WildWoods Holidays Packed with.....

The first real Winter weather storm at WildWoods brought a bunch of new lambs.  It seems like every time really bad weather hits many of the ewes on the place decide that is the perfect time to give birth.  We have been making the rounds trying to make sure each of the new moms have a little extra feed to help them produce milk for the new ones. We are trying to keep the coyotes at bay so we don't lose too many this year.

 My oldest daughter brought her two year old twin boys for dinner and left one of my granddaughters to stay for a couple of days.  One of the twins left with a big knot on his head from tripping and falling on our concrete floors but he had a good time anyway.  My ten year old granddaughter helped me feed the sheep and do a few things around the place.  I surprised her by teaching her to drive our Kawasaki Teryx and letting her drive it around the place while we did the chores, she had a blast driving it around.  We also shot .22 pistols and did some wildlife watching. 


We had a special visitor to the ranch this week and also a lifetime bird for the place.  After dressing a deer out we put the offal out in an open field so the vultures could clean it up and an immature Bald Eagle showed up for dinner.  You don't realize how big these birds are until you see them up close.  When I saw him he flew off the remains and towards Colorado Bend.  Sorry not enough time for a picture.

Karl Oestreich called and said he and his boys, Blake and Alden, would be grinding meat and making sausage if I wanted to participate.  We cut up venison and pork butts for our meat and ran it through Karl's grinder, added our favorite seasonings and cure, then put it out in the cold to blend the meat and seasonings for 24 hours.  We spent part of the next day stuffing the sausage in casings and hanging the meat in the smoke house to smoke for a couple of days.  The end product was well worth the work.  We plan on making some more hot links and also some summer sausage soon.

We took my granddaughter back home for Christmas and had a good meal of the last ham from our hog we bought from the livestock show last year.  We had a great Christmas meal with Brenda and Karl Oestreich and sons, our friends at KOBO Ranch.
Then back home to take care of the place and livestock again.  It seems there is always something to do at WildWoods, I should have just done this when I was younger and stronger.  Guess it will just take longer and hurt more! 

I stopped at the end of the day yesterday and took a picture with my phone for you.  This is the kind of sunsets we now see on a regular basis living here at WildWoods.  Sometimes it is all worth the trouble.  Thanks for our blessings Lord.

Happy New Year to You and Yours, Wild Ed

The following is a good song about something I learned from my father as a kid. Hope you enjoy it.