Happy New Year! 2019 in review and happy 2020!

Hello Everyone!   

Even though I do not get to post on here like I wanted to in the past I still like to keep my new year's posts and some really big posts here due to the format and structure.  In today's world, everything is geared towards quick statements and pics and not really toward conveying much more than a one or two-sentence statement!  That being said, let's begin!

So 2019 kicked off seeing my take on a full leadership role at my new career and move into Director Of Operations.  While waiting for a meeting with our new accountant one day in January I was browsing my favorite time-killing website, tractorhouse.com, and came across a tractor that fit the need for the farm that I was trying to fill.   

I was elated to find out they were having a once in a lifetime promotion on leasing this tractor and we ended up making the deal.  I got the tractor in late February and it immediately went to work.  It has been a great addition to the farm and we are extremely happy to have it in the line up!

Spring of 2019 brought us the wettest spring in history and was preceded by the wettest year in history for our area.  Suffice to say it was very wet!  Work was slow to get going and we spent our spring dancing between raindrops to get first cutting in when no one else was able to!

Due to the extremely wet year there was a lot of damage to pastures and fields alike.  With the addition of the new Kubota M7-151 we were able to add our new seeder to the lineup as well, the APV  GP300 M1.   It is a great tool and does a wonderful job.  We were able to quickly pick up some custom work for the new pair reseeding pastures and getting oats in for use and others when, once again, it was too wet to use anything else!

The one plus side to the moisture was great hay crop growth!  Each year we keep getting a better products and this year was a great step up!

The cows are doing well eating this feed, most of which went to my dad to feed his cattle, and they are doing well also!

For the record, every single batch of 1st cutting we made in 2019 was either cut, baled, wrapped, or a combination of the three, in the rain!  We literally had no more than a 48~72 hr window without rain for more than a year.

Amongst all the rain, haymaking, and trying to keep things rolling at T&N Excavating,  we also had a record-breaking year for calving!   We had 25 calves born and we only lost one, and that was to pneumonia caused by the extremely wet weather and temp swings we had in the spring. 

We also had another terrific customer party this year and almost broke the 100 guest mark at 96 total guests this year!!!   

The weather finally gave us some relief in July for the onset of second cutting and we had a great crop!

One of the best perks of my new career is getting to take Zeus to work with me.  He is absolutely terrific and behaves very well.  I also never have to worry about anyone messing with the truck when at a job site either!   Below we were waiting for service on the truck and we were sitting in the lobby and checking out all the really expensive sports cars and calculating how much equipment could be purchased with the money surrounding us!

Summer vacation was a blast and the fishing was great.  We got some much needed time away and time with our extended family!  My brother and his Fiance handled everything at home while we were gone.  For the record, that consisted of making all the second cutting hay, all of it, and getting it stored and/or sold!

As summer went on we saw the wettest spring in history turn in a drought, as my brother and I felt was coming, and hay season shut down at the end of the third cutting.  Most people were lucky to get two good cuttings and most only got one. 

Summer also saw us to another very unique experience.  We were featured in the Progressive Farmer Magazine!!!

This was a great honor and a chance for us to spread our knowledge to many more people.  It is also opening up some other opportunities for the farm as well that we will discuss shortly!

Due to all the changes and the new equipment we tried some different ideas for feeding the cattle.   We seeded down 12 acres in a forage bean milo mix for a fall forage crop.   We were amazed when we went to harvest it!   

This brings me to our last farm equipment change for the year, our new McHale V660 Baler.  Hands down the best baler ever made!   You can see the BR7060 in the background.  Both are crop cutter models, however, the McHale is hands down the only one that actually does what it says it will. 

