Spaulding Smails

I had been dating my GF (now my wife) for about a year when I took her down to my lease in Live Oak County for the first time. It was one of the first cool weekends of the fall and before deer season, so I knew nobody else would be up there. Just us. I think we went to a party in Austin Friday night, so we didn't head down until mid-day Saturday. It was one of those perfect South Texas fall days. Clear skies and highs in the 80s. We got there right before the evening hunt, so we dropped our bags on the porch and headed for the blind. It was a bad ass hunt at a blind we called Sleepy Hollow tucked back in a big Mesquite thicket along the banks of the creek. TONS of activity for the duration of the hunt. Whitetail, turkey, javelina, and hogs. I ended up shooting a little sow about 30 min before dusk, so we loaded her up and headed back. Picture perfect day, right? She was loving it. On the way back to camp, shit took a turn for the worse. In this tight little sendero, about 20 ft in front of my truck, a massive blue indigo decided to pass across the road. She lost her mind. I have only seen three blue indigos in the wild, and this one was a big ass snake. Had to be at least 7' and as big around as a softball. She chills out a bit by the time we're back at camp. As we pull up to the old pier & beam cabin, she says "hey, check out those birds leaving the attic!." They were bats. Before going in the cabin, we walk around to the back to turn on the water. I open up the cover to the valve and have her shine a flashlight for me. It was standard fare for me, but she flipped out again when the entire valve box was pulsating full of daddy long legs. We get our stuff off the patio and walk inside, and immediately to the right was the old gas range. Well, a coachwhip had decided to shed his skin in the range and it was threaded through the burners of the stove. At that point, I didn't even bother to warn her that she'd probably hear the mouse traps go off a few times during the night. Needless to say, the rest of my hunting trips to that lease were solo.

When is someone going to finally point out Odessa to them on a map?

I try to run my pit from 225 - 275, but occasionally let it creep up near 300. I use the 1 hr/lb ratio as a baseline when determining a start time. That usually ensures it's ready ahead of my target serving time. I usually wrap it or move it off to the vertical chamber to keep it warm if it's done early. Ultimately, I use internal temp as my gauge for pulling it off the pit. Total cook time is similar to a normal brisket, but the stall seems like it lasts longer which I'm assuming is tied to the fact that there's higher intramuscular fat content.

Damn near the exact same for me. My son shot a doe Sunday. 124 lb on the hoof. I quartered it and took the neck meat, but I don't mess with the ribs. After deboning and cubing, we had 18 lb of meat (excluding straps and tenders). My wife is a ninja with the knife and handles the gristle and silver skin removal. She's a lot more patient than me. That was our second doe this season, so we have right at 35 lb of venison cubed and in vacuum sealed bags in the freezer. Next chilly weekend, and we're making our first ever batch of sausage. Anyone have any tips / recipes for sausage? My Christmas present this year was a grinder and stuffer. I have a good buddy on speed dial who's got it down to a science, but I'm open for additional advice. We're planning on doing 1/3 of it ground, 1/3 into pan sausage and 1/3 into links. 50/50 venison/pork on the pan and link. I need to run to Johnny G's in Manchaca this week to pick up the casings.

Agreed. For the price, the HEB Wagyu from Snake River is excellent. Costco's prime briskets are usually very good as well. One thing to watch out for is how damn rich the Wagyu briskets are. The flat has the marbling of the point and the point is other-worldly. I almost made myself sick just from the trimmings prior to serving. Serious meat sweats. But worth every bite.

Yes. EBITDA multiple. Curious what that is for you if you can share. I am in Austin.

Subscribed. Last weekend of deer season then a few more quail hunts... then my focus shifts to them big girls!

Fajitas would be tough to beat. But, I think I'd still go with an ice cold chop salad with tons of blue cheese, followed up by a cup of lobster bisque, then a medium rare Wagyu ribeye with a dollop of garlic butter melting on top with a redfish on the half shell fillet on the side, loaded mashed potatoes, and prosciutto wrapped asparagus. Then, for dessert, chocolate bread pudding with fresh whipped cream, homemade vanilla ice cream and a warm rum sauce drizzled over the top.

