Summer photos

Sometimes you can give more then 100%

If you are sober enough to open Matlab or Mathmatica and type that in, you are sober enough to do just about anything.

Image found from XKCD

Tomatoes

Two weeks ago it was going to start freezing here in MN. So my Mother and I went out and picked all of the green tomatoes to bring them in before they froze. The cherry tomatoes we threw in a box and covered the whole lot with newspaper. The larger ones we wrapped individually. After a week we started checking them and a few had turned. You have to be careful because once they have a little bit of color they really finish changing quickly. This bounty is after the full two weeks. The larger tomatoes were boiled, peeled and frozen. Them makes *great* spaghetti sauce in the winter. As we would not be able to eat all of the cherry tomatoes, many were packed into zip lock bags and set to work with my Dad.

Night Visitors

So last night I was playing video games (was kicking peoples hind ends from around the world). At some point I went to do some read. About this time I figured out that it was 2:30 in the morning. Whoops. Then I heard someone stomping around on the deck. I knew who this was. Walked over and flipped on the light. Nope I was wrong. It was mother raccoon with her 5 babies. I opened the door a bit and was yelling at them to leave. They just looked at me. When I stuck a food out and started stomping on the deck mother decided to leave and sit at the base of the tree and hiss. The babies scattered a bit. Three climbed the railing and went a little ways up the tree. The other two huddled in the corner of the deck. At this point I shut the door and found my camera. As I was getting setup one of the babies decided that it liked the corner of the deck better. So it walked over that way. Mother was still hissing up a storm, and as she was pretty big so I decided to not go too far out on the deck.

Hutchenson CMP Range

See the little red box for the target area. It sure looked a long ways away.

KABOOM!!!

This is bad, m-kay? Two different cases. The first was a bit hotter load then the second This was produced in trying to make a XD 5" .40S&W run with a 9mm conversion barrel made by bar-sto. The barrel does not appear to be functional as the ramp is cut too deep into the chamber leaving the casing unsupported. This was make when trying to get the pistol to cycle with a compensator. The second case was a normal power round, the red circle indicates a bulge. It is difficult to show on camera but is obvious to inspection by a finger. The first case had a bit more behind it.

Crappy review

To each the knife, tent, and dehydrator each kicks some serious hind end.

Extended basepads are safety equipment

During a steel shoot I had to do a reload. Ended up catching a part of my palm between a magazine basepad and the frame. This would not have happened if I had an extended basepad on the mag, and my hand would have been held an inch or so away from the frame.

This was the first time I used the medical kit I have kept in the trunk for the last two or three years. It was nice to have.

Bike Ride

A big day - Food Dehydrator

My food dehydrator showed up last night, so this morning I ran out and picked up a bunch of food to dry. We have some apples (pink lady smith, granny smith), sweet baby carrots, pineapple and mandarin oranges, and one tray of apple sauce hoping that it comes out something like a fruit roll-up. So far so good, but it sure does take a long time for these things to dry.

A big day - Tent

This is sort of a jumble of images, and I am not sure how the formatting is going to come out but lets give it a shot anyways. My new tent showed up today. It is a Marmot Twilight 2p. Setting it up was easy without reading the manual. BTW the manual is on a tag inside of the packing bag. There were some features that made this very easy to setup. First the posts are all connected as one piece, it is then also labeled "Assemble with this side up". The pole tips and grommets are also color coordinated. Very nice. The fly is solid, and have the benefit of having a small window at the head of the tent so you can see the sky without going out. There is a good deal of storage internally in side and head pockets, as well as a hanging mesh.

I will be giving it a shot in the next few nights to see how it works out.

CRKT M16-14M

A new knife showed up today.

The folder lock automatically engages, which makes it a bit more difficult to shut, but is now something that is actually useful. It is a good deal heavier then the other knife pictured.

I have used it to open a few boxes at this point, so far I like it.

Robins in the Snow

Yesterday was 55F and sunny. Today we got a good deal of snow. For the last several years flocks of Robins have shown up in the spring just as it snows. They eat the berries in the trees. Today they ate in the trees for quite some time, then a hawk showed up and they all flew away. Well except for one that stayed behind, and looked around stupidly.

Some Knots

Bale Sling Hitch or Ring Hitch

Figure 8 Loop

Figure 8 Loop

Granny Knot

Morning Dove

Choices

Coke and pop can stove

I had not seen coke in a bottle in a long time so I picked one up.


In unrelated news I made a pop can stove and tried it out on a 20F winter night. It still worked OK. It would not boil water like it normally would, but probably would with more fuel. Definitely not a cold weather stove.

Lunar Eclipse