Wrapping up November

This is just a quick little post about what we are up to here at Ole Lake Farm as we near the end of November.

The turkey flock has been reduced quite a bit.  Most of the turkeys are either in the freezer or have been given away or eaten already.  Remaining to carry the flock into next year are Penelope, her daughter Peanut (not the same Peanut, but she looks like a Peanut to me!), and a new Tom obtained in a swap with another small farm.

Tom is a Narragansett, another heritage breed - I think he is rather handsome.  You will notice that the turks are indoors.   They will be spending the winter in the Summer Coop.  This is not their choice of course but I sure feel better about it and will not have to worry about them so much when the truly nasty weather of winter comes. 

We obtained an old hand cranked corn-sheller at a neighbor's auction this summer. The cornmeal corn crop was better this year than last, so we are happy to have it.  It's an interesting tool and works great.

The cold weather has continued and that means we are always worrying over water.  The pigs are still with us and are especially a pain to keep watered.  Three of them will be butchered next weekend with the other two in a couple more weeks.  I sure don't know what Kevin will do with all of his extra time!  Maybe  I will put him to work wrapping soap bars...

Until next time (in a couple weeks) be well friends!

 

Wintery Weather and Hunting Wrap Up

On this day after Veteran's Day, thank you all who have served or are currently serving.

This post has two parts - first a farm-life update, then a deer-hunting update.

We are in our sixth decade (yikes!) of life in Minnesota (well okay, one was in Wisconsin, but it's pretty much the same) so winter should no longer be able to sneak up on us.  So why are we not prepared for 10 degree nights and snow that needs to be shoveled? 

Cold and snow does not curb Hoover's enthusiasm for an outing!

The view from the milking stand this afternoon.

Water is always a priority for the animals, no matter what time of year - it just gets more difficult to provide with the cold weather.  The pigs in particular present a problem with that. 

The chickens are all together in the Winter coop now, and their waterer is moved indoors. The three adopted hens, Barak, Speckles, and Rocky are always the first on the roost in the afternoon - kind of funny how they hang out together although they came from two different homes.  Many of the hens are in various stages of  moulting so the coop is full of feathers and egg production is very low.

The goats have had some changes with their living arrangements.  Periwinkle has moved in with her big brother Forest and is none too happy about it, while Ranger was most pleased to move in with the does.  He is an expert at pulling the hay out of the feeder.

After Opening Weekend Report by Kevin:

Last Monday was a pretty productive day for us with three more deer added to the hanging rafters in the garage, one six point buck and two fawns. Then on Thursday I was able to harvest a fork type buck. Then everything seemed to shut down. There were 5 of us hunting Saturday and we saw a total of 1 deer. Not sure if it was the cold and snow or what. It snowed Saturday night into Sunday morning and all we did Sunday morning was go out and pull stands down. With all the traveling we did on our property to remove stands we saw a very few tracks in the snow.

We were very fortunate to harvest a total of 13 deer, so we have the freezers full and ready to provide us plenty of great meals through the year. In our case here, Ardis and Rollie did most all the cutting up of the venison, which I am so grateful for. But once again the very best part of this year was getting together with family and friends. We continued some traditions and may have started a couple new ones, only time will tell, right, because that's what traditions are all about. So we are all done hunting for 2018 and thoughts and talking about what we will do different in 2019 has already started.

We may not have a post for a couple of weeks, but we will be back - until then, be well friends!

2018 Deer Season Opening Weekend.

Good Evening everyone, you have Kevin posting for the annual opening weekend deer hunting report. For those who are not interested in seeing dead animals, I have put those photos at the very bottom of the blog.

We have a group of 11 hunters this year, 5 of them under 18 and two of them for their first hunt.  The rest of the group are old hands at hunting at Ole Lake Farm.

Saturday morning started with a little bit of a sunrise, but it went cloudy and the deer started moving. By the end of the day we had eight deer. One was a buck, two fawns and the rest does, and one of the does by a young man who got his first.

I get asked why we allow the harvesting of anterless deer and the reason is that we have so many deer around we really need to thin the herd a bit. I would rather have the deer in the freezer to use to make great meals than to see them hit by cars, or worse, starve in the event of a bad winter. I have seen starving deer and it is not a pretty sight and I feel a huge waste. 

A best guess of total deer seen by our group on opening day was over 40 deer, with one seeing 28! That hunter gave me grief about my herd management since they were all anterless other than 1 buck seen a long way off and in a big hurry.

Sunday was rainy and had a little snow spurt and the deer just hunkered down. One of the young men was able to harvest one in the morning and then movement slowed down to nothing. Since we had so many on Saturday most of us were just looking for antlers. Total deer seen today was around 6 and most of them were during non-shooting times in the morning and evening.

Most of the group will be hunting again Monday and then the out of state group will be heading home to Wyoming with another successful opening weekend. Our numbers will drop to 6 hunters starting next weekend. Because we are in a bonus area we have 7 tags that could be filled, but if we were to fill just a couple more we will be done.

Enough for this week, I will leave you with a picture of the opening day crew and then a deer picture below, be well and have a great week.