Texas in one picture

[bill_schubert]

Hunting and fishing with Jesus in, of course, your immaculate 4x4 F150 pickup.



One of the people who work at the Ranch.

It is getting summery around here with a high nearing 90 degrees and a UV index of 7 (out of 11). The air conditioned part of the big dog house at the Ranch is still getting its flooring redone so the dogs are outside. Not good but nothing to be done about it. It is hard on the staff since they have to move the dogs around to the shade side and back. But they will figure it out.

I bought a chicken egg incubator since I have access to fertilized eggs but packed it back up and got it ready to return after realizing I don't really have a plan for the roosters that will no doubt hatch. I'm going to discuss it with my chicken friend this weekend. It would have been fun to hatch eggs and we still might do it but I'm not really up to killing and cleaning the young roosters which is pretty much the only choice if you don't want them.

Meanwhile I figured out a decent way to 'help' my friends who have too many eggs. The woman at the Ranch I work with most lives in a women's shelter community. They have people without a lot of money. I know someone who has too many eggs. So I thought we could figure something out. I'm going to see if it works. On Tuesday's I pick up eggs on my way back from the Ranch. On Thursdays I hand them over to the shelter contact. And one of those two days I get cartons back.

It would be so cool if it worked to everyone's benefit. I don't know much of anything about the shelter but I do know about people who are working to dig out of a hole and their kids might like some omelets.

Meanwhile, Walter has comments about how long it takes to get a treat:

So, you have a treat, huh?




Any chance that treat is for me?





Ok, enough with the pictures, just give me the damn treat!!





Walter really should be in someone's home.  He is so expressive and fun to talk to.  He is happy at the Ranch but I would love to have him on our couch.

Comments

[maisydaisy]

Walter you have a face that needs to be smothered in kisses !

[bill_schubert]

He is a sweetheart.

[msconduct]

Walter is absolutely adorable.

Killing chickens would be something that would definitely put me off them as I would be way too wimpy to do it. It reminds me, though, of a Navy question I had. A little while ago my friend T and I were discussing the issue that was around at the time as to whether pissed-off vets would rise up and do the Second Amendment thing as they're all armed killing machines.

I think I've mentioned before that T comes from a military family and her uncle was a captain in the Dutch Navy. I said but that wouldn't apply to sailors, as they don't have sidearms, they have cannons. After she stopped laughing, she reminded me about the existence of torpedoes, but said they do have sidearms on board ship anyway because of the possibility of being boarded.

So it made me wonder if that being the case, whether sailors have to do regular firearms training the way soldiers do. It would make sense, but on the other hand the chance of being boarded is so low that it seems like a lot of effort for nothing. (If any of this info is classified, no worries, we can start a group text.)

[bill_schubert]

So, Navy people shooting guns is dicey. Everyone gets some shooting with a .45 when I was in. Probably 9mm now. There are typically three people standing watch at the top of the brow of every Navy ship in port. One of them, the Petty Officer of the Watch, has a sidearm. They tend to shoot themselves every now and then. I have never, ever, heard of one shooting any bad person.

There is a slightly better trained flying squad that has a bit more arms training. They usually have shotguns. One does NOT shoot a projectile inside the steel confines of a ship. But a shotgun will definitely clear a passageway.

Most Navy ships are not very susceptible to having problems with people boarding them. The can go from zero to 25 knots (about the same as the fastest small boat) pretty quickly and maneuver on a dime. Only at choke points or in port are they vulnerable. Most also have .50 Cal or better and that is pretty damn effective. Some have a Vulcan Phalanx anti missile gun that can be depressed to fire at boats. It fires 4500 rounds per minute of 20MM projectiles. Sounds like a chain saw. It will shoot 50 rounds at a time. REALLY effective.

In port they would use fire hoses to repel boarders along with whatever was laying around to shoot.

Personally, I had a lot more training. My wife at the time was a competition level pistol shooter so we played at the range. And I once had the opportunity to play with the special forces in Kuwait shooting all their cool stuff at trucks that the Iraqi's had left behind (just at the end of Desert Storm).

Navy types don't typically know enough about small arms to cause much trouble.

[msconduct]

Fascinating! I'd never thought about how Navy ships might defend themselves in port.

Pretty much what I thought about the small arms, then. T reminded me that when the Somali pirates were a thing they were talking about putting antimissile guns on ships that had to travel through there, but that most of the time it wasn't practical. I imagine the recoil would probably break non-Navy ships in half.

BTW I've realised that everything I know about Navy armaments I learned from this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n3A_-HRFfc

so my being ever so slightly out of date is all Cher's fault.