Little Farm Update - 2025 Recap

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 2025 was not particularly productive. Apparently, having a child takes up a lot of your time. Who knew? Joking aside, some stuff got done despite everything changing due to new baby and a new work schedule. Below is what we got done on the Little Farm.

Equipment

The Massey was/is having an overheating issue which could have been it just didn't have coolant but could be related to something else. I was still able to mow the property enough to keep the main sections clean. I would like to sort that issue out here in 2026 to put it to bed completely. 

I also think the hydraulics need work. They really struggle with the 4 ft brush hog after a while. It could be a heat thing. Maybe it's time for replacement fluids but that's a pretty expensive thing to do. I do have a filter that I had intended to put on.

Replacing the pump looks like it would end up being a bit of work. I will put that off until I need to do it.

As for the 4Runner, it broke down several times in 2025 so we sold it. The replacement vehicle is better for family stuff but I don't want to use it like I did the 4Runner. In the interim, the original family-mobile is my runner but it's not a farm vehicle at all. Too car like. As a result, I am currently without a farm truck and it'll be that way for a while.

Planting

Earlier in the year, we did plant 6 fruit trees to start our orchard. Two of each kind, we planted apples, peaches and pears. All of them came from a local nursery. So far, the pears seemed to do the best. The apples have been okay seemingly but the peaches were interesting. 

What I did not know about peaches is that they will try to grow fruit at a young age. As a result, they will basically kill themselves putting out fruit. If you want a healthy tree, you need to prune that fruit so the tree doesn't expend all of it's energy into the fruit when it should be putting that into roots.

We learned that not long after planting them so I made a point to trim back.

Watering them was tricky. We don't have irrigation yet so I ended up using a trash pump to move water from the pond. About 3 times a week, I would make the drive out and make sure that each tree got about 5 gallons of water.

I did that run for about 3 weeks. 

Sadly, the peach trees didn't seem to take the transfer well. The leaves turned red within several months and I have concerns that at least one will not survive. An apple tree might also not make it either but we shall see how things are looking here in a few months.

We also ran an experiment with wild flowers. A few years ago, we had forestry mulched around 1.5 acres or so and I had been working to keep that space clear. I spread around a mix of wild flower seed from a small bag. We only got about 5 rows in one of the halves. Basically about 1/3 of the space was covered in seed. I was able to water them in while watering the trees and those rows took nicely.

I am hoping that we can complete the process to convert the rest of the southern half of that clearing to wild flowers.

Things That Didn't Go

The Georgia Forestry Commission sells saplings for a variety of trees. We had hoped that in May or June or so that the Thuja Giants they had on their website previously would be available again for 2025. We were going to order around 200+ and plant them around the border of the property to act as privacy fencing from the neighborhood. Once planted, I was planning on running a T-post and wire fence.

Sadly, the trees did not go on sale as they did not appear to be available for 2025 and probably not for 2026 either. The result of that is no fence was installed.

The Big Garden is supposed to be where we host a series of raised beds for all of the market produce we want to grow. We have the space mostly opened up and even started putting down black plastic to kill off the grass where the first beds were to go.

Unfortunately, the beds never got built which meant asparagus crowns had not been planted.

The house project got started great with a wonderful floor plan sorted and purchased but we are struggling to figure out how to build it. So far, we're holding on to the original plan but everything is so expensive that even the "barndominium" metal shell housing is getting expensive. With build loans looking around 6.25%, it's pretty steep at the moment.

We're looking into alternative options to see what we can do to get out there but it looks like we'll be in Suburbia for a while longer.

Deer season was also a bust despite having been positioned very successfully. A hardware malfunction resulted in not harvesting a good doe. Some corrective action has been taken and will be tested for the 2026-2027 deer season.

Summary

For the most part, that's it. We've already start planning for 2026 on what projects we would like to pursue. Most of it is playing catch up on some of the long term projects as well as administrative things.

In passing, we're still working on having a second baby. We attempted an embryo transfer in November but it was not successful. That's been hard to deal with and demoralizing. We have faith in the Heavenly Father's plan for us and our family and are very grateful to not just have our first kid but that we can even do any of this in the first place. Our next attempt is coming up soon and the protocol for the medications is even more intensive. 

My First Buck - God Served Me Some Humble Pie in the Best Way Possible

 The only way that I can claim that I was prepared for Saturday, November 1st was to say that I was correctly dressed in warm clothes. I can't lay claim to anything else. Not the location, not the rifle or even the skills involved. I was completely reliant on the pre-season skills, hardware and the preparation efforts of others that invited me to hunt what I can only describe as the perfect location for whitetail deer. 