We started 2019 with having to put $2000 worth of parts on the New Holland, I hadn't even had it a year and it only had 5000 bales on it, which, for a baler that is supposed to make 50,000 in its lifetime isn't very many.  After speaking with new hollands engineers, all of the issues I fixed are known and are common and have to be addressed every 10~12,000 bales.  The other issue is that every bale we made in the spring was supposed to be chopped and as we are feeding them we have yet to see anything chopped.  The hay just bypassed the knives and went straight to the bale.  The other major issue was constantly plugging the pickup head and feeder unit.  

The McHale doesn't have any of these issues.  The design of the baler is much different and built around efficiency and productivity!   The McHale can process crops at up to 4x faster than the new holland and due to the way the crop cutter is designed you are guaranteed that everything that goes into the bale got cut by the knives.  We have verified with finished product and it is for sure cut!!!   We have already put 1100 bales thru the new baler and have not plugged the pickup head once, and 800 bales of that 1100 have been corn stubble.  Most balers will process corn stubble at 3mph, the new holland would do ok at 2.5~3 and would typically plug up the head every 10~15 bales.  The McHale did 800 bales with zero plugs and did it at a consistent 6mph with rows raked with a 27' wide rake so we were making a 66" x 48" bale every 250~300 feet!

This fall gave me the opportunity to see a group of people that many I haven't seen since 1996.   We were all in Cardinal Chorale together, a subgroup of the All Ohio State Fair Youth Choir.   I was not able to sing with everyone during the concert.   I still remember almost every song we sang by heart, however, I sang 1st tenor back then and I haven't been in a choir since.  My voice has changed drastically and without having any time to practice and learn new parts I was not able to join in singing but I was able to see some very dear friends which really helps the soul and spirit!!! 

For the first time in our farm's history, we have a winter home for all the equipment that needs to be stored inside out of the snow and ice!  I remember playing Tetris for hours as a child when computers first came out.   My parents used to tell me that I was wasting my time playing such a stupid game.   Jokes on them now cause those Tetris skills are paying off tenfold now in hay stacking and equipment storage packing!!!  We have two bale wrappers, three tractors, a seeder, lawnmower, two four-wheelers, baler, three pallets of seed, and s sprayer in the shed and room for another tractor and a car!

One day in between batches of first cutting I texted my brother that I needed help for a little bit.  As he showed up he asked me what the heck I was doing cause I had several pieces of equipment hooked up to tractors.   I told him I wanted a picture which he thought was a waste of time at first until we got all the equipment together in the field.  Then after he saw it all together he decided he wanted to add to the photo.  That is his truck hooked to my trailer in the front of the picture!  It was a pretty cool opportunity and we will be making this an annual thing as well!

One side benefit to being featured in the Progressive Farmer Magazine is we were photographed by a professional photographer.  Jodi Miller Photography out of Columbus Ohio did a phenomenal job of capturing us in real life and we were elated to finally have a really nice family photo together!  What is even more amazing is that she managed to get everyone smiling and looking at the camera at the exact same moment!

As we say goodbye to 2019 and hello to the roaring 20's we are looking at a lot of opportunities ahead!  My wife started a new career with SmithFood's in February and is doing very well.  She is still trying to get settled in but is enjoying her new job!  T&N Excavating experienced a second year in a row of a doubling of growth in revenue and we are poised to double again in 2020!  The farm has also seen a 60% increase in revenue and needs to see another 60% in 2020 to get caught back up to all of the investments made in 2019!  2020 also holds another new opportunity for the farm and my brother. Thru our new experiences and making new friends and contacts,we have been afforded another chance to grow.  We are officially starting Conser Run Equipment LLC.  We are already working to line up sales to help those around us find what they need as we are getting the final items for the business set up.  I cannot wait to see where this opportunity takes us and how it shapes where we are headed.  It is a great chance for us to add some extra revenue to the farm and help support my brother and family for the future.  

Overall, the past year has been a whirlwind!  It is truly humbling to look back over the years and see what has changed and where we have come.  As we continue to nurture the seeds we have sown and take every opportunity to sow more we are seeing the returns on our investments and can see the future we are building for those around us!  Our pasture is definitely filling up and growing well.  The harvest each season is getting better and better.  We just need to keep striving to be better every day and great things will happen!

