How Crazy Are We?

What a difference a week makes! We went from this……

To this in just a few days…..

Welcome to what is the roller coaster weather pattern of SW South Dakota. Which is exactly why we love this area. One of the things we have been missing the past few Christmas seasons is a white Christmas and with luck we will have one this year. For that to happen we need two things to align perfectly; snow (but not too much) and temps that keep the snow but not too cold (sustained low teens) to push us south.

We have been closely watching the 10 day forecast to see if there is trouble on the horizon. So far we look good through Thanksgiving.

So far so good!

It has been suggested that we are crazy for staying up here this late in the season, and maybe we are so I thought I let you decide by posting our first ever (and maybe our last) poll question. It can be found on the top of our right sidebar. Cast your vote and let us know what you think!

Crazy or not, we are taking advantage of the warmer weather and getting projects done that would have waited until the spring. The main thing we wanted to get done was prepping the foundation for our building site in case we are able to lay concrete next spring. It took over 300 tons of gravel but getting this done now and letting it settle through the winter will allow the gravel to compact and be ready in the spring. Had we not done this now we would have had to rent a compactor and compact the entire site next spring.

The shed site (where the truck and jeep are) and the house site

(to the right of rig) are all prepped for the next phase!

An unexpected project but one we had to take advantage of due to the warm weather was taking care of the prairie dog situation. Some might ask “Why take care of them at all?” Well there are a couple of answers. 1) It is the landowners responsibility to manage the population on their property and make sure it is not out of control. 2) Prairie dogs eat the roots of the grasses and vegetation around their dens leaving only dirt and noxious weeds. 3) The holes are a hazard to us and any livestock. 4) The neighbors are not happy when the colony spreads onto their property.

This particular colony covers a substantial part of our 45 acres and parts of 160 acres when you include ours and the neighbors on both sides of us. So as a group we set out to getting the population under control. In order to purchase the products required to do this I had to become a Restricted Use Applicator meaning I had to take a an online course and test to receive an Applicators License. 

When it is all said and done we will have spent the better part of 7 days, applicating over 2500 holes on our property alone! If I were to guess I would say we reduced them by 90%. Now we just need to keep up on it and let nature take its course repairing the soil. This will probably take several years.

This is the box the product came in!

The Jordan's stopped by to help. One down, 2,499 to go!

But all work and no play makes for grumpy couple so we make sure to get out for a little fun a couple times a week.  

Barb has been out bow hunting several times. Each time she returns home reporting that she saw several deer including a couple of nice bucks. We know there are a couple of monsters out there and she is holding out for one of those.

She passed on both of these deer, maybe she is crazy!

One day when it was particularly cold out she opted to stay in so I went out with just the camera. And who should come by? One of the monsters of course! He hung around the area for about 30 minutes and let me get some awesome shots of him!

I took this one out the window of the rig when a group of mule deer stopped by to check out the excavating work. 

Thursday night the Jordan’s took us out to at the Buglin' Bull in Custer for dinner and a little football. Saturday we went to breakfast at the Crazy Horse Memorial followed by a trip to Custer State Park to watch the annual Buffalo and Burro Auction!

You can view the buffalo and burro prior to the auction then you go to the auditorium at the visitors center for the actual auction.

The buffalo went for anywhere from $1,500-$5,000 each

You could get both of these for less than $100

There's Brenda at the bottom getting ready to bid!

We did not bid on anything but once we get our fence done, who knows!