Meet the Family

Here is a picture of my wife Amanda Sue, Grant my chocolate lab puppy, and Baily Jo the tabby cat. Grant was a bit cuter when he was a little puppy.



Moooohhhh - Wheres the beef? This fat red Angus heifer has been grazing on my yard this summer, and into the fall. I bought 55 bales of top notch hay to get her through to January or so, when the weather is right for butchering (I put a walk in meat cooler on the Christmas list) I drool every day when I pull in from work. So fat and tender. I am estimating i will have $2.25 a pound or so into the finished wrapped product. A quick scan of beef prices at Walmart showed prices ranging from $2.50 to $12.00 a lb with an average of 4 bucks or so. So I think I should be coming out a head, plus I will get cuts that I would never buy (mmmm tenderloin baby), and the comfort of knowing that my beef was handled from every step of the way from field to table with tender loving care, and wasn't stuffed with corn and injected with who knows what. Plus cutting meat is a pleasant change of pace from designing bridges and staring at a computer screen.

The Home Front!

Here is our new place in Iowa, after the first snow of the season. After just getting out of school for structural engineering in May, Amanda and I got our new place out in the country. Its only 5 acres, but its way better than the little townhouse we lived at in twin cities while I was in Grad school. The fresh snow makes everything look clean and fresh. To the right is my shed, ahhh the glories of not having your shop double as your garage. The people we got the place from just put the steel on, and trenched in cable for power, but didn't wire the inside. That was on of my first major home improvement projects. I had a bit to learn, since I have never done wiring before. But I thought, what they hey, its not rocket science. After getting the stuff at fleet farm, I installed a 100 amp main panel, outlets, 3 way lights, and a big honking 220 outlet on a long cord for a welder. After connecting the whole mess to the grid and hitting the switch, everything worked flawlessly. What are the odds. Below is the steam rising from ethanol plant near our house, just visible over the November fog. It sort of looked like the mountains or something, so I snapped a picture while sipping my coffee before work.

The hunt

Ahh the bow hunting gods have smiled upon my endeavors at last :) When I got to the woods on a crisp afternoon in October, the air was filled with dust from combines working a corn field over the hill from my stand. After about an hour on stand, I saw some motion and noticed a big ten pointer with a rack like a brush pile on his head. The bugger winded me and circled wide, coming in to 35 yards to investigate me. After he decided to head out and not come closer, I took a shot through an opening in the brush. To bad the 35 yards looked like 30 and the arrow sailed harmlessly under is big fat chest. About 2 minutes later I was just pondering what a fool I was when more antlers appeared in the same spot the big 10 had come from. The tall tined 8 pointer didn't have quite the keen senses of his wiser companion and headed right on down to the spring next to my stand for a drink. At about 6 yards a way, he noticed my outline in the stand, or maybe he noticed the pulsing veins in my neck quiver as I fought off a massive case of buck fever. Either way, he decided something wasn't right and decided to take a rain check on the drink. He circled around the spring and paused right behind a tree that had foiled a shot at a plump doe on opener. Deciding not to chance a shot next to the jinxed tree, I hoped that he would stop once he reached a large open area about 10 yards from my stand, and maybe even look the other way so I could draw. What do know, he read my mind. While he paused in the opening and took time for quick scan of the ridge opposite my stand I came to full draw and took aim. The shot dropped him in his tracks. I examined his teeth later and found they were worn nearly to gums, suggesting he was at least 4 years old or so. What a day to remember, my first mature buck taken with a bow.