Hawk attack

Last night I went to put up my chickens, when I did the head count, two were missing. I went out to check the run, when I did this is what I found.

One pile of feathers and one partially eaten chicken. So today I spent all day enclosing the top on their run.

As I was working on the run the hawk came by three times looking for a meal, I guess now he will go visit the neighbors chickens.

The Journey Part 2

Every year we would go to the farm the last week of July for two weeks and stay at the farm, once we got the pastures in order the fencing was next. I remember on one of the fencing expeditions I found out what Yellow Jackets were, we had an English Setter that set on a nest of the savage critters, she was stung first then me (8 times). I remember my dad and papaw running over to me with tree branches in their hands swatting at them to get them off of me. Anytime we were out and about and papaw would get a cut, scratch etc., he would always apply coil oil, gas, kerosene or what ever was available to the wound, so of course I got gas put on my stings. He lived until he was 95 and I am still around so it must not be so bad.

Once the fencing was finished the we started on fixing up the little house. After alot of cleaning, painting and paneling it made a pretty nice little cabin. I had no indoor plumbing (and still doesn't) but we thought the outhouse was neat, except when you had to go after dark.

There is a well behind the house but we always brought our drinking water with us, we would bath either in the pond or with rain water that was collected of the roof of the house. After a couple of years dad and a friend added a forth room onto the house for a family room, then dad sided the whole house with some cedar shingles another friend had given him. I can still remember he couldn't wait to finish the shingling job, I was swimming in the pond (where I spent most of my time) when I heard dad give out a big YAHOO!!!! I knew then he had finished the shingles.

This is my daughters German Sheppard pup Tia, see you next week.

The Journey Part 1

Like all journeys there must be a starting and ending point. My journey started when I was about 10 years old, when in the late 60's my father and mother purchased a 100 acre farm where they planned on building a house to retire to when the time came. The farm was in an area where both of my parents where born and raised, at that time however we live about 120 miles from the farm. Both of my sets of grandparents lived about 10 miles from the farm and we frequently visited them, on those visits my dad, grandfather (Dad's father) and myself would go out to the farm on Saturdays and work cleaning up the farm.

My father was a minister so after a long day on Saturday we would head back home so he could preach the following morning and evening. One thing I was always happy about as a kid growing up was that we never were allowed to work on Sundays so I could always rest up and play on those days.

The farm consisted of 60 acres of timber and 40 acres of pasture, the pastures had not been kept up for years and had grown full of saplings. I remember my grandfather had a cutoff saw that consisted of two 20" bicycle wheels, a motor which you had to wrap the pull cord around(no recoil start on this thing) to start it and a 30" circular saw blade. Of course you would get thrown in jail these days for using such a contraption without 40 warning labels and guards. But papaw as we called him was a master of this machine a cleared all the pastures with it and still had all his limbs when finished. We actually still have the old cutoff saw in our barn but I doubt it would still run.

The farm also had an old 3 room house (shack) on it, it was an old railroad conductors house (the railroads use to have these along the tracks for conductors to stay in) that had been moved to the farm several years earlier. I remember the first time I entered the little house I was scared to death, the old man that had lived there years before had heated with coal and everything in there was coated with a thick coat of coal dust, there were cob webs everywhere and junk was laying all over the floors. After 40 years however the little 3 now 4 room house is still standing, it is due for another round of renovations however.

I will continue the journey on my next post thanks for stopping by.

Tim