Who is laughing now?

Men, Be the Wolf

This image shows GPS traces of collars that were put on wolves in six, separate wolf packs in Yellowstone National Park Minnesota (Hit-tip to Robert for the correction).

The usual commentary is that there is very little overlap in the territories. The wolves are territorial and enforce their ranges and, for the most part, other wolf packs respect that because they know they will be torn to pieces if they infringe, especially if they are running as a single wolf.

I suppose the occasional infringement might happen when a game animal the pack is pursuing stumbles onto another pack's territory but that seems to be rare.

Another comment is that the wolf-pack tracked in white looks like a cat with a couple of eyes. The total lack of travel in the "eyes" might be due to some quirk of geography like a steep, barren mountain but it could also be the location of where a wolf was killed by another predator like a puma or perhaps a bear.

Men, the predators who would make our wives and our children their prey respect other wolves' territories. They respect apex predators.

Especially if you do not think of yourself as an apex predator, prepare to gird thy loins and slay those that would stalk your family. Wolves have good noses. They will choose easier victims.

I looked at the pepper seeds again (and again and again...)

Stocky Red Roaster seeds

Time to get them into potting soil!

Other seeds

Expected cadence of seed planting:

Tomatoes (in pots) April 1

Sugar Snap Peas  (in ground) April 15

Onion sets IG April 15

Potatoes IG May 1

Most tree seeds IG May 1

Okra IP May 1

Corn IG May 15

Late cabbage IP May 15

Tomato plants moved IG May 25

Beans IG May 25

Squash, melons, cucumbers IG June 5

Zinnia IG June 5

One reason why I think gardeners make good project managers is that we habitually think backwards. If we want a harvest of sweet corn by mid-August then were count backwards to when we need to put the seeds in the ground. And from our planting date we need to think backwards to determine when we need to prepare the ground and to add in some Kentucky Windage for weather events.

How many times can "brass" be reloaded?

One of the guys over at 24hourcampfire did an experiment to see how many times he could reload new brass. I think it was the fellow known as Seafire.

The loads were not maximum-pressure loads but were adequate for killing coyotes.

He started with five randomly selected pieces of new brass. I may be mistaken but I think he chose .223 Remington. He used the same rifle for the entire experiment so he only needed to resize the necks.

Every five shots he annealed the necks with a candle-flame. He held the base of the fired case in his bare fingers and put the neck into the candle's flame. He spun the brass until he felt the brass get warm where he was holding it. Then he put it to the side while he annealed then next piece.

If memory serves, the neck of the first case cracked in the high-teens but the other four made it to twenty-five reloadings which is when he got bored and went on to do other things.

Exotic chamberings with rare (read "expensive") brass

The experiment is a curiosity for .223 Rem which is very available but it could be useful if you have a functional firearm in an uncommon chambering like 6.5mm Arisaka, 6.5mm Carcano, 8mm Lebel, any of the bottleneck "Express" cartridges or other "obsolete" cartridges.

Gym notes

I went to the gym yesterday. My plan was to lift weights.

That fell through. For the first time the weight room was full. One guy was already dead-lifting and there were two other guys lined up to be next.

It pays to be flexible.

I saw a treadmill with an exceptionally pretty girl on it and there was a treadmill next to her that was not being used.

"Do you mind if I use this?" I asked. It always pays to be polite.

"Sure. No problem" Mrs ERJ replied.

So yesterday was a treadmill day. Four minutes of running and then I walked until my pulse-rate was back down to 140...then another four minutes of running. I knocked it off at 40 minutes.

I tell myself that I am "building a base" which is 99.9% true. There are a lot of stability muscles that have to work together when you are running.