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I am ready for the snow

A few weeks ago I set a cam up over watching some scraps from a deer I had harvested. I got a ton of some really awesome bobcat footage, check it out some real cool interactions

I checked on my bee colonies a couple days ago. The winter weather has been brutal this year, and it’s my first winter keeping bees. My fingers have remained crossed every day since I started this adventure. There is a tremendous amount of information to learn, and then try to apply to be successful. One colony I obtained in October as a cut out from a barn with my mentor, despite my best efforts, did not make it all the way through winter. The other four hives, when I knock on the sides with my ear to the walls, have a lot of buzzing. I’ll be extremely happy if my four colonies get through the year. Spring can’t come soon enough for me and my bees!

With all the snow melt everywhere I go around my place is covered with a sheet of ice making for treacherous walking, I took a bad fall on ice some years back and tore all kinds of muscles and ligaments in both legs. I can get around ok these days but I will never get back to normal. Consequently I am now extra careful when it comes to maneuvering on ice. I have tried just about everything out there and the best solution I have found are a chain type setup that slip over your footwear and held in place by strong rubber straps. The traction they give on glare ice is outstanding. If you have to do any walking on ice do not mess around, get some sort of traction grips and be safe. Al

This one had a mange problem starting on his tail.

I am too lazy in my old age to build any coops, I buy Amish Sheds or coops and have them delivered and set them up the way I want. Craig's list and facebook marketplace has many to choose, all different sizes and prices. I will be having one delivered in the spring for my pigeons. Al

There was more to it than that pal, he was constantly posting filth to get his jollies, something wrong with someone that pulls that crap! Al

Snow blower. I bought mine several years ago and will not do without. I tell everybody that if I have to limit myself to one 3 pt attachment for the tractor, the snow blower wins. Plus there are no piles or banks that build up. I guess to each his own.

Been awhile since we've seen a dog at this farm. Warm weather has them traveling around. My buddy dropped a single dog of the three I called in from over 600 yards away. Big male at 148 yards with his enhanced Savage Impulse Predator 22-250/Nocpix Ace H50R. SJC

The second day of the season I would always put a mannequin dressed in orange or camo in one of the new guy tree stands before afternoon stand. You would hear them yelling at the mannequin before getting on the radio asking what to do. One time I dropped off one of the new hunters at an occupied stand and as I was leaving he stopped me and said there's someone in the stand. I told him to stand behind a tree with the radio in case it gets violent. So I yelled at the "Hunter" to get the F out of the stand or I'm going to shoot you out of it and unloaded my handgun with blanks at the stand. He almost crapped his pants. I took him to another stand where he shot his first buck, a nice 8 point. I miss those day's. SJC

Got this one this morning. Must be cold for him!

Mange is a highly contagious skin disease caused by parasitic mites that burrow into the skin and cause inflammation. It is primarily found in mammals, including dogs, cats, foxes, and raccoons The sarcoptic mange is noteworthy because of the fact that it is a zoonotic disease which can easily be passed on to humans. So don't be handling any dead mangy critters.

Have a flock of 75-100 birds use my farm every year. Looks like these boys came up for a few stones in their diet.

Here's one I built this summer. Coop floor is a 4 X 8 sheet of exterior grade subfloor. Back wall is 5 ft high, and front is 3 - used 2 sheets of T-11 for those walls. End walls were T&G boards that I had laying around. I built it with a run under to coop so they could have protection from the weather but still be outside if we don't let them out into the caged area. Once springtime is here, we'll put up nylon Electra-fence to let them "free-range" in fresh grass, and they'll still have the protection of the cage. There's a sliding door in the floor and the ladies learned pretty quickly how to get in and out that way. In the spring need to make some adjustments to the sliding door - I planned on being able to open the end door and use a push rod to open and close it, but it loads up with poop and gets hard to open, so for now we're going into the cage to open and close it. 9 chickens and 3 nesting boxes. Generally, there're be 1 or 2 in a box at a time, so they load up 1 box with eggs, if someone can't wait, they'll use the other boxes.

When they legalized rifles here in our county, I decided to go for something with reduced recoil. I had been shooting a 12 ga shotgun. So I called up my son and had him bring his .270 up for me to test fire. I honestly decided that the .270 had no kick at all. So I bought one. My suggestion is to find someone that owns a .270 and ask to take a shot or two. I would be surprised if the recoil bothers your bad shoulder. I don't know the nature of your shoulder injury, but I cannot imagine that the recoil of a .270 would aggravate it at all.

