rabbits for my birthday, but we couldn't find the cable to connect the camera, thus no pics on the blog....that's my excuse. I took a bunch of pictures but when I was looking over them I realized that all four look identical, so it would be really boring for me to post pictures of all of them! They're only four months old! I don't believe how big they are. Anyway, I think this one's name is B1, I have B2, D1, and D2 also. You can never be sure with big New Zealand Whites (unless you get smart and write on them, tattoo them, or mark the cages).

First Egg!!!!

This is our first egg!! It's the one on the right if you're wonderin'...
We've been getting one or two for the past couple of days now.

Paintball

Mr. Buehner telling us all that this "laptop" has all sorts of nuclear launch codes in it, and that is must be captured by one team and protected by the other.Thank you to Mr. Buehner for coordinatng all those games.

Paintballing

Derek playing paintball. We all had a blast.

Levi's first "Car"

Levi's first ride!

Sven and Chickens

Obviously Sven doesn't care about the chickens....yet.

Gooey....aka "The Kitten"

We got another kitten a few weeks ago. We were looking for a name that would fit with Sven, but to no avail...So, Gooey it is! Unless you have any better ideas?

Melody

This is the rest of Melody's body, just in case you were wondering...

Harmony

And Harmony, the mushy one.

Melody

This is Melody...close up! They are VERY curious about absolutely everything!

Goats!!!!!!!!!

Finally, the day has come. As some of you know, my family was challenged to find 5 things (per person) that would probably bring in $500 a month. After a while of thinking one of my five things became dairy goats. Then came the idea of packing with them...yes I said packing. 

Now, having done years of research (no kidding...hey, that's funny!) and after a short refresher course, I have made a purchase. Registered as American Alpines, born on the 7th of March,  and incredibly cute (you know that I rarely call anything cute), Blue Barn's Melody and Harmony came to Brower Homestead today. 

They are only 30 pounds right now, so I plan on breeding them this fall if all goes well and they gain enough weight. Currently they are living directly outside the bedroom windows in the dog run becasue I did not trust my Creator, and doubted that I would be able to find and pay for goats this spring. Resulting in a totally unready future goat home. By His mercy I was able to buy everything needed for their immediate needs with money I made by working for Dad, and just so you know: painting is very very dull work. Thanks also to my Grandparents and my Mom who gave me the majority of the funds for these goats. 

I will post a ton of pictures as soon as I find some fresh batteries for the digital camera. For now, enjoy these:

     The first is Melody and the second is Harmony. These were taken about a month ago (as far as I know)

This morning we saw three does outside our bedroom windows...sorry about the reflection on the glass!

BIG Thank You

Someday we'll make a list of those who have contributed to our homestead endeavors, but for now, I'd like to thank those of you who have helped pay for things, given us useful things, taught us about stuff, and given us your support in many other ways.

First thing that comes to mind is Mark and the chainsawing...I need to thank him for teaching me how to keep my body parts connected. We have been using the a saw pretty frequently up here, and I wonder where we would be if we couldn't run the saw properly. Also, I would like to thank him for the help packing our moving van...which was almost more dangerous than running a chainsaw!

Next would be my Grandparents, who have been blessing us financially. Their frequent encouragement has also helped considerably. I look forward to spending time with them again, either when they visit, or when we visit California again.

You might not believe it, but we were lacking two MAJOR things when we moved. One was a fireplace. This house didn't have one, which was a little scary being that the power goes out for days occasionally. The other thing we were lacking was a gun. And after seeing a young black bear from the deck, we were a little nervous about being up here and having no defense against the bears, and coyotes, and a mountain lion too. three days after moving in, with my Grandparents here, my uncle ran in yelling about a bear. "Yeah Right" But a couple minutes later Grandpa called everyone to the deck and pointed the bear out.

Anyway, Mom met some people through a ministry and they were beyond generous when they delivered some groceries to us. Then they took it beyond, beyond generous when they gave us a woodburning stove, and a scoped hunting rifle. I am in the process of getting deer tags for the upcoming season, and their gift will be mighty handy!

