Day job by week, homestead by weekend. Starting over and building life from scratch.
Joined March 2025
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Found an old ground blind pole still next to a tree. Somebody picked this spot long before I did. Always interesting finding the older generation’s hunting spots and stopping to figure out what they saw.
Woke up to this just outside the window. Fog thick enough you can barely see the fence, and a deer picking through the acorns.
We trashed our kids' beds in the move, found Mattress Guy Nick on X, and let him handle their mattresses. They turned out so good that my wife and I got jealous.
Our own mattress was 10 years old and had made it through three pregnancies. It was cratered, and our sleep had gone downhill with it. Between acid reflux and lower back and neck pain, we'd fallen for a Tempur-Pedic LuxeBreeze split king on an adjustable base, but it was way out of our budget. Nick found us a comparable mattress and adjustable base for a fraction of the cost.
After the first night on it, slept great and my back stiffness was gone in the morning. @mattressguy_ is honest, knows his stuff, and actually listens to what you need. Highly recommend.
Public land bucks, both on camera this weekend. One cruising through after dark, one back nose-down at 5 AM. You don't need private ground to find good deer, just time on the ground and a camera in the right spot.
Smoked bear on jalapeño sourdough. Some don’t like bear, I do if it’s prepared right. One rule: cook it to 165°F internal every time. Bear can carry trichinella, and freezing won't reliably kill it.
New landowner tip: walk your boundary lines before you do anything else. You'll learn where the trails cross, where the wet spots are, and where your neighbor's fence really is.
I hope today brings a great deal of introspection in the GOP. Not only for who is nominated, but the decision for GOP candidates to refuse debates and solely rely on an endorsement. Maybe we don’t want massive data centers and nuclear reactors in our rural farmland, or nuclear waste storage, or to have our jobs replaced by immigrants, or more foreign war entanglement, and continued rising prices and interest rates from out of control government spending that DOGE was tasked to end before DOGE itself was ended, and want artificial dye and ingredients out of our food. Time to listen to the people instead of GOP leaders. The message was clear in 2024.
Same buck, one week apart. Oct 25: light tarsal glands. Nov 1: stained dark. Rut is going to be heating up.
Opening day bear, right where the trail cams said he'd be. Months of scouting for one evening. If you hunt small acreage, your cameras are your best scouting partner.
Biggest bear I’ve seen around. Casually strolling through this past summer like he owns the place…which is probably does.
Half the reason we bought land was to raise kids who know how to work and would rather be outside. Most every log on this stack got carried by somebody short.
A full freezer going into winter. Half a grass fed cow from a local farm, deer, bear, chicken, and tallow for cooking. Most of what we'll eat this year came off this land or one close by. That's the whole point. Going to need a bigger freezer soon.
From my trail cam this July: two black bears during breeding season, in broad daylight. Summer is when bears pair up, and this is why I run cameras year round.
Took a day one weekend to climb a mountain over in North Carolina. Sometimes you need to see the ridges from the top.
Most of my land is woods that were logged by a prior owner, and I run it under a forestry management plan to try and rejuvenate it. If you bought timbered acreage, call your state forestry office before you cut anything. The plan opens doors to programs most new landowners never hear about.
Sausage gravy in cast iron brings back childhood memories of my dad making gravy with leftover sausage or bacon grease. That's the real reward of a life like this, giving family simple memories.
This old warrior was about seven years old, and his teeth were worn flush with his gums. He was missing a tooth, and bone had grown in to fill the gap. He carried an antler wound on his face that came close to his sinus, and bot flies in his nose. A long, hard life in these woods. I took him on a Friday evening just before Hurricane Isaias.
