(Jan 10) Bathroom Window

It's been a long time coming. I finally got motivated and got the bathroom window framed in. We picked up some Cedar boards and it gave us a good excuse to use our new band saw.  :)  Happy to report it works like a champ. Gave me nice clean cuts at 90°. Much easier than trying to wield a reciprocal saw and much quicker than the jig saw we were using.

We'll stain it next week when we come back out. Hopefully right before we leave. Tung Oil finish puts off a lot of fumes while drying and I'd rather not be here. We're closing in on being finished with the bathroom completely. It will be so nice to check it off!

Bathroom window framed in

We also found evidence of wild pigs in the camp for the first time. We had seen signs of them on the other side of the creek but never right next to the house. Our wildlife camera caught 20+ last week feeding on the back part of the property. I'm assuming this is the same group as that was. Several options. 1) Put our head in the sand - stop feeding the deer and hope the pigs go away. Good luck with that! 2) Varmint control - Texas allows you to kill "wild animals" for protection of your property without any license or permit.  3) Breakfast - If you are going to take an animal in Texas to eat it, you need to purchase a state hunting license. There is no season and no bag limit, so you can take them throughout the year.  Many people swear that wild pig meat is excellent - much leaner than farm raised. 4) Christmas money - you can trap wild pigs and sell them to processing stations across the state. They don't pay lots per pig (about $10-$100, depending on the size) but if you trap enough of them, you could fund a small trip to a 3rd world country.

Here are links to a couple of videos from our wildlife camera last week.

Wild Pigs Video

Deer Video

If you are going to pen them for more than 7 days before transporting them to a processing station or hunting ranch, you'll need a permit. Luckily, there's a station less than 10 miles away. Not sure you'll be ahead on money after you've fed and watered them for a while but at least they won't be tearing up your land. 

We're looking into finding someone that is already in the business of trapping them who just needs a fresh place to catch them.  I would gladly forfeit any funds to not have to mess with them. In the mean time, we've stopped feeding the deer and we'll wait and see. I would have to have a really clean shot to take one with my .22 rifle. Might be an excuse to pick up that Ruger Mini 30 I've been dreaming about. :)

I'll brag again on Ruger Firearms. I have a Ruger target pistol that I've been shooting for nearly 30 years. It developed a problem in that it would on rare occasion fire with the bolt partially open. Scared the crap out of me 1st time it did it as it blew part of the brass casing out the side of the receiver. I got a service authorization and shipped it off to Ruger for diagnosis. About a week later, I get the pistol back with a note explaining that they replaced just about everything on the gun except the barrel and the trigger, apologizing that I had experienced the problem and that there was no charge for the service. Are you kidding! A 30 year old gun that I had worn out by shooting 1000s and 1000s of rounds through. That's customer service and a company committed to standing behind what they build. 

Ruger Mini 30 (7.62mm) - 20 round magazine, 18.5" stainless steel barrel

The cold weather (in the 20s several nights this week) has taken it's toll on our couple of 12v batteries that were running our sink and shower pumps. We'll likely deal with it for a bit longer until we can put in a pressure tank and a 110v pump. Again, a good excuse to build something. I think a cute little pump house (about 6'-8' square) would do the trick. Insulate the heck out of it and I wouldn't have to heat it except in the most extreme cases. We'll put it right next to the cistern at the back corner of the house. That'll let me bury the incoming lines to to the pump and keep them out of harm's way.

Thanks for reading! Comments are alway welcome! :)