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686

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Everything posted by 686

  1. We have always made efforts to stay in Ag exemption even though Wildlife would be easier, because we’ve always had some lingering fear that they will take away / raise the bar on Wildlife and then also make it hard to get back into Ag. I’m actually kind of surprised that the Wildlife Exemption has made it this long without being curtailed by the state, similar to the Texas Tomorrow Fund.
  2. Had a good morning; activity was just enough, birds weren’t coming in real close but we did ok. Close to Sabine NWR
  3. Big owls are serious business. We had big owls at our last ranch and they would startle the shit out of you, but weren’t territorial. I firmly believe in the “owl theory” of the “staircase murder” of modern true crime fame. The Natives knew they were harbingers of death. Super sharp claws under a big bird at approach velocity are super destructive. On a semi-related note: I found a frozen, perfectly preserved, dead barn owl while pheasant hunting in the panhandle many years ago. It was beautiful, I put it in my cooler and called a taxidermist to mount it when I got home, and the response was “you need to get rid of that and we didn’t have this conversation”. I was ignorant of the law, which had never come up before. Interesting that millinery damn near drove some birds to extinction and initiated some of the early wildlife protection laws (that maybe a little out of date now, maybe in another few decades we’ll be able to relax some things). Crazy that hat fashion drove so much exploration and exploitation of this continent. Hats!
  4. We’ve got more coyotes we’re hearing/seeing out at the ranch lately. I picked up a Sightmark Wraith to put on a rifle and try to thin the numbers. I’ve never used night vision so this will be interesting. Probably will use a Fox Pro I have and see if we can call some in.
  5. On second thought, don’t QUIETLY go full HIMARS and ATACMS, just say it out loud: “in response to Russia lobbing missiles at Ukrainian civilians, we’re increasing the range and payload of the systems we’ve supplied in an attempt to convince Russia to stop this behavior. “
  6. It’s well established that the logistics tail of the Abrams is problematic for use in Ukraine. That said, as soon as Olaf said he’s not sending Leopards until we send Abrams, I think we should call his bluff and get some Abrams over there soon and let the UA use them as rearward security around Kiev, etc. which frees up armor they may have in those positions to go to the front, or where they can make it work at the front with Jet A, 4gal/mile consumption, etc. Then full court press on him to get the Leopards in there with the Challys, Bradleys, the Soviet stuff, etc. and make a push at the front with the diesel rigs. I have no military training but when Olaf put such stupid shit out there that he’s waiting on Abrams, it’s very easy for us to satisfy his only stipulation and put the ball right back in his court. I don’t know if we’re concerned about losing some Abrams or not, which is a different issue, which may have some merit, but GD has a new prototype operating and we could send some units lacking the latest doo-dads if we were concerns the Russians would grab one. Olaf didn’t say which Abrams, he just said Abrams. Also the UA has seemingly been extremely responsible with HIMARS, no (reported) losses yet, no regrettable targeting of civilians in Russia. Sidebar - can you imagine the sales data this is generating for HIMARS? (~50,000 rockets fired, with 48,000 verified hits on target without a single vehicle lost!) Numbers made up, but I would like to be the Lockheed sales rep for this product. Also, since Russia is back to lobbing ballistic missiles or whatever at civilian areas, I think it would be great for us to quietly take the choke off the HIMARS range, quietly send a few ATACMS, and help the UA stick the banana back in the Russians tailpipe.
  7. We also do highly unadvisable shit, like my dad raises me up into trees while I’m standing in the grapple so I can trim with a chainsaw. He can’t hear me with the bobcat door closed, it’s lucky we haven’t had an accident. I have almost been pinched a few times. Would be much better with the door open doing that stuff so he can hear me.
  8. Yeah High flow is a mandatory for me, thx. I definitely want to do some hydroaxe work. Dad likes to burn brush, but in some areas we could really use the little bit of additional top soil the mulch would create over a decade or so. Also shuttling brush from a tight fence line to an open area for burning can be really time consuming, and I wouldn’t mind having the mulch along the fence lines. We have a shear and a grapple, so having the two machines will speed up operations when we’re shearing/shuttling/stacking/burning if we work together. (One machine cut the other shuttle and stack)
  9. Yeah my dad has blown out two bobcat glass doors, and a ranch hand blew out our dozer door years ago. Dad sold the dozer last year, wish we still had it. I’m pretty good not blowing out windows, but I’ll probably replace the Kubota door with the aftermarket lexan door they recommend for mulching. How much are we talking for insurance? I hadn’t considered that.
