Daily Deercam

  The cat-cut doe.  Healing nicely.

  She hasn't dropped her fawn yet.  She and the younger doe are both hitting the corn pile, but never at the same time.

  Just hit the Tyler Museum of Art site-saw the younger doe leave the cam area for the second consecutive time.  The older doe is on the cam as well, healing nicely.  Doubling the corn.  Hope to see the fawns this week.  Lots of waist-high ferns along the creek in this area.  Perfect places to stash a youngster.

The connected life

  Obama, Bush or Clinton on a post.

  This joke started with an image I made that was used by Borealis Press of Surry, Maine selling notecards nationwide.  It's been told about Clinton, Bush, and now Obama.

  I assure you, there is no Texas tradition of balancing turtles on fenceposts, now or ever.

Obama Beach and the Mayor of St-Lo

  Obama had been to Indonesia....as a muslim student, and maybe Hawaii, depending on who you believe, but never to Europe or Britain.  I know he is a constitutional law professor...but do you think his education MIGHT be just a little light in US and world military history?

  Probably the first US president who has never seen The Longest Day, much less Saving Private Ryan.  Or fired any type of military firearm.  He's a babe in many matters.

  So, after wowing the Muslims with his coolness in Cairo and undercutting the Israelis, he gets to go on a walking tour of Buchenwald with Elie Wiesel and then on to Normandy.  President no-clue gets to tour the graveyard and battlesite.  Can you imagine touring a German death camp with a survivor?  I bet at some level, it freaked out his uneducated coolness.  

  Here's to learning about the world.

Update:  Obama is back in DC, Michelle and the girls are staying to shop an extra day.  Today is the anniversary of the assault.  By this time of day, the troops were moving off the beaches and going inland, but not very far.  It would take Operation Goodwood to break out of the hedgerows.  And they had to take Carentan, and pay proper homage to the Mayor of St Lo.  Then beat the Germans back and trap them before they got through the Faliase Gap.  Waverly Wray did his part. 

  Think Obama knows even ONE of these names?  Or cares to?

Congrats! It's a fawn!

  The younger doe.  See those ribs and that dent in front of her hindquarter?  Compare with earlier shots several posts down.

  Baby has arrived.  On the 3rd or 4th. Wednesday or Thursday.

 Smoke 'em if you got em, you're all godparents of a healthy whitetail fawn born on TMA property and stashed somewhere close!  Mom looks fine.  Going to double the corn.  She was at the cam site when I drove up.  First time to ever see her with my own eyes.  She left, but not in a panic.  The baby has to be somewhere on the hillside across the creek .  Older cat-cut doe not on cam.  She must have her own thicket.  Across the road perhaps.  

  Let's get a drink!

Update: This is in a busy part of Tyler, Texas, a city of 100K.

Update II:  I claim these deer as Christians, NOT Muslims.  Just saying.  Methodists, probably.

Update III: Looking at past cam files, I think the fawn was born between 2-3:30 on Thursday the 4th within 100 yards of the cam.

Shoot 'em up Saturday followed by Stupidity Sunday.

  Three bucks for a Sunday Dallas Morning News.  Wonder how much longer until this paper is gone forever?  Fun to breeze through, but I wish I was paying with Obamabucks instead of real money.  Wonder if I can get a stimulus grant to read this thing?

  Having a cup of coffee and minding my own business at Cafe Tzza with the redhead....when I hit Parade Magazine.  Stoopid.

  SO hard for a liberal mind to understand the world.  Gosh!   Why can't we just outlaw those horrible guns and end this terrible violence!  Can't everyone see it would be best for the children?

  SO hard.  The dangerous point is that they crank this idiocy out without a flinch or thought.

  Saturday at Panola: a better day.  193 offhand at 200 yards.  That's a 94 and a 99.  Nothing out of the black.  Since it was Panola, three guys shot better scores.  30+ shooters.  Four or five High Masters and Distinguished pins all around.  At 600 the rifle shot really well.  No stuck cases since I used brass sized by RVO.  192X7 at 600.  Had a late 7 and one 8.  Ruined a good score and finished with a 779X23 out of 800.

