BrianK

It's been snowing, very lightly, for the past 2 days. Cold? Yeah that too. It's still overcast but we're having a heat wave. The last I looked it was 32*F. Soon I'll go out and clear this crud from our curtilage. The dry fluffy snow we did get was over a layer of ice and that doesn't make it easy. Wet snow would freeze onto the ice and snow gives traction. 2 more months of this and these are the worst months. We can get anything.

Wow is right! Nice fish! Yesterday we were almost into the 40s. so a heat wave for us in winter (Maine). Warmish temps for us through at least Saturday. Rain today, starting out as freezing rain since it's currently in the 20s, but Saturday is supposed to be a really nice day. If so I intend to go for a walk in the forest with my Supergrade hunting conversion rifle**. Not so much to hunt but to test it at targets of opportunity, rocks, branches, red squirrels*, whatever shows itself as a target. If it turns out to be a good day for grey squirrels I'm not opposed to bagging some. Mags are loaded and waiting. *Reds aren't generally considered edible since they taste like turpentine due to their diet. They are classed as vermin. Greys however are quite tasty. ** The rifle has been tested previously at the range, but I replaced the 2 stage 8/8 trigger with a 2 stage 16/16. Why? Because old cold fingers and the light trigger... the 8/8 is great at the range, but in the field in winter? Not so much. The 16/16, even my old cold fingers can feel the wall before the break. It should work fine but w/o testing it's just a guess.

Probably due to global warming (that has killed us many times in the past 20 years. Of course I jest using the words of the doom prophets and their false religion.) winter came early and the cold of global warming keeps hanging on. Our heating systems have been working hard. An almost full tank of #2 fuel oil (350 gallons) at the start of the season needs to be refilled. Typically we use one tank per winter. Already one tank mostly gone. Three more months to go. It's not the cost, it's how I measure the cold of winter. Friday morning I woke up to 4*F and this morning it was 15* but it was forecast to be 0* or lower. It's nice and clear though and due to that I thought the forecast was going to be true. Our clear sky typically doesn't hold the heat. Maybe it was cloudy as we slept. Toward the end of next week we're forecast to be over 30*F and if so, and no rain, I'll hit the woods with a test small game hunting conversion for the KIDD SG. I bought a heavier trigger for it and initial testing told me that it solved the issue of my old and cold fingers not feeling the 2 stage wall right before the break. But actual testing in the field will prove it or not. Stay warm folks!

I got the control paddle repaired and remounted and 3 days after the storm finished plowing the snow out of the way. Normally that would be a mistake but with our fridgid weather the light fluffy snow never had a chance to melt and refreeze. Today, more of the same. When I got up it was 10* and it's not supposed to warm up very much. It's overcast and the sun can't be seen.

Second time I've done this, great results both times. I prefer a honkin' huge prime rib roast. Yes, Prime is costly but IMO it's worth it and you're not doing it every day, right? This year we bought a 3 rib large end roast. Have the butcher remove the meat from the rib bones and reattach with string. For best results, salt and pepper and dredge in flour the day before roasting. Put it on a roasting rack over the roasting pan and put it in a refrigerator uncovered. I haven't done that. I just S&P and dredge right before roasting. Set the oven to 250*, I check it with a separate remote reading thermometer 'cause oven thermostats are notoriously inaccurate. Roast until the internal meat temp reaches a few degrees lower than desired. Relax, everything will work out. Remove from the oven and tent with aluminum foil for 30minutes. Carry over heat will finish off the meat. As soon as you remove the roast bring the oven temp' up to 500* or as high as it'll go. After the 30 minutes it's time to finish the roast. Put it back into the oven for 5-10 minutes to complete the exterior browning. Since it rested for 30 minutes, it's ready to carve immediately after finishing the exterior. Enjoy! IMO the only way to make it better would be to do it in the smoker grill, same technique, just with some smokin' wood, cherry or apple would be my choices for beef.

Can't edit it, it's been too long. My week sense is screwy due to Christmas, I meant Friday in the above post.

Isn't that the truth Rsquared! Today a harassment "storm"; just enough snow to be annoying but not enough to amount to anything. It's light and fluffy and so little accumulation that I'll get rid of it with a leaf blower. I still have plowing to do from yesterday but the repaired part hasn't fully cured yet and won't be cured until 1500 so I'll get to the plowing on Saturday. As light and dry as that snow is it'll still move easily then. When I got up it was 20*F.

It's as cold as a witches bosom and started snowing last night very lightly. By morning we had maybe 3" and when I went out to plow @ 1300 approx' 6" was on the ground. I like to pack down a layer on the driveway to make subsequent plowings glide over the gravel, but this snow was just too light and fluffy so I wound up plowing it. Still not done though. The paddle controller I had epoxied to a cup holder as a 3rd hand. The bond snapped and the controller wound up in my lap. I reached a point where I could stop and came in and just repaired it. I'll do something different that just might make for a better controller holder. Things are never easy. I think that's an immutable law of nature.

