First off this morning, Deb and I would like to thank our good friend Gary. Gary was kind enough to put Deb on the prayer list at his church quite a while back. Just recently, Gary had contacted us in regards to a possible problem he may be facing.

Well, Deb and I spoke with Gary, and offered what little advice we could share, and we asked all you guys to pray for Gary as well. By the way, thank you all for your prayers, in Deb and Gary’s behalf.

Anyway, that scoundrel sent Deb a thank you card, signed by everyone in his Sunday School class. Thank you Gary, and your entire Sunday School class for doing this! Words cannot express our appreciation for such a kind a caring thought. God Bless ya’ll!

Well, I’ve spoken before that from time to time here at our place the dern hogs show up every now and then. There’s a pretty good chunk in the back of our place that is thousands of acres of State land. Across the road in front of us is much of the same.

With this being the case, it provides us with wild game that drift back and forth. This is one of the reasons Deb and I like it here so much. You guys have seen our videos of the turkeys that come up to the house daily, and we have deer and a ton of little critters around all the time. We don’t always see them, but they’re there regardless.

Well, with all the good, there has to be a little bad mixed in, just like anything else in life. The bad in this case being wild hogs and coyotes. The coyotes are really beginning to be pretty rampant down here, and at the ranches my brother has had to hire trappers to help to at least keep their population in check.

I’ve posted this video on here before, but I’ll share it again today. I’m speaking with Ralph, the trapper who’s helping my brother Shane with the coyotes. He’s State certified, and very knowledgeable in their habits, breeding, lifestyles, and the damager they’re inflicting on our native wildlife here in Florida.

There’s even case of coyotes in larger towns, Tampa comes to mind, where they have literally attacked small dogs, on their leashes while being walked by their owners.

I know the coyotes are becoming a larger and larger problem nationwide, and I’m told we can never eradicate them, but hopefully keep their numbers down to at least a manageable number.

They are very, very smart, and are known to hang out around deer and not mess with them…just being around, getting the deer get used to them being around, yet causing no trouble. This lets the deer assume they’re not threatening.

Then the minute the doe’s drop their babies, the coyotes come in and feed on the fawns. Pretty slick if you ask me. They’ve been documented on our beaches, digging up and eating the sea turtle eggs. They get into our baby turkeys, and other small game.

Here on our place we’ve got where we hear them pretty often, and see them on rare occasions, and when we do, they’re gone before I can get the gun out the truck to shoot em.

Well, let’s check out the video, and hear an expert speak about their influence on our wildlife. Ralph’s a great guy, and I appreciate him tasking the time to spend with me and discuss the dern things.

The other problem we have in regards to our wildlife is the wild hogs, or pigs. Down here, we have the ole black, piney wood rooter. The population of these things have just exploded. It’s not unusual to see them even in yards in subdivisions.

These things can ruin a place in a very short period of time. Here at our place they’ll come in from time to time, and get off in the pastures, rootin up everything in sight.

I’ve kinda got a little soft-hearted in my getting on up some in years now, and I really don’t like to shoot much of anything anymore, but a dern pig I will. If they stay off in the scrub or swamp areas, or rarely venture off into the pasture, I’ll give a free pass most times. But once they start destroying pasture…I’ll bust em.

We built a trap/pen combo awhile back, and caught some the first night it was set. But, we’d left a dern stump in the pen, and I knew better, but said, “Aw, to heck with it.” Well, by my doing so, every pig we caught got up on the stump and cleared the sides of the pen….gone!

So, we dug the stump out, reset the pen door, and baited it back up. Nothing…day after day, nothing! They eventually drifted back off, but NEVER came through that pen door again. We’d cut palmetto fronds, stuck them in the pen sides to camo it up, but still nothing.

I’ll say this about a pig…they’re not stupid. Once they’d been trapped, they’d have nothing else to do with the pen…corn on the ground or not.

Well, this past week, we baited it again. This after months of not baiting it up. It was November when they got out.

But, like I say, they will drift off and you not see them for months at a time, then one dasy, they’re out there again.