My 'Adopted' Aunt and Uncle (very close friends) blessed me almost to the point where we questioned their sanity by giving me a violin right before we left California. They had come by a couple violins in some way which I can't remember, and because none of their children are currently playing the violin, they lent one to me. This violin is the only one I've ever played, and I am really attached to it. So parting with it in California was not going to be an exciting experience for me. I am very grateful for their gift (a gift for a few birthdays, Christmases, Graduation.....). I try to put it to good use every day, and I hope to bring glory to the Father by my playing.

I don't want to think about where we would be if our nearest neighbor was not there to pull us off the driveway whenever we get stuck. He has been a God-send considering that we're always calling him to help get us sorry Californians out of the snow.

Last but most assuredly not least is our new church family. The folks at Reformation OPC have extended a TON of hospitality to us. Not only frequent invitations to activities and dinners, but gifts of meat, a cat, muscle (helping move in), and good fellowship.

If I have not mentioned something, there is the possiblility that it slipped my mind, though I can't imagine that happening!

May we all be so blessed by God and our friends.

Our Chicks: 2

They thought this was terribly funny, and instead of helping clean everything up...they ran for the camera!

Sven...The Cat

A good mouser is always welcome on a ranch, and with all the predators, you are bound to have more than a few cats over the years. Our first cat on the property was given to us by a family at church who found him in a hole by the road, his mother and siblings having been killed. He was very very small, and reclusive for a while, but that has changed. Levi named this little pest (that's what he is) Sven...yes Sven, pronounced just like it's spelled. Though extremely cute on the outside, his mentality towards everything is "Kill it...Kill it....." The only time you can pet him is when he's dead asleep, the rest of the time he's busy attacking you. That said, I am grateful to have such a vicious cat to fearlessly slay all evil-doers...or at least try.

Our Property

We were looking for room to run, keep livestock, raise families, and of course room to play. We also wanted to be within 30 minutes of places like churches, grocery stores, hospitals, and all the rest. What did we find? 35 heavily wooded acres, with the Pike National Forest as the backyard. Pike National Forest is 1.1 million acres in the eastern front range of the Rocky Mountains, offering motorcycle trails, hiking trails, spectacular views of some of Colorado's 14er's, and hunting (I can't wait!). How do we have access to all of that acreage and yet live close enough to town? You'll have to check with my Heavenly Father for that one!

I am sure the phrase "If you don't like the weather in Colorado...wait 10 minutes." has passed your ears before, but I can confirm that the saying is true. In the summer when we moved there was sun for 30 minutes to a couple hours, then random rain for about 20 minutes, and on and on....This winter has been extremely light, which is good, but also bad. Our driveway has been seen by a number of hard core Coloradans and they have all told us that we have one of the worst driveways in the state. Very steep, and shady (so the ice won't melt), and we still have a car from California which doesn't make it up without tire chains. That's the good part, that we don't have to deal with a lot of snow and this ridiculous car. The bad part is that we need all the water we can get, and without much snow....not much water, sadly.
I have a potential building site for my home, and Levi will be taking this house that's on the property now. Mom and Dad will have either a small cottage type house, or an attached suite on one of our houses. We also have a couple spots in mind for a barn, and other outbuildings.

When (not "if") you visit our place, we pray that you are able to enjoy the peace & quiet, the trees, the river, the deer, and good company.

Our Chicks: 1

A few weeks ago we picked up 24 baby chickens as the first official livestock on the property. Levi and Mom are the ones organizing the whole chicken operation, Dad and I just help with little things like building the coop, other muscle work, we will be collecting eggs now and then, and other things like that. We plan to sell the eggs to some local folks, and eventually make a nice profit from them.

After several days of happily running around in the trough we noticed a problem with one of the smallest birds. Mom had some ideas about what the problems was and tried a few things to help. The conclusion was that the bird needed to be put down just in case she had a contagious virus or something. A local feed store had just gotten a load of chicks so we drove out and bought a couple replacement chicks, which are slightly younger than the rest of the chickens.

All 25 are now doing wonderfully and are showing good signs of continuing that way.

Dad and I have been working on the coop lately, using logs off the property. One of our main philosophies is to use what's available, trying to keep all the costs down. We noticed a shed falling over on the side of the road, and asked for the metal roofing off of it. The owners agreed and gave the metal (which is not cheap) and some of the usable lumber to us.

If you've never had fresh eggs...like really fresh...you have no idea what you're missing!