I generally like to consider myself as reasonably prepared for whatever adventure might come my way especially since I am considered the resident gun-guy. I have exclusively only hunted woods, swamps and wetlands to date and never needed to take a shot beyond 100 yards that I know of. This was different and I was not prepared. I was not prepared to hunt a powerline. 

I guess I could say the other claim I could make was to say that I needed help and that I will do what someone else suggested. I forced myself to sit back and have my guide pick my spot and to borrow a rifle for this hunt. The space was a high voltage powerline right of way that you can see for literal miles in one direction from my spot. The distances that I would be shooting were no more than 200 yards but the tone of the conversation lead me to leave my Winchester 94 in .30-30. Not long range by any imagination. I had been handed an older Savage 110 in .270 Winchester with an older Nikon 3-9x scope.

Heading In

We were walking in as the sun was creeping up so we were a little behind but that's fine as my party had my two nieces with us. I managed to climb the surprisingly steep hill and get into my tower a little after legal shooting time. In fact, it was just enough light out to see three deer near the edge of my shooting space. I attempted to use the rifle's scope to get a better look but the fog and made things a little difficult. At the time, I couldn't make out any racks. I couldn't really make out more than just silhouette. The small pack worked their way out of the opening shortly after spotting them. I spent the next 30 minutes making sure the lenses were clean and that I fully understood the rifle. I studied the space where I saw the deer and attempted to estimate the distance. I figured the area I was expecting to see deer would be around 120 to 180 yards away. That would be the case for both the right side of my stand and the left side. Both would be downward shots, something I had forgotten to take into account while I was there. 

A singular deer did come up out of the woods not long after the first ones cleared out but I opted not to do anything about it. It was after that point I remembered that I actually had a scope and could dial up the magnification to have better positive identification. I suppose I have been using red dots a little too long.

By 8:45 AM, nothing else had shown up and a part of my party was about to head in as they were getting cold. I had even texted them back at 8:57 that I didn't expect anything else would show up. Then I put my phone down and saw a critter. 

I pulled the rifle up and adjusted the magnification up to 9x for positive identification. There was a rack and it's a around 6 to 8 points. I committed to it. I got into a stable position and tried to calm myself. I waited for a better broadside shot. It took a little watching and I did try to observe and remember the immediate location details. What tree branches where hanging where and what the ground looked like. Any easily identifiable markers. I got a quartering broadside so I attempted to put the shot behind the front leg.

I watched as the buck take off left down the hill and into the woods. I knew we were in for a tracking session. I responded back to my party with a laugh-emoji to highlight my impatience. I really need to work on the Fruits of Spirit. They were about 300 yards to my left in a blind. We were able to see the blaze orange of each other.

I took a few moments to cool myself and work my way out of the tripod seat, making my way over to where I thought the buck had been. 

I had to make a few passes over a 25 yard area of scanning before locating a blood trail. It was pretty poorly how much blood. In fact, it took both my eyes and my 8 year old niece's to establish the start of a good trail. The worst part is that the blood trail stopped around 10 feet away. My father-in-law worked his way into the woods downhill to see if we could find anything. I chose to stay higher up and see if I could work the track and pick up the blood trail. My niece chose to be much more spirited about pushing forward compared to my conservative approach. I let her have at it. 

My father-in-law went back to get my brother-in-law since he's a better tracker and a vehicle to recover the animal if we could find it. Both my niece and I worked on following tracks that looked promising leading to a hill. By the time I had worked my way up the smaller hill, she had already made her way into a bottom with a meandering creek. Around the same time she shouts "I think I found it," I find a major blood trail. I had asked her to confirm which she was able to do so successfully. I bailed on the blood trail and found that she was indeed correct. She had been caviler on her tracking and it had paid off well. Color me impressed.

I took a look at my score and didn't find and exit wound. The entrance wasn't big nor obvious other than what looked like disturbance of the fir. The entrance had been behind the leg as planned but I suspect that I misread how much of a broadside I was given as the bullet looks to have entered at a much shallower angle. It had entered a little too far back behind the leg and likely transited the stomach. I didn't complete an autopsy. We found the Nosler bullet just in front of the right rear leg on the opposite side just inside the hide.

A devastating hit to be sure but I should have shot in front of the leg and not behind.

My buck did turn out to be an 8 point and I am very grateful for both the experience and blessing.

Lesson's Learned and Reflection

My hunt was essentially a re-visit of everything that's worth going over for what you need to do to be a good hunter. Patience, practice, staying humble, breath control, keeping calm and solid pre-season work. Also, gear, having good, reliable gear is very helpful. Just being a gun-nerd isn't enough to be a good hunter.

