The Hunting Times

This comes as no surprise.  We know that when we hunt prairie dogs in Texas and New Mexico to leave the bodies alone.  And here is why... http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/08/13/officials-fleas-two-arizona-counties-tested-positive-plague/ It is RARE though that humans actually get infected.  Only 15 in 2015, according to the CDC.

You read that right.  I jumped into a Ferrari 458 Italia and took it around the Putman Road Course near Greenfield, Indiana on Saturday, 12 AUG.  All of this was done through Xtreme Xperience (www.thextremexperience.com) where you get trained (kinda) and then jump into an exotic sports car and drive flat out around a race track with an instructor sitting in the passenger seat.  What an awesome experience (some might say "xtreme").  Loved it! The day started early as I picked up Alex at 5:45 am.  We drove from Mulberry to the course and arrived at 7:00.  Things were just getting set up and we were the first to check in.  We had some issues with the Groupon and it ended up that we all got $50 off the regular rate.  Whatever.  We were there and we were going to race.  I also ordered the VIP package that got me a T-shirt, a picture, and a video of my laps around the track (which will arrive in about two weeks).  All of us driv...

Dave had his granddaughter Ava this weekend, so we took advantage of the great weather and broke out the .22s and the fishing poles - at her request, on Saturday.  We loaded up about a dozen water balloons and put them up on the range.  Then we gave Ava a safety talk.  That was promptly followed by us loading magazines and clips while she pulled the trigger. Ava getting a gun safety talk Papaw helping Ava line up the sights Ava shooting .22 at water balloons Then we headed for the pond.  We used bee moths and red worms.  And we could not keep the poles in the water.  As soon as the bobber hit, it was under.  Ava caught six fish on her first six casts.  She did not tire, even after 20 fish reeled in. Ava fishing for blue gill Ava and Papaw with a big ole blue gill Then afterward, she wrote me this nice Thank You note.  That's her shooting at water balloons, collecting empty brass, and fishing.  How ...

So we are about 45 days back from New Mexico and our annual prairie dog hunt.  I have cleaned our guns and they are put away.  I just finished cleaning all the brass - and it looks like this: You are viewing about 5,000 rounds of .223 brass.  Why the bags?  Well, in the close bag are 500 rounds of Federal Gold Match cases.  They need to have the primer pockets swaged because the primers were glued in.  The back bag is brass that we have annealed. Annealing extends the life of the case.  Our hypothesis is that we will not be able to tell the difference, and thus, it is not worth our time to anneal all this brass.  But in order to test that hypothesis, we need to have some data.  And that is the reason those rounds are kept separate. The rest of the brass in the SIX-gallon bucket are ready to be resized and reloaded.  We have long lost count of how many times these cases have been reloaded.  Some only once, some close to ten ...

This post is not for the faint of heart.  Three of us took off for New Mexico to shoot prairie dogs.  Animals did indeed die.  Stop reading if that offends you.  But understand this, if we were not there shooting them, the ranchers will poison them.  Either way they are going to die.  So which is a more humane death?  You decide for yourself. This was our tenth trip down to Amistad.  16.5 hours one way in the truck.  It's a painful drive, but worth the time or we wouldn't continue doing so.  This year, Nick, Michael and I made the drive.  We left the Friday before Memorial Day because Nick had to be back for the State Track Finals the following Thursday. We ended up firing a total of 3,741 rounds of .223, .243, and 6XC rounds.  We tried to keep a running count of kills, not hits.  Nick had a habit of shooting off their feet.  Those were not counted.  We figured up we were somewhere in the 42% kill range - or ...

Daughter-in-law's baby shower was Saturday.  So I called the boys out to the farm to do some shooting whilst the womenfolk were busy.  I had Nick, Alex, Dad, and Nick's father-in-law Rod out. But first, we met at the South Fork restaurant in Mulberry for their Saturday lunch special of catfish, chicken wings, Rocky Mt. Oysters, and fries!  That already makes it a GREAT DAY and we haven't even fired the first shot. We set a steel plate in the fence row, angled down to deflect any bullets into the ground.  And we guessed at the distance.  I speculated "over 400 yards."  I was right, and I was also way off.  Laser ranged distance was 550 yards (503 metres) from bench to steel. And then we set off to a shootin'.  Folks pulled out whatever they had and wanted to fire.  Ole Rod is a pistol dude and had never shot a rifle before in his life.  I set him up on the .300 Win Mag, followed by the .243, .223, and the suppressed .22. ...

For the kid's birthdays, Sandy asks what they would like for a meal.  Whatever they ask for, we make and invite them all over to partake. For Alex's birthday, he requested meatballs.  So Sandy make a batch and I made a batch of venison meatballs to go along with hers. I took one pound of venison and mixed it with:  one diced onion, one row of Ritz crackers, teriyaki, and barbecue sauce.  I stirred it all up and then proceeded to hand-form 30 meatballs. This is everything above, mixed and ready to form In a large pan on the stove, I put in a sliced onion and more teriyaki.  I browned the balls in the pan and then put them into a baking pan. Once all the meat was browned and removed, I poured in a vanilla stout beer to the pan on the stove.  I added 1/2 cup of brown sugar and more barbecue sauce.  I brought that mixture to a roiling boil and then poured it into the baking pan of now browned meatballs. I threw the baking pan into the oven a...