The Hunting Times

So I get an email at my personal account (Gmail, not personal server like some presidential candidates).  Said email says that my reservations to the Four Points in Cocoa Beach, Florida have been changed to include not only Robert Seager, but also Helen Endres.  AND, it has been confirmed with a credit card and there is a $108 cancellation notice. I figure this is a phish.  No way it can be real.  So I leave my email and look up the Four Points hotel (by Sheraton).  The phone number is the same.  I call them.  Son-of-a-biscuit, I DO have reservations!  Sandy is wondering how I expect to (a) get to Florida over the Fourth, and (b) not get caught charging it to our credit card.  And just who is Helen? At this point, I ask the hotel to cancel the reservation.  They cannot.  It was confirmed with Booking dot com.  I have to call them.  Well okay.  I do.  I tell them of my plight and ask what credit card was used to confirm the reservation.  I am put on hold.  After a few minutes, I

Been working on the house.  In fact, I was painting when Davey called and wanted to bring grandson Connor out to fish.  Have at it... I made it over there on their first cast.  Wowza - nice bass there Connor Bear.  It's almost as big as you are!  Not sure how you're going to top that one, and on the first cast.  Nice... I stayed until the next cast, when they pulled in a Blue Gill.  "It's the big one's baby," says Connor.  But he won't even touch the baby one... Then it was Connor's turn to fish. It was close to an hour later when they came back over to the house for some refreshments.  Seems they had already been enjoying the ripe raspberries.  And low and behold, we had another surprise waiting.  Bam!  Six kittens attacked Connor. I tried to get him to take one home for each grandchild, but Papaw vetoed that option.  You're welcome Kristen!  You owe your dad a big one. That's a great day for grandpa and gra

So heard about next door neighbor nephew, who when asked to check on a noise outside at NOON, took his BB gun just in case there were zombies present.  Great story. So when he came for a visit, I showed him My Zombie Gun and had him test fire it. A Walther P22 semi-automatic pistol with a supressor and red dot sight.  This little beauty makes zero noise if you use CCI's standard velocity .22 long rifle rounds. The trigger is a bit tight and I have read on the internet where folks are working them over to make them more smooth.  May have to check into that. Nick helped me sight it in.  We shot up a box of 50 just playing.  However it will hit an 8" circle at 40 yards every time.  Nice...

Been quite busy.  So busy in fact that I have not updated this here blog in a while.  We're in the midst of a remodel of our house, two vacations, et cetera.  Now on to planting.... Yes we are aware that these should have been done last month.  Could not be helped.  Besides, we will have all the late season doves eating here at our place. Went over and borrowed the Larhman's tractor and disc.  Got a flat tire on the way back here.  Plowed anyway.  Went over the ground thrice to get it ready.  It has not had anything in it for two, maybe three years, so it needed some TLC. Here is a video of Alex pulling the disc.  A real farmer.  His boots make me laugh. https://youtu.be/ul7tEDDWS7M While Alex was using the disc, I hooked up the bush hog and mowed down what we were not going to plant.  We figure we planted about 2 acres and mowed one more.  That's enough for one day in the sun. We used an OLD, and by old I mean older than Alex and my ages combined, hand spreader

We have just returned from our annual prairie dog hunting trip to New Mexico.  It's and 18-hour drive each way.  That's a long time in a vehicle.  But, if it weren't worth it, we wouldn't go. This year, we counted all our rounds fired and then estimated a percentage of dogs shot per each session.  We are close, but not exact on dogs terminated. In 2016, the four of us combined to launch 2,920 rounds down range.  We estimate that 1,200 prairie dogs lost their lives to our endeavors.  This is actually a low number (41% overall), but was due mainly to our ammo.  Lots of squib rounds were thrown.  I suspect we could have had over 2,000 down if it weren't for poor ammo quality.  In fact, we gave that ammo up on the last day and went to the store and bought new. We were the fourth group into camp this year, and another was right on our heels.  Timing was good, as we had awesome weather (50 - 84F) and some rain.  It was actually humid a few days down there.  Plus, th

Ok, ok, I know - I'm way behind in publishing these updates.  Mea Culpa. I left Indy just after 2 pm that Tuesday.  I went home, changed clothes and was at the SWCD (Soil & Water Conservation District) office to get the seeder drill at 3:30 (rental unit).  Low and behold, it does not take a ball (even though I had taken with me both a 1 & 7/8" and 2" ball).  No, it takes a flat bar to tow. I drove down the street to Dave's Body Shop (shout out) and had them use an impact wrench to take off the ball.  Back to connect the drill.  I signed the appropriate paper work and headed home. I got back and noticed that I required a hydraulic line in the back of the tractor to raise and lower the drill.  No dice.  My new Kubota has only hydraulic pick-ups in the front.  A quick call to Lahrman's and they said they'd be right over.  Within 20 minutes, I had a "borrowed" tractor from the Lahrman's that did the job. We hooked up the drill and ens