True Blue Sam An Also Ran

Danno has posted the scores for Mr. Completely's May e-Postal match, and there was a pretty good turnout this time.  I felt pretty good shooting a 7 out of 19, given the small size of the circles on this target, and because each one is either a hit or a miss.  A bonus for us was Engineering Johnson coming home from overseas and visiting us at the farm.  He brought his Ruger Mk III, so the Mrs., EJ, and I all were able to submit two targets this month.  The big shock was Mr. Borland shooting a perfect score, which is a darned rare occurrence.  And...Billll scored better than Mr. C, which is also remarkable.

Random Nuclear Strikes is hosting the June match, so click over to RNS to grab the target and read the rules.  Take friends and family and make it a fun outing.  You know you need the practice; I sure do.

Transitioning Tips; Courtesy of Ruger Firearms!

Dave Spaulding gives us plenty to think about in this video. I see that I need to install slings on some of my rifles, and it wouldn't hurt to buy something more modern than an Enfield .303.

Lakewoods Marshalls, Cisne, IL

Cisne, Illinois is home to the Lakewoods Marshalls, a Single Action Shooting Society affiliated club, and they have a monthly match on the first Saturday of every month. Engineering Johnson, the Mrs., and her mother piled in the car with me on Saturday for the trip to Cisne. The Marshalls made us feel right at home even though we were not in costume, and we came home with a card full of raw video showing some of the action. Click the Lakewoods Marshalls link and find all the information you need to visit this great little club.

How's Your Monday On This June 6?

From Ernie Pyle, somewhere in Europe, in Brave Men:  "Speaking of noise, you've probably heard the term "screaming meemies," meaning a certain noisy type of German shell.  The boys called them "screaming meanies," instead and , brother, they were bad indeed to listen to.

The Germans called the gun the "Nebelwerfer."  It was a six-barreled rocket rack which fired one rocket after another, electrically.  The gun didn't go off with a roar, but the shells swished forward with a sound of unparalleled viciousness and power, as though gigantic gears were grinding.  Actually it sounded as though some mammoth man were grinding them out of a huge machine.

Whenever a shelling started we always stopped and listened, and somebody made a remark like, "Grind 'em out, boy; keep on turning!"...

Now, your Old Grind doesn't seem so bad, does it?

Excerpt from The Fabulous Infantry, Page 193, Brave Men, Henry Holt and Company, New York,1944

Not My Victrola

The first part of June feels like the end of July in Illinois; our car's thermometer was showing 98 degrees yesterday as we were touring. We'd like to go walking down the shady lane, but then we'd have to check for ticks. Good Old Summertime!?

Shared with us by Victrolaman.

Weekend Steam

Willjlund posted this great video, from a traction engine rally at Pickering, in the UK.  That's all the information he provided, but the engine does plenty of talking.

Crankin' It Up

The B side of last week's Crank Up has Signor Grinderino churning out another tune for us. "Tulip Time In Holland"... this was recorded in October, 1916. No one was enjoying tulips in Holland in 1916.

Predictability

                                                            Click on photo to enlarge.

3382 Belknap and 72 Sharon soils are riparian soils you find alongside streams in southern Illinois, and they always are sites worth looking at.  Most of these sites were cleared for growing corn on small farms long ago, but modern farming methods have caused them to be abandoned.  Seed sources around the fields determined what tree species came up, and often these fields came up in river birch or soft maple, but sometimes you get lucky. 

Black walnut, with companion boxelder trees are a nice surprise that I find on a fairly regular basis.  Most landowners consider boxelder to be a weed tree, but they are a valuable trainer in a young walnut stand, forcing the walnuts to go upward for light, and they block light out of the understory, which helps shade off the lower branches on the walnuts. 

The trees in this stand have grown from about 14" diameter fifteen years ago to 20" now, or about five growth rings per inch; which is a respectable growth rate, in valuable trees.  On rare occasions when someone asks for my advice on buying timberland, I recommend that they consult soil maps, and look for timber that is pole size, which most sellers do not recognize as having any value.  Productive soils, and a thinning can take a pole stand into sawtimber size in a short time, allowing the landowner to retrieve some of the investment in a relatively short time.

Happy Trails, Mr. C!

Keep an eye on Mr. Completely's blog; he is flying out today to represent the U.S. at the European Steel Challenge at Winterswijk, Holland on June 3, 4, and 5.   Click the link and you can see some of the activities at the 2010 match.

Mr. Completely and KeeWee have competeted in Holland the last two years at their own expense, but this year he is being sponsored by GUNUP.

Shade Tree Utilization

We were busy last weekend replacing rotted wood in southwest corner of the old barn. A railroad tie is the ground contact, to discourage termites, and the timber that rests on it grew just a stone's throw away; a pitch pine planted by Mrs. True Blue Sam's mother in 1945. We needed some 14' stringers for hanging siding, so we pulled out the timber cut from the top log and sliced it up with a chainsaw and table saw.

A thunderstorm tore the top out of this tree in early 2007, and we stashed the lumber from it in the barn, figuring that it would come in handy sometime.