First Pheasant

I turned eighteen yesterday. I don’t feel any older today but it does seem odd that I’m legally an adult. That means that I could join the military and in three years I could get a concealed weapons permit. I find it strange that the government considers me mature enough to go to war but not mature enough to carry a concealed weapon.
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Also, I got my first pheasant today. I hit it at 40 or more yards with the 22. rifle. The rifle has a scope on it and I managed to hit the pheasant in the neck. Of course, I did lean the gun on the windowsill since I was shooting from inside the house. (Who wants to go outside to hunt pheasants when it’s below zero?)

The weather is cold and there’s snow on the ground so the chickens are staying inside even though I opened the chicken door so they could go outside if they wanted. The hens have started laying better now that I leave the light on all night. I hope it warms up soon and the chickens will be able to go outside but I don’t see any warm weather on the way.

Jessi

Thanksgiving Weekend

On Thanksgiving morning we butchered a bull that had an attitude problem. This summer, Dad(Dave) found him in the cows so he went to get him out. Well, the bull took his horse, but Dad escaped with only a few bruises. Dad decided to leave him until we gathered the cows thinking that he would just follow the cows in. When we gathered the cows a couple of our neighbors that were helping went to get him. They came back without the bull and said his attitude hadn't changed, so we decided to turn him into hamburger. Dad shot him on Thanksgiving and brought him to the house. We went to work skinning him, then hung him in the meat cooler.

The day after Thanksgiving I (DJ) shot a mule deer buck. I had walked quite a bit looking for "the big one" but I hadn't seen any really big ones, so I decided I would just get a decent one. They taste the same anyway. So I walked about two miles from the house and saw some deer. I saw the one I had picked out and shot him. I was sure I saw him go down, but when I started looking for him I couldn't find him. I was starting to think I might have missed, but I kept walking for about twenty minutes before I finally found him. He had dropped when I shot him, but he was further away than I thought. (When you're looking through a scope things look a lot closer.) He had fallen off a cut bank (only a couple feet) and I couldn't see him. I hit him behind the ear so it was a long ways from a miss. Dad cut off some breakfast steaks yesterday and we had them for supper. We didn't have any leftovers.

Here is a picture of him:


I shot him with Dad's 220 Swift. I like shooting it, but at ten or so pounds it gets kind of heavy. Here is a picture of it:


We have a meat cooler in the corner of our shop. We used to have to use our cellar, but the rail and rollers in the cooler are a lot nicer than what we had in the cellar. Here is a picture:


Here are its contents:


DJ