Have a wonderful year everyone and let's get 2020 off to a great start!  Every day is a new day, make the most of it for you never know when it is your last!

Kenny

We are being featured in Progressive Farmer Magazine!!!

As I stated before I haven't had the time to keep up on my posts until we can get blogger working more consistently on my phone.  However, we are being featured in an article in Progressive Farmer magazine in October!!!

https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2019/09/10/young-couple-restores-soil-builds

This makes us very proud of all the work we have done to get to where we are and extremely excited for where life is taking us in the future!

Please read and enjoy and I will once again check to see if Blogger is working on my phone yet or not.

Have a great day everyone!

Quick update

Hello Everyone!

I haven't posted in and while and I'm finding it hard to get time to sit down and post regularly.  I do post to our farm page on facebook due to the ease of doing so.  Blogger has not made it easy, even with the app, to post on the go. 

So, moving forward I will be posting to my blog a couple of times a year.  You can find regular updates on our facebook page.  Just search for Conser Run Farm on Facebook and find us there!  My wife and I regularly post there and it is usually quick updates and lots of pics. 

If things change and I find more time to do so I will begin blog posts more often again but at this time it is just not feasible. 

We hope to see you on Facebook soon.  Also, keep an eye open to progressive farmer magazine.  We will be featured in an article there I believe in September! 

Have a great week everyone and thank you for following me all these years!

Additions to the equipment lineup!

I want to start with a post I found online recently that is actually very accurate for our area and most of the midwest!  The 11 seasons list is below and we are finally on third winter so spring is finally around the corner!  We just have to get thru Mud Season to get to it!

In a review of the last 10 years on the farm during tax prep this winter I noticed a trend that I was happy to finally see developing in our revenue stream for the farm.  We originally started farming to grow our own meat.  We quickly realized we could cover the costs of raising our own beef and pork by raising and selling extra of both.  So, when we started getting our own equipment to harvest and store feed for our animals there was always a plan in the back of my mind to eventually perform custom harvesting to pay for the necessary equipment needed to feed our animals.  While we have been doing some custom work for many years now we are finally seeing a sharp increase in this portion of our farming business as well as our hay sales.   

This brings to notice a limiting factor in the growth of this portion of the farm.  Since we first started all of our farming activities have been performed using one main tractor.  We added the Farmall several years back but it really is only used for carting wagons around and the occasional tedding, everything major fell on the one main tractor.  Last year we had multiple times where we turned down custom work due to not being able to get to all of it at the same time as well as a considerable amount of product that wasn't harvested at the end of the season that cost us in a product that we could not sell.  

That being discussed we decided it was time to add another tractor to the farm to see if the custom portion of the farm will continue to grow or if it is a short term burst of work.  We were fortunate enough to team up with Sterling Farm Equipment and get a tremendous lease deal on an M7-151 that Ohio State University / OARDC campus had on a summer only lease with really low hours.  We decided it was the size and the pricing we needed to roll the dice so we made the deal last month and the tractor was delivered a couple of weeks ago.  

Below are several comparison pictures of our M110GX and the new M7-151 side by side!   

This picture says it all as for the size difference!!!   The power difference is just as noticeable and I cannot wait to see this baby running in the field mowing and baling!  The M110 has hauled bales for me for several years now from my rental fields home and it has worked its butt off doing it.  The new one works about half its power to haul the same load!

A close up look of the rear ends is another clear example of the difference in size and capabilities.  

With the growth we have seen lately on the farm we are in the process of starting to rotate crops in the fields to build soil tilth and organic matter to boost production.  This requires the addition of a seeder to the farm as well as a side custom seeding option.  The seeder we demoed in the fall is great but the M110 just wasn't big enough to really run it and handle it correctly.  If you take a close look at the rear of the M7 you will notice that the lift cylinders are big enough to put the entire M110 lift cylinders case and all inside of the M7's!

