Monthly Archives: May 2008

Shooting

Pistol Practice

One of the best things about owning a chunk of land is to be able to do what you want to on it (within the law). Last month, Brad and I built a pistol range right next to our 100/200, yard rifle range and we spent part of Memorial Day afternoon practicing our pistol shooting.
Here, Brad just finished shooting at his last target.

Out of the thick stuff on my ranch, we cleared about a 50’X50’ space that backed up to an old terrace, a relic of the cotton farming days and we use the terrace as a back stop for our bullets. We went to a friend that has a welding shop and had him cut us out some steel targets. Here are 3 targets backed by the terrace.

PistolRange5-26-08

A closer look at the targets shows that they have a good base, and the impact of the bullet and gravity, bowl over the target and eliminate any danger of a ricochet. You can clearly see where Brad whacked this one with his .45!

PistolTarget5-26-08

When I shoot the targets with my 9mm, sometimes, not falling over, they just make a soft, bong. Brad’s .45 sends them rolling!

Brad shoots in some local, pistol/rifle/shotgun, shoots and uses our new range for practice, but me, I just like to shoot things!

PistolShootingJon5-26-08

Shooting

Sighting In The .17 HMR

Memorial Day afternoon, on my rifle range, Brad and I sighted in my new, Marlin, .17 HMR rifle. My first 3 shots, at 25 yards, produced this group.

Brad is holding a nickel below the group.

Along with being extremely accurate, the rifle functioned perfectly with no miss fed cartridges and a smooth bolt action!

Shooting.17calBrad5-26-08

Brad, pictured, thought the trigger pull was a little firm and my only concern, was loading the small cartridges into the clip. There is no hurrying this step!

Shooting.17calTarget5-26-08

Producing these results, we both hammered away at the target from 100 yards, firing 16 rounds. The last 3 shots were dead center in the 2” ring.

To help us sight in the rifle and both being, “good ‘ole boys” we taped thin strips of duct tape across the center of the target. One round hit squarely in the center of the perpendicular strip.

This week, I’ll move back to 200 yards!

Hill Country Happenings

Our Garden, May 27

For the past several days I have been watering and checking on my peaches, especially my Flordaking Peach tree, Prunus persica ‘Flordaking’. The fruit is almost ripe and should be ready to pick next week.

But to my surprise, this morning, some furry vandal, probably a ‘Coon, climbed up into the tree, broke some branches and knocked down 8 or 10 peaches. It looks like some late night guard duty for me!

GardenPeaches25-27-08

On a happier note our wild garlic, Allium vineale, has a beautiful flower and is coming into full bloom.

GardenGarlic5-27-08

We have put up 14, 1 gallon, bags of spinach, Spinacae oleracea, and have had numerous spinach salads. We’ll plant more spinach this fall!

Sports

Another Ballplayer In The Family

This past Saturday, Layla and I took a traffic filled drive to San Marcos, south of Austin, to see one of our Grandson’s, Sean Bryan, play baseball. He did quite well for a 7 year old, playing in an 8 year old, league! His team won 8-2, finished second in their league and he had 2 hits, scored a run and drove one in!

Here’s Sean getting his first hit and later scoring. Sean’s parents are Randy and Debbie Bryan and Randy is a Baptist Pastor in San Marcos. Randy is a very good ball player, and not before too long, will be playing Senior Softball, too!

Back to the traffic, it was horrible! You’d think with gas almost $4.00 a gallon, somebody might be staying home! Maybe everyone was out for one last trip?

Ancestry

Right Time, Wrong Place – A Memorial Day Rememberance

Being Memorial Day (tomorrow), the following story, written by my Son, Brad, tells about a scrape he got into in Iraq. Our troops are going through things like this daily and we should all take time to thank the Lord for them and the great job they are doing!

Right Time, Wrong Place

By MSgt Brad Bryan

In April of 2004, along with my unit, the 1-7 CAV, I had been in Baghdad, Iraq for about a month. As the Squadron tank master gunner I had several responsibilities. One of these was to assist our unit’s Civil Affairs team with their missions in our Area of Operations (AO). On 28 April 2005, just after lunch, everyone involved in this afternoon’s patrol met at our HUMVEEs for an Operations Order. The senior officer, a Major, briefed us on the afternoon’s mission. His briefing included the locations we were going to visit, primary and alternate routes, actions on contact, and order of march for the vehicles. We were going to check on several civil projects going on in our area, the last one being a meeting with the contractor who was refurbishing an old Republican Guard headquarters building near Baghdad International Airport (BIAP). The building was being remodeled into a state of the art medical clinic for the citizens of the Al Furat neighborhood.

Brad2Sergeants

L to R: Sergeants Rodriguez, Bryan and Presley in front of the AL-Furat clinic.

Before arriving at the clinic we had checked on all of the locations that we had been briefed on and the patrol, up to this point, had been uneventful. We arrived at the Al-Furat clinic, our last stop, and set up local security. We, the major and senior NCOs, met with the contractor and his brother. Both of these men, US citizens, had been born in Iraq and had come back from Houston, Texas, my home town, to try and make some money rebuilding the country.

After the meeting we mounted up on the vehicles and moved out for our return trip to Forward Operating Base (FOB) Falcon. I told the driver to switch places with me because I wanted to drive back to the FOB. The clinic is located on the west side of Baghdad near BIAP and Camp Slayer. FOB Falcon is located on the south-central side of the city. With the afternoon traffic (even in Iraq), barring any civilian accidents, it is usually a 15-20 minute trip.

