My cold is slowly slipping away. It is leaving a cough and fatigue in its wake. More on last weekend’s shooty goodness and next weekend’s CMP and USPSA matches tomorrow probably.
This entry was posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009 and is filed under Camping, Guns.
Author: EmmaPeel / Comments: (0)
I’m off for the rest of the week. We are going camping again. We are going over to the Atlanta area to shoot the Georgia IDPA State match. I’m excited. But, I’m sick too. I have a cold. So far it’s not a bad cold but it’s there and I feel it. I don’t get sick often. The last time I was really sick was January 2008 with a bad cold. I had a 24 hour cold last winter. I woke up congested and sore throat one morning and it was gone the next. That is typical of my colds, especially if I use Zicam.
It look like the kittens won’t be going with us. I think we’ll be too busy to keep a good eye on them and if I do get sicker, I don’t want to listen to them cry to eat. It’s grating on my nerves now. But, they are so cute. It is very understandable why God made baby creatures so cute. No matter how much they scream, they still melt your heart. I know because Bugaboo screamed non-stop for the first three months of her life. Anyway, my mom is going to care for the three kittens, the two bigger kittens, our two guinea pigs and our dog. Shipmate! It’s no wonder I’m broke. I was at the pet store again yesterday. It is a local place and the same lady always checks me out. This was the third time in 2 weeks I’ve been in. We joked about what my animals are costing me now. I’ve spent $200 over the last two weeks on pets. At least in another week, the kittens can go to cheap formula instead of the expensive newborn stuff.
After we finish the match, we are probably headed to a gun show in Columbus, Georgia. It’s supposed to be good. I’m not sure the point of the side trip. Since I’ve spent so much on pets, I have no money for guns. But, I do need some ghost ring sights for my Mossberg. I can’t find anyone with any in stock.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 and is filed under Camping, Children, Guns, Life, Pets.
Author: EmmaPeel / Comments: (0)
First, it’s been down right cold for Alabama for October this weekend. It was 52, misty and very windy on Saturday for our montly IDPA match. I think I did fairly well. Sunday was sunny, 60*, and still windy. The sun made it tolerable. We were busy packing for an upcoming camping trip. Last night it was 38*!! It’s mid-October, not mid-November. The dog is like a puppy in this weather. The cats aren’t too happy. This is their first cold snap.
This coming weekend we are headed to Georgia for the Georgia State IDPA match. We are safety officers and will shoot on Friday. Cricket and Bugaboo are going with us this year. The little kittens will be left with my mom. We will miss them. But, this is one of my favorite matches of the year. You see a lot of people you don’t see regularly. This is a big match and it draws people from all over. We will be camping at the range. It makes sleeping a little later easier and we get a shower before supper after shooting all day. This may be the last time I shoot the M&P .40. I think Cricket is going to start shooting it regularly. We are almost out of 9mm bullets and aren’t happy with the last set we got anyway. Anyone else I contact has a waiting list until January. So, we may drop the 9s for a while. I would shoot .45 1911 and Cricket and DH will shoot .40s. I need to do a post about DH’s birthday. He loves the S&W 610 I got for him. He was completely surprised.
Between the cooler temps and all that is going on, the house is buzzing.
This entry was posted on Monday, October 19th, 2009 and is filed under Camping, Guns, Pets, Weather.
Author: EmmaPeel / Comments: (1)
when it’s 100+ degrees. The CMP match went very well this weekend. DH shot well for the short Garand match on Saturday. Cricket did very well in the .22 match. She’s disappointed she didn’t win. It’s her first match. She’s so hard on herself sometimes. Bugaboo will shoot the next one, I think. I worked with her yesterday morning with an Iver Johnson .22 semi-auto rifle. She’s not quite strong enough to hold it standing yet and sitting needs some practice. But, she was doing very well prone. She wasn’t making many X ring hits but all were on the paper.
