Boring Work, Varmint Rifles, and Recycling BBs

What a weekend–finished tile demolition project, bought some soy milk, and took care of several administrative tasks.

There was some fun in there too. We went up on the mountain to a birthday party which, as all good birthday parties do, involved a few pops, pulled pork, a discussion on the merits of golf carts as local transportation, and the firing of several rounds from a “varmint rifle”.

It became clear to me that I’m an even worse shot now than I was when I shot often. At one time I was a pretty decent shot. Never great, but decent. Of course, I’m turning this into justification for an air rifle purchase in this month’s budget. I figure the cost of that along with the price of a few thousand BBs is much cheaper than the amount of ammunition it would take for me to ever be able to hit the broad side of a barn again.

By the way…did anyone else run their own BB recycling program as a kid? If I remember, a piece of plywood behind your aluminum can targets did a pretty good job of knocking them down, after they’d been slowed by the can of course. I don’t think we were smart enough to put some sort of catch tray at the bottom of the plywood. We probably spent more time picking up BBs off the ground and shaking them out of cans than we did shooting. Once we moved on to shooting bumblebees under the pear tree it became too treacherous to try and collect “reloads”.

Sorry for the autobiographical pause…just thinking that marksmanship skills are something that should be maintained throughout one’s lifetime. You never know when you will have to take down a squirrel or rabbit for dinner.