Been busy, time for a post and getting the word out on SC Senate Bill 308

    Well we have been busy, and if you follow my better half you will know that the boys won the the county championship. It was a nail biter being down 5-0 in the bottom of the first inning, but over the next 5 innings, they pecked their way back into the game and the last two innings of the game ended in double plays. Top of the fifth, the batter was hit in the hand and fell to ground crying, but the rules state that his hands are part of the bat, well the ball went fair and NW picked it up as the runner was coming from third and a collision ensued with NW holding onto the ball for the first out. The pitcher came running to the mound to make a play, but NW tossed the ball to him and threw to first for the second out.
    Bottom of the 5th, NW had a double that brought in two runs, so going into the 6th, it was our team on top, 6-5. The team really held their ground getting the first out, then walked 3 players. You talking about parents being on edge, bases are loaded, and our relief pitcher has a 2-2 count, and the batter hits a small pop fly to the first basemen. The first baseman has had a terrible game, he had dropped several balls thrown to him but ends up catching it, and runs back to first to make the double play to end the game. You don't know how we felt to see our kids finally get their baseball championship. It was sweet revenge from last year to see the debacle of an error from the pitcher to the 3rd baseman that caused 3 runs to score and win the game. The kids threw their gloves up and ran to the dugout. After the handshake with the other team, NW came back into the dug out and I grab his gallon of water to cool him down and just started dumping it on him in celebration. I got ND later on the field with the rest. What a great season they had and I am really proud of them.

     Had a good T-Storm last night and got some much needed rain. Since Friday, we have had 2 inches of rain which really has helped the garden. Before all the rain came in on Sunday, I did a post a month or so ago about a huge pile of dirt that was coming my way. well today it showed up. Normally for a dump truck load of clean dirt, your going to pay $400 plus. Well I got 3 dump truck loads for $300. Plans are to use a small amount for planting grass but most will go to the shooting berm. I have already added a large amount of debris from my dads place and from trees that were cut down. Just wanting to build it a few more feet higher. 
 

total of 45 yards of red clay

     South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has finally signed Senate Bill 308 establishing reciprocity with Georgia on recognizing each states concealed weapons permits/licenses. This means nothing to me in the aspect of already holding a Florida resident CWL so I could still carry through Georgia but for the followers or readers, I wanted to put that info out to you. Here is the NRA-ILA link

https://www.nraila.org/articles/20140211/south-carolina-governor-nikki-haley-signs-into-law-concealed-carry-reform-bill 

    In the process of changing jobs, well sort of. I have been referred to a higher position which will cause me to change locations. That's fine because the morning drive will be 25 miles closer and the pay about $6000 more per year. Just playing the waiting game right now.

     Garden is doing alright. I have an issues with some of my corn toward the upper part of the garden, but the area equals to less than 15% of the garden and the rest is doing well. Bush Cucumbers are starting to produce, along with the squash (fried up a mess on Saturday) and zucchini. Tomatoes are spitting them out on the vine, but they are still green. Green and Lima beans are coming along as well. I still need to do some work on my onions. This is the second year that they haven't done anything, but we are not the only ones who have had problems as we have heard some talk from the Farm and Feed store. I may try something outside of the garden in a large planter.

         Well, that's about it for now. Between planting grass, doing stuff around the house, work, spending time with my wife and kids, and everything that pops up in between, not much going on here. Well there is, but..................

Memorial Day, remember those who gave all for your freedom

    Let's not forget what the true meaning of Memorial Day is. It sure as hell is not cooking out, buying cars, or shopping online for deals........

     You are free because the ones you knew or didn't know gave their life for your freedom. Remember That!!!!!!! I will never forget their sacrifice. NEVER!!!!

Senior

That time of the year when so many things take up your time.

   Sorry for the lack of posting, things have really been hectic here. Work has also been quite busy and with spring full in the air, where does the time go. So here is some updates:

    NW had an all important recognition dinner with the school board. NW was 1 of the 108 out of 954 5th graders that were recognized for their superior academic excellence.