I shot the Carbine match late on Saturday. It was just hot with no air movement. I didn’t come in last but I’m not really sure where I placed. It wasn’t high. But, I fell I did do better than last match. I used a different .30 Carbine that appears to be more accurate than the one I shot the last match with. I think the barrel on the other one is still good but the sights are off. There’s not enough adjustment to get is perfect at 100 yards. I am going to investigate solutions. But, the one I shot this weekend appears to have the potential to be very accurate as it is. I have also located some .30 carbine ammo so now I can pratice with it more. I still need to get a shooting coat. I know that would help a lot.
DH shot the Garand match yesterday morning. It was 101 on the shooting bench, in the shade, when they finished. He wasn’t as pleased with his finish in this match as Saturday’s but it was his first 200 yard match.
The Konus scope we got from Red Dot Shooting was excellent. We could see as well as anyone else in that shimmering heat.
I spent some time yesterday sighting in my Bushmaster AR-15. I am quite pleased. I had all the shots on an 11×17 sheet of paper at 100 yards with peep sights. Once I figured out it was shooting a bit to the right, I had all the shots in a 5 inch group. Not great but better than I did with the Carbine on Saturday and my shoulder was hurting from all the shooting by that time. I also had not rest aside from the bench. I really needed a sandbag to see how tight a group I could get.
We camped the whole weekend at the range. It was so nice to be able to get a nice shower after shooting in that heat. A couple of guys from CMP came down and camped too. One fellow and his brother were in an RV. The other guy was in a tent. I usually don’t mind the heat but after all day in that heat, that AC sure felt nice.
I’m off to gunbroker right now to see what an Iver Johnson will cost. Bugaboo wants one bad. She loved that little rifle. It has peep sights too. I think Cricket likes the 10/22 better. It has a scope which Bugaboo did not like.
This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 and is filed under Camping, Children, Guns, Weather.
Author: EmmaPeel / Comments: (2)
We have a long CMP match this weekend. It will involve children shooting .22s (adults, too), folks with M1 Carbines and M1 Garands. We are camping at the range. DH and I have been collecting items needed at a CMP match. Our anniversary gift to each other was a nice Konus scope. It should be here tomorrow. We’ve both purchased shooting coats. DH’s fit perfecting. Mine unfortunately, is a bit big. (We got them off eBay.) I thought it might be. Unfortunately, I haven’t found any place that can alter the heavy leather it is made of. I am going to check with some saddle folks but haven’t yet. I may just order one new my size and resell this one.
We also both ordered shooting mats. We’ve needed them for a while but have been making do with other things. In competition, making do often doesn’t cut it. I ordered mine from Midway.
I’ll have to say, I’m quite pleased. First, I ordered it Tuesday, after lunch. It arrived today, Thursday, before lunch. It appears very well made. It’s not as thick as I think some of the more expensive ones are but I think it will do nicely. DH ordered his from Creedmoor and I think it is to be here today, maybe tomorrow. They had to make one for him. Cool. The one from Midway is made in China.
What else are we accumulating — DH also ordered a shooting mitt. I haven’t decided about getting one of those yet. We’re still not as prepared as we’d like to be but you can only spend so much at one time on play things.
Cricket will be shooting the .22 match. She’s never shot prone. I think she’ll like it. She prefers rifles to handguns at this point. Bugaboo is torn. She kinda wants to shoot but she’s concerned about the positions. We’re just not sure if she’s ready yet. If there’s room, we may take her single-shot .22 rifle and let her practice.
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 and is filed under Camping, Guns.
Author: EmmaPeel / Comments: (0)
I posted an update about the match we shot the other day. I’ll go back later and reread that post to see if I can add anything. Until then, let’s get to Sunday’s adventures. We got up a bit late. We had hoped to be in downtown Chattanooga at 8 a.m. because it was our understanding that that’s when the Aquarium opened. But, since we are used to central time, not eastern, we got there a little late. It’s a good thing. The Aquarium opens at 10 a.m. EDT. We got there just before 9:30 EDT which means we missed the lines. We got our tickets and waited outside the Ocean Journey building.