  10. Also, my oldest (12) said she really likes working at the ranch and wants to learn more about ranch management, so I’m putting together a curriculum to work on with her over the next several years. So we can basically have this conversation: Hopefully she’ll inherit the place from me many years from now and keep it going.
  11. I’m looking to get another skid steer (compact track loader) for the ranch this year. Probably going with a lightly used (less than 1000 hrs and not abused) Kubota SVL95. The Kubota is simple and I really want the roll up door to talk with my kids when they’re operating it or vice versa. My dad is a bobcat lever and foot controls operator, and honestly I really don’t like driving those machines anymore. He’s got a pretty new 75hp bobcat. They’ve made the levers so much stiffer than they used to be so you’re shoulders start to ache at the end of the day and kids have a hard time with the foot pedals. The non-roll up door is a big nuisance and the tires put too much pressure on the ground and rut it up. Probably selling my boat to help fund the new machine, which is a little bit of a bummer, but we’re at the ranch much more than we’re at the lake the last few years.
  12. Filled seven feeders, seeded new ground, fixed a bunch of storm damage, cleaned and organized the barn, watered the new trees, built some tree cages for more new trees, etc. Did fireworks and s’mores for about 10 kids. Worked my butt off the last few days, but it’s great that I can still work my ass off occasionally. I used to do it 6 days a week, when I was also coincidentally about 50lbs lighter.
  13. No buck for me this year unfortunately, but I did get a good size pig this morning, will make good sausage.
  14. My dad texted me that he saw 7 pigs and a nice 10 point around my blind this morning. Figures a bunch of shooters would come out Christmas morning. Hopefully I’ll get some time this week to do some hunting. Need one more deer for the freezer and a pig would be a nice bonus.
  15. Nice! What glass you thinking?
  16. Though a friend, got this Army officer out for his first deer hunt and first deer this weekend. He shot very well and put this doe down in bang-flop fashion. Wanted to learn cleaning/butchering and was all-in. He’s been shopping/getting educated on hunting rifles and was asking me about Winchesters, Remingtons, etc. and I was spewing lots of information. I had a lot of my guns out for him to target shoot before we hunted, and he finally asked an honest question “I hear you saying Weatherby a lot, I’ve never heard of that name, why do you have so much Weatherby stuff?” The most direct response I could come up with is “Because I’m a gun snob.” Haha. But then it was great to say yeah, this rifle cost $2000, and it doesn’t necessarily shoot better than lower cost imports, but its made by Americans with best quality components and design features that matter to me, and the cost premium is irrelevant to me in the long run. I saw a little glimmer of pride in his eye, pretty great.
  17. Pulled a camera card, this is probably the buck I was looking at today, hopefully get a look at him tomorrow
  18. Well I had a nice plan for today that went sideways. I was going to plant some more trees and do a little hunting, but dad got the bobcat stuck this morning in a spot where it’s in the way of a fence crew that’s building a new fence for us. And he was heading to the airport for a flight this morning so I got the stuck machine situation dumped on me solo. Took two hours to get the old backhoe started and in position and another two hours to dig and pull it out. Ass whip. Watched some deer from the house while I had a little dinner; saw two 3-yr olds fight hard for a solid minute and saw a nice 10pt really late; didn’t have enough light to really judge him, may be a shooter.
  19. This is an old blind out at our place. Guessing ~40’s vintage maybe hauled out to the place in the 60’s and abandoned in the 80’s or so. A solid 30+ years of new growth cedar thicket surrounds it. I found it tracking a deer.
  20. @CHIEF in the first pic he looks 5 easy, in the second pic looks 4; tough call. I usually let them walk too.
  21. That’s cool, always great to put your hands on a deer you’ve been watching for a long time. It will be really interesting to see his teeth. Seeing progressions over the years are great. This was a buck we had a few years ago that showed up on cameras a lot:
  22. Great buck and nice guiding! Are you aging off teeth or do you know this buck?
  23. It autocorrected my spelling to that; doesn’t look correct to me either.
  24. He’s not insane, just weak and manipulable. Holmes is a psychopath (literally). Psychopaths can be incredibly attentive and can make their targets “feel like the only person in the world”. I’m sure she was sucking his dick / turning tricks / fawning all over him and being attentive to every little detail like her life depended on it; because it kind of does and she has no soul or moral compass.
  25. Got my 10 yr old on her first deer this morning. She spined it, I needed to put a follow up on it but no worries. Saw two coyotes but they were gone before I could get my rifle on one. Saw a half dozen young bucks, one 4.5-5.5 yr old buck that would make antler restrictions but I’m still holding out for a look at the big 10. 33 degrees in Lampasas this morning
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