I don't dislike grass fed. But it's definitely different. It's definitely earthier and grainier. Sometimes, it just sounds good, so we'll stray from the standard Prime / or Snake River Wagyu ribeye or strip. I was solo a the weekend after Thanksgiving at the ranch and did a great grass fed strip over an oak fire in the fire pit. Just seemed to work.

The manufacturer piece seems to be super critical for HVAC. TONS of benefit to alignment with a vendor from a pricing and consistency standpoint. I stewed over the licensing aspect for a long time and opted for a plan similar to @T’Boo Ted Marshall for my electrician and my plumber. Though, I think HVAC licensed techs may be easier to find as field workers from what I've seen. Ultimately it boils down to three things: -Make sure they're a good fit -Treat them well -Have more than one We're paying for continuing education for one of our journeymen electricians (including his masters test) simply so that we can have a second master just in case. If you're not the license holder as the business owner, I think it's smart to have two if you need one from a licensing standpoint.

Congrats, man. That's awesome. You're gonna kill it. Not sure if you can divulge, but I'd love to see the multipliers used for that calculation. I just brought on a master electrician and I have a master plumber starting Feb 1. Trying to figure out our strategy for HVAC to round out the MEP offering.

THAT'S the kind of spike that needs to be culled. Cool mount.

Shitty pic through binoculars taken by my wife from the porch of the cabin this weekend while I was in the blind with my son, but this axis buck is going to be legit. That's a fairly mature whitetail doe in front of him. I saw him again the next morning, and he's a bruiser. He's still in velvet and his antlers are still growing (I'm guessing another 45 days of growth remaining), but super wide and fat bases. I restarted the game cams to see if I can get a better look at him next weekend. Since we're low fence and on a small property, I'm hoping he doesn't roam too much. At least buck season is over, so that should mean less hunters in blinds on adjacent properties as well.

Great insight. Thank you. I don't bow hunt, and we missed the youth weekend this year. But, that's a great suggestion to get out there early. We have tons of axis very consistently. Some of the same tend to stick around, and they ebb and flow. But, pretty much year round which is awesome. They jump and move around, but I think the herd in that area is very strong. Maybe even too strong.

Condensed milk FTW. My wife's favorite thing to make when we go skiing.

Great pics @BabaYaga! Where are you located? We had about 6" of snow at our place. My dad was up there, but ended up getting sick, so he didn't get any pics beyond the front porch.

That would be a bad ass trophy. Don't give away your spot, but are you in Central Texas? I know there's some melanistic deer in the gene pool west of Austin.

@Reagan1k that's really well said. One advantage we have is that the property is almost perfectly square. So, it "feels" bigger than it is. I like the suggestion about creative feeding times. Any thoughts / suggestions on encouraging bedding areas?

Yep. And I agree with everything you said. The silver lining is that we've already seen at least some improvement. And, if we can snag the 200 acres, then we eliminate some of that pressure and insulate ourselves even more. Just takes time and money, I suppose!