They opened the doors at 10 and we got started. What a wonderful Aquarium. First, it starts with a butterfly room. The butterflies are every where and you can let them crawl on you. Both girls loved that. In the next room, you can touch sting rays and sharks in an open tank. Bugaboo loved that and kept asking to go back up there. You then begin descending lower and lower around a huge tank with sharks, sea turtles and more in it. Some of the sharks appear to be longer than 5 feet. There are exhibits around this huge tank. At times, you are under areas of the tank and can look up and watch creatures above you.
In the River Journey building, you start in a tropical US forest inside the building. There were alligators and turtles and river otters. Then you go to what is probably an exhibit that changes from time to time. Right now, they had sea horse and sea dragons. I love dragons. I had never heard of sea dragons. They are so cool. I have pictures I will post soon. You then travel around in circles in the River Journey building seeing different fish that live in rivers around the world. They also have other creatures. This building also has a huge tank with different US river fishes. One catfish would feed a third world country for days. It was huge.
After the aquarium, we went to a brew pub across the street. The food was great and not too expensive. I tried out different beers. I like stout beers. We then headed to the Incline Railway and Ruby Falls. Ruby Falls was packed. We waited in line for 40 minutes. We then spent 1 hour and 52 minutes in the cave. According to our guide, they were averaging 40 people per group with 15 groups in the cave at one time. Yikes! We enjoyed it anyway. Had we been in the back, it would not have been as much fun. When you get a single file line of 40+ people spread out, you can hear much at the end.
We then headed back to the camper and the girls swam for a while. We had supper then headed to a drive-in just a mile from the campground. We say Night at the Museum 2 for $5 each. We could have stayed and watched X-Men Wolverine for no additional fees but we were beat. Being it was a drive-in, the first movie didn’t start until 9:30 p.m. EDT. By the time Wolverine would have come on, we were asleep. We had so much fun. It will be hard to go back to a regular theatre again. No one’s cell phone ringing, no babies crying, no talking or getting the back of your chair kicked. They really need one of those here.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 and is filed under Camping, Children, Life.
Author: EmmaPeel / Comments: (0)
Thursday was a very busy day at work. It was also the last day of school. And . . . we had to finish getting the camper and truck packed. We were running around like chickens with our heads cut off. Things were moving along until I look out the camper window. Something black is slinking through the grass in front of the house. I comment to DH that there’s the mama cat that it was the black one we’ve seen. He says it’s too little. He heads out and sure enough, it’s not the mama. It’s another kitten. He was not happy to be seen and much less happy to be picked up. It took two barbeque gloves to keep from being mauled. He was all hiss, teeth and nails. He’s not solid black. He has a white V on his tummy and his coat is tone on tone with the black looking like tiger stripes on dark charcoal. We put him in a cage and called my parents because we could not take a wild cat on our trip. They ended up keeping both kittens. By the time we got home last night, they were friends and, while the little guy is skittish, you can hold and love on him.
The little girl’s name is Bullet. I suggested WC for wild child for the little brother but that didn’t fly. We are still working on a name. Needless to say, after our adventure with the kitten, we were up very late Thursday night finishing stuff. We were up at 5 a.m. to leave for our trip on Friday. More on that adventure later.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 and is filed under Camping, Life, Work, wildlife.
Author: EmmaPeel / Comments: (0)
We had five days loaded with adventure and fun. We got a lot done, had a wonderful time and was home at a good time yesterday afternoon. I will post more later.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 and is filed under Camping, Children, Global Warming, Guns, Life, Marriage, Weather.
Author: EmmaPeel / Comments: (0)
I shot very well. I had one of my best matches I’ve had. Unfortunately, 5 people in SSP Marksman, shot better than I did. A lot better. I had one stage with no points down. I had two others with 1 point down each. Even my bad stages were decent. 16 stages. DH won SSP Sharpshooter and got bumped to Expert. He’s now expert in CDP and SSP. I’m never going to make it out of Marksman.
Tomorrow we’re doing the tourist thing in Chattanooga. More later.
This entry was posted on Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 and is filed under Camping, Guns.
Author: EmmaPeel / Comments: (0)
Recession Proof. All kinds of information to download and print.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 and is filed under Camping, Cooking, Fundemental Rights, Gardening, Guns, Survival.
Author: EmmaPeel / Comments: (0)