Taking Some Long Shots... Shooting Tracers!

Its been a busy week, but with all the rain we haven't gotten out as much. Yet.

While in Wyoming, we did some long-range shooting with a 30-06 and Tracer rounds. It is a blast! We did alot of reloading years ago for these WWII surplus bullets. They are 143grains in weight, and we loaded them at about 2100 fps.

Be careful, though... they can start fires, so we only use them in the wet and at rocks.

Here are some shots from a video camera we used. The maps indicated we were shooting about a mile... ~1000 yards. The rangefinder didn't work that far!

At 2100 fps (muzzel) we figured it was at least 1000 yards - took about 5 seconds to impact.

Here is the tracer lit up, travelling to the bush on the cliffside.


Here's just before impact.

The crazy part is that the scope (9x power) was sighted in for 1" high at 200 yards for a 150grn load we use hunting deer.

After one shot with a tracer, the visual feedback of the bullet's path let us hit the bush with the 2nd bullet!

Thats pretty good for 1000+ yards...

Here is just after impact - note the ricochet.

Even in brighter light, the tracer path is bright enough to adjust a shot.

All 3 of us were able to consistantly hit a deer-sized object at 1000+ yards using these rounds. Pretty amazing, though we agreed that they would NOT be accurate enough to kill a deer without the risk of injury.

The Day out in Seaside, Oregon

I had a church assignment out in Seaside, Oregon on Sunday, and took one of the kids along for the fun.

We left early, not knowing how the roads would be for ice... they were nice and clear, and we had a beautiful sunrise when we hit Astoria.



We were early to Seaside, so we stopped by the beach to see if the sand was frozen. It wasn't, but it was COLD!

We had most of the beach to ourselves, and wandered about the boardwalk for a bit. Saw the seals at the aquarium, then dashed off to church.



Afterwards, we stopped by the Astoria Column again since she hadn't been there before.

She wanted to show her bro that she was as big, too!






Again we were the only ones at the column... and it was alittle freaky for her to be up that high.

We didn't spend much time on top, but raced back down the 160 stairs!




Another nice side-stop was the Gnat Creek Fish Hatchery. We stop there often and fatten the fish.

Much of the pen was iced over, but the fish were active and hungry.





There was a new chart up with information from recent tagging studies in the Columbia River. We never would have guessed that the keeper sturgeon were so OLD!

A 43" fish that is barely long enough to keep is about 11-12 years old! A large 60" fish (high-end of the keeper range) is about 20 years old!

Kind of made us feel alittle guilty about keeping something so old to eat... hmmm.

The trout were frisky and fast.

We spent alot of time at the hatchery. There was some snow but the roads were nice.






With all the cold weather, all of the small waterfalls along the highway were frozen, and beautiful.

We had to stop, of course ;-)









And then the long ride back to home. It was unusual for the chatter-box to be so quiet, but she was worn out!

A great day and lots of fun time.

Thanks for a great trip, missy-missy-chicken-pum!

Potting Camas

We mentioned last week the suprise we found of our Camas bulbs sprouting in the refrigerator...

The temp in there was 46*F, and the bulbs were in there since the 1st of July!

Here's a couple of them. Even the bulbs busted in half started to sprout.


So... what do you do with a bunch of bulbs? Try planting them!

Camas seems to be a difficult plant to domesticate and grow, so we wanted to see if we could at least get the bulbs going.

We potted these and they are responding well in the windowsil (inside). We also potted some, and will keep them out in the cold, indoors, and another pot outdoors, to see if anything happens.

In Feb/March, we'll also be planting seeds to see what they do. The seeds we planted back in July never did anything...

Alot of Ice

Wow - it has been a cold week! Beautiful, clear, and cold.

The ducks are having a tough time finding open water on the ponds...





This heron has changed color, expecting snow...








And the kids are having fun - as ever.

Alot of pipes bursting around the neighborhood, and unfortunately a fire. The weather has been fun, but we are not used to it so COLD in this part of the Pacific NW.

Glad to have the rain and 45*F weather again, though snow would be nice!

Making Movies... and FREE Software

After taking thousands of photos this year of all our adventures, this time of year we start putting together DVDs and movies to enjoy during the holidays.

The kids especially like having movies of all the photos of themselves.

I wrote this simple application to make it easy to create movie (AVI) files... its alot like the ezSlideShow application we released last spring, but simple, and a 1-time use.


Here is a screenshot - a very simple and unattractive GUI... but thats what we like.

Simply give a name for the new movie, then specify what Directory(s) your photos are in. Finally, tell it what WAV or MP3 file you want for the audio.

Simple!

The application will gather up the pictures, reshape them to all be a uniform size, and then builds the AVI movie.

There are a few options you can select for your movie: frames per second (FPS); how long to display each image (in seconds); what image size to make the movie; if you want compression or not (i.e. MP4, DivX, etc).

Simple!







