Connor drew a picture the other day and told me it was a sheep/goat, then he altered it and told me it was a bird. Then a few changes later it is a deer, I managed to get a photo of the 'deer' but if you look close you can see the sheep/goat and bird transitions :)

Plough Progress.

 

Connor helping bake a cake

 

 

More words

In the last few days Connor has learnt the signs for sausage and ballon, and he also knows the signs for gloves, fire and music (which is him playing the air guitar!)

Day at the races

Today was the new year races at the local race track, it's a really nice country track, so Steph and I decided that we would go along for the day (well, afternoon anyway). We put aside $100 for betting, and decided that we would try a theory I had, Easybets are a better form of lotto, so we put a $5 easybet on every race, and on the second race, we one $110! At the end of the day we walked away with just under $200 in winnings, not bad for a $2 Win/Place bet each per race and one easy bet per race too.
Not much else to report, the plough restoration is coming along steadily, Steph and I did some destructive gardening the other day with the chainsaw and 4x4 truck (we removed some plum trees that were blocking a lot of light).

Finally got a snapper on the kite

More christmas photos

Connor making the sign for glasses.

More photos

Connor signing "Helicopter"

Chirstmas 2008

Connor got up around 6:45 this morning, so we got a lie in. So far he's opened one present, and has finally sussed out what this wrapping paper thing is...he has never really shown an interest.

Here's some photos..

Connor asking for help (patting his chest)

Connor saying that the present is a train (with "Choo Choo" noises too)


Connor just playing with the new train

Five hours and many many steaks

This morning at around 8am, I started skinning the deer and after we butchered it. Yesterday we weighed it out at 50Kg gutted, and this morning we weighed 49kg of meat and bone, about 9.3kg of bones, and the rest as either steak, mince, casserole meat, roasts, and a bit of dog food.

This one was a lot more tender than the stag.

Hanging Doe

Another deer

The last stag was pretty tough to eat, so this evening I went out and harvested (not really hunting) this yearling doe. She was shot at around 180m (which is my longest shot yet), and it went though the spine above the heart. so little meat was damaged.

Hopefully she will make some tender steaks, and the stag will be turned into meat patties and some venison sausages (oh and maybe a salami)

Anyway since it's 12:22 in the morning, and I've got an early start tomorrow (well Connor always wakes up around 6am), I should go to bed.

Connors Vocabulary

Here is Connor's current sign language vocabulary (50 different signs and counting)

Food
Cat
Dog
More
Finished

Tractor
Bike
Ball
Goat
Sheep

Cow
Bird
Rabbit
Deer
Chicken

Drink
Water
Milk
Hot drink
Biscuit

Please
Help
Shoes
Bath
DVD

Fire
Hot
Dragon
Spider
Horse

Monkey
Aeroplane
Helicopter
Train
Toilet

Telephone
Sleep
Doing teeth
Glasses
Pig

Nose
Bubbles
Book
Boat
Hi/Bye

Tiger
Fish
yoghurt
light (illumination)
baby

There are probably more, but we can't think of them at the moment.

So Cunning you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel (well a stoat actually)

One of the cats brought this in for us the other day (probably Jag), so now it is hanging in the garage drying out after being skinned and salted, should make a nice pelt once finished, not sure what to use it for though.

Christmas is on it's way

Well, as usual recently it's been a long time between posts, it's not for the lack of things to blog, but I think it might have something to do with every time I'm at the computer in the lounge (when Connor is around anyway), I have a little munchkin climbing up to help, oh well..

So now I'm hiding in the office, I can try and catch up.
Since that last water fight I have tried numerous times to upload a video of Steph and Connor, each with a hose pipe, getting one another totally saturated, but for some reason the universe is against this video being uploaded, maybe one day!


A few weeks ago, Steph and I did a NZQA course on fencing, we built the other side of the bottom paddock race fence, it looks really cool, and we learnt how to tie knots in high tensile wire and snap it with our bare hands, no more fighting with fencing pliers, much easier once you know how.


On the grass front, since that one bit of rain after sowing, we didn't have any of note till yesterday, so it still has germinated :-( but fingers crossed that now it got a good dosing it will pull away, or we're looking at a really bad spring for weeds in that paddock.


I've started dismantling the plough, and have the three point linkage all back to bare metal, and hopefully this evening I'll get a coat of undercoat on it. We're painting it traditional grey (not Fergy Grey, just machine grey). Hopefully it will only take a few weeks (I've got a fair bit of time off over christmas so it shouldn't be hard).