We also got the kids their Dairy Beef Feeder calves in January and they are growing very well.  They have almost doubled in size since these pics when we first brought them home!

 The pictures below were taken just after new years in one of the fields I seeded with the new seeder.  It was seeded really late and really wet but we still got a good cover on it and I am excited to see how it produces this spring.  

I am excited to get this growing season underway as we have made so many exciting changes this winter that will hopefully pay of well quickly!  My brother has started helping/working on the farm as well so the opportunities are tremendous, we just have to jump on them as fast as they come!

In addition to all of those changes my wife recently took on a new career with SmithFoods Inc. and just finished up her second week!   She is enjoying the new challenge and her new workplace.  It is a longer drive, close to an hour, but worth the drive.  This new opportunity is also giving us a chance to start putting things into motion to build our new home in the woods on top of the hill in the back of the above pictures!  I can't wait to start that project!!!

 More pictures and updates as spring settles in and calving season starts in April!  The guys are finishing up the shed that we start constructing in November and should have the last of the metal insatalled later today.  I will need to update everyone on that when completed!

Have a great day everyone and hopefully the next post will have me typing outside at the picnic table in a T-shirt!

Kenny

Happy 2019!!!!! 2018 in review!

Good morning everyone!   I hope the new year saw you all safely out of 2018 and into 2019! 

The other day I was looking up photos online from past posts for the farm and found my self reviewing my past New Year's Day posts!  It really sparked some great memories as well as memories of struggles that we faced in the past.  I realized at that moment that while I do not keep a diary in a traditional sense I have been keeping one in a different format that my Grandma (who religiously kept a diary) couldn't even imagine!   In thinking back to conversations with my father over the last few years I am now realizing that many of my grandparents, great-grandparents and many other family members kept diaries of their time on this earth.  It is humbling to understand where this drive comes from to documents and share our experiences for future generations to read ad review.  I just hope that in the future this documentation is not lost!

That being stated this time of year brings pause to the moment for me and triggers me to question where we are, where we are heading, what we have overcome, and what we have yet to do!  Each year I look back and think to myself how did we do that?  If you were to go back in time and ask me on 1-1-2018 if I was prepared to start an entirely new career, reorganize and grow an entirely different business, overcome almost losing my life, all while growing the farm business by 30% at the same time ..... would I have said yes?    If given the option, would I have chosen to avoid any of these things or change the direction of the future...  I cannot say.   While a few of these things were very difficult to experience and overcome I feel that the experiences were irreplaceable and there is no way the future would be the same without them and I am glad that I was not given the option to skip or avoid them for that reason!

2018 in review

We grew tremendously here on the farm over the last 12 months.  My brother has come on board to help when needed and he and I are considering paths to grow the farming business together and how we can do that as two separate entities but keep the family aspect of it.  His help coupled with my new career path is allowing the flexibility to really see how far we can push this thing and what it can give back to us and our families!  

To begin the year I was firmly planted in a long-term career with a company that I honestly thought I was going to retire from some day.  As the winter gave way to spring it was becoming clear that something had to change.  My workload was growing disproportionately to those around me and the successes gained were not worth the time I was losing with my family and myself.  By mid-summer, it was clear that it was time for a change.   Either work needed to change, or I needed to change work.  I tried to effect a change at work before vacation with no reciprocated effort on the other end.   We went on vacation with a heavy choice on my mind and a mind and heart full of a myriad of questions, concerns, and fears.   

