Life on the Farm

[bjrogg]

My youngest brother invited me to visit his property in West Virginia. Being a flat lander all our lives we are both drawn to the mystical beauty of the mountains. My brother works very hard and hunts very hard to. He has always dreamed of owning property like this. I’m glad he invited me to share it with him.

Beautiful place.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

The trail above leads down to a hollow with nice sized food plots.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

We did a little scouting and found a nice place for a natural ground blind . It’s on a bench overlooking a creek that seems like a good funnel spot.

Hard to tell from the pictures but you can see my brother clearing shooting lanes below the bench. I’m up on the bench looking down from his ground blind.

Looks like a great spot for hunting with a Selfbow.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Unfortunately I came down with the stomach flu and a fever the second day. I was a pretty sick puppy until my fever broke.

My brother went out squirrel hunting by himself. I took a few short walks but mostly just rested up by the camper.

I walked another trail close to the camper. Wish I felt better but it was still a great adventure with my little brother. Glad we got to spend the time together. It’s always hard to find the time to spend. And we both realize our time here is limited and we don’t know when it comes to an end.

A picture from one of my short walks.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

While my brother was out looking for squirrels I noticed one of these popped up right across the trail from his camper.

They seem to grow big around here.

Wondering how long it will take for my brother to find it

Bjrogg

[chamookman]

Nice looking Country ! Love the Big Schroom  !  Bob.

[bjrogg]

Every year I get gifted several deer. My family loves venison. We don’t waste any of it. We process it into tasty treats.

I usually cut out the blackstraps and loins. Make some jerky and the rest gets cut up into small enough chunks to grind. Then I vacuum pack it into large bags and put the grind meat in my freezer until season is over.

This week I got my grinder going. We had a little over 70 lbs of venison and about 33 lbs of pork shoulder to grind. First we ground the pork in one tub and then the venison into another tub.

We mixed three 26 lb batches of summer sausage and stuffed them in casings. Had 19 big sticks and 15 smaller ones. All ready for smokers.

There was about 13 lbs of venison and 9 lbs of pork left. Not enough for a batch of summer sausage. I mixed it up and stuffed it into burger wrappers. This really helps with clean up. The meat binder in the summer sausage is very sticky and hard to clean up. Running some meat through mixer and stuffer really helps clean up. The meat binder clings to the clean meat. And my wife uses a lot of burger for her dishes.

Two days later and everything is smoked.

I will give a few sticks to those who gifted me the deer. That insures more venison next year.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

I put in some overtime watching my smokers. I decided to make some shavings. Hop Hornbeam. I almost forgot how hard this stuff gets. Also have to admit I’m a little out of shape. I did get it reduced closer to bow dimensions.

Then it had a nasty propeller twist so I put it on my caul. Gave it a good heat treatment at the same time.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Got long string on and started tillering. Pulling to 55 lbs. still a long way to go.

Bjrogg

[chamookman]

That HornBeam make a fine Bow, but Yeah, it's a Booger to work. Still have a Splitting Maul that I made a Iron Wood handle for, bout 25yrs ago !  Bob.

[bjrogg]

The old timers around here knew it was the wood the old timers before them used for hitching horses to wagon. They didn’t know about bows but thought it probably would be good wood.

I spent a couple hours yesterday looking for the wood that wasn’t a bow. And trying not to remove any that was a bow.

I started with the bow bending to the previous picture from Saturday

Sunday I removed the small pile of dust on the floor and bench. I should have weighed it. It wasn’t much but it was enough to get to brace. Put short string on and draw almost to 25” at 55 lbs.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Starting to think about spring now. Have all the fall equipment repaired. Some we will probably do outside yet this summer.

We are starting on spring equipment. Hooked up to my planter and took it to our shop.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Roughed out handle and put water buffalo horn on tips.

[bjrogg]

55 lbs at 27”.

[Pappy]

Bow looking good BJ, love hhb , ya be spring before you know it. Pappy