Spaulding Smails

Same. Other than fresh veggies and no oven, we haven't missed a beat. Since the power went out Monday, we've had big breakfast tacos, a variety of grilled panini sandiwches, chili, chicken tortilla soup and grilled venison backstrap with cheese grits and broccoli. I feel bad for people that rely on take-out and restaurants during these types of events.

Kids did this Monday night since we didn't have any power (still don't). It's a staple of ours every time we go skiing.

The load center panel addition is cheap during construction. Do that for sure. I think I recall you saying you're building on LT. If you're on propane, go with the largest tank possible. If natural gas, just try to bring all your utilities together in the same area if possible. If you have the gas / propane line ready and the load center panel set up, it's almost a plug and play for the whole-house generator at a later date. It was on my to-do list this summer, and I just didn't get around to it. I own a construction and maintenance company in Austin. We just added electrical services in the fall. I hired a master plumber two weeks ago. Just got our plumbing license last week. I just don't have field operations set up yet, unfortunately. Cuz there's gonna be just a bit of plumbing business in the next few weeks / months.

Correct. You can also install a load center panel and just wire in a portable generator to focus on core items. Much cheaper if your primary concern is fridge, etc. and you already have a gas powered generator. There are several other options for longer duration that are more commercial / industrial in nature. We're seeing lots of demand for those recently, and that demand just went off the charts this week.

$20K all-in for a whole-home Generac. Lots of higher end models available as well.

I'm hearing the exact same thing from someone in the industry. Lots of blame being thrown around about lack of preparedness as a result of budget cuts, deferred maintenance / upgrades, etc.

Forgot one more thing that's getting whacked. My greenhouse. I had two electric heaters running in there. They were barely keeping up. It was 35 when the power went out. 25 when I checked again at 7 AM this morning after the power went out. I'm anticipating losing all 12 of my citrus plants. All pretty big and pretty old and produce a ton of fruit.

Shoot me a PM if you want me to walk you through it. There's a total of six things I had to drain for my system. Both pumps, chlorinator, filter, UV filter and backflow.

Power went out in Dripping Springs at 2:30. I went out and drained all the pool equipment. Power came back on at 3:30. I put all the plugs pack in, and started up the freeze mode on the pool. Power went out again at 5:30. I figured it was another rolling blackout. Still no power at 6:30, so I went out to drain the equipment again. Frozen solid. Now the hot tub has a solid layer of ice, and the pool is icing up. No power since 5:30. Down to 58 in the house. At least we have a big fireplace in the living room and a cord of seasoned firewood outside. Ran water in several faucets starting last night, but not all. Two bathroom sinks on the north wall have no water. I guess I should've run them all, but they were fine until the power went out. Chickens lost their heat lamps. I tarped the coop and added extra hay yesterday. They're huddled up, but I have to go change their water every six hours or so because it's frozen by then. I'm anticipating lots of busted pipes and broken pool equipment. Our entire state was woefully prepared for this type of weather.

I've commented on it before, but having a few hundred acres now is awesome for taking friends, family, and filling the freezer. I went almost a decade with no lease / no land. I was invited on a few doe hunts here and there, but that was sporadic at best. Having a low-fence / small property has only made me want something bigger and better. I'm a long ways away from being able to afford something bigger that I can control the herd with. So, I'm leaning towards scratching my itch for some true hunting via an elk hunt or some sort of low-fence hunting experience. Probably won't pull that off this year, but already looking to do something in 2022.

Wow. That's about as bad as it gets. Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth. I was on the same lease in Live Oak County from 10+ years on my own. 15+ in total. I inherited my dad's spot when I was in my early 20s. 5 guns. 1100 acres. Low fence. We didn't feed protein, but we tried out best to manage the herd. And we did a TON to improve the property. We were constantly working on the old cabin that we stayed in. Fixed a ton of fences. Mowed senderos. Hell, I rented a dozer one year and cleared a bunch of brush and mesquite for him. We were allotted one trophy buck each. But, we never shot more than two total in a year. We started to see better deer and shot a few in the low 160 range. We'd see the same deer and started to do a good job of targeting / managing the right ones. We had seen this one really nice mainframe 10 with distinctive split brow tines. We aged him at 6.5. He was a regular at one particular location. Then, he vanished. And this was pre-rut by a wide margin. It was around 2005, so I went and bought my first game camera. Set it up near the feeder of that blind to see if I could catch him on camera. Instead, I caught two hunters dragging a bullshit 3-yo 8-pt to their truck. Who knows how long that landowner had been running day hunts. We had a handshake contract with him, so there was no recourse. But, what a shitty thing to do. Out of our blinds and under our feeders. Needless to say, that was the last year we hunted there.