   Tonight was 5th grade graduation at the school and NW received numerous awards, which include Science excellence, Accelerated reader (top in the school), "A" Honor roll, Celebration of Excellence with straight "A"'s since the first grade, Advanced School Excellence award, Presidential award for academic excellence (Yes, BO had to put his crummy fingers into the celebration). We are so very proud of our son, we cant wait till next year when ND is up on that stage receiving his academic accolades.

    Baseball season is winding down and both boys are back in the championship game for the second year in a row. Last Tuesday, they beat the # 2 seeded team from the northern division on our home field 9-3 to  advance. Tomorrow night is the night they hopefully get some revenge from last year. The boys 2 year regular season record is 23-1. I am so proud of them in both academics and athletics.

    Last week I became another year older and of course I took the day off. I went and had lunch with a few of my close friends on Fort Jackson. Guess you can say it was a working lunch per say. If any of you have been on post there, you know that we ended the day by walking the gun counter and discussing numerous fire arms. I love how this post and SHAW A.F.B has gun sales at the PX. Later that day, I spent some great quality time with the family. This past Saturday, I had my birthday dinner at Steve's Seafood.

     Garden is going great, picked up a Craftsman rear-tine tiller to get in between the rows. 

   If you have a small garden, I strongly recommend this tiller. I live on property where there are millions and millions of white flint rocks, some small, some large and it has no problem with busting the soil up. I purchased this to assist me with planting grass around the property and in the garden, it does the job. Yes, I have a tractor with a 5 foot PTO driven tiller, but when corn and other items are too tall, I have to find another way to get in there. I sure as hell am not doing manual labor to accomplish the job, the garden is too big for that.

     Till next time,

Senior

"Hillary's America" Trailer, Wonder if he will go to jail again?

Happy Mother's Day

   To all the Mom's out there.......

  

      Senior

Family CASREP'd, some work around the house, Jeep Cherokee, Deer deterant, a quote from "DUKE", and a hero lost in the line of duty

     Sorry for the lack of responses to my last post and a new post until now. Well, as the title says, the family has been CASREP'd with the crud. We all have been sick, JUGM had a sinus infection, got calls within 1 hour of each other for both kids while they were at school, then it hit me last a week ago Sunday which I took the next day off to recover some more. Have been somewhat busy around here with things. First, I finally got around to putting up my flag pole after I had to take it down for them to build the house. It was cheaper to do that instead of have the pole go through the middle of the living room. I waited until I got my Gadsden/Culpepper Flag from Buchanan Flag and Sign down in Jacksonville, FL. If you need a flag and you are local to them, head over there. I think they sell on Amazon.......

    Along with the Flag pole, one of my neighbors and my dad's best friend came over and graded out where my dad's place was. If you notice to the left, I have 240 amp service to the pole. I already had 2 110 GFI protected receptacles attached to the pole. Current plan is to put a Steel building on the site along with (4) 30 amp RV plugs for some friends of mine. Oh, that's right, someone suggests that I will have an issue protecting my property in a SHTF situation. Well lets see, you know where I work so you put two and two together. Remember, birds of a feather, flock together and having a year to do it, I'm quite pleased with my results. See Navy Chiefs produce "Result's, not excuses".

  

The building I have settled on. Note: this is not my actual building

 

 

     See in a military planning environment, there are many assumptions that come up during planning and in most cases all the assumptions are requested in "RFI's", that stands for "Requests for Information" and they are initiated through N2. He obtains his information from NSA, DIA, ONI, and other national assets. So there you go, your free RFI to answer your assumption, straight from the source without a link to Amazon.com. Also, I have 3 cd's of my service record so you can verify my military training if you like. Actually, you should maybe worry about the people you still have surrounding you, of course they will tell you something completely different to your face if you confronted them of our conversations just after I left, but you will find out one day. So moving on to better and brighter things......

   Some of you may know that I have a 1997 Jeep Cherokee Sport and it has been plastered all over the Internet in all kinds of forums of its worthiness as a great vehicle, specifically in the Prepper/survivalist communities. The modern Jeeps of today are a joke, and I have first hand experience as our 2010 Wrangler Unlimited had numerous transmission recalls (7 of them), and then that one day when it failed, a 90% rebuild with crap falling out the transmission at the jeep dealer. I had enough of it. I feel this could have been avoided if Jeep was still American owned instead of a subsidiary of Daimler, and now FIAT. This Cherokee has the inline 4.0 6 cylinder engine and a AW4 transmission. 

