The mice will play while the boss is away...

Mrs ERJ left me yesterday

She had been invited to a party at a beach. It was a hens-only party, so I was not invited.

The heat index was about 100F which is pretty warm for out part of Michigan.

She brought back pies and cakes and salads. My sweet, darling, soft-hearted wife did not want any of the other ladies to be left with the impression that their best-efforts were lacking in any way.

And since we are a team, I will manfully eat my share of the goodies and then some. My metabolism runs hotter than Mrs ERJ's and therefore I have the greater duty.

Kel-tec P-17

I had a chance to mess around with a Kel-tec P-17 while Mrs ERJ was hanging out with her girlfriends.

The Kel-tec P-17 is a .22LR handgun with a magazine capacity of 16 which is about 6 more than most .22LR handguns and is on-par with the magazine capacity of the Glock 19, 9mm handgun.

My impression is that the Kel-tec P-17 has a very nice trigger and almost cartoonishly large safety and mag-release...very useful if you are wearing gloves.

The first magazine through the firearm had two bobbles. One was a "failure to eject" and other was a "failure to extract". That may slick-up as more rounds are fired through the weapon. Time will tell.

The spent cases tumbled out of the weapon and fell just to the right of my feet. No flinging of the brass across the room with this weapon. 

All .22 semi-automatics are fussy about ammo with pistols being more sensitive than rifles. It is a matter of physics. It is a combination of the simple (and economical to manufacture) blow-back designs and the limited amount of energy that must be "budgeted" for the various functions that must be executed as the action cycles through

• Extract
• Eject
• Reset hammer 
• Strip new round out of magazine
• Seat new round in chamber
• Seat extractor over rim of round in chamber 

Furthermore, the extremely light weight of the weapon, although that makes it a joy to carry, makes it even more sensitive to "limp-wristing" or a gentle-grip on the weapon.

One quirk of this firearm is that the magazine well feels like it is very long (in the direction of the barrel). This is not a gun for people with short fingers.

I have short, stubby fingers (for a guy) and I would not have wanted the magazine well to be any longer. HOWEVER...that geometry locked in the firearm and I had exceptionally low horizontal stringing.

However, the gun shot low with the ammo we tried. That might be a matter of getting used to the sight-picture required with the fiber-optic front sight but non-fiber rear. Aligning the tops of the front and rear sights doesn't work. Maybe the designers expect shooters to align the bright-spot in the front with the tops of the rear. Something to check out. 

If a fellow were looking for a "bumming around in the woods" .22 handgun or a gun to carry on a trap-line or if he was exterminating vermin...I think he would be better served with a Heritage Rough Rider .22LR revolver with the 4.75 inch barrel. The Rough Rider will go "bang" regardless of the ammo and is easier to find a holster for.

If a fellow needed to navigate in places where volume-of fire and speed-of-reload were important, and low hand-strength made centerfire chamberings impossible, then this might be an option although the grip might make it a non-starter for some women. If you opt for this weapon, plan on running several hundred rounds through it to break it in. Also plan on trying several brands of ammo to see which it feeds most reliably.

What is it like to live hundreds of miles from a city? 

I think this is interesting because I am becoming less enchanted by trips to "the city" to get supplies.

This family lives out in the hinter-boonies of Alaska. They have been "homesteading" for fifteen years but JUST moved to Alaska a year ago. 

This is the first run they made to a Costco store from their new homestead. 

While in Anchorage, they wallowed in decadence...They bought a princess dress for one of their daughters,. They ate ice cream. They drank fou-fou lattes from a coffee shop. They ate breakfasts out of disposable take-out cardboard containers. It was a venture in cultural enrichment for their seven children.

The Holy Grail: Shelf-stable dry-goods that are "nutritionally dense"

That is, they take up relatively small volume for their mass and nutritional content.

Spaghetti vs elbow macaroni. Spaghetti wins.

Dried beans vs canned refried beans. Dried beans win.

Flour vs baked goods. Flour wins. (BTW, this guys wife likes to bake. What a treasure for this kind of life!!!)

Slab bacon or even vac-packed mystery-meat hotdogs vs pre-made, frozen breakfast sandwiches. Bacon wins.

Granulated sugar vs Kaptain Krunch breakfast cereal or cans of soda pop. Granulated sugar wins.

Dried milk powder vs liquid milk. Dried milk wins.

Don't buy water. Don't pay money for air. 

Bring a trailer

Day three(ish) on my news detox

I lost track on what day I am in my news detox.

I get irritated when ads pop-up on the video I am watching and the ad pummels me with "news" or politics.

June 10 is the day I remember my dad putting in the garden. I am the second oldest and have seven siblings. The next youngest is three-and-a-half years younger, so Dad leaned heavily on my older brother and me to help with the chores.

I still have some empty space in my garden, so I am not quite up-to-snuff, but I did get most of my garden planted before June first, so that counts for something.

The remaining space will probably be planted to Daikon radishes and California Giant zinnias and maybe some kale. 

Random meme

"It is good to have a cousin who works in the mail-room of the local police station and to have an uncle with a fast boat."   -Central American proverb