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Post by JD on Oct 10, 2011 16:02:22 GMT -5
Have a great Day!
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Post by JD on Oct 8, 2011 21:34:58 GMT -5
I was in Wal-Mart last night and they had the LRF600 in black for $115. I already have a rangefinder, but thought I would pass on the info.
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Post by JD on Oct 8, 2011 12:30:02 GMT -5
All we have left to get for her is rubber boots. We bought everything else last night, and bought bigger sizes so she can wear them for 2-3 years. She is now outfitted from head to foot in Realtree AP. Spent more than I wanted to, but once Momma was doing the shopping my input was not wanted or needed. lol
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Post by JD on Oct 7, 2011 10:19:14 GMT -5
On Point, thank you much for the offer. I'll have to check out the area sometime.
Predator- Going to check that out this weekend. I found some camo cargo pants for $15 and a long sleeve shirt for $7, both on Amazon. Probably get those ordered, and then try to find a jacket at Wally World. And I will definitely get her a pair of rubber boots there as well. The pair she had now are too small, and she only wore them for 10 minutes. LOL
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Post by JD on Oct 6, 2011 21:16:42 GMT -5
Thats only about 100 miles from me. I really appreciate the offer, but that is my daughters birthday. Otherwise I would be very interested. I've never been there before. Might have to check it out some time.
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Post by JD on Oct 6, 2011 18:54:25 GMT -5
Thanks guys! Got a lot to do in a little time. I still need to see about getting my bow in the shop for a new string/cable. Season opened on Oct 1, nothing like putting things off till the last minute! lol
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Post by JD on Oct 6, 2011 18:52:51 GMT -5
I hope you get better soon, and fully recover!
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Post by JD on Oct 6, 2011 18:52:24 GMT -5
Happy Birthday, I hope it was a great day!
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Post by JD on Oct 6, 2011 18:51:50 GMT -5
Happy belated birthday, and I hope you get better soon! Be VERY thankful you got out of it OK, and didn't have to have bypass surgery.
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Post by JD on Oct 4, 2011 15:04:00 GMT -5
Well, it is official, I have a new hunting partner. I got Momma's approval and this year our daughter (8) will be going out with me archery deer hunting! She is so excited, and so am I.
Realistically, I do not expect much. Archery hunting, from a ground blind, on public land. Yeah, that is not the recipe for success. However, I am really looking forward to teaching our daughter all things that are deer hunting. She is really into wildlife, and animals in general, and she will be amazed at watching them in their natural setting doing their thing.
I have a question though. Anyone know of a good place online to buy inexpensive kids camo? Looking for jeans, and long sleeve shirts, or sweatshirts preferably. I am not willing to sink much money in them as she will grow out of them pretty quick. Not to mention that she will be in a blind, just thought she might like to match Daddy.
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Post by JD on Oct 2, 2011 19:37:37 GMT -5
Happy Birthday dag, I hope you had a great day!
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Post by JD on Sept 25, 2011 15:18:17 GMT -5
trmichels- You have a PM, please check and reply.
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Post by JD on Sept 16, 2011 12:19:44 GMT -5
This piece is coming out of order. I forgot to write this up, so thought I would now. This part takes place a couple months after I got Dan.
The end of “summer” was fastly approaching. As in I would be entering my first year of college in a few short weeks. My parents were out of town, and Dan and I were “Batching” it. We had worked on some basic commands that day in the back yard, but nothing to strenuous. I had decided earlier in the day to grill up some ribs, and had invited Mike over to have supper with us as his parents were also out of town.
Mike came over around three in the afternoon, and we reloaded some shotgun shells for the upcoming weeks’ trap league while the ribs were on the grill. While we shot every single week, we hardly ever loaded up more than we needed for that week. We were both on two leagues, so that meant we each shot 200 rounds per week. Loading a total of 400 rounds per week on a single stage Mec loader took quite a bit of time. We finished, cleaned up and had dinner around five. Dan thought he was in seventh heaven, I had grilled up some beef ribs just for him.