There are alot of other packages out there to do this, but not for FREE or as simple.

We like FREE and simple.

Our previous webhost is no more... but you can download the application here:
http://www.roberttidwell.com/misc/ezMovieMaker.exe

Any feedback or input is appreciated. Positive, that is!

Spying on the Neighbors!

These neighbors only come out at night!

There has been a BIG buck deer out in our yard, and hanging out at the neighbor's apple trees at night. He is a dandy!

Another smaller 2-point has been running around, too. So... we got permission to put our cameras out by the neighbor's trees to snap a shot of them! We have great neighbors!

Less than 20 minutes after putting the cameras up, here they came! Oh yeah, the date and time are WAY off...

We left the cameras out for 4 days, and every night the deer were back. They especially liked it when we shook the tree so more apples were down.




We got alot of great pictures. Only problem is, none of them were of the bucks - just this doe and yearling.

If only we could find the old bottle of "doe in heat" urine. When we do we'll bait the tree to see if ole' mossy back wants to get his photo taken.





These game cameras are alot of fun. It is exciting to go out and see that the camera has 54 images on it! Alot of fun with the kids.

Almost as fun as hunting them, plus you can do it during the dark!

We've reloaded the batteries - the cameras are back out there for hopefully an antler shot. Stay tuned!

Keep on Cutting

We were on a roll, with all the woodcutting today, so when it was done... it was on to pruning the grapevines!

You can see they have canes all over. Pruning last year was so productive, we're going to do it every year.

Really isn't alot to it. We just clip off all except the main vine.



We have saved a bunch of the canes from the three best vines, and are eager to try rooting them in the spring.

We've rooted new green clippings, but never tried to root the wooden ones. They say this is the best way.




Here's the first vine after cliping - much cleaner! We left the longest canes, and began training them on the stair handrail.

All the other clippings are supposed to be saved for "decorations" and wreaths. Hmmm.





On most of the canes we left the first bud or two - where we wanted new canes to grow out in the spring.

We clipped the canes right off completely where we didn't want any additional growth.

It is amazing out tough and simple these vines are - especially when they produce so much sugar from sunlight. Grapes are alot of fun - especially here in the NorthWest, where the soil and sun are perfect.

Now we are excited to see what happens in the spring!

Working in a Wintery Woodland

After the Christmas Tree was in and up, we just kept on cutting.

There are a bunch of pines in the front of the house that need to go - they are getting too big, and some of them really were hammered in last years snow storm.

You can see these two leaning badly, and about dead.



It is great to have help! He dropped his tree much better than I did the first one, too.

We usually wait until winter for most of the wood cutting - it is great on a cold day to cut, split, and stack.

It is really a fun time for all of us working together, and it keeps the kids busy.


Timber!



Now the real work starts.





All the boys were a big help... even the little one. He sure liked being alongside us, loading branches onto the truck.


And he loved riding in the truck back to the burnpile.





We had 3 big loads of limbs to put on the burn pile. The pile is getting big again...

We had thought of burning it today, but wanted to get the tree up, instead.





Instead of burning the pile, the other kids practiced their fire-making skills some more.

They had a great time, and got alot of the leaves burned up too.

After the branches were done, we loaded up the wood to haul it back to the firewood piles.

Even with the cold, the boys loved riding in the back.

And finally it was done and cleaned up. The other trees look really ugly, though. We'll be cutting out most of the trees on the left eventually.

It is great how opened up it makes the front, and wonderful to have some good, physical work to do outside in the beautiful weather.

Busting Through the Ice

The trough froze over last night.

It was really thick - about 1" and tough to bust through.

You can see the ice was no match for a couple of 10 year olds, though.



Picture perfect.









We're convinced that the simplest toys keep the boys entertained the best. Some pieces of frozen water, and these guys were happy playing and busting it up for an hour.

Same with sticks. And I guess fire... they can play with that stuff, and its cheap.

Not the fire, though!

Cutting the Christmas Tree

Today was beautiful, clear, and cold out. And time to cut down a tree for Christmas.

We have several left in the pasture, but they are all getting tall. There are two Noble firs, and a handful of Grands.

This year we cut a Grand. Its time to plant new ones this spring.



Here's making the first cut. It wasn't clear which way this tree was leaning, or wanted to fall.








Glad it fell the right way!

They always look so BIG when they are laying on the ground!







It was great this year having someone to help me drag it all the way back to the house!








Here's the front room.

Perfect for a nice, big tree.







And here is the tree! It turned out really nice.

After the tree is up we let all the kids sleep under it. It is a fun tradition and they have a great time.

Now... on to decorating!

A Christmas, Camas Suprise!

While digging in the fridge, we found a real suprise - the camas bulbs we had dug up back in August have sprouted!

We'd put them in a plastic bag, and they looked like they had gotten soggy and rotten.

All of them have new shoots. We are excited to pot them for the spring!