The goldies are still around

The goldfinches have been hanging out at the feeder filled with black oil sunflower seeds.

WEDNESDAY HUMOUR

A kindergarten teacher handed out a coloring page to her class. On it was a picture of a duck holding an umbrella. The teacher told her class to color the duck in yellow and the umbrella green however, Bobby, the class rebel, coloured the duck in a bright fire truck red. After seeing this, the teacher asked him: "Bobby, how many times have you seen a red duck?" Young Bobby replied with "The same number of times I've seen a duck holding an umbrella."

GBR Part three.....Cowboy fastdraw day

On Sunday morning we once again car pooled, this time out to the Sage Hill Clays for some fun at cowboy fast draw.

The match was held at the home of the Reno Rustlers and fast draw champ Mr Cal Erlich AKA Fast Cal came to coach us in this fun sport.

Here are some of the cowboy/cowgirl names folks of the Reno Rustlers go by. I go by Keewee Belle.

I think I am safe in saying everyone had a great time shooting the firearms of around the 1800's era, and drawing from leather holsters. We of course were not dressed in 1800's attire except for one of us, but at regular matches the shooters do dress in period costume.

The targets are two feet across and you would think there was no way you could miss one. Wrong!! they are easy to miss when you are drawing and firing from the hip, as fast as you can. I have very small hands and had difficulty cocking and drawing the revolver smoothly, all the while aiming and trying to hit the target, but did manage to halfway figure it out after a while.
Yes indeed this is fun and Keewee Belle is looking forward to doing a whole lot more of cowboy fast draw. I did finish 9th out of 16 shooters, not bad for a girl eh?
Go on over to Traction Control to read a more in depth account of the day.

Gun Blogger Rendezvous, part two

Friday morning dawned clear and sunny and when I opened the curtains in our hotel room, we were greeted by this fabulous sight. It was the weekend for the Reno balloon races.

We watched the balloons for a while as they lazily floated against the clear blue sky, then took the very fast, make your ears ring, elevator down from our 32nd floor to the lobby, and from there to the hospitality room to meet up with the rest of our group.

Some of our friends chatting before partaking of the NRA sponsored breakfast. Sadly Rachael Parsons, from the NRA, who was to join us, had to cancel due to illness.

Mr C , Kevin from Smallest Minority, and Lori from Ruger

Closeup of the front of Kevin's shirt. Pretty cool don't you think?

Mr C and Lori

I thought the breakfast well presented and filling, and kept me going until we returned from the range.

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After breakfast we carpooled out to the Washoe County Shooting facility, where we all had a great deal of fun shooting the various firearms the group had brought with them.
Back in the hospitality room later that afternoon, Dan Hall, founder of GUNUP told us about this new website being launched very soon. It is a site which is a little hard to describe, essentially, it brings all aspects of the shooting world together under one roof.
The evening festivities started with dinner at Gecko's BBQ restaurant, I could not eat all my first portion of 'all you can eat ribs' let alone think of more, then we retired back to the hospitality room for more conversation.

Gun Blogger Rendezvous 2010, part 1

We arrived in Reno Wednesday afternoon, and checked into our hotel. When we opened the curtains in our room on the 32nd floor, we could see the rain falling on the hills in the distance, while downtown Reno basked in the warm sun.

Thursday morning, after a hearty breakfast at one of the local restaurants, a group of us drove to Cabela's. If you have never been to a Cabela's and you like all kinds of sporting and/or camping equipment, enjoy shooting, or other sports, then I am positive you would be interested in cruising this fabulous outfitter.

Located out front of the store is this huge sculpture of bighorn sheep.

Handsome guy.

I am mostly a shooter and know not a whole lot about guns, other than the pistol I shoot, but I do enjoy browsing the gun library in Cabela's. There are many very interesting firearms to study and ask questions about. Gary was there to show us some of the weapons, and answer any questions we had. I asked about a revolver which had a price tag of $29,000. I wanted to know what was there about the revolver which made it so expensive.

Cabelas has a wonderful display of mounted animals from all around the world, an aquarium, shooting gallery, a restaurant, a shop which sells all kinds of delicious goodies including fudge, and much more to tempt you.
As usual we all enjoyed our visit to Cabelas and many of the group left carrying bags of goodies, either ammo, other gunny related merchandise, or in Mr C's case, fudge, which I will have to help him eat *grin*

GBR TIME AGAIN

Some of you may know Mr C and I go to Reno every year for the Gun Blogger Rendezvous. where we will be raising money for Project Valour-IT
We will be on a plane at 1:20 today heading for Reno and the Silver Legacy where the event is held.
Blogging will be light until we return home.
HERE is our very busy fun schedule.

Some past Rendezvous posts
HERE
HERE
HERE
HERE
See you when we get back.

2010 YAKIMA FALL CLASSIC STEEL CHALLENGE

For the second time in two months we drove East across Snoqualmie Pass to Ellensburg, and from there South to Yakima, and then East a bit more to Moxee, WA. and the Sun Valley Gun Club's range. This time they held a full 8 stage Steel Challenge match.

Even though we were out in what is semi-desert, the range has some lovely irrigated green lawns along with the dry brown dusty bays of the range. We parked where we had some shade for part of the day.

Looking out across dry parched land and irrigated crops. It really is quite beautiful in it's own way.


Mr C waiting for the range officer's command, " are you ready? stand by" then a buzzer goes off and firing commences.

Mr C showing off the tee shirt, advertising the maker of the barrel on the gun he is using.

JD loading his magazines for the next stage.

Our friend Matt shooting while his lovely wife Shara (lady with pony tail) loads more magazines for him.
We had a great day shooting the match with our friends, and both Mr C and I came home with awards. I was tickled to be presented with a certificate awarded for 1st place lady and also winning a gift certificate for $35 to be used at Guns West in Yakima, and Mr C won 1 st Place Overall Rimfire and 1 st Place Rimfire optic also receiving certificates we can frame and place on our trophy wall.
Mr C and I were not the only ones in our squad to do well, everyone in our squad went home with an award, how cool is that?

HOW OFTEN DO YOU HAVE ONE OF THESE FLOAT OVER YOUR HOUSE?

Before I tell you about this, I report, thank God, my family in New Zealand are all OK. They all live on the North Island, and the earthquake was centered on the South Island It was a miracle no one was killed.



The Farmers Airship is a Zeppelin named Eureka. One of only two flying commercially in the world, she is the only Zeppelin in the Americas and is owned and operated by Airship Ventures.
The zeppelin came very quietly floating above our house a couple of days ago and I must say it is a wonderful sight to see. It was very quiet with the barest hum from the engines being heard by Mr C and I as we stood and watched it go by.
This particular airship, not a blimp, was flying as a fundraiser for The March of Dimes. I would have loved to go for a ride.

On another note, I have been very busy so blogging has been light. Yesterday, Mr C and I shot in a Steel Challenge match and we both came home with awards. There will be a story coming up when all settles down around here. We are off to help a NRA membership drive today (at least Mr C is going to help).