It’s raining graupel this morning. It’s above freezing; the little ice balls are hitting the roof and making such a racket that it woke me up. This is not the sort of day for thinking about turkey hunting, but there it is. The switch inside my head has but two settings. One setting is for deer. The other is where it is now.

I have already been to the basement once this morning to check on supplies of ammunition. I have enough 3-inch #4’s to last for a few more seasons. My calls are still all packed up. However, I’ll probably bring up the box and start working them later today.

Looking out towards Gobbler’s Knob

Normally, it is  one of those deeply cold bright January days that knocks the switch. This year I think I know what did it. I was playing around with a graphics program the other day and took a photo of the view from the Thoughtful Spot, looking out towards Gobbler’s Knob and used it to test the oil painting effect. The result must have stuck in my head.

As I was putting away the turkey gear last May, I noticed that my turkey bag was starting to see signs of its age. If memory serves, I started carrying it about 15 seasons ago. I picked it up from a couple from Wisconsin that had a booth at the Cincinnati Outdoor Show. That was a big thing for Mooseboy and I, going to that show every year. He shot a BB gun for the first time at that show. We always visited that couple’s booth. They had good luggage cheap.

While I was at Hibberd Armory with Big Bob the other day, I spied my turkey bag’s replacement. It is a Rothco Advanced Tactical Bag. You can call it whatever you like, but I recognized it immediately as a turkey purse. Its only drawback is that it is not camo, but I really do not see that as a drawback. There is a camo version you can get on Amazon, but I was taken with the green. I am keeping it by my desk, helping me visualize the coming season. What I like about this one is that it has more room without adding much extra weight.

Both the old and the new bag are what’s called a messenger bag.  I prefer this over a vest for a bunch of reasons.  First off, a shoulder bag comes off with one buckle. I find this much easier when I am in a jam.  Second, I found I weighed myself down with too much kit when I wore a vest. This holds me to the essentials.    This bag has a lot of advantages over the old one.  For instance, that beverage holder looks more like a box call holster to me.  It also closes up for rain a lot better than the old one.

The other thing that followed me home from Hibberd’s was a Ruger SR9. My reasons for buying were rather odd. In fact, the whole trip was a bit unusual. I don’t usually wake up in the morning with the intent of buying a new pistol, but the impulse was unmistakable. Bob laughed when I told him about the impending trip. He has had urges like that too in the past. Sometimes you really do need to wake up one morning and buy yourself a gun. In retrospect, it was something that had been rolling around in my head since summer.

It started when I decided that I wanted to make some reloads for my Walther P1-P38. I’ve had the pistol now for over a decade, and I have seldom ever shot it. Instead, it rode with me in the back of the truck back and forth to the farm with the intent that it could take care of something in the middle of the night. The P1 is a great pistol within its limitations. It was built to fire moderate full metal jacketed loads, and it does so with the precision of a sewing machine. It was built for the West German Police to fire their particular German Police cartridges and nothing else. Once I found a load that duplicated their cartridges, that was fine. However, for a fellow that likes to reload, that was a rather limiting challenge. I was determined over the summer to find a way to get the P1 working with cheap cast lead. That turned out to be not so easy. I was looking for a cheap plinker. Instead, what I got was a black hole of a project. The cast lead had the odd habit of submarining, head-first, into the magazine. I tried several fixes, but finally realized I was spending a lot of money on a project that was meant to save money overall. I finally put the P1 away and vowed to wait until I had the scratch for a 9mm pistol that had a more omnivorous appetite. The SR9 has that reputation.

My first loads for it are mixed brass with my cast lead Lee 358-125-FN’s sized to .358 and lubed with 45-45-10. I also loaded 124 grain Hornady XTP’s and Berry Hollow Base Round Noses.

I was hesitant about a striker-fired, manual safety pistol for self-defense and CCW purposes, but the whole world seems to be going that way these days.

That’s what I’ve been up to for the past month.

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