By day three it should have been clear to me and my family that I wasn't present in the moment and while I was with them at the beach my mind was elsewhere concerned with many things that it shouldn't have been concerned with.  This brings us to the tipping point of the year, being sucked out to sea without a life vest or flotation device of any kind.   I never ever under any circumstances want to come that close to death again until I am old and gray and it is my time.  The days following that experience were rough and would not have been possible to process without the help of my family and my new extended family in Hatteras.   As our vacation came to a close and we were driving home my mind was finally clear of all of the fodder of worry and uncertainty that had clouded my mind since early spring.  I was no longer afraid of the unknown and was finally free to take the step that needed to happen for so long and put my family and our future first.

After one last final discussion the day following our return I turned in my resignation and began the journey down a completely new road.  I went from a very firm regimented schedule with a vast workload for someone else to setting my own schedule and working in a tremendously more relaxed environment!  The first week away from my long-term career was eye-opening, to say the least, in the vast amount of my time that my previous job was consuming and the tremendous stress load that it put on me.  It took me about a month to realize that I had only begun to tap into my potential in sales and running a business and had never really been given the opportunity to do so in my last career!

I am now helping turn around a business that has plenty of work coming in and simply needed some solid direction and change to become very successful.  It is fun to get to use my skills and talents and actually receive the appreciation and benefits of using those skills and talents both financially as well as on a personal level!   I do not regret my past and what I accomplished at my previous job.  I would not be able to do what I am doing today without those experiences.  I genuinely am a little saddened that what I was capable of was never noticed or fully appreciated.  However, that eventually set me free and has allowed me to take a giant leap towards my personal growth!

2018 saw both of my kids grow even more into individuals with their own lives beginning and an entirely new set of daily trials and tribulations!  They are both doing very well in school ... even if they get into trouble from time to time ... which I am hoping they will move past soon!

Throughout all of this, my wife has been an anchor in keeping me grounded and helping me get thru everything that has happened this year.  I, nor many of those around me, would be where we are today if not for her guidance and help in my growth.   Because of the career change, I was able to take her on a much-belated honeymoon this fall.  We went back to visit our extended family in Hatteras and spend a week just relaxing and fishing.  It was something we have wanted to do for many years and we were finally able to make it happen.  We hope to make this an annual trip but how that will play out each year is yet to be known!

Several years ago I posted about looking out into my pasture and what I saw growing there.  This year we literally reseeded the pastures, both physically, and hypothetically!   I tilled the pastures this year to rejuvenate them and give them new life and better production and product for the cattle.  My hypothetical pasture as well was completely tilled, weeds removed, and reseeded in a more productive product with a much greater level of production and growth!  Now we just need to fertilize, nurture, and harvest in a timely manner and we will have everything we need and hopefully some of what we want as well!

In closing, please cherish and value each day.  Do not get bogged down in the daily struggles and worries as in the end, they mean nothing!  To begin my capstone course in the last quarter of my college career my professor, Dr. Peg McMahon, had us each write our own eulogy.  I encourage everyone to do this if you haven't.  It is not an easy thing to do and will really change your way of thinking.  During my experience on vacation this past assignment came to mind and is part of what made the decision to leave my long-term career a much easier decision.   If I had not made it out of the water alive that day none of the worries I had on my mind would have mattered.  Work would have gone on without me with little concern to the future of my family or any of the things I had not finished in my life.  The worries of not having the income to cover bills or if we made the wrong decision on what to plant wouldn't have mattered either.   What really matters and what is most important is that we are each genuinely living in the moment and getting the most out of each day.

If tomorrow never comes for you will not know, only those around you will.  

What will they remember about you and the way you lived your life and spent your time?  

Did you leave the world a better place than you found it?   

Did you help those around you grow their pasture when possible?   

Did you live each day to the fullest? 

Don't wait till your final moment to take that day off to be with family or try something new to eat or start a new path!  Be present in the moment now cause once it has passed it will never come back again!

Happy new year everyone!

May 2019 bring each of you the benefits of what you have sown in your pasture!

Kenny

Winter is moving in as fall exited quickly!

There has been a lot going on since my last post so I am going to hit the high points. 

