Crafty Girl

Yesterday I left work early to go to a dr. appointment (nothing serious) which gave me about 1/2 to work on the Copper Sock. I finished the decreases for the instep and knit about an inch. We’re on the home stretch baby!

When I got home, Bill, Sam and I were going to go for a walk when the door bell rang. Evidently a neighbor lost a cow and they though it might wander over to see our cows. Sure enough…we walked out back and along came a pretty herford heifer. After chasing her around for about 10 minutes Bill managed to lasso her and it took 3 guys to walk her out of the field and tie her to a truck to get her to walk home. She was stubborn about it the WHOLE way. We did get a nice walk in while following the cow home.

Today I started a new Turbulence Training program…Turbulence Training for Mass and Fat Loss from the Turbulence Training Members website. This is the new November program. I considered starting a longer plan, but I think I’ll save it for the new year. I’m gonna stick with these short 4 week plans until then.

Lunch
TT for Mass and Fat Loss Day 1 Week 1

BB Bench Press 75
BB Deadlift 75

DB Incline Press 30
DB Row 30

Kneeling Pushups 20
Blast Strap Inverted Row 15
(Ouch, did an extra set here)

Last year Bill built a chicken plucker to ease the processing of chickens. The first year we had meat chickens, we plucked them by hand. Um. Not fun. The next three or four years we took the birds to someone else to process them. This usually cost about $2/per bird. It was also a big hassle.

Commercial chicken pluckers cost upwards of a $1000. After some research, Bill found this book…Anyone Can Build a Tub-Style Mechanical Chicken Plucker and managed to build one for around $300. Not too shabby!

This year we are raising 200 chickens! Yikes. Well we already raised and processed the first 100 and we’re almost about to process the second 100.

Nothing beats free range/pastured chickens. They are so much more tasty than anything I’ve ever bought in a grocery store. If you can, I highly recommend raising your own chickens. It’s pretty easy. If you can’t raise your own, try to find a farmer to get some from. You will be amazed!

Here’s some pictures of the Chicken Plucker that Bill built.

Ignore those beer bottles in the lower left hand corner. Chicken processing is thirsty work! It’s also really hard work. It takes Bill and his friend Jim & Jim’s daughter about 6 hours to do around 90 birds and they are tired when they’re done.

Next week we get 100 baby chickens. I’m not sure we’ve ever done 100 chickens. Maybe once, but I can’t remember for sure. And if we did, it was a bad scene. One year we had very bad loses and I think it was due to too many chickens too early in the year with a wet, cold spring. Starting at the end of July should make a big difference. Since we are almost out of beef, we will be trading 20 or 30 to our friend in exchange for some. Thank goodness. We’re completely out of steaks and roasts and probably only have 15 lbs of hamburger left. I think there’s a tongue or a heart in there, but I’m not very interested in eating those.

Went to the gym this morning instead of at lunch. It’s kind of nice to go in the morning. I get a little extra time to stretch and I don’t feel rushed. I’m typically up in time to leave early, but for the last few months Sam was eating every few hours. Now he can sleep for longer stretches, so it’s not critical that I be there in the morning for him. Not that I don’t want to see him! In fact, going to the gym in the morning means I get to leave work at 5 instead of adding the extra 20 minutes going to the gym on my lunch hour takes to the end of my day. So I get home earlier! Bonus.

This will still be just an occasional thing though. Going on my lunch hour gives me something to do that doesn’t involve going out to eat or shop or some other activity that will cost money. But today is payday and I do like to go out to lunch with my coworkers every now and then.

Yesterday Morning
1/2 hr Yoga…Baron Baptiste Unleashing Athletic Power…great hip stretches in this video

Today
TT Warmup
Specific Warmup

BBSquats 75
Assisted Chins 82lbs assist

BB Deadlifts 100 <—that is pretty bad ass if you ask me!
DB One Arm Shoulder Press 20

No, not on my legs. In the pasture. Below are this years poopy cows. We had a scare last week when one of them got the scours. Bloody scours. Thankfully a round of antibiotics took care of it. We’ve never lost a calf and I don’t want to start now. They’re too expensive!

Lunch
DB Split Squats 30 (for all sets! oh yeah!)
DB Low Incline Press 30

BB Row 70
Single Leg Ball Curl 8 (Man, these suck!)

Bodyweight Circuits
10 One Armed Kettlebell Swing (both sides)
12 kneeling pushups
12 Reverse Lunges (both sides)
12 Bodyweight rows
12 Hip Extensions
24 Mountain Climbers, cross body

Repeated 3 times

We finally got cows again. 2 four week old Holstein bull calves to be exact. Bill will have to band them to make ‘em steers. We haven’t had any cows for 2 1/2 years and we’re almost out of beef in the freezer. Unfortunately, it will take at least 18 months to raise these to slaughter weight. We’re gonna run out of beef long before that. Guess we’ll be eating a lot of chicken. Chickens only take 8 weeks to raise.