We caught a boar, and a sow with piglets. The piglets though are so small, that they can run right through the bull panel sides of the pen walls. Little fellers I mean! They can come in a get a drink of Mama’s milk, hang out and visit a spell, then skedaddle when they see us approaching.

We built the pen in two sections. The whole pen is 16’ x 32’, but we put a divider down the middle with a gate, making two 16’ x 16’ pens. This allows us to catch pigs one night, and then run them into the back section the following morning.

We reset the trap once again, this time with caught pigs in the back pen, and the front part re-baited. By having pigs in the back pen, this helps draw other pigs into the trap. We did this last night and caught another, sow.

So we’ve caught three pigs the last couple nights. We’ve fed em up and keep them watered well, but we’ll wait another couple nights prior to baitin it up again.

Here’s a couple videos of the pig pen and its inhabitants! LOL!

You guys have a great day, and God Bless! Deb says to keep a smile on your face, and one in your heart!

Dub and Deb

As you know we started building a hog trap/pen a few days back on account of the dern pigs rooting up our pasture. We can’t let this continue, so…we have built the pen.

For you folks who aren’t familiar with the damage these guys can do to a place, let me just say that it is considerable. A good size group of hogs can literally ruin a place in just a matter of days!

Wild hogs are really becoming a problem here in Florida. They’ve been around down here basically forever, but they seem to be really becoming more and more troublesome as well. Like I say, they can ruin a place in a flash.

Florida’s wild pig population is second only to Texas. That says a mouthful when you consider how big Texas actually is.

Sows can have two litters a year, and each litter may have up to 12 pigs. This is amazing to me when you think about it. Take Miss Piggy of The Muppets fame. I have no idea how many years we watched that show, and I can’t remember even one time where she wasn’t on the show, due to pregnancy leave?? Do you??

Evidently she is an exception to the rule, huh!

Here’s a couple pictures of a good sized boar hog at the ranch in Yeehaw Junction.

As you can see from our video below, we placed our pen up under an oak hammock. This will give them shade from the summer heat, and actually drop acorns in the pen too. It turned out nice, and the pen should be “just the ticket” in helping us get a handle on our problem here.

Anyway, here’s the video of our finished product.

Our next video is showing Red’s daughter, and our granddaughter Shelby Lynn. Once we videoed the hog pen she decided she needed one with her in it too. Being she has her Papa and Nana wrapped around her finger…she got her a video! LOL!

Also Corey who works with us is 20. I aggravate him all the time about a girlfriend, so I’m now his “agent” if any of you young ladies are interested! He’s a great kid and a hard worker, so if you girls are lookin for a man, he’d be a good un, cause he’s still young enough for you to train! Send in your request…I’ll send you his number!

Now ole Dale on the other hand has decided he too wants to use “Dub’s Dating Services,” but like I told him…there ain’t many out their older than you still kickin around, buddy. He agreed, but put in his application anyway. He’s looking for an independently wealthy woman, with a good sense of humor. Preferably over 80!!

Shoot, after taking a look at his request of what he’s looking for, I may go through his replies very carefully. It seems what he’s looking for just might appeal to ole Dub too! Yee haw!!

Closing out today, let’s take a look at another joke sent in by our friend Roger in Virginia. Roger sends me jokes all the time, so this morning I’d like to ask Roger a question…Hey man…ya gotta job?? LOL!

Today’s joke is about…The Perfect Man! I felt this goes good with Corey and Dale in their quest for…a woman! Check out the joke and it just might give you some pointers into a… “woman’s mind!”

The Perfect Man!

A man walks out to the street and catches a taxi just going by. He gets into the taxi, and the cabbie says, ‘Perfect timing. You’re just like Frank.’

Passenger: ‘Who?’

Cabbie: ‘Frank Feldman. He’s a guy who did everything right all the time. Like my coming along when you needed a cab, things happened like that to Frank Feldman every single time.’

Passenger: ‘There are always a few clouds over everybody.’