My brother has come on board here on the farm as well as at work.  This has been a game changer for him and I as well as the farm and at work!  Between him and I, we did more custom work in the month of September than I normally do in 4 months!  The good news is that I have a great feeling that this will increase in the spring, especially with the addition of a seeder to the lineup here! 

 I demoed a new seeder this fall for the farm.  It is an APV air seeder mounted on their custom designed harrow tool.  It is designed for use in overseeding/renovating pastures as well as minimum tillage and full tillage seeding.  I tested all of these types of seeding in the fall and was able to get a pic of one of the fields that came up before the weather went totally bad!

As you can see this was a field we plowed and only went over it one time with the disc.  We let the seeder do the rest and it did an awesome job!

Above is a pic of what it looked like before going over, and below is what it looked like after passing over with the seeder.  Phenomenal results and the germination was terrific and very even seeding.   Because it uses air and a dispersion plate to spread the seed you do not get rows of seed.  This results in needing 15~20% less seed than conventional drill seeding and a more even stand that more effectively controls weeds!

Below is a picture of the field halfway thru seeding.  We have had a tremendous amount of rain this year and we got a lot of rain shortly after we plowed.  So we had no way to work it down much and the weeds popped right up.  After running this tool over the soil it leveled it up quite nicely as well as tearing up the weeds resulting in them dying before the seed germinated.

Below is a picture of the rye two weeks after seeding.  I will have to get pics in the spring after it and the triticale actually get some sunshine to grow as everything is just sitting right now due to the extreme moisture and the cold temps since seeding. 

I love this monitor as well!   Shows all the information you need to know and is easy to use.  It is a costly upgrade but worth it in my opinion!

I also started another major project.....last year at this time.   I am finally getting some progress made on this project!  Since I started remodeling the barn in 2008 I have wanted to get rid of the old corncrib shed in the middle of the driveway.  It made sense back in the 40's when it was originally built but it is past its usable life and is completely in the way all the time!  

 Over last winter I had T&N, whom I now work for, haul in a bunch of processed fill material to make the base site for the new equipment shed.  I let it settle in since last Christmas.  I left the site sit idle for the year to see how it would function with everything in the area and the layout of the farm.  I am glad I did that as I  realized that I needed to move the site towards the creek by 6 feet to allow for proper flow of traffic in and out of the cow lot.  

A few weeks back I had my friend Sam and his son Andrew, who does construction, come out and help set the posts.  My brother, children, and our buddy skinny (seen above on top of the building) have been working on getting the boards up for the walls.  Today we started working on the Header boards.  It took 4 hours today to get three of these mounted.  I do want to put into perspective the task at hand though because it makes more sense once you understand what we are up against!

All of the lumber is rough sawn pin oak.  Very strong, but very heavy.  The headers were special cut to a true 2"x12"x 18' to be sure they are strong enough to carry the load of the roof as each bay is 16' wide.  The top of the front header is 17' high and the back header will top out at 13~14' high.  This will allow me to park tall equipment inside as well as stack up to three layers of round bales or a few thousand square bales of hay in there without any issues.   I am even toying with the idea of a loft in one of the bays to utilize more of the space!   The holdup, however, is the fact that each header board weighs around 230lbs and the loader only reaches 13'.  So, we had to build a jig just to lift the boards into place and then use my dads skidsteer to stand on to attach them.   You can see in the picture below just how small the skidsteer looks compared to the header boards!

I am hoping to have the shed completed before new years but I am not sure if we will make it.  It all depends on if I can gather the help I need to complete it as it is not a one or two person project like the majority of the cowshed and pigshed were.  Regardless of when the shed is completed, I will be taking the old shed down no later than new years break.  It has got to go and I cannot tolerate it any longer!

As I mentioned earlier, we have literally had rain or snow for almost a month straight, every day.   Even when it wasn't outright raining or snowing it was misty, foggy, or very cloudy!  Everything is mud every where you go, even parts of the lawn that are normally solid even in a wet spring!  

