I survived the heat, thanks i think to my being raised in the south where its a wee bit hotter there due to humidity. I don't mind the heat if ya get a afternoon shower. But I fortunately did not lose any critters except 16 chickens to a coyote pack. :| Need some more chickens soon.
The other casualties of summer, my garden. Okra is still alive but not putting on one darn pod or flower. Gofigure. Grasshoppers ate all the cabbage and broccoli, and rabbits ate my green beans. Heat got my tomatos.
THe other casualty is my computer. It has had it. This heat has caused parts to start failing and i've been patching it up with bailing wire and duct tape so to speak. Got it back up and running this morning, but am not holding my breath on if it will make it through the day.
The other casualty is i got absolutely nothing done in the last month and a half! What a waste of time! Too hot to do anything outside at all.
Sorry to hear you are having so many problems, but that is one of the risks of being a survivalist, or maybe that's the wrong word. In Alaska they are subsistence natives but they live more on game and fish than gardens. One bad summer, the crop fails and food becomes scarce. You'll have to fight back and eat the rabbits and grasshoppers! Didn't you shoot the coyotes? How did they get to your chickens?
I share your sentiments about computers. Friday morning, my laptop totally froze. None of the usual methods, i.e., rebooting, power off and on, slap upside the head had any effect. It just quit. It took two days off and on of working with the self repair that Windows provides to get it back. I basically had to wipe the computer clean and start as if it were a new computer. I lost all my information and finished up yesterday adding back the "favorites" such as this forum, etc. So the good news is the laptop is back up and running and I learned alot about computers.
Larryj
Quote from: Diane Amberg on August 28, 2011, 10:31:38 AM
Sorry to hear you are having so many problems, but that is one of the risks of being a survivalist, or maybe that's the wrong word. In Alaska they are subsistence natives but they live more on game and fish than gardens. One bad summer, the crop fails and food becomes scarce. You'll have to fight back and eat the rabbits and grasshoppers! Didn't you shoot the coyotes? How did they get to your chickens?
The coyotes are picking them off around 5 am or so when the chickens start coming out. Going to have to lay wait for them i guess.
I'll get some more and lock em up for 2 months in the coop and whne they coyotes realize their food source is gone they'll go somewhere else
Can't eat rabbits now they aren't fit to eat. You don't shoot a rabbit unless the month has a r in it
So what's wrong with Augurst? ;D ;D ;D
Maybe you should just not shoot the rabbit, but eat it anyway. Never heard that one. That lets out May, June, July and August. That is a long time to go without rabbit.
Quote from: Wilma on August 28, 2011, 03:29:24 PM
Maybe you should just not shoot the rabbit, but eat it anyway. Never heard that one. That lets out May, June, July and August. That is a long time to go without rabbit.
Rabbits carry a lot of disease and parasites and usually you wait til the cold hits and the weather kills off the sick ones.
Personally i wouldn't eat a wild rabbit these days. Just too risky.
But if they don't stay out of the green beans i'll shoot them anyway.
Quote from: Diane Amberg on August 28, 2011, 10:42:47 AM
So what's wrong with Augurst? ;D ;D ;D
????
I just did a check and no i didn't misspell August
Aw, Steve, Diane was just pulling your string.
When my family use to hunt rabbit, we never could until after the first snowfall........other wise you ran a good chance to get very, very sick.
Oh, but if you could wait..........it was worth it......Mom used to fry all the rabbit dad (Oh, back then and even about 20 years ago here) rabbits were all over the place. even had jack rabbits here around the Martin-Marietta quary..............brought home , crispy ! and made the best gravy out of the drippings.....Oh, I am sure this was done with lard and I don't care what the books say.......lard and bacon drippings were much tastier than then now.
I raised tame rabbit during the 80s and altho the meat was very good, did not compare to wild rabbit. Also wait till winter they have better fur to use for other things......guess I will go eat a thingy of yohurt......nothing to compare to this type of meat. Sigh!
I agree Judy.. tame rabbit is .well~~ tame tasting.. I love wild rabbet.. but Steve's right.. you don't hunt them in the months that don't have an R in it..
I guess Steve didn't get my joke?.....Steve, you didn't use August at all. I just made it a month with an r by spelling it Augurst! ::) ;D
Quote from: Diane Amberg on August 28, 2011, 09:03:17 PM
I guess Steve didn't get my joke?.....Steve, you didn't use August at all. I just made it a month with an r by spelling it Augurst! ::) ;D
Ohhh. Ok i thought you were zinging my spelling again
Teresa,
Grandma Mabel wouldn't eat a cotton tail until the 2nd snow of the year. She said the 1st snow killed off the bunnies with rabbit fever. I've heard your branch of the family tree were some rabbit killing fools back in the Busby days. Bet Jo has some stories about that.
Wild game was about all our family had for meat. I loved it all and still do.
After dusk - Fred and I would get in the car -- I would drive, he would sit on the fender and when the headlights would pick out a rabbit, the 22 bullet found it's target...One down, many to go. We done that a lot --- but never ever until after the freeze. We never killed any after February.
We made rabbit sausage - stripped it off the bone, ground it with a little pork, it made very good sausage.
We also cut the back legs in strips, pounded them, rolled it in flour and fried it in bacon grease. YUMMMMMMM
We didn't waste any thing...always fried all of it, but when we had the strips -- guess we thought we had a more "fancy" cut of meat. lol
I remember Donald and Gerald Parker were rabbit killin' fools.
Mama Jo, you know what would happen now if you were caught riding on the hood at night trying to shoot rabbits using the headlights? You would go to jail and they would take your guns. OMG. Life was so much simplier back then.
They did what they had to do to survive back then.
Times are different and IMHO because of the scumback that take advandage of the rule of the county,
I know laws are passed, and yet they are passed for the 3 apples that spoiles the peck.
ready to shoot a bad apple!,
then going to bed, resting peacefully
I used to go round the area i was at and ride shotgun in the cab, during the day and shoot rabbits off the road. Took turns with a buddy of mine, the rule was the one who missed the most shots dressed the rabbits.
Was funny too, i rarely had to dress rabbits and my buddy is a marine!
Steve , I fell right in there with you on break downs.
Driving through the pasture where I'm helping put in barbed wire fence I hit a tire rim in tall grass with my pick up and broke my drive shaft and punctured my gas tank. My riding mower threw a bearing, my wife's air conditioning quit in her van. My rear tire on my tractor went flat. My wife's vacuum cleaner quit. Oh, and here electric window on her van broke a cable. All in a two week period. I just figure it's life's challenges and that keeps me out of real trouble.
My son accidentally pulled the coat rack off the wall today.
I am in no big hurry to fix any of it, except the tractor tire so I can finish the fence.
Stay cool Steve.
Yep~~~~~Life definitely was much simpler back then. Everyone minded their own business - treated their fellow man with respect and most always offered a helping hand.
It is sad that those traits have gone downhill - in fact, have ended up in the septic tank.
I still believe in this country -- if we take hold of our boot straps and pull ourselves back up, we will still have our great country.
It is going to take a long hard pull, but it can be done!
How true, Jo.
Jo,
Didn't "old " Don McD even buy rabbits from people and he had a market for them, or did some nephew of yours blow smoke up my bahootie---AGAIN ?