Blogorado II

Dad and I rolled up on Thursday evening, and joined the Farm Fam for a very pleasant round table discussion. I was suffering heavily from sleep deprivation and a bad (BAD) bout of hay fever, and fell asleep on the couch during discussions; I'm afraid I didn't contribute much.

Friday evening, however, the Roundtable Discussions On The Lawn were epic. Get a group of story-tellers together, lubricate with easy-drinking, hard-kicking Nerd Beer, and stand back!

Old NFO would have a great tale for us, and Ambulance Driver would try to top it. And Peter would give his take on a topic. The Atomic Nerds would speak up. LawDog and Phlegmmy and Gay Cynic and AE Pilot would all throw out great accounts, and all the while Oleg Volk was circling, circling, his lens lingering on one person and then another. FarmDad always had a good one to toss in, in that easy-going way that may be country, but sure ain't slow-witted.

Later came Sal and TD and the lovely Vine, and new friend Joe, all of whom fit in splendidly to the Round Table chats. We tended to group around the beer, and the discussions would sometimes form into breakout groups, with members moving easily back and forth as it pleased them, eating good food, drinking good drink, and enjoying each others' company. I know-- we all showed up to talk about guns and shoot them, and such. And we did. We shot at targets near and far, and sometimes even shot far targets with guns associated with nearer targets.

Here's JPG, for example, popping 3 gallon water jugs at ranges of 100 to 175 yards, with a 4" Colt Trooper:

(Click to embiggen. Target is the white dot at the left of the screen.)

And I rambled about some miles open country, plinking with Joe and Ambulance Driver, with the sun setting behind the only promontory for dozens of miles:
(Click to embiggen this picture, which by the way I took with my frickin' camera phone.)


We set up targets of opportunity:


And we shot at a half-sized silhouette steel target that Old NFO turned into an Easter-egg hunt, out against a rolling hillside with scattered brush.

But it was the exchange that I enjoyed the most. This is why our breakfasts always convened at 8:00AM and didn't break up until 11:00AM, and why the evening chats always went into the wee hours of the morning.

What a pleasant group of people to exchange ideas with. We missed some of you who didn't come, and invoked your names fondly and often.

I cannot express enough my appreciation for the generosity of time and resources that the Farm Family presented all of us.