The Hunting Times

Took Jersey (grand-dog) out for a run this morning and while I was out, took the opportunity to pick up some trash that had blown into the fence row.  I saw some trash in the neighbor's field, and my first thought was - his problem.  But, being an Eagle Scout, Mason, and care-taker of the earth, I stopped and went out to the orange "trash bag." Upon arrival, I found it to be a parachute - with a balloon attached.  Must be a school project or something.  Too bad I cannot find what was attached to it - the string was broken about ten foot back.  I picked it up anyway.  As I came back to our property, I found another 10' section of rope - then another and it was attached to a box. The orange is a parachute.  The clearish blob on the left is the remains of the balloon. 30' of rope - and a box. I picked it up and the first thing I saw was this: Instructions from the aliens. The other side of the box. So it appears as though ...

Did I miss Spring, Summer and Fall this year?  Here's what the deck looked like today: Is it Winter again already??? And it's the middle of APRIL!  What gives? Golf league started last week and I did not play because it was ONLY 54 degrees.  Fat chance of me going out today when it's a high of 39.  Yep, I'm a fair weather golfer and there will be better days... Turkey season starts one week from tomorrow here in Indiana and we've got Deer Season Weather.

The Sportsmans Guide had USNV Corp's Rapid Wraps (TM) on sale for $17 each in three different camo patterns for AR-15 30-round magazines.  I went ahead and ordered some in Kryptek Highlander and US Stealth Flag patterns to try. They come printed on 3M's Controltac (TM) vinyl and are pretty easy to install.  I put the flag on a 30-round mag after watching the instructional video here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr3qS4IohyI Pretty simple to do, and I must say, the hair dryer trick works great.  I did not do the pencil thing to put them into each groove, but I suspect I would have gotten better results if I had. Since I rarely use my 30-round mags, I decided to cut them down and put them on my 20-round mags.  I traced around a mag once it was in the gun and noted a 1 7/8" distance from mag to mag well.  I marked the stencil and cut them almost in half - BONUS: you can get TWO wraps for a 20-round mag out of a 30-round mag stencil.  I did...

So it's a Saturday in February and we got nothing better to do than process our deer that we had harvested last year.  Davey, Re-Phil and I head south at 0600.  We are to meet at Rob Vincent's house before 0800, since he has all the equipment to process the deer with, and he cooks us breakfast, and he puts up with us.  That last one - that's the important bit. We arrive and have breakfast with Rob's Dad, Meg's boyfriend Jeremy, and Rob.  Mush, homemade bacon, scrambled eggs, biscuits, fresh homemade sausage patties, homemade tomato juice, and coffee.  Win. We start processing about 0845.  We mix roughly 70-30% deer to pork ratio based on weight.  This is not exact.  Sometimes it 75-25.  But we attempt to get a 25# mix together each time since that is what fits in the stuffer.  Sometimes we have made too much in one batch.  No biggie.  We keep going... We started with the salami.  We put the deer and pork chunks of me...

From time immemorial, it has been the custom at Boppum Barb's and Pa Jerry's that BEFORE anyone could open Christmas gifts, you had to line up on the stairs and get a picture taken.  As an adult, I can see the value of capturing those memories on film (or digital media today).  You can look back through the years and see how everyone has changed.  However, as a kid, this was pure TORTURE.  I cannot imagine a worse fate than waiting ONE MORE MINUTE to tear into those gifts. So, we have taken to doing the same thing in the household of Craig & Sandy - but with a twist.  We "theme" our stair pictures.  In the past we've done Thugs, Guns, and Alcohol.  Here is this year's version. Full Camo Stair Picture Christmas 2013 And for the record, if we add any more generations to the family tree OR our butts get any bigger, we might have to modify how we take pictures at Mom & Dad's.....just sayin' those stairs ain't gonna hold us all!...

To end 2013 and bring in 2014, Davey, Jeff Garriott and I went out to hunt the ole bunny, rabbit, hare, cottontail.  It was a brisk Dec 31, 2013, and by brisk I mean 12 degrees F with a light wind at 8:00 am.  A light, very light, dusting of snow was on the ground. We loaded up and headed for Marshall's N farm.  Dave carried his 16 ga.  I took the youth model 20 ga. And Jeff, our dog for the day, carried a 22 long rifle (his daughter's new gun she got for Christmas - Shhh, she does not know). We tromped the bottoms and Dave picked off two from the brush in the N.  We cut up to the killing finger and Jeff shot two with his .22 - all shots were one-shot-kills and those two are batting 1,000!  The wind started to pick up a bit, so we headed back to the truck. The "haul" from Marshall's N farm.  Jeff & Dave with 2 apiece. The "heads up" picture for Re-Phil.  Makes you look taller! We then headed for Marshall's S farm and dr...

Technically, the firearms season has just ended in Indiana; but since we all use shotguns, we consider it Shotgun Season - and it's over.  It did not end like it started - although we tried. Davey and I hit Marshall's S farm in the morning.  It was 28F and ZERO wind - you could hear for miles. I saw three doe run across the S woods heading W but too far for either me or Dave to shoot. That afternoon, it warmed up to somewhere between 46 & 50 degrees depending upon which phone, vehicle, or thermometer you looked at.  Hey - that's warm enough for Fair Weather Kathy to go out and hunt too!  Our original plan was to hunt the golf course because we had not had an afternoon hunt there all year.  With the warm weather, the wood cutters were out cleaning up the giant mess from the storms.  No need to hunt there.  Instead, Nick, Kathy, Alex and I hit Marshall, Neal, Vice for the final evening hunt. Nick sat on Vice across the creek.  I sat on the...