Juice

Reading the comments, it sounds like I missed a doozy in life drawing class but the last few days have been positively action packed here. Peter and I went to do some target practice with the air rifle on a Saturday morning. Wendy drew a nice little picture of a squirrel for me to aim at. It seems I'm a pretty terrible shot. It doesn't matter too much though as all the walnuts have been collected in now and anything that is left will be rotting. The Squirrels are safe for another winter. I did manage to get a shot at a turkey the other day though.

Turkey is the cheapest meat out here because it is free. You just need to shoot one of the little buggers. Me and Wendy took our time creeping around the outside of one of the pastures to get in position for a good shot on a turkey. Wendy didn't want to use the .22 because she only had hollow point ammunition and didn't want to shed the thing. I rested my air rifle on the fence and took my time aiming. I waited until I could see a turkey head-on because there is supposed to be a better chance of killing it with a shot to the front. I took a breath, exhaled, pulled the trigger, and the pellet hit the turkey right in the front. And bounced off. So no turkey for dinner that night. Thanksgiving isn't too far off though and I intend to get some target practice with the .22 so next time...

We also made apple juice the other day. Chelsea, who had been working here before I arrived, came over to help us make juice. I'd heard her referred to a lot since I got here and was under the distinct impression I was going to be meeting a 'character'. I don't know what constitutes a 'character' here but she seemed pretty normal to me. Although considering that's coming from a guy who likes to stop around pretending he is a giant every night, probably doesn't mean much. So anyway, we made juice. I was hoping this would make for an interesting blog segment but aside from 'we made juice' I can't really think of anything else to write, so that's that.

Juice

On a side note, I queried whether or not the juicer could make use of all the squirrels shot here but apparently, whilst it may work, the appeal of squirrel juice is not as wide as I had initially thought.

We did try this one squirrel

We celebrated Peter's birthday yesterday. I haven't asked how old he is but who really cares? He obviously doesn't. Wendy spent the day rushing around making a cake and most of that time was just waiting for the chickens to lay another egg for the mix. The cake got made and Wendy changed the rota so she cooked Peter's birthday dinner and we were spared Jeff's terrible cooking for another evening.

Celebratory baked goods

I spent the morning working on the apple shed and after finding out that Peter had been holding out on me with a band saw stashed away in the house, I was able to get on with the work much faster. I've almost finished on the front of the shed now and then we'll able to look at putting another floor in and fixing the roof.

I can't really think of anything else to write about now so this is it for now. It looks like there could be lots to do this weekend though, it's time we get out of Boonville and see some of the surrounding towns. I'll leave you with this picture of and alien I saw in the kitchen. At least think it was an alien, it could have been a hornet but it's a bit too blurred to tell.