Autumn, hunting, and another visit from my brother!

     Yes,...... I know, you look at this post title and think, "Isn't this a little late Eric"?  I guess "better late then never" is my only defense. Being home for Christmas has given me some time to catch up on little fun things ..... like blog posts! :)  November and December seem to have gone by really fast. Anyone else agree?

      Although we were busy getting the barns and hoop houses ready for winter, November seems to be the most non-rushed month on the farm.  We start to enjoy the longer evenings and not-so-early mornings that come with the time change.  White tailed deer hunting is a big thing in the valley and I certainly enjoyed my third season of participation ..... pictures below. :)  Thanksgiving dinner at Polyface is something to see. Almost all of the deliciously prepared food came right off the farm, and the fellowship is always a great part of this special day.  Another highlight for November was having my brother Daniel visit again.  We spent many hours hunting together and just hanging out with the rest of the Polyface team.

      December's big event occurred during the first two weeks of the month. We had about forty-five intern check-outs come for their two-day working interview for next summer's team. I enjoyed getting to know many of these great people and hearing about their backgrounds. I think anyone passionate about sustainable agriculture should be proud of the many individuals pursuing this path in life. On a personal note, because I believe that the world was created by God, and that stewarding the earth was the first "job" given to man in the Garden of Eden, it encourages me to see such a flood of people coming to the farming "battle front".

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas and is looking forward to a Happy New Year!

Enjoy the pictures!

Loading up the herd that I had charge of this fall.

We made a make shift corral with pipe gates and used it to load the cattle into the trailers.

Daniel and Sheri celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary in November with a night out while the team had fun watching the children.

Travis and Jonathan are fighting it out in a game of Battle Ships.

We dug a trench to lay electric and water lines for the hunting camp.

 Target practice on Thanksgiving Day

Daniel and I jamming with Ralph. (He was getting his first guitar lesson.)

A special thanks to Rachel Salatin for the brother's photo shoot

Yes, he's too handsome; I couldn't leave out this photo!

My first buck!!!  A nice seven pointer.

We went bowling while my brother was visiting and had a ball!! ... ha, ha.

One of the many projects we did with the 'check outs' was pour concrete and rebuild walls in the main barn.

It looks so nice!!

Home grown lumber! ... Just a little chain saw work.

Another December project was to move the frozen chicken that had been stored off-farm during the summer back to our trailer freezers at Polyface.

Each box was passed along 'military-chain-style' into the freezers.  We moved about fifteen TONS of chickens.