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Spaulding Smails

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Everything posted by Spaulding Smails

  1. FINALLY got the garden back to working order over the weekend after a six month hiatus due to our pool project. Picked up lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, greens and artichokes today.
  2. Damn fine opening day after the disastrous dove lease last year. Got a last minute invite to a buddy's place in Burnet. We've hunted there before and shot maybe 3-4 birds max. Buuuuut, he just put a tank in last winter. One of the best opening days I've ever had. Not a crazy amount of birds, but the ones we saw were all coming our way. Most headed straight for the Mojos and into the wind. Easy limit for me and the boy managed 12. Murphy killed it as always. Even pulled off a few double retrieves.
  3. Looks like a Monterrey Oak
  4. Mongoose sounds like a solid plan. Or a bobcat that's trained to avoid birds and only focus on rodents.
  5. While not an English major, I've always tried to communicate correctly, even in text messages. I'll write full sentences and avoid short hand notation. For example, it irks me when someone writes "TY" instead of "Thank You". And, I absolutely cringe when I see grammatical errors in published news articles. That being said, I actually heard a pretty compelling argument a few weeks ago on a Podcast about the evolution of communication and language. The comparison was made between letters home from rank and file soldiers during the Civil War and soldiers stationed overseas today. Those Civil War letters were verbose and descriptive and full of emotion. Why? Because letters to a wife or mother were sent home once a month, and there was no other way to convey those thoughts and visualizations. And, they had ample downtime in the evenings with minimal other distractions. They took their time and ensured that what was on paper gave a deep and detailed perspective. Compare that to a soldier communicating home with a loved one today. It can be a FaceTime call every evening, maybe a few texts during the day. The wife or mother on the other end can see facial expressions. Pictures and videos are sent. Quick texts provide updates. So, the argument was made that it's acceptable and natural to get away from formalities in written communication. The intent behind communication is to effectively convey information. If that's being accomplished by a picture, an emoji or shorthand, then it's actually progress in the evolution of communication. Shortly after hearing that Podcast, one of my managers sent me a text that we were awarded a job we'd bid on several months ago. I replied with a "happy dance" GIF. In a sense, that GIF communicated more effectively my sentiments about that achievement more appropriately than any written word could have done. It's interesting to take a step back and try to understand how rapidly that evolution of communication is unfolding.
  6. The heat is oppressive today. Feels like it did a few weeks ago when we had that run of 105+ for a few days. I was outside with one of my crews at 10 AM on top of a roof, and it was already blistering.
  7. I tried that. Once. They mowed down the veggies along with the bugs. Now, they're the perimeter defense and I had to weld on another panel to the bottom of the gate to keep them out of the garden.
  8. Spot on. If you go with protein / corn mix, make sure it's no more than 50/50 and make sure you have a water tight feeder. We've fed 50/50 from May - August the last two years and have seen really nice improvements to the antler growth in that timeframe. Will probably move to a stand alone protein feeder next spring. We want to let the areas around the feeders "rest" for longer than just that February - May timeframe.
  9. Chickens will eat the shit out of bugs. I built our chicken run adjacent to our garden. Pest count in the garden went way down once we got the chickens. My only complaint is that they mess up the mulch in the flower beds. More of an annoyance than anything.
  10. I hope you're right about wind and rain only. But, their house is surrounded by huge trees as well. Rita took down 50+% of their timber. I'm guessing this could be worse based on projected wind speeds.
  11. Good news: My wife's 90 year old grandmother evacuated her house in Orange Monday night. The house flooded in Harvey and will probably flood again with this storm surge. Bad news: She evacuated to her 70 year old daughter's (my wife's aunt's) house in Starks, LA. More directly in the line of the storm. They have a farm and didn't want to leave their animals. My wife begged them to let us come get her and bring her to Dripping Springs. They all politely declined. The farm has somewhat of high ground where the house sits, but they're surrounded by swamps. So, best case scenario, the house survives the storm, and they're probably landlocked with no power for a pretty long time. I don't want to think about the worst case scenario... More bad news: My FIL left his house in Cypress to go to his fish camp on Toledo Bend this morning to help out his buddies that live there. While possibly admirable, he literally drove into the path of the hurricane where he's going to ride out what will surely be hurricane force winds in a mobile home that is surrounded by 100' pine trees and faces due south on the main body of Toledo Bend. Awesome.
  12. Within the last week, we've had a checkered garter, ribbon snake and rat snake all in the back yard. Have yet to get a picture, but it's nice to see some variety, and I definitely think they're controlling the insect population. I just wish they'd take care of the mosquitos too.
