All Done

Nah, we're just kidding. This was just a temporary dam set up to stop the spring water until they boys could get some digging done.

And the boys got serious about digging this past week. Thanks to our pal Link at Total Car Care, he hauled out some serious shovel power.

The boys got the stumps out and most of the dam work started. Then they hit three new springs we didn't even know were there. When the zombies come, we will be well fixed for water.

Cupcake was gone on another whirlwind adventure for HCA this past week, so there was no cooking to speak of. Lawman survives on combat meals and coffee while she's gone, but she made it back by the weekend, and rolled up her sleeves to help with Lawman's new tree stand.

Lawman chose the name for the new wheeler, nurds will get it.
We have almost run out of our supply of deer chili we put away the past couple of years, and Cupcake loves her some deer chili. Lawman can't drag deer any more, so a new wheeler was essential for harvesting deer this year. Cupcake drives it the most, so she is "Cato" while she chauffeurs Lawman around the farm.

 We ended the week with a nap and wings.
K&K

A Little Work

If you tuned in last week, you saw we promised a big announcement. We figured we had better get the word out before the neighbors broke their necks driving past the house, trying to figure out what's going on.
Since Lawman was a lad, there has always been an old cow pond on the property. It has fallen into disrepair over the years and filled with silt and cow poop and whatnot. We decided we would go ahead and clean the pond out, and clear away the trees and brush from the sides so we could use it for people.

First day, equipment arrives

Deer stand, or rope swing launcher?

Marine Corps equipment on The Acre?

The only sad part about the whole ordeal was losing two oak trees that were probably 150-200 years old. But they will make plenty of smoker wood, so we're looking on the positive side of it. Plus, we plan on planting a fruit tree orchard near by next spring, so we lost a couple of big trees but we're gaining a hundred or so new ones. Fruit makes us happy, and the bees will have something to do for years to come.
Speaking of bees, we've had a hot dry spell around The Acre for over a month. This means we've had to feed the bees quite a bit of syrup to keep them going. The little boogers were going through two quarts of syrup a day, which is about four pounds each. We hope they reward us in a couple of months. Right now, they're kind of testy.

Needy baby, greedy baby

You really cant tell, but the bees swarmed Lawman 

Because it's been so dry, the garden has really slowed down. Except for jalapeno peppers. They seem to thrive during the heat. We've already got our jalapeno jelly squared away for the year, so we've been making Lawman candy with the ones that come in now.

Since we took a year off from the updates, we have gotten out of the habit of carrying around a camera to document our day to day. We started to on Monday when Lawman sliced up a ribeye for steaks in the coming weeks. But apparently a shiny squirrel distracted him from finishing up the job of documentation.

We missed our usual "Hey Grandpa, whats for supper?" pictures, so we will work on doing better in the coming weeks. One thing we did get a shot of was our fried potatoes on Sunday morning. For "Thor's red meat Thursday" we usually dig a hill of potatoes and grill them alongside our steaks. We do extras and keep them for Sunday morning. This we remembered to get a shot of.

And our latest biscuit recipe. We bake these in butter. We've served these for Easter and when a few of the boys from The People's Republic of Maryland came to visit. We've gotten really good feedback, so this will be our go to biscuits for a while.

As always, we ended the week with wings.
K&K

In Case You Missed It

In case you missed it, we have brought back the updates from The Acre. We're sure the three to four regular readers will be thrilled. Or not, we're cool either way.
We start off the triumphant return with some serious "Bestest Husband Ever" points. A few weeks ago, Cupcake was on another whirlwind business trip, this time in Richmond. One evening after she did her thing, she walked across the parking lot of her hotel to a little knick knack shop, and found the storage cabinet of her dreams. She took a picture of it, and sent it to the Lawman, who was on the front porch with the dog, standing by to punish predators. When he got the picture and the story, he dropped everything, threw a change of clothing and his toothbrush into a Wades shopping bag, and drove to Richmond to get the cabinet. A ten hour drive was totally worth making Cupcake happy.

Now we have a spot to put all our canned goodies from this season. As you can see, we almost have it full.
We did a short update a while back about our bees, but that is pretty much our claim to fame this year. We've managed to keep them alive and in one spot. We're really hoping for a jar or two of honey this fall. This time of year we seem to be feeding syrup every other day. It's been very dry this summer and nectar has left the flowers it seems.

Representing the 4th ID 

But the dry weather has not slowed down the butterflies any. We've never noticed so many butterflies before, but we're not complaining.

The last few pictures are a little mystery. Big announcement coming next week, but until then, here are your clues....

It's been a year since last we confirmed it, but we still end the week with wings.
K&K