Turkey Hunting (and Fishing) at the Farm

On May 3-6 Benjamin and I (Andrew) got the opportunity to go turkey hunting at Kate's Grandparent's 90-acre farm. Our good friend, David Inyart, also got to join us. Kate's Dad (we call him "Grandpa Dave") is currently staying at the farm while it is being prepared to go on the market.
David came home with us from church Sunday night and he drove us down to "The Farm" later that night. After getting settled in and introducing David to Dave we went to bed.
We all didn't sleep too well, but we were all pretty excited when we got up at 5am, grabbed some granola bars and then marched out into the dew-soaked fields under the light of the moon.
On Monday we set the blind on the edge of the field and called the turkeys in. However, we only saw one turkey and it didn't have a visible beard. It passed right in front of us, so we had to suffer the agony of watching our prey walk out of sight.
Unfortunately, this was the only turkey that we ever saw although during the next two days we heard gobbles from a nearby turkey time and time again. However, even though we didn't bag a bird we still had a lot of fun during the rest of the day.
We had to legally stop hunting at noon, so after eating lunch we would work with Grandpa Dave on the farm. I had a good time learning to drive the tractor and operate the front loader and I also got to drive Grandpa Dave's truck through some of the fields.
Some of the birds were making nests inside some of the out barns, so we decided to take up bird-shooting. Our shoot/hit ratio was pretty miserable, but after a few hours we steadily improved. I filmed a lot of footage while they were shooting and I hope to make a video about it sometime in the future.
After the birds started to become wise and flew off we waited for them to come back by fishing in the pond. Benjamin caught some nice-sized bass that easily could've made a meal if we had kept them.
So as you've probably realized by now...even though we didn't get to bring a turkey home we still had a great time spending time with both "Davids" and enjoyed spending time in the "Great Outdoors" at the Farm.


Photo Captions:
From Monday to Wednesday we woke up at 5am to walk to our turkey blind before the sun came up.
The three of us all had to put on "makeup" while we were inside of the blind. The turkeys could've spotted us because of the contrast of our light faces against the darkness of the blind.
We had to legally stop turkey hunting at noon, but we never ran out of things to do at the farm.
We used the tractor to wiggle out an old fence post.
In the afternoon and evening we spent our time working and playing around at the farm, but we also had a great time FISHING! At the farm's pond we fished for bass, bluegill and sunfish. Benjamin caught a lot of nice-sized bass.
Noah and Mom came down later in the evenings to bring dinner. Noah had a good time playing around with the bluegill and sunfish.

Fishing on Table Rock Lake-Photos

Benjamin fished just about every day we were in Branson and he’d start at 6am. The fishing was off and on. Because it was so easy to catch Sunfish Benjamin tried to be selective with what fish he caught. He did this by changing his lures and fishing technique.
Among his adventures that happened (which are inevitable when you spend hours on the lake) to Benjamin he almost caught a ferocious Muskie.
He also saw what appeared to be a hotel near the lake on fire! See the video below: Coming Soon!

Trout Lodge August 17-19 Video

We spent three days at the beautiful Trout Lodge on Sunnen Lake in Missouri. We had a funt time fishing, canoeing, geocaching, swimming and alot of other fun outdoor activities. I didn\'t record as much footage as I would\'ve hoped for, but I still decided to edit a video. The fish you see are carp that are 3-5 feet long and weigh up to 35 pounds!

Trout Lodge (Fun Photos)

Video coming soon...

July 25, 2009

The family was tired from the work this week, so Mom took the day off-but my brothers and I sure didn’t.
We started a game of soccer, but it was really hot. Benjamin and I ended up working on a Lego movie. I usually dislike making Lego movies because I’m the post-production man and Legos don’t give you much of a head start when it comes to dialogue, sound effects and ambience. However, maybe I’ll post some of the rough drafts of our LEGO movies on this blog.
That afternoon Benjamin wanted to go down to the creek and fish. Three children of one of our neighbors also came along. A 9 year-old boy, a 7-year-old girl and a 6-year-old girl. The fishing spot that Benjamin wanted to try was about three quarters of a mile away. It’s a little difficult to get through the fields now that there are soy beans planted, but we walked along the edge of the fields and made it to the creek.
The fishing wasn’t great, but that may have been caused by our neighbor’s dog who kept on jumping and swimming in the water and probably scaring the fish away. However, Benjamin did catch one good-sized Sunfish.
I had hoped to make a GTC Outdoors episode while we were at the creek, but it would have been hard with the company. However, I did squeeze out a promise from Benjamin that during our 8 night stay on Table Rock Lake in September Benjamin would help me produce three GTC Outdoors episodes.

July 22, 2009

This morning Noah took a peek at the other tractor that won’t start up. He played with it a little bit and got it to startup and run just fine. I sure could have used another driver while I was mowing yesterday!
We went into town to pick up the paint we needed for the gables and we also grabbed some pizzas and ravioli to eat while we’re working.
After getting back home in the afternoon, Benjamin began cleaning the white lamp post at the end of our driveway and my Mom began painting above (not on top off) the garage door. I began to wash down the second gable.
Benjamin and Noah had planned to go down to the creek yesterday, but the rain had stopped them and they went down there to fish today.
While Mom painted and I washed the gable we listened to the CDs of Paul Jehle from Liberty Day 2009. He does an excellent job in breaking down the doctrine of interposition and then applies to the government today.
We had also picked up a new door knob from the store to replace the broken one on the deck. I thought it’d be easy, but for some odd reasons it took us a long time to put on.
Replace deck door knob
Wash gable II & III
Wash white lamp post
Paint over garage door