“I have become what I beheld”

When I started hanging out and reading gun blogs, I’d notice the posts about knives and other stabbity things, and think “Well isn’t that nice. Another pocket knife. How many does a person need? What’s up with that?”

My dad used to carry what he called a “pen knife”. It was just a regular old folding pocket knife with either some wood or horn on the handle. I’m sure he used it for more, but I primarily remember him using it for sharpening pencils, opening envelopes and for slicing up apples and other things he wasn’t supposed to bite into because of his dentures.

Michael W. (Cutler to the Stars!) had a box of blades he’d acquired over the years and offered one to me. I chose a small Leatherman and threw it in my purse. I don’t think I’ve ever used anything other than the scissors, and that was mostly to cut tags and labels from recent purchases. I tried carrying around a little folding knife in my jeans pocket on the weekends and promptly lost it as it popped out of the stupid shallow pockets when I sat down. No great loss.

Then Shorter Half gave me a little Gerber Paraframe.  It had a clip on it so it stayed put when I clipped it to my pocket. It would ride around in my pocket for the weekend, used once in a while, like when I opened a recalcitrant package at a baby shower, or for sharpening a pencil.  Or so I thought.

Then I misplaced the Paraframe and my world collapsed a little bit. Dang, I had no idea how often I’d been using that knife while gardening. Or opening letters. Or cutting thread or yarn. Or just opening just about anything purchased in the toy department that has a zillion clips and wires and just plain crap involved in the packaging. I found my hand reaching down for the non-existent knife a lot more than I ever remember using one. After mourning for a week, I made a list of what I didn’t like about the Paraframe – namely that it took two hands to open. So I hopped over to Brownell’s and make a selection. I looked for something with assisted opening, was small, didn’t have “tactical” in the name, had a clip, and was under $30.

Somehow, without knowing it, I have become assimilated. I have become what I beheld. And two hours after the knife from Brownell’s arrived, I found the Paraframe. Clearly, my subconscious is working overtime getting me to buy more blades.

 

Kid Shoot I, 2012

I don’t know who ordered the weather, but dang. It was perfect. In the 70’s with warm sun and a cool breeze.  Broken Andy brought an inflatable bouncy thing which was a stroke of genius as far as letting kids (especially the ones that traveled more than 10 miles) work off some energy before settling down to break things with pellets.

JB Miller brought a box of clays and wire coat hangers and did some wire origami magic and made a cool hanging clay holder thing that I didn’t get any pictures of. This, along with some balloons, some hanging soda cans, some soda cans on a ledge, and a couple of store-bought reactive targets made up “the range’.

There were 11 adults, all told and 10 kids. 6 of the kids belonged to gunnie-type parents, and 4 were classmates of Sweet Daughter’s. Michael W. (Cutler to the Stars) started things off by letting the kids handle a tomato and note the resemblance to their own selves – a skin covering firm, yet kind of squishy insides. Then he promptly shot it with a pellet pistol and showed them the damage and explained that shooting a person would do the same thing, so don’t do it.

"Ve have veys of making you talk ..."

The kids came and went on the range, taking turns with a grown-up helping them out, and playing on the swing set and sandbox when they weren’t waiting. It seemed to go really well, and I don’t think there was a kid there that didn’t have a grin of accomplishment at one point or another. 

The adults got their chance as well, and I may have another mom hooked on the idea of shooting. After getting the hang of the pellet rifle, she pointed at my pistol and asked if she could shoot that as well. I explained that there wasn’t a safe place in my little yard to do so, but that there was talk of getting a “Mom Shoot” together for beginners and she should really come to that. I kept a calm and neutral tone, but inwardly I was jumping up and don’t clapping my hands yelling “WE’VE GOT ANOTHER ONE!!!”

Then there was the food. Oh, my goodness, the food. Everybody brought stuff. There were burgers and hot dogs. Michael W. took Vidalia onions, quartered them and wrapped them in bacon, secured with a toothpick. And then he grilled them over low heat.

Before

After

Mr. A Girl brought deviled eggs and cupcakes. There was pumpkin crunch. There was rainbow Jell-O. And for party favors, there were little chocolate revolvers.

