Where does the time go?

Has the time just been flying right on by or is it just me?? For a pregnant woman, that's always a good thing, but it just seems like I can't get caught up. The month of September flew right by, and now we're already looking towards the end of October!

I guess I will start off with Wednesday October 15th. I took the day off so that I could get my house all caught up since I was having a "girls night" of carving pumpkins and eating way to much food! Nathan's boss was here antelope hunting, so they were busy hunting that day. Wednesday night came, the girls showed up, and in the meantime a guy from Florida was here hunting a buffalo from Painters with his bow, can we say crazy?? It took him 12 hours of hunting to finally get a shot, and around 7 or 8 shots, with the help of a rifle too, he was down. It was a huge old bull buffalo! So, me being the non-girlie girl I am, wanted my "girls night" girls, who are girlie, to see this incredible animal! Well, they all got an eye full and were ready to keep on carving their pumpkins! Needless to say, they weren't too impressed! haha..

The guys stayed out in the barn and helped skin this buffalo out. It took about 6 people, a lot of sharp knives, and a lot of muscle and time!

He only ended up wanting to take the cape to make a rug out of, and the head to mount. So he left ALL of that meat for anyone else to take! We were all pretty surprised, and Joe and Cindy said that if we cut it up and packaged it, that we could have 1/2 the buffalo! We definitely took them up on that offer, forgetting we were running out of time and energy, fast!

On Thursday morning, we were all up by 5:00 and out the door to antelope hunt. Jim, Nathan's boss, had already gotten his buck the day before, so he was after a doe. I was after either one of them, just as long as I got one! We ended up walking our butts off that day, belly crawling WAY to much (for my opinion)and had a few chances that just didn't pan out. We were very frustrated, and Jim took off that afternoon without a doe also.

Friday came along, and we were out the door early again. My stomach was so sore from the day before, we could only joke about how that little one growing inside me had to be feeling from all that belly crawling!

We headed down South to Painters relatives ranch, and once again, had some opportunities that just couldn't pan out. I was so sore from the day before that my patience level was wearing out. We ended up going one more place, and as luck would have it, found some does in a hay field. We got a spot in the nearby stack yard picked out, and slowly crawled our way there. We got situated, ranged her at 140 yds and I shot. A nice shot too if I do say so myself! We ended up laying in some cactus, which I had all over me. In my knees, elbows, hands, belly. They hurt SO bad to pull out, and I just started bawling. I think it was out of extreme happiness that I got my antelope, tiredness from 2 BIG days, and hurt, from just the cactus sticking me! I got myself pulled together, and the picture below shows how excited I was!

We got her gutted, went back and got the cart, and then brought her back to the pickup! It was getting warm that day, so I was glad to be done hunting. We headed to town to run some errands, and then headed home. When we got home, we soon realized that Saturday was the next day, and that meant a big day of work for Nathan since it was opener of pheasant season! So at 3:00 on Friday we started cutting up meat, and 10:00 that night, finally got to come in! We had the roasts all packaged and labeled, and it was up to me on Saturday to grind up all the burger!

Today, Saturday, is here now and I've spent from 9:45 this morn to 4:45 grinding burger. We ended up with 40 quart size bags of ground buffalo! That sure was a lot of griding, and I ended up taking the tip of my left thumb off! Nathan's thumb is just healing from two weeks ago, and him taking the tip off from a potato peeler, and now I took a little off, but nothing like Nathan's job!

Nathan had a big day of checking pheasant hunters in the next county East, Perkins county, and now just got home and brought pizza! While he was on his way home, I needed to make two pies for the church bazaar tomorrow. Well, since we all know I'm not the best in the kitchen, I bought two frozen pies yesterday. I started the oven, read the simple directions, and when it says to "remove the carton" from the pie, I think of the damn carton being the PIE TIN..nope..Sara Lee figures that "carton" means BOX! Comon, why would anyone put the pie in the oven WITH the BOX on it?? Well, so I took off the pie tin, which comes off easy. If they didn't want it taken off, they should connect it better! Anyway, baked this yummy apple pie for an hour at 400 degrees, timer goes off, I go to take it out of the oven and yeah...yummy apple filling all over the cookie sheet, and it's black and burnt! Oh yes, another good one to laugh about in the future, but for now....tears. And more tears. Nathan was laughing so hard that he got me to stop crying and to laugh. We put it back into the tin, and after it breaking into pieces, decided that apple pie did sound pretty good for dessert! I'm so challenged in the kitchen it's not even funny! So tomorrow, I will be taking ONE peach pie and helping out at the drinks table! It will be fun to see neighbors from our community all come together for a fun fall day!

Monday October 20th we will both be driving to the Hills. At 2:00 we have a Doctor appt. it's just a checkup, so we're not sure what that all entails since this will be our first "checkup". We'll give a baby update after Monday. But after the appt I will be coming home, and Nathan will be staying in the Hills in a camper. I will be spending next week alone, since Nathan will be in the Hills Elk hunting. He'll be home by Thursday, hopefully with a cow Elk. So if anyone wants to come visit me, I'll be here waiting!! haha...

Well, I'm glad that tomorrow is a new day..because from cutting my thumb, to ruining an easy pie, I'm done for the day!

This last picture was taken on Friday, South of Buffalo on the "Jump Off". It was a bunch of bachelor mule deer hanging out on a ledge! There are two decent bucks, and it was a neat site to see!