Stormfront!

It's raining, and thunder booms out like Russian guns on the Aleppo front. There's lightning, too; we may thank God that it's not cluster munitions breaking over the Compound. So far our common adversary, The Weather, hasn't deployed the full range of its deadly arsenal. 

But we stand ready, cleaning weapons, loading magazines, tightening kit and idly sticking pins in Jefferts Schori dolls. 

Voodoo? That's as maybe. Stand resolute against the enemy.

Rumors that this irregular cavalry unit is investing in waterborne assault craft may or may not be true.

LSP

Rimfire Warrior

Some people use the Tracking Point aiming system, which unerringly guides your shot onto the target via technology that's well nigh indistinguishable from magic. Others use iron sights and a fixed 4 power scope. I went down the latter route today.

Note Mossberg Truck Gun

It rained this morning as I was walking the dog after Mattins. That's right, it rained, for a whole minute, maybe a few seconds more. Uplifted and refreshed, I loaded up the truck with a couple of rimfires, an old JC Higgins, 22 LR, and a Ruger American, 17 HMR. Blue Ballistics got to come along too.

No Libs On The Bench

I faced off against enemy plastic water containers and some old Marlboro Light boxes, opening up off-hand at 30, 50, 75 and 100 yards with the .22. Once I got the hold sorted out the opposition went down swiftly enough, and I won't pretend that I didn't enjoy watching the water targets exploding. Take that, water enemy.

The Ruger American .17 HMR Works

The .17 was more fun, but a greater challenge. Because of the optic, you're looking for greater accuracy and not happy unless you get it. Well maybe not. It's still awesome to see a gallon water jug sail into the air after being hit by the superfast, if supertiny, .17 HMR, regardless of shot placement.

Get In The Truck, You Savage.

But what about the dog? He loved the shooting, and barked, jumped, leaped and romped in midfield, then he found his way to the source of the joy, the shooting bench. He was relegated to the truck after that.

The Water Enemy

So what was learned? Shooting rimfire is a lot of fun, no doubt about it, and it's comparatively cheap, too. The Ruger American is also a great rifle for the price, accurate as you like and then some; I'll be getting their .22 LR wood stocked variant as soon as I've saved up the vast sum of $350.

And as always,  the song remains the same, get out and shoot.

LSP

There Were Giants in Those Days

And by giants, I mean Lancelot Blackburne, who was Archbishop of York after a spell in the West Indies as a buccaneer, or pirate.

Blackburne wasn't noted for good behavior. According to Brewer's Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics "[his] behaviour was seldom of a standard to be expected of an archbishop. In many respects his behaviour was seldom of a standard to be expected of a pirate."

He kept apartments on Downing Street.

LSP

Church of England Found Wrecked in London Suburb

Police in Kingston, Southwest London, discovered the wreckage of the Church of England, in the middle of a suburban road.

A worried member of the public called the police last Friday, reporting a mysterious object on fire, next to a traffic island. When police arrived at the crash site they "couldn't believe their eyes" and wondered if they had found a UFO.

According to a police post on Facebook, “Officers from Emergency Response Team A were dispatched along with the London Fire Brigade. When they arrived on scene they couldn’t believe their eyes!”

“The officers that arrived on scene described the item as looking like a crash landed UFO! But it was just the Church of Egland [sic]."

Giles Fraser

How the Church of England ended up on fire in the middle of Malden Road, Kingston, is a mystery. Police have appealed to the public for help in solving what may be a crime.

Crowley

In the meanwhile, celebrity Aleister Crowley lookalike, Rev. Giles Fraser, has suggested that the Church of England can escape from its crash by worshiping in tents, like Moses. "Moses didn’t have to worry about the hole in the roof," stated Fraser in a recent article for the shariasymp Guardian, "He worshipped in tents not temples. And we must learn to do the same."

Good luck, CofE,

LSP

The Georgia Cryptid, Altamaha-ha

Georgia, affectionately known as the Peach State, is no stranger to the strange, anomalous creatures known as "cryptids." Perhaps most famously, Georgia is home to a legendary monster, the Altamaha-ha, a mysterious aquatic animal.

