June means "Harvest"

June is possibly the most anticipated month of the year in our house due to several reasons: 
   1) June means freedom from school.
   2) June means outdoor work on the farm.
   3) June means "Harvest" which may seem like hard work, but it's always a joy to participate.
   4) June means camping.
   5) June means swimming.
   6) June means fishing.
   7) June means Family.
I personally think the last reason is best since we love to share what we enjoy and all of the prior reasons are merely enjoyable opportunities to share with one another.

Here are a few highlights from June 2013.

 

One does not simply swathe into Brome-grass.  Breakdowns and field fix-its are almost traditional.

Why yes, that is a dashing young prince dashing through the pristine waters of the pasture pond.

 There's another prince, just waiting for his princess to show up.

 Family: Father's day at the cabin.

 Moonlight and sunset fishing.

 Water-slide! 

 Summer Solstice moon, aka; Super moon on June 23rd. (The actual solstice is the 21st)

 Harvest began under the threat of rain, but it was idle.

 Beautiful harvest scenery.

 Harvesting goes on no matter what time of day it is.  This is a post-supper run.

 Greater threat of rain during harvest, but still idle.  It went around every field of ours so we could keep cutting.

 Boys and adults love combines.

Family: Lunch and Supper have been traditionally held in the harvest fields for generations. We continue to support family tradition.

 Mr. Lance  +Lance Powell inspecting the grain for weevils and fungi.  He has quite the knack for spotting inconsistencies in the matrix.

 Sunset shadows on clean-cut wheat make some interesting patterns.

A lovely pair  +Rachel Powell and +Lance Powell helped us get close to finished on a Saturday night.

Two for One

Turkey season again.  With my failed attempt at deer hunting and archery in general, I was glad to get a shotgun back into my hands.
Opening weekend, my brother-in-law and I were able to call in a nice tom.  Lance shot him at 10 yards, full strut!  It was about as perfect a hunt as you can get. 

 My first weekend to hunt started off with great weather.  The birds were gobbling in the roost like popcorn popping in the pan.

 The blind has served its purpose, albeit maybe too well.  I don't know if you're supposed to feel comfortable AND drink coffee while hunting, but that ended up not hurting my chances!

 

 I have yet to go hunting and NOT see something amazing or beautiful while I'm out.  Whether it's interesting patterns in the clouds, new noises in the woods, or dew droplets in the wheat, God's creative nature is always on display. (Rom. 1)

 I had arrived that morning about 6:00 am just as dawn was beginning to break.  Basically I was showing up too late and risking getting spotted by a roosting turkey.  Apparently that's exactly what happened because as soon as the turkey started flying down, they headed in the opposite direction of me.  However, with so much activity in the woods, I was able to listen and call back to several different groups of turkeys within a half mile of the blind.  Eventually, without warning, a group of Jake's came running out of the woods directly toward the decoy.  I didn't notice them until they were already in range.  All I had time to do was pull my gun up and aim at the "biggest" one.  The turkey were so close together that when I pulled the trigger, not one but two turkey bit the dust!  I couldn't believe it, but there were two turkeys flopping on the ground with five others milling around with curiosity.  If I'd had more tags, I'd have kept shooting!

 Even though the birds were young, (1 yr or less) they still weighed a fair amount.  Short beards (3-4 in) and barely any spurs mean I won't get to brag on size, but I couldn't pass the blessing of two birds in one shot.

 To show how cool it was, I photographed the ice-crystals on my boot from walking through the frosty wheat.

 

Photo-Op!!  

  

 Since getting two birds was so "easy", there had to be a challenge.  Thus: plucking  and prepping two birds with the skin on.  The clock below shows 10:29 am.  I shot that bird at 7:30 am.  Besides driving home, that's how long it took to get one turkey plucked!

 The nasty plucking process. The amount of bloody water left over made me seriously consider creating a short zombie movie and using that water for special effects.  Problem is; I have no idea how to do that.