When we were done eating, and cleaning up, we started thinking about what to do for the evening. For the night was still young. We went back into the gun room and put away the last of the reloading supplies, and took a quick inventory to ensure we were properly stocked for the remainder of the trap leagues. While we had plenty of primers, wads, and shot it was apparent that we would be needing to pick up another 8 pound can. Mike commented that he was surprised we were running low. That is, until I pointed out that we had just loaded over 1,000 rounds of 45 ACP the week before and has used the 700X for that. With that, we started looking at ammo in general to see what we had. Lo and behold, we found several ammo cans stashed in the corner we had forgotten about. It was almost like Christmas! Two 50-cal ammo cans were plum full of 22lr. We also found two cans of 30-06 we had loaded up several months back. We also found the 500 rounds of 30-30 Mike had reloaded for his old Model 94.
Well, it was no longer a mystery. We KNEW what we were doing this Saturday night, heading to the range! While it would be dark, our club had a lighted rifle range. While it was difficult to shoot out to 200 yards, the lights were very adequate to 100 yards. Besides, tonight would not be about accurate bench shooting, but plinking and having fun. Mike ran home to get his rifles and I started to pick out mine and get them cased up. Dan curled up on a blanket in the corner and took a nap.
I pulled out several long guns, and placed them on a rack near my workbench. Once I had decided what was going, I would then put them in cases. I decided to take the Mini-14 in 223, a Bushmaster AR-15 223 that was an old school A2, a Ruger #1 30-06, a Browning BAR in 30-06, a Marlin mod 60 in 22lr, and my beloved Remington mod 12-C in 22lr. Normally I would have taken more, but I didn’t want to be up all night cleaning them. By the time I got them picked out, cased, and hauled to the front door with the ammo, Mike was back. He had grabbed his Model 94 30-30, a Remington 700 in 375 H&H Mag, and his Remington mod 12-c in 22lr. We always found it odd that we were both given the same old model 22lr when we were kids.
We quickly got everything loaded into his truck. The last thing to grab was Dan’s crate. I put it in the back of the truck, and with little prompting Dan jumped into the back of the truck and into his crate. If Mike was driving, Dan had to be in his crate in the back. His truck was a regular cab that had the two captains chairs. No room for a big dog. So we were off, headed north on a beautiful evening.
By the time we were done shooting, it was pushing 10:00 pm. It was almost 11:00 by the time we were done picking up brass, and getting the guns put away. It had been a great evening, with one exception. My Remington Model 12-C had had some sort of malfunction. It would no longer feed from the magazine, and would only shoot as a single shot. Then, even that became difficult as the action had gotten tighter and tighter. I had just figured it was thoroughly dirty and needed to be stripped down and cleaned. Not a job to try at the range, it needed to be tackled at home on the workbench. So, I had put it away in the truck earlier in the evening.
The last thing we had to do was turn off the lights, and drive out through the club. Last stop was to unlock/open and then close/lock the front gate. The shooting range sits a couple hundred yards from a very small “town”. I would use that term very loosely, as it was basically a small group of a dozen or so homes. We drove through the town, crossed the railroad tracks, and just started to pick up speed. Mike slammed on the brakes, and swerved, barely missing a dog that ran in front of us. We didn’t get a real good look, but it appeared to have been already hit once, or in some other way injured. We both saw it limping badly, and it looked like it had blood on its hair.
We stopped completely, and wanted to get a better look at it. If it was injured, we wanted to see if we could find the owner and or get it some help. I reached into the center console and pulled out the spotlight that was kept in there. I plugged in the 1,000,000 candle power beast and proceeded to light up the field around us. There was absolutely no sign of the dog, anywhere. We even asked each other to make sure there was a dog in the first place. We could see back to town, a quarter mile the other direction, and probably that far out into the hay fields. Nothing, absolutely nothing. I even went down into the ditch to make sure there wasn’t a culvert under the road. The dog was just gone.