Similar in appearance to the famous Loch Ness monster, with a long neck, tail and fins, the Altamaha-ha, or "Altie," is seen on a regular basis.

According to Danny Grissette of Altamaha Coastal Tours, "I see it at least once a year. We hear it a lot, too. It seems to know where your back is — you can hear it splash behind you, never in front of you." 

Eyewitness reports suggest that the beast is a mammal, with lungs, that undulates "up and down."

"You don't have any hard evidence like fossils, which can indicate the placement of muscles," said one Altie sculptor, Rick Spears. "They say it undulates up and down, but fish and reptiles move from side to side, so it's mammalian, and some people say it breathes steam or warm air, which suggests that it has lungs."

However, skeptics aren't convinced and believe the monster is probably an otter, a manatee, or even a dugong.

"The common river otter sometimes exhibits a following behavior, where several of the animals will swim in a line surfacing and dipping, creating a very compelling illusion of a single undulating creature," stated cryptid expert, Blake Smith. "Dolphins and, presumably, manatees or dugongs could also exhibit the same kind of behavior." Others dismiss the creature as a "sturgeon on steroids."

The Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, led by Bishop Robert Wright, declined steadily from 2003-2014, losing over 16% of its Sunday worshiping attendance.

Perhaps Wright will reverse this disturbing trend. Or not.

LSP

Texas Ghost House

There used to be more farms here, but many of these became uncompetitive and were bought out by larger operations. Sometimes the houses remain, derelict, being slowly reclaimed by nature; I looked at one today.

It wasn't large, a simple one story house, though it had two substantial stone chimneys, topped off with brick. I peered through the dirty windows, mindful of snakes, and saw that the furniture was still in place and the kitchen shelves still stocked. It was like a decaying time capsule that someone had left, expecting to return.

And not that long ago. The rusting Impala in front of the house was last registered in 2005, though an old plow had fallen into disuse long before that. It was becoming part of tree, which had grown up around it. 

There was a well, too, and you could see water flowing at its bottom. If the grid goes down I'll know where to go, if the ghosts don't mind company.

I left that place thinking about Detroit; chances are, the chimneys would have been in use.

There's a moral to this, if you care to draw it.

LSP  

Get Out In The Field

Don't be a sluggard. Get up early and hunt some dove; you never know, you might even get some birds.

The Beach

Well, they weren't flying this morning as the sun was coming up over the fields, but I did shoot at one as it flew over The Beach.

The bird seemed to go down in a tree, which was surrounded by impenetrable thorns, so I couldn't get at it. Then again, the avian acrobat could've dodged the shot and flown off into the sunrise.

As always, great to get out in the field.

Mind how you go,

LSP

Alien Megastructure in Virginia?

Baffled astronomers believe they may have found an alien megastructure, a star surrounded by a Dyson Sphere, built by ETs.

Stargazing boffins are unable to explain the light fluctuations that the star emits, with one expert stating that the bizarre structure was "really weird."

"We'd never seen anything like this star," said Tabetha Boyajian, "We thought it might be bad data or movement on the spacecraft, but everything checked out. It was really weird." According to Boyajian and her team of researchers, the anomalous star went through "aperiodic dips in flux down to below the 20% level."

Virginia Theological College bills itself as the Episcopal church's "flagship seminary." Its new Immanuel Chapel was consecrated by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori earlier this month, at a service featuring guest preacher Archbishop Justsin Welby. Here's an excerpt from his groundbreaking sermon:

"There is a story of Pooh bear seeking to ride to safety on a honey pot during a flood. And if I remember rightly the story goes that 'sometimes Pooh was on the honey pot and sometimes the honey pot was on Pooh.' Buildings can be like that. Sometimes they are the servants of the Church, and sometimes they are on top, her tyrant."

Starfarer

Honey pot? Perhaps Justsin is unaware of VTS' "married" lesbian homiletics professor, but how to tell? After all, the light from the weird structure is aperiodic and in a state of flux. VTS Dean, Ian Markham, went to King's College London.

