Mark A

A DeWalt 20 volt grease gun. The tractor is now slippery...

I can't make it past 1/2 way on the first episode of Godless. I keep reading about how everyone likes it but neither my wife or I do, at least yet. I suppose we will try again soon. I've heard good things about The Throne but haven't looked at it yet. Being semi-old farts we enjoy binge watching series we enjoyed from the past... It is about time to order HBO for 30 days to watch the last season of Game of Thrones.

Well, I run a shotgun decently but there is no way I could reload a tube as fast as I can change a mag. I like pump action shotguns and I like firearms with detachable magazines so unless they suck I will probably end up with one. Now I can build a shorter SBS and not restrict my load out. I think something with a 13-14" barrel might be kind of handy around the house. If they end up building one in semi-auto I will build one for my wife. Mark

Congrats on the new pup. I'm sure he will train you up in no time

I'm waiting for Bobby Petrino to come slithering out of whatever ditch he is currently in... Maybe Gus Malzahn is ready to get out of the SEC West.

Dolomite, have you used the PT&G stuff before? I really want a bolt action rifle in 300blk that takes standard AR mags. I'd become resigned to buying a Ruger Precision Rifle in 223 and having a barrel built for it. I would have been stuck with crazy expensive AI mags if I did that. This looks like a much better option. I need to get Mike to get me a barrel and weld a suppressor mount on it so it will be 16.1" overall. I await further details on your project. It looks cool...

You might be a prepper if you already cleaned out the crawl space to store (20) 5 gallon buckets of water...

357 sig is my self defense round of choice. In a semi auto the recoil is very manageable. To me, the recoil impulse of the 40 is much worse. I'm also not a big fan of running super hot ammo through a weapon not designed for it. It's been a while since I read up on it but I seem to remember +p+ is not a recognized standard. The bottleneck cartridge also aids in feeding the beast without issues. I once ran a high round count 3 day class with one. I used range ammo but my hands took a beating a bit so it was harder on me than the 9mm I usually train with. I just wanted to see the limit of what I could endure and compare my split times with times from previous classes I shot with a 9. I was about 1/10 slower on average. In that class we had an opportunity to test various rounds on a car. The sig penetrated much better than the 9, 40, 45, and interestingly enough a 223 fired from a SBR. Depending on your point of view that can be a good or bad thing... Mark

I didn't make it to the end of the series and it takes a lot for me to not finish a series...

Sounds like you have a lot to be thankful there. I find that in general good people attract other good people and it sounds like you have the bersaguy dynasty well in hand. Mark

243 is one of my favorite calibers. That is a nice looking rifle. Apparently a keeper of a SIL as well... Mark

Yep, small businessman, busting his hump to raise his family which includes a disabled child. His wife stays home and they home school their kids and they are doing a great job. I'm happy to give him extra money.

City, county, state, & federal law all get their chance to legislate small businesses right out of business. Toss in building codes and fire codes and handicapped access and you have a legal nightmare that has to be navigated. Build concrete bollards and the thuggies will steal a concrete truck. The guns may need to be put away at night. Cost of doing bidness and all that. How about we all go steer them some business his week to help them recover and put all these measures in place. I wanted to wait a bit but it is time for a rimfire can. I guess I need to start the process...

Monkey, ours will do that but we aren't up there everyday. Our egg laying birds have a coop that has several large runs fenced in. They go out into the runs every day and back in the coop at night. The meat birds are in the tractors to keep them safe, allow them to browse fresh grass every other day or so and fertilize the pasture. They do an amazing job of prepping the dirt. It takes a couple of weeks for them to move 30-40 feet. When they've gone that far I till up the dirt and plant various cover crops that I use to build soil health. The land was used for hay production for years and so depleted of nutrients that the only way to get hay to grow the last 5-6 years was with heavy applications of chemical fertilizer. So the meat birds and the turkeys chug their way across the land a little every day spreading happy poop. I wish I'd done this last year. I threw a lot of money away trying to broadcast seed cover crops. I had very poor germination and for any decent cover crop it cost about $100 per acre. Now that the birds are introducing fertility I can till a little at a time and do a much more controlled seeding. I've gone from about 5% success to near 100% and I get really great tasting poultry. The ladies in the coop are doing their part as well. I alternate which runs they are allowed in and grow crops in the closed off runs. I need to get some time to post some pics. I stuck about 15 bales of hay in one of their runs and they had a blast being chickens and scratching at it. Now, roughly 3 months later that hay has degraded into a nice thin layer of topsoil with lots of fertility. it will get tilled soon and a crop seeded to overwinter. It's been a lot of work but I've learned a lot. I can't wait to get up there full time. Mark

