Nugget is still hurt, possibly worse than before. The woman isolated her in a cage and is making sure she eats/drinks and rests, otherwise it's off to the vet!

Pistol match last night (did horrible with the new sights on the G17!) and tonight a ravioli making class. Technically I know how, but I had questions. The sweet corn filling we made was amazing. Definitely going to have to do that one at home.

Had trouble getting to the class because the road was closed. I came out on the wrong side of a roadblock so I assumed it was another crash in the S curves behind us and as usual the put the road block by the neighbourhood and ignore us country folk. Turns out it was some sort of bomb and they called in the EOD from the local base.

Feeding the cat in the goat barn is a bad idea as it turns out. Lots of random critters stop by for a snack in the middle of the night. The fox I get, but WTF is that other thing? Possum? Gigantic rat? Kinda looks like a pig but I don't think that's it.

Today was supposed to be a rest day, so after we scraped all the bubbling "deck over" paint off the deck and repainted it, I took a nap. Then made a batch of root beer.

Had to update this, turns out the woman took a few before pictures while I wasn't looking. I'm even in one of them, wonder of wonders.

The chickens got their first treat, and after ignoring it for a few hours they suddenly all decided they love watermelon rind.

On our way back to the house after our walk tonight the woman spotted a bunch of baby ducks on the pond. I snuck around to the other side to get some pictures but they were still not very close to shore. Still, lotta baby ducks around now.

I also found this picture of the burn pile from yesterday on the woman's phone with the deck pictures. I wish she would turn the damn phone sideways to take pictures, but this is better than what I had before (ie nothing).

The big news, for which I don't have a picture for is that I passed my Level 1 review on Saturday. Just under 3 hours and nearly puking but I passed, which means that I can now do the actual test. Yea, I've got to do it all again next Saturday only it's supposed to be worse. More people, longer, more energy, all outside in the heat. They suggested we start drinking water 3 days before the test to make sure we're super hydrated and don't exercise much a few days before. Stretching and a light walk and that's it.

I finally broke open the trout jerky we got in Gatlinburg, and I gotta say it's not too bad. Somewhat fishy, but more like a really heavily smoked dry fish than an oily smoked salmon. If it wasn't expensive I would get it again.

Working on my "get home" bag to go in the back of the car, and I picked up some emergency water and food supplies. The water is normal, just in foil packs that won't leach into the water when stored a long time. The food is somewhat scary. It's not lifeboat rations (which many prepper sites say to not use unless you're actually on a lifeboat because they're designed to 'stop you up'), but some sort of bricks with "a pleasant lemon taste". It's got a 5 year shelf life and rated to be stored up to 174F...so it may be "pleasant" but it's not normal. Both the water and the food bricks were made in the last two month according to the date code so I've got a solid 5 years before I have to rotate them.

Friday night we went over to the neighbours for another fire pit social event. The neighbours behind us are pretty normal, although they ineffectually yell at their kids constantly. The rest of the neighbours from the houses on their street are the very definition of "basic". So freakin' boring, they think they're all elites with their fancy houses and cars and name dropping where they send their kids and where they go to eat, etc, etc. I just try not to laugh, someone needs to take these people to NYC or SF or some real city with real "elites". Even I've been to more countries than these people, and have eaten at better restaurants, etc. Kristen just gets bent because they never ask her about what she does, they just assume she's some sort of stay at home mom like all the other chicks.

With some help (tools) from the neighbour I finally fixed the wonky front wheel on the mower. Once I got it all apart I found that a snap ring had come off the bearing assembly and it was letting ti move about 1/8" or more out from the front diff (it's a 4x4 mower). From the look of it, it had never actually been snapped into place. I did get it back to where it seems like it shipped with the snap ring on the bearing assembly but not actually locked into the groove. I used a thinner o-ring which let the snap ring lock into place and now it's just as solid as the other wheel assembly. It's the second time I've needed to borrow snap ring pliers in the last two months, I might have to invest in a set.