I got the spotlight put away, and we get ready to head on home when headlights lit up the front windshield. The flashing red and blue lights lit up the windshield. A state trooper had been sitting up at the corner and had seen the spotlight. She asked us what the problem was, and we explained what had happened. She asked if we had any weapons in the vehicle, and we affirmed that we had. She asked us to get out of the truck, and to stand in between it and her cruiser. She also took our drivers licenses, and went back to her cruiser. We stood there for quite a while chit chatting and starting to get really cold as the temperature was dropping unseasonably low. All the while, the state trooper is in her car. Finally, we saw another set of headlights coming down the road, and the car pulled in behind the cruiser, and its lights started flashing. We both were kind of curious what was going on. This officer got out of his cruiser, and walked up and leaned into the state troopers window where they talked for several minutes. Finally, he walked up to us.
This officer was immediately identifiable as Illinois Conservation. He asked where in the vehicle the weapons were, and we told him behind the seats. He then proceeded to retrieve each of the guns, uncase it, and then examine it. While he was doing this, he was very cordial and asked where we had been shooting. We answered his questions, and explained to him what we were doing here in the first place. As he got near the end, he pulled out my Model 12-C. It then hit me like a pile of bricks, it was uncased. He wanted to know why this rifle was not cased, and I explained that it had malfunctioned early in the evening, and I had just put it in the truck and forgot to case it later. Then he racks the pump back, and out jumps a spent shell casing. I then had to explain how the gun had quit feeding from the magazine, and I had to single load and fire it, and had forgotten to kick the empty out. He got all of the serial numbers off of the guns, and went back to his cruiser to run them to see if they were stolen. All the while, we were standing in the road, freezing our butts off. After 15 minutes or so, the officer got out of his car and came back to us. First thing he says, “I’m going to place you boys under arrest”.
Mike and I blurt out, in stereo, “FOR WHAT”? He informs us that he believes that there was no dog, and that we were spotlighting and shooting raccoons off of the power poles. The state trooper saw the spotlight, and we had an uncased rifle in the truck with a spent round in the chamber. Mike absolutely shut down. He didn’t move, didn’t say a word, and if I couldn’t see him breathing would have thought him to be a statue. Myself on the other hand, I freaking lost it. I broke out into a 3 minute tirade, calling this officer everything but a white boy, where he could go, and most certainly what he could do when he got there. There may have also been some comments about his family lineage, and things he may or may not have done with his mother. The entire time I am berating this man, he is just standing there absorbing it all. When I am done, he simply asks if that is all. After a couple more expletives, he tells us not to move one inch, and goes back to his cruiser. We stand and wait, for what seemed like an eternity but was probably closer to another 30 minutes. Finally the car door opens, and the officer walks back up to us. He gave us each a ticket for an uncased firearm, and a written warning for road hunting. When he said that, I almost started back in but a very quick thinking friend simply told me to “SHUT UP!”. Within a few minutes we were packed back up, and heading home. Narrowly avoiding spending the weekend in jail as no one could have bailed us out until morning. Dan slept through most of the ordeal, we could hear his snoring almost 25 feet away.
College soon began, and it was my first day. My first class was Intro To Criminal Justice. I was an overflow class, meaning that the main class was full and the extra students were in this class. All nine of us. At 8:45, the instructor walked into the room, and I glared. It was the SAME Conservation Officer. He didn’t seem to recognize me, and things progressed smoothly. A month or so later, we were going over misdemeanors and felonies in class. The instructor was writing on the chalk board, with his back to the class. The he says, “by the way Mr. JD, that was a Class B misdemeanor punishable by up to 2 years in jail and a $100,000 fine.” I didn’t say anything, and he continued, “it was a cold night, wasn’t it?” I replied, “it sure was”. The class is looking back and forth at me and him, but saying nothing. So then I asked him a question, one that had been bugging me ever since that night. “Why didn’t you arrest me?” He quickly replied, “because of the way you acted when I told you I was going to arrest you”. I was a little confused, “huh”? I said, “I said some pretty horrible things to you”. The instructor then told me “the way you acted was exactly how an innocent person would act when wrongly accused”. I said, “OK then why did you still ticket us if you thought we were innocent?”. I still remember exactly what he said, “I thought you were probably innocent, but there was still a chance you were just a prick”. We both had a good laugh, and the other students never did find out the details. We actually became pretty good friends, and he finally did believe I was 100% innocent, and a prick as well.