That was before he went starfaring.

LSP

Herding Cats

As I was saddling up, I was attacked by a herd of cats. They launched a frontal assault on my leg, which they climbed, like furry pirates.

When they weren't doing that, they launched wave attacks on my feet. It was hard to move, I tell you, but I shook them off, got on the horse and rode out.

The horse was a bit rebellious, doubtless shook up by the cat attack, but she got over it and we galloped up several hills, took in the scenery, and then went through some woods. Real woods, mind you, not your brush, Mesquite, impenetrable thicket woods. 

By the time we got back to the barn a small herd of cows had displaced the cats and that, readers, is the story of that.

I love riding,

LSP

The Government is Your Friend

I heard an interesting thing at the ecumenical men's prayer breakfast this morning. The pastor who gave the message, which was good, said at one point that we die when we've reached the right level of spiritual achievement, or maturity. "I don't want to have to live to be 100 to get there!" he said jokingly.

He was implying that God takes us to Himself when the time is right, and I questioned him about this. "What about the 18 year old Confederate soldier who dies at Gettysburg. Did God kill him, or did Satan, in the form of a Yankee?" Or more seriously, "When a baby is killed in the womb, is its life ended because it's reached the level of spiritual development that God intends for that child?"

But let's not be too quick to judge. Death is a catastrophe and against God's will, but it's overseen by Providence and, ultimately, redeemed by the sacrificial death of Christ. With that in mind, I can think of several, perhaps many, who seem to have died at the right time.

Does that sound somehow gloomy and morbid? Well, consider this popular opinion, Viz. The Government is your friend.

No. It's not.

LSP

Ride English, in Texas

You can ride English in Texas, there's no "rule," and that's just what I did, drove over to visit a church person and tacked up, English-style. Blue Posting Trot came along too; he enjoys being out in the country with the other dogs.

I rode out at a post to a fanfare of barking, and headed off down the dirt road to a big plowed field. It brought back memories, because I used to run the ill-behaved Thoroughbred, JB, there. So I paused for a while and remembered that, then moved on.

The Arabian mare wasn't too sure she wanted to endure being separated from her pasture pals, but tough luck, horse, ride on. I picked up a gallop(s), too, though mindful of the uneven ground. No point in injuring the horse, or yourself, on a sun-baked boulder of plowed dirt.

Ready, Set, Go!

All in all a great ride, and I enjoyed riding English for a change. What are the benefits, if any? I'd say it gives you more contact with the horse; there's simply less between you and the animal. This lends itself to greater control, if you know how to use it. Some say that dressage skills make for better Western riding, and that sounds right to me, but I'm no expert.

Typically Happy Texan Dogs

What I do know is that it's a world of fun going fast, at one with the horse; slow too, and perhaps riding English has an advantage, because of closer contact, unlike our President's epic fail in Syria. But that's a different story.

All for Texas,

LSP

Dove Hunt

There's been a lot of horse lately, but not much gun. So loaded a shotgun in the truck and went in search of a more balanced life.

This meant walking the treelines in search of dove, and the method's simple, if not easy. Walk up on a tree with dove in it, and when they fly out of the tree like Exocet missiles, shoot them. At first there were no doves, although there were spiders.

Then the avian acrobats burst out of a tree! One round off, no birds down, and in fairness to me they were going fast at the outer limits of my range. So I headed over to a dried-up creek and hunkered down for a bit, listening to someone making a rabbit distress call somewhere off to my left, in the brush. For the benefit of coyotes, probably.

After shooting a snake, I climbed out of the creek bed and headed towards a small clump of trees. If I was a dove, would I be in those trees? I asked myself, and figured yes, I would be. Sure enough they were, and exploded out of the tree as I got up on it. Big excitement, shots were fired, adrenaline up, and another miss. 

Berating myself for being slow off the mark, I walked back to my starting point and chased a few birds along the trees, but didn't get a shot in the autumnal 100 degree weather.

So. LSP 0, Dove 1.

This isn't over.

LSP