It only took about 2 minutes for us to reach Route Irish, our way back to FOB Falcon. We hadn’t been on Route Irish for more than a mile when I noticed something strange. In the median to our left was an Iraqi army patrol looking my way, along with an American patrol that they apparently were conducting joint operations with. The Americans were behind the Iraqis and looking in the other direction. The Iraqis were all holding their weapons, AK-47s, level and at the ready oriented towards the freeway and us!

Right before we reached their position we started hearing small arms fire and then all the Iraqis opened up in our direction with their AK’s. The sound of small arms fire was augmented by the sound of rounds splatting on to our vehicles!

IraquiTraffic

Typical afternoon traffic on Route Irish in Baghdad, but this scene, except for the shadow of a machine gun, could be mistaken for driving in Phoenix, Arizona.

We proceeded to speed our Humvees, about 65 mph, past the platoon of Iraqi soldiers all shooting their AK-47s at us, we thought. I’m thinking there is going to be hell to pay!

We quickly turned around and went back to the Iraqis’ position, ready for a fight. When we arrived there the American patrol leader on the ground was shouting colorful expletives at the Iraqi patrol leader.

It turned out the Iraq platoon had been engaged, drive by style, by a black sedan full of insurgents. When we passed their position they were returning fire on the insurgents, not engaging us. So, we had driven through the cross fire! Even if we had been rehearsing it, we couldn’t have timed it any better.

The vehicle that I was driving was hit twice in the hood and once in the windshield by rounds fired by the insurgents. One round passed through the soft top from behind the vehicle and struck the windshield frame about six inches above my head! That round was fired by one of the “friendly” Iraqis.

After all was said and done, no one was injured, but we sure were in the wrong place at the right time!

IraqHumvee

Humvee with armored doors and soft top. Looking closely, it looks like a trooper is bunking on top of the Humvee!

Shooting

A New Rifle

This past Tuesday, I went with Brad to San Antonio to visit his oncologist. His trip was successful and we finished up with the doc before 11:00 AM. Since we are both “gun nuts”, we decided to visit the new Bass Pro Shops, west of the city.

Asking the salesman to show us a Marlin, 917V, .17, HMR, cal rifle, we both admired it, and I decided why not just go ahead and buy one, which I did! Adding a 3X9 scope, sling and 2 boxes of Hornady,20 grain, bullets, I walked out of the store a new, proud owner of this neat, little rifle.

Brad is putting on the scope and sling and we will sight it in this weekend and I will have suitable pictures of the event.

Layla, congratulating me on my purchase, said, in jest I hope, “What you really needed was another gun!”

Random Thoughts

An Update On Brad, May 21, 2008

Yesterday, Brad and I visited his oncologist in San Antonio. The doc was pleased with Brad’s progress! More specifically, Brad’s treatment was changed the first of May to include an antibody that blocks the growth of cancer cells. This procedure can be quite effective against Brad’s type of cancer, but it can also cause tiredness, joint pain and a bothersome rash.

Brad has experienced slight joint pain and was tired after this past week’s treatment, but does have a rash on his face. The doc is treating the rash and told us that it would get better over time. He did tell us that in most cases, the worst the rash is, the better the treatment is!

Brad’s weight is over 180, he has plenty of energy and his faith is STRONG and he still expects a miracle!

Please keep praying for Brad!

Fishing

The Chattahoochee River

Some interesting notes about the area where we lived in Georgia, Sandy Springs (finally incorporated in 2007), was bordered on the west by the Chattahoochee River and we lived a mile up Soap Creek, where a large Civil War battle, in which two of my G Grandfathers participated, was fought where the river and creek joined.

We lived on Mark Trail Street in the Lost Forest subdivision. The subdivision land was previously owned by the creator of the “Mark Trail”’ comic strip. This strip was popular in the 1940’s and 50’s. There were about 30 houses built around the “hollow”, in Texas called a “draw”, and except for the ice storms, was a great place to live.

It was natural with the nearness of the river and my 12 foot aluminum boat, that we made several float trips a year down it. We would launch the boat at any number of places above Roswell Road, then float for several miles down to the I-285, North, bridge, and take out there.

One trip stands out. We, Benny Evans, a coworker and fellow Texan, and I put in way up the river, close to the gun club and made about a 6 mile, drift down to 285. We would drift the middle, drift around the eddies and drift along the banks, casting to the numerous “falls”, trees down in the water. We would drift, then electric motor back over promising spots, trying to keep our baits, Mepps #2, Spinners, in the water as much as possible.

Pictured is my Mepps #2 Spinner, the survivor of the float down the river. This bait is over 40 years old and remains poison for pan fish and fresh water Trout.

We avoided all the “tubers” and ended the day with a mixed, mess of small fish. The 4 Largemouth Bass were 12 to 15”; the one Smallmouth Bass 12”, one 12” Rainbow Trout, 2, 14” Pike, or Chain Pickerel, returned to the water because of excessive bones, 4 hand size Bluegills, topped off by 1, 15”Channel Catfish! We probably caught over 50 fish and had twice that number of strikes. By far the best day I enjoyed on the river!

In the late spring Georgia Tech held its annual, “Ramblin’ Raft Race”, a true civic highlight. The future engineers at the school would design the most motley collection of floating “things” imaginable. Prizes were awarded, classes cut, beer flowed and a grand time was had by all! I’m sure, by now, the “Friends Of Wildlife”, “The Green Movement” and “The Nature Conservancy” have put a stop to all of this fun!

Tubing was a family sport, and from May until September, the river was crowded with all sizes of tubes and people. For me, I thought besides getting sun burned, tubing was a serious waste of fishing time.