Oh, took Steph on her first rabbit hunt this weekend, there is a farm up by Mum and Dads that have a bit of a rabbit problem, and I go up and make a very small dent occasionally, this time we recovered 64 bodies, probably another 10 escaped with fatal wounds, and a good proportion were lactating does, so that will increase the count too. It was nice to spend some time with Steph alone and out of the house. She also enjoyed it, and was especially proud of the shot where all she could see was the head and ears of a rabbit, so she shot (and hit) it. In another paddock, she got all 4 rabbits in 4 shots. I was very impressed with her breathing control and style, spot on, so now once some funds become available I want to get her her own firearms license, and maybe a nice .17HMR. After that trip it brought our rabbit kiloage to 11, which is enough for sausages, so that went into the butchers on Monday, so hopefully on Saturday I'll pick up the rabbit sausages. I was shocked how much rabbit costs to buy in a butchers, $20/kg, and there I was if the rabbit wasn't full grown, I fed it to the dogs, or just tossed it away, shame I can't sell them, does mean that Steph and I have expensive tastes.
Talking of meat and tastes, I organized the freezer the other day, found about 40Kg of venison, 2 cardboard boxes (about 60x30x20) full of bacon (I thought we had run out), another couple of goats, trillions of sausages (ok about 300), a few pork chops and a small handfull of lamb chops (along with a few kg of rabbit and hare). I guess Steph and I live on venison for the next few months, and to top it off we're trying to cut back on our meat consumption, so I think I might be doing a BBQ soon.


Over Christmas this year, we're not going away, or having anyone visiting, so it's going to be very quiet, we've even discussed that since celebrating Christmas in it's true sense would be hypocritical for us (due to our religious beliefs), and celebrating it otherwise would be just feeding the machine of commercialism, whether or not it would be a good idea to celebrate Christmas as a different holiday, but kind of in the same spirit as the Christian festival (Steph did suggest being a bit more original and celebrate the summer solstice instead, but since it would be the height of the fire season, having a bloody big fire and buring the yule log would probably get us in trouble), it seems like a good time of the year just to celebrate family and friends, that way Connor doesn't miss out the celebrating thing, all we have to suss out is how to handle it in relation to Connor and Father Christmas,school activities and peer expectations, but thankfully that's still a few years off.


I've finally finished tanning the two goats, Connor has the kid skin under his cot which he loves standing on and patting, and as for my rug, it's at the foot of our bed, beside my deer skin. When I brought the big shaggy goat skin in on Friday Connor sat down beside it, patted it and made the sign for goat! That boy knows what a goat looks like in a paddock, hanging up ready for butchering, and what they look like as a rug, I guess I can be certain he won't grow up not knowing where meat and fur/pelts come from!

Connors first water fight

Perfect timing

Whoohoo. Just sowed some grass seed on the paddock, thinking that we might have left it to late for any rain to get it started, and low and behold it's raining! Might put paid to this evenings hunt, but I rather the grass grew!

Oh in other news, we had some one through the house today, and they really liked it (so much so they spent 10 minutes at the end of the driveway discussing it after they left!)

Things ticking along

Well, spring is almost over, and it was late this year. As from the last blog entry, you can see that we've recently ploughed a paddock over, and we're nearly ready to resow it, just waiting for the seed to arrive. I'm hoping that we'll get it in this weekend, otherwise it will be pushing it too close to the dry season, and the grass won't grow.
Other than that, Steph, Connor and I succumbed to some viral infection a few weeks ago, and that really knocked the stuffing out of us, but we're on the mend now. Steph still has a croaky throat, Connor's nose is still running, and I'm quite phlegmy (yuck!).
Last weekend, I abandoned Steph and headed up to Mum and Dad's place for a hunt, as they have a friend with a rabbit problem, 100 acres and I estimate about 1000 rabbits (and that might be an underestimate). Well after a few hours of spotlighting and a hunt in the morning we culled out about 50 bunnies, and several hours later I had the good meat removed (about 8kg, which went to about 6kg once boned).
We're planning another trip up there in the near future once the rifle is suppressed, and we'll also take the crossbow, should be fun!

Plouging paddocks

Yesterday, Steph and I headed up to Lake Taupo to pick up a plough for the tractor whilst Amy looked after Connor. It was quite cute when it came time to drop Amy back at the train station, as she left the car, Connor burst into tears and was reaching for her, so we ended up waiting for the train and waving goodbye as the train pulled away.

Today, after a night which saw me up for an hour coughing and being sick, I decided to give ploughing the paddock a go. As you can see from the photos, I won't win any competitions, but it does work, so now in a few nights time, I have to rotavate it.

Connor 'n' Boots