Spaulding Smails

So, this sounds unpossible, but I've never dug into this thread. Love it! Meet Murphy. Murphy's 8 years old now. I'm obviously biased, but he's special. Best dog I've ever had by a long shot. Certifiably badass bird dog. But also the most chill lab around. He's an absolute sweetheart and loves his family (except the cat who steals his bed). He's also my jobsite / shop buddy. Even when he walks through a fresh concrete pour. We leave him out during nice days, and he never wanders far. Always keeps an eye on the chickens and has fended off more than his share of foxes and coyotes. And, the minute I get my shotgun out, he's in full-on business mode. He's an absolute retrieving machine in the field. He's starting to get a little long in the tooth and all the time in the field is starting to take it's toll on the old hips. So, we're thinking about getting him a running buddy next summer in the form of a yellow lab puppy to have a little youth around the house. Maybe ol Murph can teach him or her a thing or two.

That's a REALLY cool buck. What part of the state are you in? His ears are back just a tad, but I'm still guessing that's a 24" inside spread. You gonna try to let the air out of him?

Remembered this thread over Thanksgiving. Here's what we installed on our Polaris. Basically just a tension bar between the vertical ROPS supports with the gun holder mounted to that. I love it. Very secure and super easy access and pretty cheap. I've killed two pigs that I can think of off the top of my head solely because I had a rifle so easily accessible. IMG_3022.HEIC

12 years ago, my son was taken by air ambulance (Life Flight) to Dell Children's Hospital. I got the bill a few months later. IIRC, it was about $8,500. UHC denied my claim. I got with my then employer, and we ran it up the flagpole. I distinctly remember a call with their adjustor who informed me that I had "chosen an out of network provider" and that I "should have leveraged their website or called their 800 number to find an in-network resource". Silly me! My wife should have stopped keeping him alive during a 60 minute seizure episode to sit on hold for who knows how long to figure out the best way to proceed or at least told the attending EMTs that we needed to shop that around. Though I'd never condone violence, that almost drove me to seek retribution. Luckily, my employer stepped up and covered it, so crisis averted.

Passed on this fella this morning. Pic is from a few weeks ago, but this was the first time I laid eyes on him in person. Had my son in a blind on the other side of the ranch chasing a cull whitetail that he saw last night running a doe and couldn't get him to stop broadside long enough to get a shot. Texted him and he high tailed it over to where I was hunting. He stalked his way in and got there about 90 seconds after this guy walked back into the brush. Unfortunately, he had to head back home to get to work, so I'm here solo tonight and tomorrow. Gonna be hard to let him walk again if he shows up tonight, but I'd sure rather my son or my dad take him. I have zero experience aging axis on the hoof, but he looks pretty old.

Agree with @Brisketexan. 100% a house cat. Looks just like our big fat house cat named Willie. My BIL sent me this pic from his lease in Lampasas County. He was thoroughly convinced it was a juvenile mountain lion. He said it was "obviously way too big to be a house cat". They next weekend he saw it in person. At least he ate crow and fessed up that he was wrong. With no perspective on size, it's easy to think they're something else. But, it seems like if there's ever a doubt, it's most likely just a regular old house cat.

Played Bluejack yesterday. Weather was perfect. Course was immaculate as usual. Hit 13 of 14 fairways (not saying much since the course is so wide open) and 8 of 18 GIR. And carded an 89. 38 putts. 38. Some of the pin locations were ridiculous. I had a 15' birdie putt on 9 that resulted in a triple bogey after a 5 putt. Had a quad on the par 5 5th hole despite being pin high in two. Chipped three times to the pin only to have the ball roll 40 yards back to me. Love the course, love the experience, but the greens make or break the score. And, it's like eating an A5 Wagyu ribeye. Fantastic, but so gluttonous that you can only do it every few months, IMO.

Ha! As luck would have it, work got in the way, so I had to cancel. Had a round at Great Hills shortly thereafter and needed a driver, so I found a used Callaway Mavrik that was the exact same as the one I broke at Golf Galaxy, but with a slightly better shaft for $150. Been hitting it great, so I'm holding off until the spring.

