Verna and I went to the range today for our weekly target practice session.

The firearms shown in the image at the right (click to enlarge), are the ones we practiced with today. Top to bottom, Verna’s unnamed S&W 908S 9mm pistol, “Fat Man,” my Glock 30 .45ACP pistol and “Jerry Lee,” my S&W 686 .357 magnum revolver. The guns are shown on the cleaning station that we break out after each practice session.

We shot a total of 50 rounds of 9mm, 50 rounds of .45 ACP and 50 rounds of .357 magnum. All shots stayed on target (as far as we could tell) with many of them close to or on the bullseye. We don’t keep score, so both of us generally use just one target per session.

There are many beautiful homes in our town with a wide variety of landscaping and gardening features. This one, near old downtown Wickenburg, has probably been there since the 1920’s or before. The saguaro seems to be very happy. Click on the image to enlarge.

The first of four flowers on this amaryllis stalk opened last night and this morning. The nice red color has white highlights down the center of each petal. Click on the image to enlarge.

Last March, we had the landscaping crew plant one-gallon rosemary bushes on the embankment behind the house along the RV drive. They set up the irrigation tubes and started the watering cycle. The photo at the right shows a section of the embankment with the newly-planted rosemary bushes.

Today, Verna took this picture of the embankment. It has been roughly ten months since the rosemary were planted and the progress is obvious. Eventually, we’re hoping that the rosemary will cover the entire embankment to help stabilize the erosion and to make a pleasant backdrop along the RV drive.

Click either image to enlarge.

Verna and I were disappointed last year when John Walsh and “America’s Most Wanted” were discontinued as a regular feature on the FOX TV network. However, a few weeks ago, we discovered that the show is back on the air every week on the Lifetime TV Network.

Lifetime is on channel 252 on the DirecTV lineup. AMW airs on Fridays at 9PM Eastern. The show is as good as it ever was, still bringing in perps and pervs at a good clip. The AMW website is still active with lots of information about the current list of our most wanted criminals still at large.

We missed our trip to the range last week. We both just decided not to go - maybe it had something to do with it being Friday the 13th? Naaaah.

Anyhow, we made it out there today and fired Verna’s S&W 686 .357 revolver, my S&W 908 9mm pistol and my Glock 26 9mm sub-compact pistol. We fired 100 rounds of 9mm and 50 rounds of .38 special.

We set up a single silhouette target and paced off 7 yards to establish our firing line. By the time all rounds had been fired, most were within the center 30 percent of the target with a few outliers around the edges. I’m pretty sure all rounds actually hit the target somewhere. Keep in mind that we let ourselves get rusty while we were building and furnishing our new home. We’ll get better, I’m sure.

In the image above, Verna is practicing shooting from her weak side. She likes the little S&W pistols just because they don’t kick a lot and she can practice single-handed shooting with them. Click on the image to enlarge.

I posted about Casandro Wash a while back. Verna took the photo above (click to enlarge) of the little sign that identifies Casandro Wash next to the road where you would turn to go to our house.

I pulled up a more recent aerial map of the area and modified it to show the wash and it’s features. In the image below, the red rectangle shows the boundaries of our lot. The red circle shows the location of the sign in the photo above and the yellow line shows the path of the water runoff as it flows down the wash. All lines and symbols are approximate. Click on the image below to enlarge.