I think this thread has run it's course and I am going to lock it . Thanks for all the input . p.s. I sent burmjohn another email to do something with the site . I doubt that he will respond . If you don't see me on here , it means that I have been fired or no longer on the green side .

Well , "YOUR BOY" is gone from this site . Enjoy him as you Chuckled when chef suggested that he come over here And stir up some crap . Why do you continue to come here ? You need to see what is going on at this site ? Are you that bored !

A good guy with a gun Sent from my motorola edge plus 5G UW (2022) using Tapatalk

My father in law had a big on the back of his 125 hp cabbed 2 wd tractor, back when he lived in WNY. He must not have cared for it too much because now that he’s moved up to the NW corner of the Adirondack park, and takes care of the snow removal for the roads and about 25 residences, around a little lake up there, he gets by with a big hydraulic adjustable v-plow on an open station 65 hp 4wd tractor. That plow mounts in place of the loader bucket on the loader frame and is controlled with the bucket control levers and maybe one additional remote cylinder. I think it’s about 9 ft wife when straight, and tilts to ether side or forward or backward facing V. I also gave him my old 3/4 ton 4wd Chevy pickup, which he fixed up and mounted a plow on. He used that the first 2 years up there, but has been using the open tractor more the last 3 or 4 years. He may be wishing for a blower and the cabbed tractor now, with all the snow the have been getting this year, but I haven’t heard. They are a little north of the usual Lake Ontario snow belt, so maybe it’s not been too bad, where they are. The first year up there, the drifting was always horrible across the road on the north end of the lake, which runs north-south. The next few years, I helped him put a snow fence across the beach on that end, which helped a lot but was also a lot of work (mostly for me driving the posts). The last few years, we have laid out a bunch of floating docks across that end, after pulling them out of the water in the fall, with his tractor. They work almost as well as the snow fence and no extra work required. How nice it is to not need to drive all those damn snow fence posts with the pile-driver when I’m up there on my annual October early ML huntcation. I also used a back blade on my 8n for the first few years at our house. I was a lot younger then and it didn’t bother my neck that much. It does a little more now but it’s a lot faster with the bigger blade on the back of my larger 4wd tractor. I do prefer plowing the lighter snows with the front blade on my old Farmall Cub. Too bad it, and that old Ford are both broken down right now. It’s a real challenge keeping those two brand of tractors running. Owning them certainly has given me appreciation for always having at least one John Deere available, for getting the real work done. I’ve never had too much trouble with the bucket loading up with snow on my John Deere 4120 loader tractor. It usually all shakes out pretty good when I dump it. I just finished moving two mountains of it from the ends of our driveways in fact. That bucket holds about 1/2 face cord of firewood, which I hauled up to the house from the woodshed after I finished moving the snow. There was hardly any snow stuck in there, after a couple hours spent moving it. It also works good for moving butcher waste back to my coyote/crow bait carcass pile:

Found my first one of the season this morning, walking in gathering maple sap.

Anybody have any pictures of odd-shaped trees?

I have a loader for my front wheel assist farm tractor, that was bought new in 2004. I purchased it from out of my inventory. I usually leave it off, most of the year including winter. It's so dam awkward and ties the tractor up to much for other purposes I use the tractor for. It's also tougher on the front axle bearings running up and down the road, leaving the loader on.. I use a rear three point hitch back blade on a bank run gravel driveway for like 30 years now. it will dig in and grade some of the driveway into the lawn, when no frost or ice present, if not careful. Neighbors get that from pickups and four wheelies. The tractors are so much money today, it's really difficult to justify purchasing one; at least in my book it does. Someone mentioned a Ford 9N with a blade for clearing snow. They work for a few inches at a time. If you have ice under the tires, they hardly get out of their own way with the three point blade up. One tire spinning, hit the brake and the other tire will spin. Manufactures come a long way when differential lock was developed. Now with front wheel assist tractors, differential locks not used to much. One thing I always ran by my customers; the horse power you think you will need, move up to the next hp.class. You can never have to much, but to little does no good at all.

But I think on a 1000' driveway, that might run me broke. But Who knows. I may have to break down and do something like that if things get the way I am guessing they will.

Something like that sounds more like grocery shopping and not hunting therefore it's not for me. As frustrating as a long season can be without taking a deer I still would not use something like that just to say I killed a deer.