That thing looks awesome. Are you wanting vertical gun rack or horizontal across the hood? I went back-and-forth on my Polaris. Ended up going with a single horizontal rack on the hood right in front of the steering wheel. Added a double ceiling rack as well. My thought was to have one at the ready then two up top for overflow. We cram six into the Polaris occasionally, so I didn't want the vertical rack on the floorboard.

Dude. That's a fantastic Hill Country buck. What part of Blanco county?

Took my son out for youth opener this weekend. The last year that he's eligible. He didn't see much of anything moving. Just a few young bucks running together. So, we knocked out some chores, ran into town, ate fajitas and enjoyed the time together. Meanwhile from back home Saturday night, my wife sends me this pic. She said this guy was sitting in our front pasture as she pulled in from picking my daughter up from a halloween party. Crappy picture zoomed in and through the windshield, but he's a tank. We might need to scrap the 2 hour drive to the ranch and hunt from the front porch this weekend.

Screw those scumbags. They owe a lot of people a lot of money (including me).

Drinking fountain (south Texas). And C-1 was referred to as a "casita".

If the wall is being built from scratch, then it should definitely work. Is this a new partition wall or are you modifying an existing load-bearing wall? If load bearing, just make sure your header is adequately sized and doesn't affect the height of the rough opening.

That seems to be correct for this product. Rule of thumb is that your rough opening should give 1/2" on either side. So, 56-1/2" total frame size. So you could potentially get a 28" if the door slab goes edge to edge on the track, but I'm guessing you'll have to go with 27" to get it to fit fully in the cavity. Anything by Hafele is going to be a good product. That's mostly what we use for pocket door hardware, custom hinges, etc. Spend the money on good hardware. Especially if you're slab is solid core. I'd also highly recommend getting a solid plywood pocket door frame if you can find it. Heavier, but easier for install since it won't twist as much, and gives more rigidity to the frame to keep the door slab from rubbing. And, use the correct size screws when hanging your drywall. Nothing worse than a screw head poking through the back side and scratching the shit out of your door slab.

Makes total sense. Second largest buck I ever shot was 1 PM while out on a walk. Whatever works!

3:00? That seems crazy early. Is this just a feeder you watch for enjoyment or one near a stand? I'm 7:00 / 5:00 (post DST adjustment). Keep it simple. I hate when a feeder goes off too early in the morning. You can hear them crunching corn and can't see shit. And, in the evenings, I try to avoid climbing in the stand after the feeder's gone off. I hunt after work on occasion, so it's tough to get there too early. I too subscribe to the "set it once" mentality. I used to hunt with some old timers that seemingly needed a meteorological calendar, owners manual and abacus to figure out what time to set feeders. Many an argument ensued, and it got pretty comical. We had one guy that thought he had it all figured out. He went and changed every feeder the week before DST. I hunted the following weekend and couldn't figure out why the feeders didn't go off. He had somehow moved the morning earlier and the evening later. So, the feeders were going off at 5:30 AM and 7:30 PM.

Great idea on the free plan. I'm west of Dripping Springs, so not expecting any B&C trophies. More just curious about what's coming to the feeder.

Just put up a feeder in my front pasture at my house. Surprisingly, there's decent WiFi. Any suggestions on a WiFi enabled game camera? I guess I could just go with a wireless Ring camera, but I'm not really concerned about video, and I'm trying to avoid any kind of subscription plan to go back and review pictures. I just want to be able to log on via an app to check out pictures every few days without much fuss.

Can confirm. Had Giardia when I was 17 the summer before my senior year. It suuuuuucks. 2+ weeks of being tethered to the shitter. Lost 15 lbs that I couldn't afford to lose. Water cooler for high school summer league baseball was filled from a tainted well. Everyone but the kid who's dad filled the cooler got sick for weeks. We forfeited a half dozen games that summer. Can't imagine having it miles from civilzation. Do not want. Ever again.

That's KIII-TV out of Corpus. I'm surprised they were able to spell Dallas correctly.

Didn't even think about that aspect. I bet you're spot on.

Location?

That was my thought at first. But, it didn't appear to be overly tenderized and was probably at least 1/2" thick in most parts. When I say it turned into mush, it was the consistency of refried beans. It wasn't like it turned into small chunks. Every bit of meat changed its constitution. So strange.