My brother, Ski, belongs to the Tri County Gun Club in Sherwood, Oregon. He bought a 22 rifle for both Greg and I and we went to the range with him. I never thought "killing paper" could be so much fun. We own a 9mm luger that we took to the range a few weeks ago. I definitely prefer the rifle.

Greg with his rifle:


Ski helping Greg sight in his rifle:



Greg with our pistol:



Here is my target at 25 yards. Annie Oakley, eat your heart out!



Here's the target that was at 50 yards. Three of those bulls eyes were mine.


Our yard is full of goldfinches. One thing they particularly enjoy is the water feature and pond. They line up in the hydrangea to the left of it. One or two will jump on the water feature, take a few drinks and a bath and fly off. Then the next one or two will hop on and repeat the procedure. Most of the time they are quite polite, but every now and then a bully comes along.


These little gluttons are eating me out of house and home. I'm going through 10 pounds of thistle a week. We have two tube feeders and two sock feeders and they are constantly covered with finches.


Our raccoons, a mom and three babies, are back living under the deck. Now I know why I have no ripe tomatoes, zucchini or beans. More gluttons!

I went out Friday morning to feed the fish and the pond was almost empty. It's about an 800 gallon pond, so couldn't have leaked that much through the bottom. Greg was sure that Aniu had gotten back by the pump and bumped a hose loose or something, but, after investigating, cut her some slack. The pump had turned itself off when the water level got too low for it to function properly. When he filled the pond halfway full and turned the pump on, he discovered that the racoons had chewed holes in the hose. He said it looked like those ribbon hoses we used to use to water the garden. Water was squirting out of the holes. Joanne said the babies were probably teething. He bought a new hose and threaded it through pvc pipe to protect it. The next morning I got up and they had pushed the water feature over. Fortunately, they pushed it towards the pond or it would have been emptied again.






We jumped up and down on the deck, Aniu barked and scratched at the deck and the racoons finally moved on again.