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Post by JD on Sept 16, 2011 12:18:41 GMT -5
Happy belated birthday!
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Post by JD on Sept 16, 2011 12:18:24 GMT -5
Happy Birthday, hope you have a great day!
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Post by JD on Aug 12, 2011 12:34:17 GMT -5
Part 13
Mrs. Doubtfire
That summer was very busy for Dan and I. When I wasn’t working at my “day job”, I was either working at the farm, fishing, or brushing up on bird training. Dan was with me at all times, except for when I was at my day job. As soon as I got off of work, I would go home, get Dan, and then go where ever to do what ever. Very few times did Dan have to stay at home, and when he did he would pout for hours on end.
One of my summer side jobs this year was to help Mike and his dad take down their old barn. It was quite the process since it had hay in it for many years up in the loft, and had corral stalls for cattle down below. The day before we were to knock it down, we had a slight mishap. A farm cat had ventured into the barn and found a hidden place to have het kittens. We were not aware that the cat and her kittens we in there. Well, we ended up knocking over some corral panels, and killed the mother cat. We then found the kittens tucked away, all of two weeks old. Mike’s dad was a very nice person, but he was an old school farmer. His comment kind of shocked me, when he said “just take a hammer and git rid of ‘em”. Sorry, but there is NO way I can kill a kitten with a hammer! Damn, that’s harsh!
I loaded the kittens up in a box, and we stopped by where I worked and I picked up some milk replacer, and eye dropper, and a few other incidentals. Then I took the kittens home, determined to do my best. Dan had not been with me today, and I had no idea how this meeting was going to go. We had two house cats, and Dan tolerated them. He didn’t like them, but he left them alone. However, whenever we would encounter a feral cat while we were hunting, he would do his best to catch it. This would be interesting.
Once situated inside, I mixed up the milk replacer and we started to feed the kittens. You could tell that they had not eaten for a while. My mom even came in and helped us feed them. There were four in total, and looked like little balls of fur. Once they had their fill, we decided it was time for the introduction. I opened the back door, and hollered for Dan. At the sound of my voice he came charging up the deck and into the house tail wagging ecstatically.
I took one of the tiny kittens in my hand and started to bend down while telling Dan “easy”. He slowly crept up and took in a big smell. The kitten instinctively spat, and Dan jumped back. Oh great, here we go! However, Dan did not get aggressive. He slowly came back again. Again the kitten spat, but instead of jumping back Dan just outright licked the cat. That sealed the deal, they were fine with each other.
Within a day, the situation had fastly evolved. Dan was now, 100%, the MOTHER to those kittens. He would lay down, and they would come in and snuggle into him and go to sleep. After they would eat, he would give each of them a bath from the tip of their heads to the end of their tails. He would pick them up by the nape if their necks, and carry them to different places in the house where he could keep them corralled. By all intents and purposes, they were mother and children. Quickly, Dan had earned the nickname of Mrs. Doubtfire.
Nine weeks later the kittens were taken to their new homes. Two went back to the farm where they had come from. The other two went to Thelma and Norm’s place to live a wonderful life in their clubhouse. Dan was upset, but quickly got over them being gone. And that was a good thing as hunting season was right around the corner!
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Post by JD on Aug 12, 2011 12:33:51 GMT -5
Been a while, but I started back on this.
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Post by JD on Jul 18, 2011 7:05:15 GMT -5
Congrats!
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Post by JD on Jul 13, 2011 7:17:43 GMT -5
Happy belated birthday Oldzimm.
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Post by JD on Jun 17, 2011 21:25:29 GMT -5
I'm sorry to hear that man, I really am. Be strong, and be supportive of your children. And, as always, we are here to help in any way we can.
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