  13. Ha! Did this come from someone in Austin? Because I'm relatively certain we framed the new portion of this house after they finished the demo. Modern stunner with a historic front facade.
  14. We just mounted it directly in the concrete. Those bulbs are pretty durable.
  15. We built ours homemade years ago when we had our place on Lake Medina. 5 gal bucket, metal halide ballast + bulb, concrete and lots of silicone. Worked like a champ for 5+ years and was still going strong when we sold the place. Kids loved fishing for catfish at night. Plus, easy to move on a variable level lake like that. Here's a forum where they talk through something similar if you're into DIY. https://fishwestend.com/forum/threads/1851-DIY-Underwater-Lights
  16. One of the best things I've done in the past couple of years was getting a trailer at the ranch. I was out on Sunday in 106 degree temps and was glad to have a place to cool down other than my truck. Same. Just bought a 12' trailer that I keep out at the ranch. I got tired of pulling my 16' trailer out there when needed. So much easier to load rocks and move brush. Not to mention the lower height for sitting and taking a break. We also use the hell out of it now for moving road base instead of a bucket at a time with the tractor.
  17. The biologist didn't come out to take a sample? He did not. We sent him pics. Deer were very healthy and none of the CWD signs were present. He said if we found another, he'd come out. Have not seen one since.
  18. That's a bummer on the CWD. What a gut punch. We haven't seen any signs at our place (yet). We did have three younger deer dead on our place last year. No signs of trauma. No bullet wounds. No signs of predator attack. Nothing. Found them both before the buzzards got them. My dad called the wildlife biologist to verify we didn't have anything funky going on, and he felt like it was most likely enterotoxemia. Basically, the deer just gorge on acorns, and it throws off their digestion. He said he was seeing a lot of that in 2019 due to the amount of acorns being produced. Makes sense because we had an insane amount of acorns on the ground last winter.
  19. The more I looked at him, I totally agree. I found a pic of the one that I shot last year (30"), and side-by-side, he was noticeably younger in the face and neck. We saw two HUGE axis at separate times last week (neither on our property). One when leaving the Llano River Saturday and another behind a high fence on 290 between Harper and Fredericksburg. The second was so big, I turned around to get a better look. He was a legit 36" and super wide. I think we're going to pass on this guy.
  20. I was out at our place in Kimble County this weekend. Saturday, afternoon, we left downtown Junction at 4:40 and it was 106. Pulled up to the gate of the ranch at 5:00 to a torrential downpour and 69 degrees. We got a little over a half inch of rain in 30 min then another decent downpour around 8 PM. It was actually chilly sitting out on the porch. Total surprise and absolutely awesome and much needed.
  21. Updated pic of the axis we've seen on and off now without velvet. Pretty decent buck. I'm guessing right at 30". Headed back this weekend, so if he shows up, I may put my son on him.
  22. Ha! It is total overkill, but it was a fun project. I had a 12 lb pork butt and a big turkey breast and some sausage and it just looked puny. May need to start just cooking more and freezing it.
  23. Mostly finished up the pit this weekend with some help from a few buddies. I had the doors cut by my fab guy. I screwed up on the fire box door dimensions, so had to get those re-cut at the last minute. Everything went pretty smoothly, but we ran into a few issues along the way. I'd do about a dozen things differently if I did it over again, but all-in-all, I'm super stoked. Broke it in with some chicken and sausage Saturday night, then a pork butt and a whole turkey breast yesterday. Takes a while to get up to temp, but holds heat really well. I do have some smoke leakage and some of the exterior stonework has already cracked despite the fire brick liner. I need to go back and patch some areas with refractory mortar. Biggest issue is the counterweight for the larger door isn't heavy enough. I'm going to have to add a second weight.
  24. Could also be a ghost mouse. A mouse ghost if you will.
  25. I'm now 100% convince that @Ghost of LL is dealing with a mouse. We've been working a skeleton crew at our office since March due to COVID. Pretty much everyone is working from home. I have to come in to the office a few times a week for misc stuff like checking the mail, signing checks, etc. One of my project managers has a ton of kids and nowhere to work from home, so he gets his admin stuff done at the office. He called me last week and asked if I was playing a prank on him because he's found dog food in his printer paper tray twice in the last month. I was baffled and said it wasn't me. I usually take my dog with me to the office, and he has a sealed container of food that I keep in my office closet. So, it was natural for him to suspect me. But, it wasn't me. Fast forward to this morning, and I went to our shop closet to grab some plastic for site protection. I looked down and happened to notice about 30 pieces of dog food in a paint spray gun bag. My dog doesn't always eat his food, and I never think to dump it back into the sealed container. This HAS to be a mouse hoarding food. Gotta be it.
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