Great thread. Great insight. And great pics of great bucks! All of this is so encouraging for my place. We purchased it three years ago. 250 acres in far western Kimble County. Low fence. It had been pretty heavily hunted without much though on conservation from the previous owner. From a property management standpoint, we have not done a deer survey, but we did add two cisterns plumbed from the well. We feed protein spring / summer along with alfalfa here and there in the summer. This summer we added a turkey feeder. We have whitetail, axis and turkey. Hogs are sporadic. From a hunting standpoint, we saw a few smallish bucks in year 1. And a decent amount of doe. We harvested two whitetail that season. My son shot a cull buck (4.5 year old 4-pt, his first buck) in year 1, and my BIL shot a doe. Year 2, we started seeing better deer and more of them. I shot a decent 30" axis buck that summer, and my wife shot a doe. That was it. This year, my BIL shot an axis doe, and I shot a doe. We may take one more doe next weekend. As a whole, the deer herd seems to be plentiful. The last hunt we were on, we counted 22 whitetail and 7 axis. Honestly, we probably need to shoot more doe. We were seeing some much improved bucks before the season, and started to see some irregular points here and there which was fun. Based on game cams and what we saw from the stand, I would guess that our buck to doe ratio was probably 30/70 this summer. So, not ideal. And, once the season started, we see probably 90% doe. Which leads me to my question... What's the thought on impact of adjacent properties for a smaller place like ours? We have three neighbors total. Mostly decent sized (600+ acre) ranches, with some hunting pressure from what we can see. The smaller place (200 acres) next to us is pretty heavily hunted. And the guy's a dick. We've talked to him and the two other landowners sparingly. One leases it to hunters, the other doesn't but said he and his family hunt quite a bit. No conversations about conservation, but my guess is, based on the disappearance of bucks (both on cameras and from the stand), that they're probably shooting immature bucks without any regard for longterm herd improvement. Also, any idea what the target deer population per 100 acres is in that area? Ultimately, we're seeing wildlife improvements, and I'm optimistic that we'll continue that trend in coming years. I'm going to upgrade our protein feeder situation this spring. We're early in the process. And, we're going to talk to the neighbor this spring about potentially purchasing his property. We bought the 250 acres from him, and he indicated when we bought that he'd be willing to sell. That would mitigate some of the conservation issues if we can pull it off.

I didn't get all of the details, but a buddy of mine was looking at similar property sizes (20-50 acres) near Telluride a few years ago. Property was relatively affordable, but according to him, there's some funky stuff that you have to look out for with regards to water rights. Between that and construction costs, it was a deal-breaker for him. But, yeah. Telluride is at the top of the list for us. We have a beach house on the docket within the next year or so, but once we get that under our belt, Telluride may be next.

You are correct. I didn't do a good job of explaining about "landing on top". I meant bearing on the post via the notch with through-bolts. You are correct about joist hangers. Not sure what I was thinking there. Should only be the joists attaching to the beams.

i mentioned it up thread, but we arrived to Telluride the day they shut down the resort in March. Luckily, the first night was at a hotel, and we hadn't yet checked into our VRBO. I was able to push our reservation back to the same dates in 2021. So, unless the mountain shuts down again, we're going. With our close friends. Five kids between the two families. Both driving. It's about as good as we could ask for a family vacation during Covid. Since we're driving, we'll be loaded up with groceries. We weren't planning on going out to eat much last year, but this year, every meal will be at the house. Ski-in / ski-out setup. I've been very impressed by Telluride's communication and proactive measures to minimize headcount on the mountain. Steps like one family to a lift, etc may lengthen lift lines, but should improve social distancing. Take out the restaurants and apres ski activities, and I'm of the opinion that this situation is about as minimal of an exposure risk as we could ask for.

I'm late to the game here, but what did you end up doing? What cuts did you have? I've only ever had it in stew, and it was good. Also had fried beaver tail which was interesting.

I would think 4x6 should be fine especially if you're using PT. Joist size and spacing is going to be more critical than post size. I wouldn't go less than 2x8 at 16" OC. Also, try to land your joists on top of the post so they are bearing weight down on the post. If you can't do that, make sure you use joist hangers. The big advantage to the 6x6 posts is that you can notch on both sides so your joists sit flush with the edge of the post. You don't end up with much meat when notching a 4x6 for joists to sit on top. I did a treehouse for my kids four years ago. It's 6' x 8'. I did 6x6 Cedar posts with 2x8 Cedar joists and double 3/4" galvanized through-bolts. It's a brick shit house. I'll send pics if you want them for reference. This website is a good reference for joist size and spacing. https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/floor-joists-span-d_1479.html