Cabbie: ‘Not Frank Feldman. He was a terrific athlete. He could have won the Grand-Slam at tennis. He could golf with the pros. He sang like an opera baritone and danced like a Broadway star and you should have heard him play the piano. He was an amazing guy.’

Passenger: ‘Sounds like he was something really special.’

Cabbie: ‘There’s more. He had a memory like a computer. He remembered everybody’s birthday. He knew all about wine, which foods to order and which fork to eat them with. He could fix anything. Not like me. I change a fuse, and the whole street blacks out. But Frank Feldman could do everything right.’

Passenger: ‘Wow, some guy then.’

Cabbie: ‘He always knew the quickest way to go in traffic and avoid traffic jams. Not like me, I always seem to get stuck in them. But Frank, he never made a mistake. And he really knew how to treat a woman and make her feel good. He would never answer her back even if she was in the wrong; and his clothing was always immaculate, shoes highly polished too – He was the perfect man! He never made a mistake. No one could ever measure up to Frank Feldman.’

Passenger: ‘An amazing fellow. How did you meet him?’

Cabbie: ‘Well, I never actually met Frank. He died and I married his widow.’

You guys have a great day! God Bless you and yours, and Deb says once more… “Keep a smile on your face, and one in your heart!

Dub and Deb

I’ve shown video’s before of pigs out here on the place. These pigs are the piney wood rooters, and are native to Florida and many other states.

I haven’t seen the first spotted, or part domesticated hog out here yet, they’re all the ole black wild hogs. Here in Central Florida where we’re at, the dern things are heavily populated, and getting worse.
I stated in a prior video that we’d had some coming up in the evenings and were eating what the turkeys weren’t cleaning up during the day. Most times they’ll clean it up pretty good, but every so often they don’t get it all.

What they don’t get the doves, or other birds will get. There’s a pair of sand hill cranes that have figured out the oak under which we feed the turkeys is a feed station, so now they too visit with us daily. It’s funny from time to time to watch them and the turkeys counteract. Sometimes the cranes run the turkeys off, and other times the turkeys will put the cranes in high gear.

Another quick story on these cranes. When we first built out here Cheyenne was just a little thing. Anyway, those cranes would come up in the yard and aggravate her. They’d run up to her and spread their wings out and jump up and down, and Cheyenne would take off after them. They’d get up and fly 100 yards or so, land, then come right back up to the house, and they’d repeat this process till the cranes, or Cheyenne tired of it.

Well this would take place daily. Then it went a step further and Deb and I would just be in stitches at how these animals interacted. It got to the point they looked forward to these play times. If Cheyenne wasn’t outside, those dern cranes would walk up to the house, come up on the porch and start pecking the window in front of Cheyenne’s kennel inside the house.

I swear to you, with Deb as my witness, those birds would peck that window until we let Cheyenne out, and there they’d go again. Literally, it was hilarious! They actually pecked holes in the screen. We’d be inside piddling around and all of a sudden you’d hear, peck, peck, peck, and you knew Cheyenne’s buddies were back.

This is just one of the reasons Deb and I love living out of town. Honestly, there are times I wonder how we ever lived in town, what couple of times we have. We’ve sure been blessed in our lives. Not from a money standpoint, cause that sure isn’t the case, but from a quality of life standpoint, we couldn’t ask for a better way to live. God has blessed us.

Back to the pigs…

Well, the pigs will come and go. You won’t see them for a while, sometimes quite a while, then, all of a sudden…they’re here again. This is the case now. We’ve seen signs on and off, but up until now, they’d not been rooting up the pasture.

With this being the case, it’s time to trap those dudes. So, we’ve been building a trap/pen. We’ll have this finished today. We’ll be building the gates and a feed trough, and the pen is done.

What we did is buy some bull panels, and are using these for the pen perimeter. We set posts every 4 feet for strength. The bull panels are 4’ high, by 16’ long, and are built from heavy gauge wire and will last for a long, long while. Thus, a onetime build and you’re done.