I suspect this bullet was a Nosler Ballistic Tip

I'm not a fan of the phrase "bring enough gun" because you just don't need a big cartridge to get an exit wound in a broadside shot. I got a pass through with my .357 Mag rifle at 99 yards. What this hunt taught me is that you can think you're doing the right thing and still get it wrong or that things happen. Having a larger caliber can help with that situation. However, even in this case, the .270 didn't exit. This shouldn't be a velocity issue either as I estimate that this shot was around 160 yards which isn't very far inside the .270's window. Simply put, I may have needed to go much larger to have been able to get an exit in this case. Or I should have taken a better shot. 

I am very grateful for the Lord my God's blessing and for my niece.

New Products from Ruger - Glenfield is Back and the 1894 in 10mm Auto

 Ruger has a few new products they have announced but there are two items that stuck out and both are related to Marlin news. 

Firstly is the answer to Hornady's curious release of a 10mm Auto version of the LEVERevolution line of ammunition. Unless you were familiar with the old conversions of Marlin 1894 rifles in .357 Magnum to 10mm Auto, this didn't really make much sense. The only people I had heard about doing the conversions was Ranger Point Precision.

Well, the second piece of the mystery is Marlin releasing a 10mm version of the 1894 Trapper. It's probably the first factory offering lever action in a traditional action (no I did not forget the Tombstone but I did remember the Taylor's 1873 while I wrote this) in a semi-auto caliber. It does make me wonder if they will do a 9mm version. It also makes me wonder if my 10mm General Purpose concept has enough merit that someone's doing something with it.

The other piece of news is the return of the Glenfield brand. Previously, Glenfield was the brand of a budget-ier version of Marlin rifles you would get from J.C. Penny's or maybe K-Mart back in the day. I'm pretty sure K-Mart sold Glenfield stuff. Anyway, Ruger brought back the brand and is releasing what looks like modified Ruger American rifle gen 1 for hunting applications. Looking at my favorite web crawler for prices shows a few online retails have the .270 Winchester version for around $399. I'll keep an eye out for that since I've been toying with the idea of having an inexpensive bolt action deer rifle and this new Glenfield Model A might just be the ticket if it's accurate.

I don't know what Ruger's intent is for the brand so it will be very interesting to see what they come up with or dump into the brand.

Extra Life 2025

 https://www.extra-life.org/participants/562988

This is a last-minute sort of thing and I don't even know if I'll be streaming this weekend but if you feel led to donate to Extra Life to support Children's Miracle Network hospitals, I would appreciate it.

I have several friends whos kids have ended up in CHOA over the last few years, so this effort got more personal.

The URL above is my link to donate. Anything helps.

Deer Season 2025 - I'm Excited but Not Completely Ready

 Who would have thought that having a full time job and being a Dad to a 1 year old would be time consuming? Sarcasm aside, I managed to get my lever actions zeroed up and validated for rifle season here in Georgia. I now have access to a new piece of tucked away land I am able to hunt owned by family so I'm able to use a suppressor without issues. The Marlin 1894 CST will be the primary critter-getter for the start of the season. 

If you have read anything else from this year, you might recall that I had intended to take a Taurus 66 with a red dot out for hunting. I still do, however, I failed to follow through with the primary tenant of handgun hunting. I failed to practice, practice, practice. 

I did manage to work up a load of 16.6 and 16.7 grains of H110 over the Hornady 158 grain XTP. The recorded velocities at the time of testing were 1242 and 1239 FPS with the 16.7 actually being slower on the average for some reason. The 16.6 grain load had an extreme spread of 36 FPS and the 16.7 gr load was at 37 FPS for the ES. I have concerns about the 16.7 loads and specifically if I made the correctly. They're more in line with my previous testing of 16.6 grains and not the previous 16.7 grain version.

The velocities aren't as good as the factory Hornady Custom with the same bullets but they're still usable speeds for what I want. I did make the decision to replace the Burris Fastfire 3 8 MOA dot with the Vortex Venom 3 MOA dot I had on hand after swapping the optic on another pistol.

I still need to confirm zero with the Taurus, Venom and16.6 grain loads before I start using that. The season opens in less than 24 hours. I may still get a chance to deer hunt with a handgun but I absolutely can squirrel hunt! I think I got my old High Standard .22 revolver zeroed with some CCI Standard and the PAC-LITE with new BSA pistol scope is zeroed too. I just need to find the holster for the MKIII I have somewhere.

Anyway, I'm mostly ready. I do wish I had taken more time to get the Taurus sorted out but really I just need to zero it and practice. I can hit up the local range one afternoon to zero.