Appleseed, Thanksgiving, Christmas play, and all the other things I've Been Up To.

Hello everyone! Wow, I guess it is time I do another post. We've been up to a lot of different things so here it goes!

I took the sheep off the pasture and put them in the wood line along the side of the property. Unfortunately it has been rather dry and I have been pushing the stocking rate of the farm to it's limit, so I am going to have to do something different next year. I bought 3 round bales of hay from a guy, he also gave me two extra that had been outside for three years. The sheep may eat it, if they don't eat it, the cow might, or we can use it in the garden. The cow is in the garden being fed hay, that way, if she wastes some, it will become mulch in the garden. We only have one batch of broilers left. We did some of them the other day, and the rest will probably be processed in a week or two. We also have a batch of laying hen chicks in the brooder. We are going to increase our flock size since we are doing the new market next year. Eggs seem to always sell well at farmers' markets.

We had a great thanksgiving, how about you all? We had my grandparents, my great-grandmother, aunt, uncle, and cousin, some friends from church, and a lady from my grandparent's church. It was real nice. Papa, Samuel, our friend from church and I all went hunting. We didn't get anything, and haven't gotten anything all season. I guess you have to go out a lot, and be in the right place at the right time.

We went to our first Appleseed Project event the first weekend in December. It was a lot of fun. Several of the men and boys from church came along. The event is a combination of rifle marksmanship training and history. The rifle training is basically the army certification procedure used up until the advent of the machine gun. They talk about the history of how the Revolutionary War started, and how the marksmanship of the militia is what made America successful in wining the war. It is a weekend event, and on Sunday you shoot targets that are scored. The different levels are Marksman, Sharpshooter, and Rifleman. You have to score 125  or over in order to get Marksman, and 21o or over to get Rifleman. I can't remember what the Sharpshooter score is, somewhere in between. My best score was 165 which is Marksman, but not bad for my first time. We hope to go back in the future. They say at the event that the first Appleseed is like drinking water through a fire hose, and that is a good description of it!

While we were there we stayed at a hotel. It was kind of it sneaking in all the guns into the room (we weren't breaking any rules, the lady at the front just wanted us to be discrete). We also went to Bass Pro Shops as it was just up the road from the hotel. I had never been there before. It is quite a neat store. Over all it was a great trip and I highly recommend the Appleseed event to everyone! My dad did a podcast about it here.

We had our church's Christmas program Sunday night. It was a good turn out. There was a skit entitled "A Hillbilly Christmas", and then a nativity scene. I had a part in both the skit and nativity scene. It was video taped so I hope to put it up here on my blog for you all to see when I get a copy of it.

Well I have got my little Christmas story about finished, so I hope to get that on here soon. I hope you all enjoy it.

Well I guess that is all for today.

Thanks for reading!

- Graham