  Had two shooters along, one an 18 year old military policeman shooting the first highpower match he had ever heard of.  Lotta new folks shooting at Panola.  Be very afraid if you are Parade.  If you are the Dallas Morning News you can kiss your ass goodbye.

Update:  As a recycling fool with a deer-track sized carbon footprint, I dropped the paper by mom's.  Just put the two kids 176 .223 cases in the tumbler.

The body of Christ.

  The final backstraps out of the last package of Boxelder deer.  It was a doe shot in October with my 1942 1903A3, new front sight blade a C stock and a 1969 FMJ from Lake City.  She was standing at the treeline, a little suspicious when I broke the second stage of the trigger out the front window of Alan's new blind.

  Turned out, she wasn't suspicious enough.  Viva el Lake City, verdad.

  Noonday onions and some garlic sauteed alongside.  I made the final martini from a remnant of a bottle from Mary Burton, who resides in redheaded heaven.

  We're drunk, of course.  One two-oz martini.  (never make it to the Emerald City now...)  What a couple of lightweights.  Trying to remember not to operate heavy equipment.

  Just went to the lab to pull some brass out of the shaker and load tomorrows equipment for the shoot at Panola.  MidwayU!S!A!, the gunnies Santa Claus equivalent had brought me a package today with many wonders: fresh media for the tumbler.  Oh, the shining!  Oh the polish!  Attracted to shiny objects.  Could be drinking Old Crow. 

  Watching Sopranos second season with a live redhead not in heaven, though we would settle for what we have, before the Obamatine darkness descends.

  

Exhibition blog open.

  Blog of exhibition work open.  I need a place to send folks to look at work.  I like the blog format and hope it works.

Lake Cam

  Can't decide if she is still carrying or not.  

  The twins.

  More twins working around the coons.

  Rough looking horns in velvet.

  Mom with lazer eyes.

  They weren't flying but they were hanging around, still with mom.  On the other cam I had a doe poking around.  

  I gotta replace this ground up corn.  It's useless except to birds.

  Beautiful light in the bottom, even if it was illuminating Poison Ivy.  Every leaf that is going to be grown is on a twig right now, still fresh and green.  Thick down there.  I clouded up with the Deep Woods OFF! for the first time before going green this afternoon.

Cat-cut doe.

  Here's the young doe.  Range conditions are really good.  She's in perfect shape.  I bet she is a 2-4 year old.

  Here's the older doe.

  Look at those claw-marks healing.

  The does aren't coming in together anymore.  That means they have each selected their thicket to fawn in.  Both are still in the immediate area, so I am trying to keep my presence at a minimum so they don't move/leave/relocate.  I'd like to see these fawns.  

  Usually you can ID deer from notches/bites in their ears.  These does are pretty clean except for the claw marks.

  Both still pregnant, but due date has gotta be close.

  Notice the now-healing cuts on the side of this doe.  It was really close.  Those are circular claw-cut marks.  She ran out of the embrace of a cougar.  Hope it didn't hurt the fawn.

  The younger doe was at the cam at 2:02 this afternoon.  I was at the cam at 2:25.  Her tracks were still smoking.

WWII M1 Garand Training Film.

 I shoot a lot of competitive rifle....and this is a really, really good film!  Get over to Borepatches and watch it!

  Wonderful to see those rifles shot.  Wonder where you could get one of those great hats?  I see them in the old training manuals, but never seen one in the flesh.

  These old training films really bring out the point that these are combat techniques before they were competitive techniques.

Lake cam

  Flying twin.

  Coons in the dark.

  The left twin has a little extra hook on his right side.

  The Twins are back, growing their first set of horns.  Looks like they will at least make four points.   Their mom was along as well.  The twins don't know what's coming in four months.  She'll run them off, they will be wandering around watching the ruckus of the rut.  I bet they stay together.  That's usually when young dumb bucks like these get killed by unskilled hunters who shoot anything with a horn on it's head.  This year antler restrictions kick in and they won't be big enough to be legal, though they could be shot anyway.

  Going to be fun to watch, if they live.  Very glad to see them.  They ought to have trophy genetics.

Daily Deercam

  One set of tracks coming over the sandbar.

  Crow-fest.

  One doe.  The other must have a fawn on the ground.  I think this is the older doe.