Did a small burn today, mostly stuff that wouldn't fit through the chipper last time or has fallen in that last windy spell. Once I had everything going and stopped to take a rest the woman came out and promptly found 2 snakes hanging around where I was working. One was pretty small, but the other she was worried about. She debated with herself for a while, trying to figure out if it would be a threat the chickens, and finally decided it had to go. I had the snake gun with me so it was pretty easy to dispatch with a single shot. Of course the neighbours heard and came to investigate figuring I had just shot a snake. Both he and Kristen said I should not skin it and try to get the meat out of it since we couldn't tell what kind of snake it was. Shame.

After the burn pile, I busted out the chainsaw and cut the logs the neighbour brought over earlier into rounds. I'll let it dry a bit and then split it when I'm feeling particularly manly. Splitting rounds is never fun.

Part of my get home bag is going to be the G19 and a holster, so I got another of the crossbreed holsters at FG&G and again did some cutting to make it fit like I wanted. The two main changes I wanted from my previous attempt (which is actually an awesomely comfortable IWB holster in spite of how ugly it looks) were to leave a little flap to protect the slide from my sweat and to protect my hip from the searing hot muzzle during competition shoots (because I shoot using my carry gear). I wore it today for the first time and it's not bad for after only 1 round of additional fitting. I keep forgetting to take a 'before' pic but here's a stock photo showing how the holster comes from the factory so you can get an idea of how much I chop away.

Dinner at the parents tonight, I suggested sausages.

I spent Sunday washing/waxing the truck, running errands and working on my "get home bag" that goes in the car. The woman watched the chickens figure out how to go in/out of the coop and into the run:

My parents came by for dinner and dad and I pulled the hard top off the Jeep so he could replace the leaking window seal. For a chunk of fiberglass that top is damn heavy.

Last night we went to north Raleigh and picked up the chickens! The chicken chick was late, very annoying but par for the course when it comes to chicken people it seems, but we eventually got them and made our way home. They've spent today adapting to their new home and mostly doing chicken things while the woman watches them. I went to the range to get away from chicken watching duty.

In between visitors today (all coming to check out the chickens) I managed to put the unused access port in the barn and move the last wireless cam from the back window into the coop itself. The woman was totally against it, until she found that she could watch the chickens from the kitchen while she did stuff. Now suddenly the coop cam is a good idea. It's pretty low res but it doesn't really matter because the coop enclosure isn't that big. You can see the upgraded temporary waterer between the pic of last night and the one of today. We made a tractor supply run for deer corn, a poop rake and that temporary waterer. Once they figure out how to use the others we can get rid of the standing water.

Right now she's out there making use of the new found wifi to make facetime calls to her parents so they can see the chickens too.

Chicken pickup day, so the woman is putting the final touches on things:

The guy who runs our boot camp classes at work has taken a full time gig elsewhere. Today was the last class so they took photos and had doughnuts. The pic they sent out was one I wasn't smiling in but whatever. What's important to note is although I'm not one of the cool/popular kids in the class, they still all arranged themselves around where I was sitting and I didn't have to move or even stand. The power of being first?

Back from DC, and the trip was actually better than I thought it would be. DC may be a festering crime hole, but you don't notice it walking around within a few miles of the capitol. They do a good job on keeping the riff raff, graffiti, trash, bums, etc away from the tourists. SF could take a few lessons... oh no wait, SF likes it's trash, feces and filth. Silly me. :)

Most of the places we went you couldn't take pictures: White House, National Archives, Printing and Engraving, etc. The archives were cool (Constitution is in good shape, Declaration is almost faded away), the printing and engraving was really interesting and the Air and Space museum was worthwhile. Even the zoo was pretty good, and free.

Lots more pictures linked off the main page as usual.

I also took Monday off, mostly unofficially, to catch up on laundry, get the Prius inspected for license renewal, bake some muffins, clean up my radio room, finally mark all of my Glock mags, etc. I tried to ignore work as much as possible.