 Back was sore at this point.  I really need to talk to a professional about better plucking techniques.

 This is not the final product, but the work was definitely worth it. (I finished the 2nd turkey right before lunch)  We roasted this bird and it came out really moist and tasty!  Even the upper leg meat was superb.  (btw: that's not blood, but Syrup, BBQ sauce, Lemon juice, A-1 sauce, and a couple other secret ingredients!)

 

Recap:

1.  Super blessed to be in the woods on nice day.

2.  Super blessed to get two birds.

3. Really thankful to my wife for letting me spend all morning cleaning and plucking these birds and using her pots and pans and maybe getting a little blood on the deck while she watched our two boys.

Get outside!

Product Placement: The Amazing Leatherman

I love my Leatherman. (Almost as much as my wife)  In fact, if someone asked me to be on one of those goons on a "As Seen on TV" advertisements for Leatherman, I'd jump at the opportunity.  These tools are amazing.(Not quite as much as my wife)  If the guy who films himself filming himself surviving in the wild depends on it, then it's probably good enough for some of the crazy stuff I face daily between my house and the classroom.
Such a crazy thing happened just recently which allowed me the opportunity to utilize the Leatherman to its full glorious potential, and now I must brag about it.

As you can see from the picture below, this dog won't hunt.

The radiator hose had sprung a leak and steamy green liquid was emanating from every one of the many crevices in my jeep hood. 

 Steamy green gooey liquid draining down the dirt road to infect the nearest cattle yard.  Be prepared for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Steak" coming to a store near you.

  

Between the leather gloves, knife, and the screwdriver on that precious gem, I was up running again in less than 10 minutes. I was also lucky that I had extra coolant in the back of the Jeep only because the Leatherman hasn't yet put a reservoir of it on their product.

 

Long story short; Leatherman products make you....feel like this guy:

Matchbox Car Ramp

Just a fun quick project on the camera.  They boys and I enjoy toy cars and ramps, so here's 1 minute worth of race-car fun!

Bunk Bed Project

To celebrate being pregnant with our third child, (Yes, that's kind of an announcement!) Em and I decided to create a little more space in the boys room by adding a bunk bed.  This couldn't be just any old "Wal-Mart special" or "K-Mart express" or an "ALCO piece of junk" or "Target over priced luxurious looking but still poorly made" piece of furniture.  This must be an Engle Project! 

So Em looked up some plans on *cough* Pinterest, and I did my best to not use them to build a bunk bed for our Mini-Me's.  However, directions soon proved to be essential so I found myself working away from *cough* Pinterest while having some fun myself.  Nothing makes me feel more manly then getting to go to the hardware store and spend money on supplies I'll actually put to use.  Actually, I think if I could have starred in this Old Spice commercial, I'd have felt more manly. 

 Anyway, I was very blessed to get the whole afternoon to work on it, so here's about 4 hours of work condensed into 30 seconds of still video.  The boys really enjoyed it and I even got a hug and a thank you from our oldest.  That was a great way to end a fun project!

Older Bro Vs. Younger Bro's Birthday

Do you remember first learning the concept of sharing?  Our son is facing one of his worst fears:  Someone else' birthday!  I can't get over how troubling it seems to this 4 year old that he will not be getting any presents on his brother's birthday.  I wonder if we aren't all a little like this when someone else is receiving something good?

With some subtitles, because even though he's 4; some things are only discernible to his highly intellijent parents.

Not GoPro, Redbull, or any other advertisement driven snowboarding video

Christmas break gave us a whole day of snow.  What follows is a 1 minute sampling of the fun times we had for about 3 hours the day earlier.  Great times with some risky guys once again!

 

Bumps and bruises abound from that short run we did over and over again.  We started around 3:00 pm and kept going until after dark.  The most successful runs went about 150 feet but with a top speed of 10 mph?  Fun times in the Kansas flat-lands.