EJ and I went to Mt. Pleasant for the steam school on Saturday, but Mom called her range buddies, and they broke in her new revolver, and also shot some .22, 9mm, and .38 special. Her first shot from the .45 Blackhawk was right in the center of the bullseye. Her friends tried it and had the same result, making for smiles all around.
I think her friend is telling her that she has worn out the middle of her target.
Cleaned, oiled, and ready for the range. Mom was unsure about whether she would like the black grips on this model, but she found that she can easily maintain a sure grip with them when the gun recoils. 
Midwest Old Threshers director Lennis Moore greeted tweny-five lucky people who got into this year's steam traction class at Mt. Pleasant, Iowa on Saturday morning. We had a full day of classroom instruction from two steam experts. We will be receiving hands on instruction Sunday as the students try their newly acquired knowledge on four different engines that will be fired up. Check in this week to see more photos of this great event.
Mt. Vernon Garden Club members and Tree Board members got together this week to package seedlings for school kids in Jefferson County and Mt. Vernon. Pines and hardwoods were individually bagged and stapled to an instruction sheet that shows the kids how to plant a tree properly. This dedicated crew has been helping with Arbor Day festivities for several years, and they make it possible to distribute trees to every school in the county. SALUTE!
Qualifying for a Red Card from the US Forest Service doesn't guarantee adventure, but it does enhance your chances for memorable experiences. I got my first Red Card in 1979, hoping to earn a little extra money and some fire fighting experience in the West. At the time, I was working in Eastern Kentucky, and had lots of practice fighting fire in Appalachian hardwood forests.
Earning one of these thirty years ago required doing the Step Test, which was pretty easy for anyone used to climbing hills regularly. You had to step up and down, on and off of a one foot high step for five minutes, and have your pulse monitored to check your fitness. After I passed, I packed a duffel bag, and waited for a call. In August we were flown out of Lexington, KY to Butte, MT to work on the Barker Creek fire, near the town of Anaconda. Our crew spent four days mopping up fire line, riding in deuce-and-a-half trucks, sleeping on the ground at night, and loving nearly every minute of it.
Here I am with friend Ken Powers working near timber line in subalpine fir forest.
The vistas were a bit longer, and the mountains were a bit taller than we were used to in Kentucky.
Our ride is sitting on the Continental Divide. It felt good to start out at the top of the hill.
Our crew managed very well in the high altitudes. The air was thin, but we all knew how to pace ourselves from working in the Appalachians.
When we came off of the Barker Creek fire, we were sent to Missoula, where we spent five days on the Grant Creek fire. We had more excitement than we wanted on that one, with long hikes, hot firelines, and big Douglas-firs crashing down around us. It was a memorable trip.
We had to do 100% mop up on the fires we were assigned, and we got some experience using water, and dropping trees. 
Minnesota has lots of water, and you are never too far from it, so fire-fighting involves moving water more than digging line.
We were sent to this smoker late one day. Part of the crew set up a pump in a beaver pond and carried hose uphill while we made our falling plan. As soon as we had some water on this white pine, we dropped it, chunked it into movable pieces, hosed it down, stacked the pieces around the stump and hosed it more.
One of our brave crew members mugged for the camera the next morning when we checked it to make sure it was cold. Dropping trees with a crew watching is good practice. You have to plan every cut on every tree before you crank up, because burning snags don't let you stop and think about your next move. It was exhilarating.
Speaking of exhilaration, I just passed the Pack Test to get a Red Card again this year. You have to carry forty-five pounds three miles in forty-five minutes or less, and I surprised myself by improving my time. I don't know if the boss will let anyone go this year, but it felt good to qualify.
This old binder was probably parked only a few years before the fields it harvested were abandoned and allowed to grow up in briars, sumacs, dogwoods, ash, and persimmon. It is a sad looking case now, with all of the wood and canvas gone, along with the memories of the farm it worked on. The remains of the farm house are caving in across the road, a sad reminder of days gone by.
There isn't much left of this one. I think the parts that could easily be removed have been carried off to a scrap yard, leaving just the bones to remind us of times past.
These purple box-kites started showing up in Illinois recently, and I figured out what they were before I stopped to look at one. The emerald ash borer has been on the move, and governmental agencies who watch these things are trying to track them. 
The bugs are probably all over Illinois already, and are just waiting to be discovered. Ash is one of our greatest hardwood trees for growing useful and beautiful wood, but I quit recommending it in tree planting projects as soon as I heard about this insect arriving on our shores. Ash has serious disease and insect problems that are native in this country, and I think that the new bug on the block will make it impossible to manage for ash timber in the future.
We went looking for morel mushrooms Saturday, and it was slow at first, but we found a recently-deceased elm tree with the tasty treats growing above the dead roots, and we felt like we were in Hog-Heaven.
This is our haul; we had some with supper, and we are eating the remainder with Sunday breakfast.
If you have morels in you woods you have to find them before the deer, turkeys, and squirrels eat them. This cute gray squirrel was hunting alongside Mrs. TBS for quite a while, and I followed him around taking pictures. I was only five or six feet away from him when I took this shot.
Everybody I talk to is eaten up with turkey hunting this time of year. Southern Illinois has an abundance of these birds, which are so common now that I don't get too excited by them, except when one launches at my feet when I am looking up in the trees. A covey of quail always gives me a thrill, but a turkey taking off in my face just about causes a heart attack. When we want a dead bird we go to Kroger.
While I was working on equipment one day I heard Scooter sneeze. Pretty soon he sneezed again...and again. I checked on him and he was a sick kitty. We had him to the Vet in short order and found that he had a fever, and a rattly lung. The Doc gave him a shot of antibiotics, put half a liter of water under his skin to fight deydration, and counted out eight day's worth of pills. If we had ignored the sneezing, our little rose colored kitty would have been a goner. Veterinarians are amazing people. They have the ability to size up a situation with an animal they don't know, reach a diagnosis and treatment within minutes, and save a life. And they do this for several different species. It makes me wonder if I should be going to a Vet instead of our family physician.
Sapsuckers are busy little birds, and homeowners are often alarmed to notice the evidence that the little woodpeckers like their trees. This mockernut hickory in our woods is obviously a favorite, and even though the tree is of no value, we will keep it, because if a bird is pecking on this one, it is not harming one of our good ones. 
I've been driving by this McCormick-Deering 15-30 occasionally for over twenty years, and the multiflora rose is hiding it pretty well during the growing season now. That is a stationary baler sitting behind it. You have to wonder how many times a collector has gone to the door and tried to buy these old machines. You never get lonely if you have old iron parked by the road.
