My Days in Brainerd

These days in Brainerd have been fun. Ange and I have had a lot of time to relax and be together and then I've had a lot of time to have some real fun learning time. My second day here I started to learn how to weld! Greg and I did a little MIG welding, some stick welding and some heliarc welding. He had to build an aluminum truck bed, with some bumper and exhaust modification. It was pretty fun!

This area has such a history of mines and quarry's. I drew on a map to show you that all the digging they did remained there and that the lakes near by were actually mines that filled in with ground water.

We also went to an old ghost town that had failed about fifty years ago or so, called Manganese. If you check it out on Google there's not much there to see, but we went and saw some foundations of what used to be a hotel, bank and the post office. Sadly people have been filling these holes with garbage. It's neat to see tree's and plants grow through a concrete foundation.

Yesterday I woke up at six and Greg, Chris and I slaughtered a bull (this picture's kinda graphic and bloody). Besides welding and farming Greg also raises beef cattle, and this bull they kept for themselves.
"That bull's about as organic as they come, he hasn't had a shot in his life." Greg said gathering up tools we would use to slaughter him. "Does he know he's going to die?" "Nope, and I'm not even going to let him on to it."
After we quartered the bull we took him to a neighbor to be processed. This was a hard thing for me, to meet the animal we were going to kill and process. I didn't have a hard time skinning and gutting the animal, it was watching it die that was a little trying. It just goes to show you though just how removed we as a people can be from the foods we eat. Because, yes, I do eat beef occasionally, and this was a good chance for me to see and be thankful even more for the sacrifice that this animal made for me. Albeit it wasn't really his choice, it was still a sacrifice. Greg was reminding me about when Israel would sacrifice a bull on an alter. They must have tied it down or had some super strong guys to hold it, cause that's a big animal.