Wednesday Wondering

 There is an old saying about "death and taxes" So far I've cheated death, but once again it is time to deal with the IRS. I despise those sonsofbitches.

Some ignorant twat I've never heard of was talking shit at the Grammys last weekend.  Something about illegals and stolen land.  Turns out, her house is on stolen land.

I can take the moral high ground here.  My land isn't stolen.  When this area was first colonized, a guy named Fulton bought a huge chunk of land from the Choctaw. Land north of the river was considered worthless, fit for nothing but pine trees and brambles.  Fulton bought it and started selling homesteads. The Choctaw are still around.  They own a casino north of here. That same tribe has a small reservation near Jena, LA.  When that area went dry, they opened a package liquor store.  That pleased the Baptists to no end.

Busy Monday

 I hit the ground running this morning.  Good stuff.  Got a lot of stuff done, made progress in a number of projects.

I have our annual state shoot in four months, and it's time to get busy on that. The only problem is that we can't start promoting it until we nail down some details and we simply could not nail then down in January.

The weather was beautiful today, the best we've had in weeks.  The weather weenies tell me that we're in for another cold snap. Maybe we are about to turn the corner for spring.  I think I saw the scouts for the local purple martin flock yesterday.  On the other hand, I have heard that our friends in Florida are having "falling iguana" alerts.  So, it's cold in Florida.

Winter ain't over yet.  We still have February to live through.

Renunion

 A bunch of guys I went to high school with showed up at the shop on Saturday to renew old friendships.

Food was consumed, cigars were smoked, and they hit the whiskey.  My bottle of Stranahan's is now defunct.

Friday Prepping

 I have a bunch oof high school buddies coming over tomorrow, some I haven't seen in 20 years.

This morning, I got a call from a CFDA shooter.  He's in town, enroute to a big shoot and wants to see my range.  He and his lady will be over this afternoon. He's retired Army, an old cavalry scout.  When we get together, no telling what is likely to happen.

I'm prepping a big gumbo for tomorrow, and i intend to violate the Ten Commandments of Gumbo. I am going to add shrimp to chicken and sausage.  Bless me Father, for I have sinned.

I will spend this afternoon and tomorrow entertaining. There will be laughter, lies told, and whiskey consumed. I have two very amusing American Single Malt whiskeys for those who choose to consume. There may be cigars, We'll see.

Right now, the chicken is boiling for stock.  Belle has gone to the grocer for last minute stuff.

Y'all have a very pleasant weekend.

Niche Cartridges

I've always had a fondness for niche cartridges. My very first centerfire rifle was a Marlin 336 in .35 Remington.  I preferred the 200 grain Remington load, and I carried that rifle for two decades.  It was my go-to choice for whitetail deer in central Louisiana. That rifle wore a 2.5 scope and was hot medicine for deer in our piney woods and hardwood bottoms. I never had to shoot a deer twice with it.

Ron Spomer talks about another niche cartridge, the 338 Federal.  It's nothing more than a .308 Win necked up to 0.338.  It throws big bullets.  Not far, but hard. It's not in the same category as the .338 Win Mag, nor the .338 Lapua, but it is not meant to be.  It's a cartridge for inside 200 yards.  Truth be told, that is where most North American game are taken.

Before Junior Doughty died, he and I talked about the 338 Federal.  At that time it was a new cartridge.  We thought that a good 200+ grain cast bullet would be the bees knees in this thing.  With hard linotype metal and a gas check, you could push it to 1900fps and get plenty of thump on the other end. In a short action, light bolt gun with a low powered scope, it would take anything we might point it at.

I'm glad to see that Ron highlighted this cartridge.  It is not for everyone, but niche cartridges never are.

Gumbo

 We successfully dodged the bullet of the ice storm.  Awoke this morning to clear skies and cold temps.  Belle said that she wanted some kind of soup or stew for lunch, and I started diffing in the freezer.  I found two partial packs of good Gulf shrimp that we could cook, so I chopped some onions and bell peppers and decided to make a shrimp gumbo.

Seafood gumbo is not my forte.  I am much more comfortable with a chicken/sausage gumbo, but I gave it a shot anyway. Toward the latter part of the process, I knew it needed something, but my palate would not give me the clue.  I had Belle taste it and we decided that a bit of red pepper flakes would help it.

Wehn the rice is done, we will get a bowl.

Monday Morning

We seem to have dodged the arctic bullet that is the Great Ice Storm of 2026. We lost power for all of abot four minutes The pipes are okay, and the roads are relatively clear.

Not so for our neighbors to the north. I understand that Oxford, MS took a major hit, with substantial damage to the electrical grid. Those folks are in a bind.

Drinking coffee with Belle this morning, we were talking about being cold, and the lessons we have learned over the years.  Both Belle and I grew up in the '60s and '70s.  I remarked that back in those days, girls would sometimes wear clothes that exposed a bare midriff. I seem to recall a universal trait, that when I would touch an ice cube to an exposed belly button, the lady would object.  Sometimes violently.

Moving to another survivor of the '60s, we come to the Air Force fleet of aging bombers, the old B-52.  During the '80s I was assigned to a unit in the Army Reserve.  Our headquarters building was just off the north end of the runway at Barksdale AFB in Bossier City, LA.  Barksdale is a major hub for the B-52.  They were aging machines in those days, but it seems that the service life of those airframes may be 100 years.  The earliest of them were delivered in the 1950s and may still be flying in the 2050.  Incredible.