correct. Not from lack of desire but lack of money and time. Learning a lot though. We've got 50 meat chickens going now in chicken tractors. It really cuts down on the food bill when I keep them on fresh grass. Started running the electric fencing for the first pig paddock Saturday. My reward for being a good boy was to fly to California today for a week of training. We learned a lot from the aquaponics system this summer. We somehow managed to keep most of the fish alive. After the fencing is up we are going to rebuild the hoop house to be a little stronger and start running veggies in the system again. Mark

Watch out... here comes mr conservative himself... Bill Haslam... he will make Attila the hun look like a pansy until he is sworn in. Then the only fight he will ever fight in the Senate is to try to sit next to John McCain...

Well, it was graduation weekend for the broad breasted turkeys we raised this year. Started with 12, put 10 in the freezer. The other 2 suffered an unfortunate accident and were crushed... Average dressed weight of the males was a bit over 30# and the females was 27#. Put a little over 280# in the freezer. After our initial chicken graduation day I realized that I had waaay better things to do then to pluck birds by hand. Was going to build a plucker but ended up short on time and ordered a XXL plucker. Really glad we did that. It got around 98% of the feathers and the carcasses were much cleaner than the chickens we did by hand. It was also much faster. The only real snag was packaging them. I'd hoped to vacuum pack them but the 15" bags (max width of my vacuum sealer) were too small. Fortunately I'd ordered some xl and xxl shrink bags. The xl worked and once we got the system down they were the bomb... People say that turkeys are dumb and I'm not going to disagree but they were a hoot in general to raise. Very funny and when we let them out of their run they grazed well and came right back home. So, we will be doing them again. We also ordered some heritage birds. They are much smaller but also very cool. Getting ready to have to cut their flight feathers as they are getting a bit adventurous. We lucked out with 2 girls and 1 boy so I'm hoping they will figure out how to make me some free turkeys. I will probably do this again next year. Between them and the broiler chickens we have growing we will be fine on poultry for a while. I left one unfrozen. It will be boned out and then ground. We like to cook big batches of taco turkey and put it in the freezer for easy taco nights. Next up in our education are several types of pigs. I just need to get my fencing finished... Mark

Yep, the last 4 broad breasted turkeys graduate to the freezer on Sat morning. Then I have to finish 2 chicken tractors for the next group of meat birds. Following that I have a couple hundred seedlings to get into the ground. Wrapping it all up with a birthday party for my nephew who turns 9. I may swipe him and take him to the farm for a little plinking.

I like this game. Sorry, I just couldn't resist

get thyself 6 more and number them 1-12. Cycle them through your car the month corresponding to the number. 1= January, 2 = Feb etc. You will never have gas more than one year old and don't need to use any kind of stabilizer. Yes, I store it and my 60 gallons of diesel in an out building. It comes in real handy when the wife gets home on fumes... Mark

Wow... 17 years. That's amazing. I hope Kasey keeps you around for a while longer... I don't know if it helps but we give our mutts yogurt every day. Hopefully it helps with the probiotic thing. They like it, it is cheap, and it doesn't seem to hurt. I think it is a TGO rule that you are supposed to post a picture in all dog threads.

Nashville Armory did the same thing. My wife picked out a M&P she wanted and ran the background check. When it was time to pay she looked at me and I told her I wanted her to do it. I just wanted the entire transaction to be her so she knows how it works (in case she wants to surprise me or something). Anyway, before I could explain that, the employee gave my wife a lecture on straw purchases... I just let it go and was happy that she did the entire deal. So, not just typical retail employees... For what it's worth I don't have a big problem with it. If I were a dealer I might institute the same policy to keep an employee from making an honest mistake.

Ok you... Into the corner for 30 minutes...

3 of my coworkers spent a significant amount of time outside watching the entire eclipse. One has already called in saying she feels really poorly. Haven't heard from the other 2 but they are an hour late so far. I'm thinking that we are on the leading edge of the eclipse zombie transformation. Logically you would think that we would hear from places like Oregon first but it is possible that they've all turned and there is no one to report in... It may be time to head to the boooonker