But guess who the one kid was who didn’t shoot? Sweet Daughter. After everyone except JB Miller and his lovely wife had left, she said “HEY! You didn’t call me up to shoot!” I replied that she never asked to shoot, and I wasn’t going to have her perform like a trained monkey if she wasn’t interested. JB graciously donated his leftover clays and high-tech hangers and she had at it.

All in all, I think it was a successful event. The kids were all well behaved and considering that there was a wide range of ages, all interacted very well with each other. The adults seemed to enjoy the afternoon almost as much as the kids did.

In the lessons learned section, I think having activities other than shooting for the kids to do was key. While we had a ratio of almost one kid per adult (an it seemed to work well), but I think it would work with fewer adults. Reactive targets are the only way to go, and I think the ones that make some noise (plink, pop, crack) as well as visibly changing form when hit were the most popular. We had hand wipes down on the firing line to use after handling pellets. We had plenty of inexpensive shooting glasses to pass around. We had name tags. While I was still riding a wave of adrenaline that evening I said I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Two days later, I don't think my opinion has changed.

The 20th Anniversary

… of my 29th birthday.

Sweet Daughter gave me a Cold Steel Magnum Kukri Machete, in tacti-kewl black with the 17" blade (now with 20% more Mall Ninja!) Ostensibly, it’s for keeping the vine-covered slope between the yard and the road cleared, but I think it will come in handy for a visual aid once she’s dating.

“Hi, Mrs. R. Is SD home?”

“Yes, she’ll be down in just a minute.”

(With SD not being there to divert him yet, his attention will be drawn to the Cold Steel Magnum Kukri Machete with some of the black paint missing, a few dents in the 17" blade, but still with 20% more Mall Ninja! positioned across my lap.)

“Um, ma’am, can I help you with that?”

“No thank you. I’m just cleaning the blood off the blade before it does any damage.”

Another Kid Shoot update

So, I was checking Sweet Daughter’s homework this morning before it was turned in. One of the assignments was to use her spelling words in a sentence.

“I’m having a kid shoot.”

Yeah. No way that could possibly be misinterpreted, right? I fired off a quick email to her teacher explaining that we were teaching kids to shoot BB and pellet guns safely, and that we had a retired policeman and firearms instructor managing the firing line, and that SD was not actually planning on shooting kids. She got back to me, laughing, saying she’d been hearing all about this event for some time, and that she understood my house was finally getting cleaned up.

*headdesk*

In case you are on the fence about attending, it’s Saturday, June 2nd, in my backyard, starting around 2:00. Email me if you need more details. There will be gunnies, non-gunnies, future gunnies and what sounds like lots of food. The weather is supposed to be beautiful.A high of 77 degrees, mostly sunny and no rain. But don't believe SD about the state of the house.

And, it’s open carry weekend!

Kid Shoot Update

Yeah, yeah. As in letting the kids shoot, not shooting the kids. Now that I’ve got the disclaimer out of the way …

We’re still planning on June 2, rain date June 3. Michael W., retired L.E.O., firearms instructor and Cutler to the Stars® will be here, and I’ve had at least one other adult offer to come by and lend a hand. There’s pellet gun fun to be had, a swing set, a sprinkler to run through, and a grill for a post-shoot cookout.

Sweet Daughter’s BFF will be here along with the rest of her family. Our neighbor and his son hope to show up, and Broken Andy plans on coming with his kids. I tentatively mentioned the event to a couple of other local moms and I was surprised at the enthusiastic response. That weekend is already booked for them, but the asked if they could attend the next one, and two moms have stated that *they* want to learn to shoot as well.

So, if you’re interested (with, or without kids), let me know and I’ll get you directions and details.

Oh, and rumor has it there may be a cake. Or something with candles. Lots and lots of candles.

Open Carry Weekend Reminder and my 2 cents

Just a reminder that OC weekend is coming up June 2-3.

It seems there is a segment of the gunnie population that is against Open Carry, and a few of them quite vociferously so. I was going to add my 2 cents to the discussion (echo chamber?) when I realized that I can’t do it as well as Linoge, or the comments here , or Robb, or a bunch of others, and it doesn’t matter.

