Archive for Retirement

Cholla Against the Blue Arizona Sky

We were fortunate to purchase a piece of the Sonoran Desert when we bought our lot in Wickenburg, AZ. I took this photo of one of several cholla growing on the property. I like the way it looks against the blue Arizona sky. Click on the image to enlarge.

cholla.jpg

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Target Practice

gunz.jpgVerna 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.

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Rosemary Progress

mar2011.jpgLast 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.

jan2012.jpgToday, 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.

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Our Desert Mountains

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I snapped this photo of the Weaver Mountains that are about 25 miles north of town. We were on our way to do our weekly grocery shopping. The cloud shadows give the mountains a very photogenic appearance. Click on the image to enlarge.

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Rejuvenating the Compost Heap

compost.jpgCompost red wiggler worms slow down their consumption of organic scraps in the wintertime, but we humans keep producing the scraps. So, to reinforce the worm workload, we ordered a thousand more red wigglers from Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm.

Image - the compost bin after introducing the new worms. Click on the image to enlarge.

The worms arrived in the mail today, so to get things started, I gave them a “drink.” The worms are packed in dry peat and come in a bag (see insert in photo). The next step was to dig down below the organic scraps in the compost bin to the layer of worm castings below. I added some moist garden soil and put the ball of worms on top of the soil. The instructions that come with the worms say to cover them with a wet newspaper. The worms will absorb the moisture and begin to crawl into the soil and thence start consuming scraps within 48 hours.

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Report - Weekly Target Practice

We went to the range today for our weekly target practice. We took three handguns with us: “Jerry Lee,” my .357 magnum revolver, “Little Boy,” my Glock 26 9mm pistol and Verna’s unnamed S&W 908S 9mm pistol. We shot 50 rounds of .38 special and 100 rounds of Luger 9mm parabellum ammo for a total of 150 rounds shot downrange.

Video - Verna shooting “Jerry Lee.”

Now that we’re getting back to shooting on a regular basis, we can see ourselves improving after the long period of not shooting while we were building and getting moved in to our new house. The Better Half put a nice group of rounds on the small target at the top of the stand and I got three or four rounds out of 10 within two inches of the center of the big target. The other rounds were all in the black. We were shooting at a distance of about seven yards.

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The Quailing Wall

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When we returned from running errands today, we were greeted by a covey of quail on and around the courtyard wall. We have seen them do this before, but this is the first time my camera caught them in the act. When we first arrived, there were five or six on the wall but as I approached with the camera, they started to retreat toward the wash. Click on the image to enlarge.

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