There are days where it seems the intentions of the Almighty are playing against you. Everything has gone about as good as it can get these past couple of months. I found my problem “down there” at an early enough time that there may likely be no complications going forward. It certainly ate up a bunch of time in August, but if you were picking a time for it to happen, the heat of August was about as good as you could get. It was generally too hot to be spending time in the farm anyway. The one thing this all affected for the worse was mowing the grass.

Mind you with the weather the way it was, the Hay Dude was able to come in a good month early and get the hay out while I was recuperating. It has been a bumper year. Some years, he does not get in until mid-October. Normally, my neighbor up the road will see the grass growing and mow a bit if he sees it is getting high, but he’s in the process of selling out. All these factors came together to keep me off the Cub Cadet for about a month longer than I normally would, and when I finally did get on the mower last weekend, the Cub Cadet decided to blow a pulley. I had held off long enough on Sunday to let the grass dry that there was really nothing left to do but limp back to the shed and plot how to get it repaired. As soon as the sparks flew I knew it would be 2-3 weeks more before I’d be back out with the mower.

I called up my mower repair guy, the one that O.T. suggested just before he shuffled off this Mortal Coil. I got an answer from a woman who said she was his caregiver. My guy over in Chatham has had a major stroke, and has given up on mower repair. Dang! He was such a nice guy, and I always looked forward to seeing him. That left only one repair opportunity, Andersen Equipment in Falmouth, where I bought the mower. They are nice too, but going to see old Merv had been a real treat. I last saw him less than a month before the stroke felled him.

The Cub Cadet on the trailer from earlier this year

The problem was going to be timing. I get off from the day job normally at Noon on Fridays. The place in Falmouth is a good half-hour away from the farm. That meant I needed everything to go right if I was going to get down there and get the mower schlepped across to the next county by 5PM closing. Andersen is open on Saturday, but I knew it was going to be raining in the morning and running the trailer and the mower. . . I’d just as soon get it done when it was sunny. Everything was going fine. I got home, ate my lunch, and started pulling out a few deer rifles to sight-in. It was after 1PM when the phone rang.

It was work calling. The network on the top floor had gone toes-up. I told them I would come back to work to fix it. I was nearly ready to roll anyway. Work is 18 minutes away, and going that way is almost a wash for getting on the expressway. I made it there and showed up about 10 minutes after someone had found the breaker that had been turned off and turned it back on. All the computers got back online– just as I made it through the door. I touched base with the plant manager and left.

The trip down to the farm was optimal. I did not have much time left, so I kept everything packed up and headed straight to the trailer, got it hitched and pulled up to the mower shed, and had the mower loaded in just a few minutes. I started to pull forward into the road and realized the mower had a strange cant to it. It turned out one of the trailer tires was dead flat. I got it jacked up and then filled the air compressor up and schlepped it out to the road. I filled the tire and then dumped everything in the back of the truck and rode off. I was now in a hurry.

I take the McKinneysburg Road when I’m going to Andersen’s. Normally, this one-lane road is empty, and you can go for miles without finding a vehicle. However, this was Friday afternoon, and I not only encountered a school bus on a tight curve, but also about a dozen trucks– folks heading home for the weekend. I finally got to Andersen’s with 18 minutes to spare.

I called O.B. to see if he wanted me to bring over a pizza. O.B. has been down with the COVID, but he made it over for a visit the previous weekend– first time he’d been out in two weeks. O.B. said he was out with his brother trying to find parts for their ATVs. That was okay. I’m just glad he’s back in the saddle. I stopped in town to pick up a pizza for myself and got back just in time to get my beaker filled with some scotch and retire to the Thoughtful Spot.

Reward: The Deer Stage a Floorshow

Two nice bucks came out with a much younger acolyte and started feeding about 150 yards from the house. I kind of honked them off when I came out back to eat the pizza. Before they left, they started play-fighting. It was fun to watch. After they took an interest in me, they wandered about another 200 yards out to the pasture where Supercore’s blind sits. There was a bigger guy out there. He let one of the younger bucks dick with him– even acted like he was giving way for a bit, and then got bored and chased him, almost rolling him on his butt, doing so. Meanwhile, I had the two doe that I’d come to expect in the yard come out. They have gotten used to me, and started feeding about 75 yards from the back of the house. I finished my pizza, wished them a good night and came in. It was getting to hard to see all the way out to the pasture where the bucks were playing grab-ass. Overall, it was the best floorshow I had seen in a year, and it is a good month early for this kind of behavior.

The only downside to all this was I had left the camera back in Cincinnati in the rush to get out the door.  You’ll just have to take my word for all this.

Finally! Getting Back to Business

TC Compass 7mm-08 in new Boyd's Walnut Stock

Savage 99 in 308 WIN

One thing that often gets lost on the uninitiated is that when you get a piece of hunting property, most of your money and effort go into things wholly unrelated to hunting. Such is my lot.

Saturday morning, it did indeed rain, but nothing heavy. In between fits and spurts, I finally got out to hang some targets, and took some preliminary shots with the TC Compass and Savage 99. This was also the first action the new shooting bench has seen. The Compass is sporting a new Boyd’s stock, and this was the first time I’d had it out with the new livery. The Savage 99 is always a bit cranky when I get it out of storage. I need to run at least a half-dozen rounds through it every year, before it settles down and prints a decent group. I was nearly down to the end of the ammo for both, so that is what I did on Sunday: load 50 rounds for each.

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