Correct. Most homes are dependent on it, not all but most. Being w/o power is the pits. Glad to hear you got power back. We're rural and my plan after we first moved to rural Maine was to revert back to pre-REA days. Kerosene figured prominently in those plans. That plan worked fine for short outages which we had a lot of. Then we had an ice storm that put 4-5" of ice on everything. Trees came down and power lines couldn't take the weight. So out came our kerosene appliances to supply our light, heat, and cooking needs, to include melting ice for the toilet, washing, and after filtering, drinking*. What worked for short outages then showed the flaw. Pre-REA days had homes that weren't as tight as todays homes. Burning hydrocarbons produces water which started to condense on the cold walls. We were screwed. Store shelves were empty and the area was devastated. We know because we had to go out to see what was going on. Most folks couldn't move but our 4x4 made it through and around the downed trees. We were w/o power for 5 days and only got it back that soon because we're on a trunk line. It was that ice storm that caused me to rethink things. I put in a solar (PV) system with battery back-up. Now if the power goes out I can furnish power in seconds from the massive 24v batteries. Typically the solar part is useless in a storm 'cause of the clouds, but if the clouds clear out our smallish system will power the house if we're careful in consumption. But I also put in a welder/generator and that can easily handle larger loads and recharge the batteries. Sort of like the way a WW2 diesel/battery submarine worked. I also had built an addition specifically for a wood stove. We have a lifetime supply of wood. * W/o power our well pump doesn't work. And since it wasn't TEOTWAKI I wasn't going to remove the pump and 100' of piping to use the well casing "bucket". But our weather, the reason I came here... We're back in the deep freeze and snow is expected over the next 36 hours. When I woke up it was 18* and that was actually warmer than yesterday this time. 3 more months of this.

We recently came out of arctic air that invaded us for a few weeks. Then we got warmish temps and lotsa rain, that melted most of the snow. Then a wind storm. Now more cold has come in. I wanted to go for a walk in the woods to test a hunting conversion of the KIDD SG and the new trigger I put in it, better for a field trigger. But today is cold with high winds. Sure I could go for a walk with the rifle, and do what? It's cold with a hefty wind chill and I'm a wuss. Today we got a snow squall with not much snow but it was graupel snow... spherical snow. It's supposedly rare but we get it quite often; 4 or 5 times so far this year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graupel

Thanks. If I was 20 years younger that might be a possibility. But I'm not. I don't fly, esp' not with NFA items 'cause if weather brings me down in an NFA unfriendly state I'd be SOL. Driving? Can't happen, I no longer have stamina enough for long trips behind the wheel. Aging sux. There are things I can do and things that I can't and while I don't like my new limitations I acknowledge them so that I don't put myself at very real risk. It took me a few years for my brain that thinks I'm still superman to realize that my body has aged and is no longer 20. So thanks for the invitation, but I need to pass on it.

It's a baby step in the right direction. It's not the answer. Will it do anything for me? Let's see, how many times since I've been a NFA owner have I wanted to take any item out of state? Zero. But for those who do, yeah I can see it.

For sure never mark it as fragile, that seems to just make for special handling of the wrong type. But FedEx? It's driver dependent. We had a good one then he disappeared. Now we have some that don't appear to care. I've been given packages intended for the neighbors, and once they delivered to the road sign at the end of the road. Some care and some don't. And this is unbelievable... In Maine you'd expect drivers to know how to drive on snow and ice right? Our USPS driver hasn't a clue. She's got to be in her 30s anyway and clueless as to how to drive in it. We've gone w/o mail during snowstorms. I don't want to see her get into an accident, but come on! Get someone to teach you! Heck there has to be a youtube video regarding it! But FedEx... is it one of Bitemes illegals? They're everywhere. I was coming home one day and this road has 2 traffic circles. I was half expecting this because the 18 wheeler driver was sending signals as to his intent, like not slowing down and was clearly intent on taking the exit I was headed for. I was in the circle and had the right of way and this ahole cut me off. No understanding at all of rules of the road. I chalked it up to an illegal. Good thing I was alert and could read the signs he was putting out.

Messaged you.