I say that because I cleaned the barn yesterday in a rain storm and tore my pasture up pretty bad spreading the manure to clean the barn!  Working through that miserable weather was worth it, even if it is only for one day, as today was warm and full sunshine....ALL DAY!!!!!  

For the first time in three months,

 we actually had dry patches on the feed pad for the cattle!  This brief respite from the rain and cold is short lived as while I type this the next storm system is moving in.  We are supposed to get rain turning to snow with cloudy and wet conditions all week.  

Now, on to new things at work!!!   Things are going awesome with the new job and I am tremendously happy I made this move.  I love the work and the fact that I am not stuck in an office like I was before.  I get to sell the work, manage the work, and do the work!  We are very busy and it looks like the work will continue steadily throughout the winter.  

One thing that Troy, the owner of T&N Excavating, and I discussed shortly after I came on board was vacuum excavation and the benefits of it.  I finally had a chance to see one in action when the city came to a job we were working on to fix a hole in the water main line.  It was mind blowing how easily it works and how much safer it is to use when you are working around other utilities.  This is not something you would use to dig a house foundation of course but is exactly what you use when digging up water and sewer lines in city streets!

We were able to demo a unit from Vermeer and two units from DitchWitch.  Both companies have great machines and it was not an easy decision.  In the end, we chose to go with the Ditchwitch due to higher water pressure on the wand, higher vacuum power, better locking and opening system on the door, option to use hydraulic tools with the power unit on the machine, and a full 3-year warranty on the lease option we selected.   We are currently the only excavation contractor with a unit like this in the tri-state area.  We are hoping that this not only makes us much more efficient and productive as well as safe but, should also open up an entirely new market of work for us!

One other little tidbit that I wanted to share.  Since I am now working in a much more flexible place of employment and my brother has now come on board to help with the farm as well as working at T&N with me when farm work is not needing to be done, I have the opportunity to do things when I want to instead of when I am allowed to!

Every year since our first trip to the Outer Banks my wife and I have talked about making a second trip down in the fall to just go fishing!  This year I promised her, as well as our extended family Eddie and Gail, that we would do just that!   Our kids stayed with my parents and we went back for a full week fishing trip.  Of course, Zeus had to go with us, someone had to keep us out of trouble right!   

On one of our trips to the beach to do shore fishing I decided to set a chair up to sit closer to the water.  I set my chair down, cast out my fishing line, and turned around to sit down to find Zeus sitting in my chair!  I ended up letting him fish and went and got a second chair for myself!!

Something else that has never happened before on a trip to the beach.....a full family nap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  One of us is always watching the kids while we are on the beach so we never really get to fully relax.  This time was so different!  The one day we went to the beach and both of us took a nap for several hours.....it was truly the most relaxing thing I think I have done in a very long while!  

Eddie took us out on the ocean side on the boat twice.  We caught some blue fish, a couple of false albacores, a cobia that was too small to keep, and some Spanish mackerel!   It was so awesome that I cannot wait to do it again....I just need more Dramamine!   We also went gigging for flounder and night fishing for drum.  I cannot say enough about how wonderful Eddie and Gail have been to us and how awesome it is to know we have a great place to stay any time we go to Hatteras.   Eddie is a vast vessel of knowledge and fishing skills and is always ready to help when he can!   We may just have to make a trip down in the spring before their season really picks up and spend some more time fishing in a different season!

My last picture is of my wife and me at our annual Buckeyes game.   It is always a great time to get to go to a game with her as she fell in love with me, or started to anyway, when I took her to her first football game in the south end zone in the background of the picture!  

I hope everyone is doing well and I am hoping for a very snowy winter!  I don't have to plow it anymore and I am looking forward to getting to enjoy a snowfall for once instead of having to work all the time during it!

Have a wonderful evening and I am looking forward to writing my annual New Years day post!

Kenny