I also went with dad to FG&G to keep him from making too big of a mistake with his first NC gun buy. He thinks he's going to carry (got his permit on Saturday) and wanted to pocket carry a .380. He looked at pretty much everything, and settled on a Sig 238. It's bigger than my LCP and unsuitable for pocket carry and I convinced him of that pretty quickly by having the sales guy give him a pocket holster to try. Dad couldn't even get the pistol in his pocket much less as trying to get it out without a bunch of fiddling and that's just standing around the store and not in any sort of stressful situation. I convinced him to get a quality IWB holster and he can carry at the 4pm position with little difficulty. I doubt he has the, what's the word, fortitude? , to actually carry much at all. I know he doesn't have the training to use it nor will he practice enough to actually be able to deploy it if needed so the fact that it's a .380 with fiddly safeties won't matter.

I've wanted to try to write a book (or just a short story) for years now. I used to write in college and was semi-successful at it but haven't tried fiction writing in a long long time. Since college, actually. Anyway, I always have little plot elements and story clips and whatever rattling around in my head but I can only hold 2 or so of them with any clarity. Rather than just think about it, I've decided to start writing things down. I'm going to outline the story, fill in scenes in the outline as I think of them, add characters, details, whatever as they pop into my head and not worry about completeness. After doing this for a few months I'll either have something, or just a text file full of junk but at least I'll have a measure of my creativity rather than just wondering if I could still do something.

First evening of the year sitting outside on the patio with the citronella torch going enjoying the sunset. It's only 71F at 8pm but still it looks like summer is coming. It was warm enough to motivate me to wash and wax the car, so that's something.

I was going to wash the truck, but since the battery was dead I ended up hauling it down to the auto parts store for a test and what I assumed was a replacement. They said it needed a charge but was otherwise good. Huh. I popped it on charger and put it back and it works fine, but I don't trust it. It was fine on.... well some time last week it gave me no grief driving around town.

To try to ensure it doesn't die just sitting there, I rigged up a little holder for the solar trickle charger and got that going. We'll see how it does sitting for two weeks while we're out of town. I want to try to figure out a better mount, I have those metal shotgun brackets I made that I'm not using anymore, there has got to be a way to recycle those into something to hold that panel in place and looking better than a few bits of leftover wood screwed together.

Yesterday I went to FG&G twice. The first time I picked up some subsonic .22 and a different IWB holster. I really liked the holster, but it didn't sit low enough even adjusted all the way down so it printed pretty bad. That's a bummer because it's so much thinner than my crossbreed I cut down. The second time down I took the holster back... and ended up picking up a G19. I kept telling myself it was dumb, that I didn't' need or have a use for the mid sized gun but I gotta say it's looking pretty good. I handles more like the G17 because my whole hand fits on the grip, yet it mostly conceals like the G26. Best of both worlds? I would rather have the shorter slide of the G26 but otherwise it's not bad for the little time I've been carrying it.

I did go to the range today to break it in, works just like any other Glock with no drama nor issues. Well some drama, mostly me whining while I fed it bunch of the über expensive critical defence ammo to make sure it liked it (which it did). Dad came along and brought the high power which I don't think has been shot in 15 years or more. Still works like it did in 1995. Also, breaking out a suppressed weapon at the range draws a crowd. After my first mag out of the S&W with the can on it I turned around and had 6 people watching. Lots of interest in a gun that doesn't make noise. :)

Lawns mowed, including the areas along the road in and most of the tall grass in the forest area. Minor coop projects, mostly just making some hooks and adding wire so the feeders don't fall over. I was pretty proud of making the hooks myself out of scrap cut from the 2x4 wire fencing, but I don't think the woman was impressed. I also used some gaffers tape to fix the holes in my gloves. The middle finger on both gloves wore through so I made a patch and it seems to be working. Now the tips of both middle fingers have given out, but that doesn't really matter as much as the finger pad being exposed.

We found a recipe for crock pot orange chicken in a magazine at the doctor's office and the woman made it today. I gave it a C+, it was cooked well but the flavor was sorta off. Too spicy in a bad way and it totally overpowered the microgreens and cilantro. It's supposed to be "light" which is why it's over rice noodles and not rice. Would have been better with rice, but it did leave room for dessert. :)

Should also mention that yesterday we went to the barn party (one of the horses was turning 23 and it was the Kentucky Derby so people were there to watch that) and we went to a German place for dinner with my parents. Normally I'm not a fan of German food other than pretzels, but everything we ordered was pretty good. If very German, so heavy and makes you want to just sit around after and go to sleep.