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View of dash going down the road, all gauges operating normally

In the parking lot at work.

    

 
      As our crops start coming up in the garden, I always have a thought in the back of my mind about deer walking in there and eating it up. The key to keeping them out is to make a human scent in there to keep them away. What better scent to keep them out but Irish Spring soap, human hair works good too. If you have smelled those bars of soap, it has a strong scent and you can pick it up pretty cheap in the stores. So NW and I get to work.

8 bars, 1 piece of para cord, separated to 6 core and 1 outer shell.

These will be sprinkled in between the bars, nothing wasted

grading stake, roofing tack and soap attached.

      As some of you know, my good friend Duke from our Florida group has his own place over in Georgia upstate and has taken to making posts on Facebook. JUGM still has an account there to keep in touch with family and friends. She started laughing this morning before I headed off to work and I asked her what was up. She was laughing telling me about a post he did, and here it is:

      We shall see if the Republican voters align behind him or will they do they same thing they did to Romney in the last election. I didn't vote for Trump in the state primary, but this is a process. If I had a good guess, they will be voters who have fit's and run home with their football and say I'm not voting for him. Go ahead and cast your vote for Hillary and please stay home when you still don't get your way because all of us do not want to hear you whining. Welcome to modern day America.  

 Hell, I will add some more funny stuff from him:

Some NC House Bill 2 humor

    

Gotta Love Chelsea Clinton. Looks just like her lying mom

     Now on a very serious note. A town south of Charlotte lost a hero over the weekend, Pineville volunteer fire fighter Richard Sheltra (20 yrs old) lost his life in a fire Saturday night that was suspected as being caused by lightning from the storms that came through the area. This is a personal note for JUGM as her father is a retired Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Inspector who retired after 30 years of service and many times during major fires, they waited anxiously to hear from him. When you put your life on the line to protect others, whether military or civilian, every life matters. Please say a prayer for his immediate and extended families as they go through a very tough tragedy.

Richard Sheltra

     Stay safe out there.

Senior

Took some time off for spring break, and some other stuff around the homestead part two

    Picking up where I left off from the last post. Saturday, I had the boys break out their Hennessy Hammocks to let them air out and also to give them some more time to hone their skills in setting them up. I am really proud of them both wanting to learn stuff and I am very confident on where they are at with their knowledge at 9 and 10 years old, hell it's more that some grown men. Once the cool mornings are over, we may all, including JUGM and yes she has one too, camp out in our woods and make our own tent city. I haven't taught them the tricks to 4 season camping in these hammock tents yet.

NW hooking to the tree

NW testing his set-up

NW and ND all set-up and relaxing

    Earlier that day and we had made our way to town and found some of these. I love these peppers and since I have so much room left, why not buy a four pack. They will go good with the other peppers when I pickle Okra.

     Sunday, we slept in and had a day to ourselves before we go our separate ways on Monday. Later that day, we decided to do some burgers and I wanted to make me a Mushroom and Swiss burger. For some reason the thought popped in my head, "you know, why not cook the mushrooms on the rocket stove". It's been over 2 years since I have used it and I have a enormous supply of fuel for it with all the trees on the property.

My $38.70 Rocket Stove that I made, not bought off Amazon.com

Here is the link to my post building it.

http://seniorsmess.blogspot.com/2014/02/seniors-rocket-stove.html 

Sticks loaded up

Pine Cones ready to light and drop in

getting started

nice fast flame coming out before all the smoke died off

     After dinner we sat around the porch and wait for the Space Station to fly over at 2121 this past Sunday. Prior to the viewing, caught a great shot of the moon and Jupiter to the left.

    Well that's enough for tonight. I plan do do a post on my daily driver, my 1997 Jeep Cherokee Sport with 213508 miles on it. It makes a daily trip of 142 miles 5 days a week. More to follow. 

    Senior