Bob

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.

Sunday Dinner

Verna has been watching the Food Channel lately. She saw one of the chefs prepare a German-style meal. This gave her the idea to come up with our Sunday menu consisting of breaded pork loin cutlets with potato pancakes and Brussels sprouts. In German, it would be called “Jägerschnitzel mit Kartoffelpfannkuchen und Rosenkohl.” All I know is that it was great! The pancakes were topped with a dollop of sour cream. Missing from the picture is a heaping spoonful of apple sauce. Click on the image to enlarge.

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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.

Merry Christmas

May you all have a joyous Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

This animated Christmas card is based on a famous painting “The Virgin with Angels” by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, oil on canvas, completed around 1900. The original painting is in a museum in Paris, France. The complete image can be seen here.

I can’t take credit for the animation since this appeared as an example of animating methods in a tutorial on the SWiSH website. SWiSH is the program I use for some of the flash seen on our websites. I modified the script in the scrolling text for our custom Christmas greeting.

Range Day

range-day.jpgVerna and I have made an early New Year’s resolution; we will be going to the range on Fridays (weather permitting). We were there two Fridays ago but missed last week doing pre-Christmas chores. We went today and had a great time.

Image – A Great Day at the Range – click to enlarge

We brought our 9mm and .357 guns today. Verna brought her S&W 908S 9mm pistol while I brought both “Little Boy” and “Jerry Lee,” my Glock 26 pistol and S&W 686 revolver, respectively. In the image above, she is shooting “Little Boy” and I am getting ready to shoot her 608. We each shot about 50 rounds of 9mm and we both shot about 50 rounds of .38 special ammo. We stayed about an hour at the range before heading back to our nice little house.