The Range is Hot

95-Fahrenheit right now today at 2:00PM (UPDATE: 101.4 today at 4:00PM), and tomorrow when we go out to set-up steel targets it will be a bit warmer down there it the box-canyon with no wind…
Sunday it will be 75-degrees at 6:00AM, and about 85 when the Match starts at 8:00AM — and wearing the Cowboy gear you must wear, it should get interesting. No short-sleeve shirts, no shorts, or nuthin’ – plus you got the hat, so pack some cold water in that ice-chest.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

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Die Panzerbrücke

Every tank-bridge needs some barb-wire, so we installed wicked-spikey Agave plants at each corner. Then in a holiday mood, softened it with bunting…

More tanbark to come – and probably more rocks too, from the pile leftover in the driveway.
Closeup of the patriotic torches:

The Bridge at Remagen

The Dry Creek Project has produced a crossing that verily is stout and capable of withstanding a Panzer attack, but it’s not beautiful by much means.

Maybe a couple of strategically placed boulders will offset the pedestrian aspect and create a counterpoint — but still there are no handrails or things of that nature so a drunker lawnmower-driver might plunge awkwardly to an ignominious plight.

However the main point of the project was to manage and improve drainage, and that has yet to be tested…

Dry Creek

Dry now because it’s 88-degrees outside. It was 100 yesterday, but we caught a cool breeze or two today – and besides, it’s a dry kinda heat up here…

Anyhow it’s taking shape nicely without much help from me, and the little Kubota tractor is useful to haul the 2-inch rock and also the bigger cobble down from the big pile in the driveway to line it, and the tanbark to edge it.
The twin piles of dirt will become earthen ramps for the bridge so I can drive the mower across from sorta dry land to sorta dry land.

Maybe I’ll stick an umbrella and a beach chair on the tufted-grass island…

Earthworks

Got some guys to help out with the shallow entrenching. The cute little Kubota tractor is no match for the soft ground and mud however and we are using shovels. Then rocks and a bridge…

Turns out the 8-inch pipe that runs underneath the field, from the overflow catch-basin on one side to the fence where my neighbor’s cattle water, has perforations. That would explain the standing water when it’s really wet in the fall-winter-spring, but conceivably should also help the drainage.

Memorial Day Ancestors and the Cultural Appropriation of Carnitas

Dad was a somewhat unenthusiastic member of the Sons of the American Revolution, unenthusiastic in his adult and later years anyhow because of his anti-war stance. But through his mother he could trace his lineage back to a Revolutionary War Brigadier General from North Carolina who participated in the Battle of Germantown, and was with the 5th NC Division at Valley Forge with Washington, “Light Horse Harry” Lee, Daniel Morgan and others.
Our Ancestor participated in resisting the entry of Lord Cornwallis into Charlotte in late September 1780, and was killed at the Battle of Cowan’s Ford in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina on February 1, 1781 while opposing the re-entry of Cornwallis into North Carolina…
And so today we made a pork butt in the slow cooker, viva the Revolution!
Three and a third pounds of pork shoulder and more:

The magic of spices!

Can’t forget the garlic…

…or the onions…

…or the Anaheim and Jalapeño peppers…

…and some citrus to add brightness…

A cop of chicken broth, a couple teaspoons of liquid smoke, rub the butt with olive oil then rub-on the the spices and chuck everything left-over into the slow-cooker for 8-hours.