Thanks. I shoot alot of rimfire too. I shoot rimfire in steel challenge out of a SBR and pistol. Lotsa practice for SC too. But that's with pretty inexpensive ammo (Federal Auto Match) since great accuracy isn't required. I want to start to shoot long range .22 but I need to learn to read the wind. I intend to start that this spring. I have the makin's for wind flags I just need to make them. Other than hunting which I'm starting to get back into, I like to spend relaxing afternoons at the range making tiny holes with many rounds at 50 and 100 yards. It's not easy to find ranges that go past 300 yards where I live. And 300 yards with centerfire isn't really all that challenging. One range goes out to 600 but only when a match is being run. So rimfire "long range" is what I have. Waiting for a container of SK Long Range to get into country and when it does I'll buy a case of that as well. My expensive ammo arrived today; Eley Tenex and Ultra extreme long range, 100 rounds of each. If I find a good sale price on higher end Lapua I'll buy some of that also. Yeah, good luck with that Brian! They can't get enough of it now so why would it be put on sale? I'm NOT spending $30/50 for any rimfire ammo. It's just not in my budget. If I hadn't gotten a good deal on the Eley it'd still be on their shelf. shooterrex, are you also on Rimfire Central Forum? Just curious.

Woke up to 0 degrees this AM and clear skies. But that was all expected since Arctic air was on the way. It's here. Warm up tomorrow, then back into the deep freeze.

For health reasons I've not been shooting as much as I liked the past 2 years. But most of that is in the rear view mirror now and I'm waiting for spring. In that time I entered the rimfire ammo lottery and have oodles of loads to test. I can't afford the really good loads in any quantity, but I bought a case of SK Match Rifle, and a mess of other loads. The expensive stuff, and by that I mean in the vicinity of $30/50, was on black Friday sale so I got 4 boxes of 2 different loads. Hopefully I didn't get ammo loaded by a noob on a Friday or a Monday. I like shooting rimfire. What I don't like is that someone else loads if for me. Centerfire it definitely isn't. I can handload centerfire and make great ammo. Looking forward to see what the KIDD Supergrade can do with really good ammo. Assuming of course that it's good ammo.

Early tomorrow I'll finish moving the snow, then in the afternoon Arctic air is coming in. Brrrr!

It began snowing at 0740 and it's still technically snowing (midnight). But it could snow like this for 10 years and we wouldn't get an inch of accumulation. My computer tells me it'll do this until 0200. Currently we have at most 4" on the ground. It was supposed to intensify and never did. YAY! I love it when the forecasters are wrong in my favor.

The snow that we got yesterday was NOT the storm that hit Shepp. That storm is coming in for tomorrow. The forecast is for 6-8" so it looks like I'm putting the plow on the truck. I'd rather have it on and not need it than need it and have to put it on in the snow.

I doubt that we even got an inch of snow. Then the temp' came up and it started raining. It's pretty much all gone now. The deck had a trace of slush hours ago but even that's gone and the deck is just wet. I hate this weather; the cold and raw. I'd much rather have -20. Last I looked it was approx' 38 degrees and by the morning it's predicted to be in the low 40s.

Yeah, that's more than I want if I have a choice. I know that I don't. I think it's related to your storm but in a very muted form. For storms coming from the west the mountains of VT, NH, and the mountains of Maine generally get more than we do due to the altitude. They get dumped on. By the time it gets to us in the foothills there is reduced accumulation. Generally. Hopefully for this one too. That doesn't hold true for northeasters that come up the Atlantic coast. Sort of "Lake Effect" but with the ocean instead of a lake. Last I heard we were predicted to get 1-3". For me that's not plowable. I just take the truck and pack it down. As long as it doesn't melt it gives me a smooth surface for plowing my gravel driveway from then on. Depending on the weather I keep my plow feet a few inches down (raises the plow) to keep the snow and ice layer maintained. If it stays cold I raise them to lower the plow. Decades ago I loved the cold and ice and snow. But that all changed with age. It was nothing for me to go snowshoeing and get really close to moose yarded up in my forest, but I haven't done that in years. I couldn't for years. Now I can but I have no interest. In the time it took me to write this the snow has stopped after giving us a dusting. No doubt it'll start again. I hope not but this is typical of our first storms. Fingers crossed.

Rimfire ammo for the KIDD SuperGrade. I need to digress. I bought a case of SK Match Rifle this past spring and haven't shot even one round of it yet (surgeries and healing - it's been a year of body work- aging isn't for wusses!). Also got in CCI Uppercut and Mini-Mag segmented. I was given a box of Tac-22 to test. And I have CCI SV yet to test. Now I'm waiting for warmer weather to put some lead downrange in a very controlled manner. Oh, and more ammo coming it. The rifle can only shoot as good as the ammo it's fed and I've limited it to SK which is entry level match grade ammo. I'm a tightwad because I must be. I have champagne tastes but I'm on a beer budget. But I did take advantage of black Friday deals and ordered some top grade Eley. Not much since the really good stuff is expensive. Waiting on spring to shoot that also but it'll arrive in a few days.

Our first snow of the season is expected starting some time today, none yet and I hope that continues through tomorrow. My kind of snowstorm! I like the other type that comes down in liquid form too. Just as long as I don't need to plow it.

Cold, windy, and raw the past few days. Not at all enjoyable outside.