@blacklab at least you were on the news. Saw your vehicle and the ensuing backup it caused courtesy of Fox 26 last night.

I was on the fence this morning about shutting down our field workers this morning (I'm in Austin) ... until I watched that video. We already had a dozen or so trucks out and about, but we made the call to shut everything down and ground the fleet. I had several guys complaining and saying the roads were fine, but it's not worth the risk / liability. Commercial vehicle insurance is already bad enough. TJH and his counterparts would have a field day.

Cross-post with the sausage thread. Took my first stab with sausage. We had two whitetails from this season. In addition to ground and breakfast sausage, we did link, jalapeno cheddar and Italian. Lots of work, but turned out pretty good for our first try.

I've completely abandoned Keurig myself. Not sure if it's subliminal or what, but I can taste the plastic. Even in the refillable K-cups. I understand the pour-over / French press and fresh ground bean fans. I agree. It's fantastic. But, I'm also more than fine with a standard drip style coffee maker 9 days out of 10. I can pre-load it the night before. Set the timer, and have it ready as I walk out the door in the morning. That's as good as I can hope for on a standard weekday. That's our go-to during the week. I have a French press that I use when backpacking and a stovetop I use when camping. Both are great for what they are. I guess I just don't appreciate it enough or have enough time most mornings to justify anything more than that.

My dad took me hunting that week as well. I was 5. We went to our neighbor's lease in Lampasas. I remember my dad making a makeshift sterno heater for the blind from a roll of toilet paper, rubbing alcohol and a coffee can. He shot a buck that weekend, and I distinctly remember him cracking open a beer when he started skinning it, and the beer being frozen solid by the time he had it quartered. That's probably one of my earliest memories. It was stupid cold for Texas that weekend.

Made our first run at sausage this weekend. We shot two whitetail doe this fall. Ended up with 35 lb of deboned venison. We tried a bunch of different spices / seasonings, but landed on a few that worked really well. Lots of work over the weekend, and we'll definitely improve the process and get help next time. Cold smoked all the link for 4 hrs. We went 50/50 venison / pork for everything except the hamburger. We did a few of those with 20% bacon for burger patties. The final tally was 10 lb hamburger, 15 lb breakfast sausage, 20 lb regular link, 15 lb jalapeno cheese link, and 7 lb Italian.

We spent a week in the Upper Keys a few years back. Had a blast. We stayed at Playa Largo (Marriott property). Pretty nice. Good pool. Good beach. Good restaurant on site. I second Robbie's and Loralei. Both lots of fun, but a bit touristy. Hobo's Cafe in Key Largo had great food. Loved the hogfish. Green Turtle Inn on Islamorada was some of the best breakfast I've ever had. We had fun in a big rain storm at the Tiki Bar. Typical bar experience. DM if you want a good inland fishing guide. We went with a guy that was top notch out of Tavernier. Super professional and put us on the fish.

That's a dream setup. Sounds like Granzin's in New Braunfels. We have a decent setup. I welded up an A-frame with two gambrels each on cable winches. And, I snagged an 8x8 walk-in cooler off one of our restaurant jobs that is ugly, but runs like a champ with a smaller A-frame inside of it. The only pain in the ass is getting a skinned deer from big A-frame to the cooler without dragging it on the ground. Not too bad with a whitetail doe, but it's really tough with an axis buck. Before next season, I think I'm going to break down and buy a big poly cart to just wheel them in there.

I've done that before with limited success. From what I've seen, as long as you have buds and not actual blooms, they're a little more freeze tolerant. Hoping that's the case this year. What really kills is a late freeze after blooms are out.

Peach, plum and pear. They're too big to cover. My citrus trees are in pots, so I move them into the greenhouse for the winter. Not much I can do other than let mother nature take her course.

All my fruit trees have buds on them right now. They gone next week, I'm afraid.

Ha. Yep. Mathis is dumpy and flat with mesquite trees and murky water. Same as Falcon. Travis and Amistad are gorgeous with big cliffs and clear water.

It's a great lake. Absolutely gorgeous. As long as you stay on the east side. The Devils River arm that @CHIEF referred to is legit. Huge bluffs and flowing springs when the water table is up. Watch the lake level, though. Currently at 63% of capacity. So, 40'+ below full pool. I'd wait until you had more water in the lake to make a run down there. Falcon, while great fishing, is more South Texas than West Texas. Falcon Reservoir : Lake Amistad :: Lake Mathis : Lake Travis

Removal of food is the way to go for sure, and I definitely second the barn cat recommendation. We had one that hung around our Llano lease, and we never had any mice problems. The rancher we leased it from would feed him a few times a week, and make sure he had water, and he said the key to that was to feed him just enough food to keep him hanging around but not enough to let him stop chasing rodents.