While some will bemoan my lack of “training”, Sweet Daughter will be explaining to a kid in Target who wanted to know “why that lady has a gun” that I wear a gun to keep her safe.  Others will assume I must be an “attention whore” and I wear a gun in order to start conversations. That being said, if you're staring at my gun which just happens to be next to my left boob and you hurriedly complement the azalea in my shopping cart (directly in front of my left boob) as a way to prove you weren't really staring at my gun or my boob, I will respond in a pleasant manner even though I really didn’t notice you staring because I just want to check out and go home. And no, I’m not just waiting for my opportunity to engage in “ass-clownery” so I can pump my fist in the air and yell “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED!!” when in fact I’m a raging introvert that just wants to do my errands in safety.

I have my own reasons to OC and I’m very thankful that I live in a part of the world where I can do so.  If there are those that don’t like OC, then by all means – don’t do it. I’ll make a deal with you – I won’t tell you what do to, and you don’t tell me what to do. Because I don’t remember asking your opinion, and I certainly don’t need your permission.

Gardening attempts

Or, if you throw enough crap at the wall, some is bound to stick.

I have a bit of a dark brown thumb. Gardening is not my thing. I basically stick stuff in the ground, threaten it,  and if it dies, I rip it out and may or may not try again. But this year I finally succumbed to Sweet Daughter’s request for a bigger garden plot. Her current space is about 24” x 24” -- small enough to weed and water while waiting for the school bus. But she wanted more.

It started with the sunflowers. And that meant finding a place to put them (how about in the corner of the yard by the 6’ tall section of fence?). Which meant digging up the blasted Bermuda grass and the Virginia Creeper, and putting down some real dirt, and a landscaping timber or two. The discounted tulips that were past their best at Easter? Why not? They were cheap. Then there were the extra annuals for the containers in the front of the house. And then a Black-Eyed Susan was strategically placed in front of the great gaping hole in the boxwood. And, holy cow, those Crape Myrtles sure do grow quickly. These came up from a long forgotten network of roots, popping up during a dry spell one summer when the grass wasn’t growing. Violets were transplanted from my sister’s farm so we’ll always have part of it at our house. A $1 pack of “wildflower” seeds meant knocking together something resembling a raised bed so they could contained. Luckily there’s a pile of old timbers from the previous owners, or that would have ended up being a $20 pack of seeds.

And we can't forget the marigold that SD coveted and earned by helping the "Plant Lady" at our last reenactment.

Then there are the redbuds. I love redbud trees, and I seem to find a volunteer each year that gets painstaking transplanted, and invariably mowed over. (Call it aggressive pruning.) Well, I’ve moved two so far this spring, found a third, and the one that got mowed flat last year is coming back. So far, so good.
And then I discovered the “scratch and dent” section in the nursery at Lowes. Why not? I’d rather kill a $5 blueberry bush than a $10 one (and after killing 4 in the past few years, these are both are doing very well, thank-you-very-much). And that’s when SD saw the raspberries. “Momma! Look! Raspberries! You love raspberries! Think of the money you’ll save!” I grabbed one, liked the price and put it on the cart. Then the nice gentleman with the mullet and muscle shirt came running over with two more. (No, I have no idea what that was about.)  I managed to resurrect the Catawba grape that got mowed last year. I planted a Carolina Jasmine to cover the chain-link fence. I started some morning glories from seed. I put in some more herbs. I put an azalea in under an oak tree where it’s hard to mow. I pruned back and Shorter Half moved about 20 Barberry bushes to the other side of the fence, closer to the road.
SD got a larger section of flower garden, and plants were procured. Seeing Breda’s tomatoes shamed me into planting a couple of my own. Roma? Safe. Then I picked a variety at random … a Jet Star. Low acid, good for eating and cooking, it said. I got it home and read the fine print. Grows four to six feet tall. Really? Any suggestions on what to use for a tomato cage or should I just ask what what caliber? Attack of the killer tomatoes is right.