We may change it around from time to time to fit our needs, or to make the pen work better to our preference. We’re flexible is what I call it, but Deb claims it’s not really flexible, but merely not knowing what we were doing from the git go. Ain’t it nice to be loved?

Here I went and “liberated” her so many years back from being a dern ole “country bumpkin,” and I have one buddy that claimed Deb lived SO far out in the woods he nicknamed her… “Punkin Junction!”

Her family lived back out in the woods, and they didn’t have a home telephone. Well, actually they did, but they had to go outside and shimmy up the telephone pole TO use it! I talked with her several times back when we were dating, and couldn’t understand what she was trying to say.

The reason for this was quite simple. The higher up the pole you went, the more the wind blew. The icing on the cake for me was the time we’d just spoken over the phone, and had set up a dinner date down at the “Bucket A Blood Saloon and Eatery.” I waited nearly two hours on her to show up, but still…no Deb.

I knew the rest of her family had gone up to Florida State Prison to visit with her grandmother as it was visitin day. I was kinda worried because I didn’t know if she’d had an accident or not, or possibly even slipped and fell off the dern phone pole??

Well the whole way over there I was concerned about her whereabouts, and it was cold, cold, and the wind was blowing to beat the band. As soon as I pulled up I saw the problem. It was so cold, and she was up in the air so high…her phone was frozen solid to her ear…she couldn’t get down.

Deb hollered down wondering how I could get her ear free with the weather as cold as it was? I hollered up, “No sweat honey, I’ve got an idea. You just hang on a minute, and I’ll have you down.”

So I shimmied up the other side of the pole, got up there beside her…and snipped the line where the phone attached to it. SHE WAS FREE…although she hit the ground pretty hard droppin down off that pole.

I believe the only thing that saved her was…she landed on her head, which is the hardest part on her. Plus she landed on the side of her head the phone was frozen to, and I believe that helped to break her fall.

I decided right then that I’d get her out of that mess and go ahead and marry her. YET, she considers MY flexibility to be, just not knowing what I was doing the first time around?? Between you guys and me…I ain’t ever had no phone frozen to MY ear, 20 feet off the ground! LOL!

Back to the pigs once again, I cain’t seem to stay focused this morning, we are building it 16 feet wide and 32 feet long. We’ve dug the bull panels down about eight inches to keep them from rooting out…I hope. If not, we’ll dig back around it and run something a little deeper to stop them from this.

We’ll put a dividing panel half way down, which will in essence give us two pens. We’ll add a gate in one corner of the dividing panel corner for a couple reasons.

First it will enable us to separate the pigs when we work them. This being worm shots or whatever, plus will allow us to cut the boar hogs one at a time, with no danger of the other pigs being able to get to you.

Secondly, once we catch a few pigs, but others are close by, we can put the pigs we’ve already caught in the back pen. By doing this it will allow us to bait up the front pen and catch more pigs. We believe the other pigs penned up in the back pen will help draw other pigs into the pen. We’ll see here pretty quickly. Now Deb, this is again being what I like to call…flexible! Dern women!

What we’ll be doing is putting a trap door in the front of the pen that lifts up. This we’ll leave tied up the first night or two until they find the corn and get used to coming in through the trap door, although it will be tied up.

By doing this, we’re hoping to let the pigs adjust to going in the pen, and by leaving it tied up for a night or two, they’ll get used to coming and going as they please. Also, this should allow most of the pigs to come in as a group. This way, when we do set the trap door, hopefully we’ll catch the whole bunch instead of just a couple. We’ll see.

Anyway, after catching them, we’ll feed them out to butcher later.

Here’s three video’s this morning for you, and we hope you enjoy them. The first is a quick look at what’s left in our garden, then a quick look at the cows. The second two are pertaining to the pigs. The first showing where they’ve been rooting up the pastures, and the second showing the construction of the pen.
We’ll try to also get a video in the next day or two of the finished trap/pen, and how it works.

Thank you guys for stopping by again, and God Bless you and yours. Deb says to please keep a smile on your face, and one in your heart!

Dub and Deb