Men Time

On Sunday, a wonderful day. Great NC spring weather, mid-60s, sunny, a breeze.

Went down to our Pittsboro property, for some work and weapons.

Stopped at the Hardees on the way down, and got two "Monster Biscuits," one for me and one for fuzzy younger younger Munger, who came along. Not a food item approved by the Heart Association. YYM couldn't finish his, which tells you a lot. (Yes, I managed to choke mine down, but didn't finish his, which was a victory).

We get to the property, 30 acres of forest plus a baseball field. Every man needs his own baseball field, but I actually have one. YYM mowed and ran the aerator behind the tractor, while I spread 400 pounds of Milorganite. Organic fertilizer, made from sewage in Tofe's new adopted home town. (Nice video on the link, don't miss it).

The grass had a little dew on it. In no time the aroma...well, let's just say I love the smell of composted, dried, and pelletized human excrement in the morning.

We dragged the infield, worked a little on the drainage (some big ruts from heavy rains), and then got out the guns. A terrific exercise in optics for the YYM: I took a Hardee's cup, an EXTRA LARGE so it would be fair, and placed it on the far side of the baseball field, about 120 yards away, in right field.

YYM's job was to make sure his Ruger 10/22 scope was sighted in correctly. Took about 40 shots, but then he started nailing the cup every time. Interestingly, the following things are true:

1. If you leave the Hardee's cup empty, the 22 round goes through both sides of the plastic without knocking the cup over. Pretty high velocity. Cool, actually, like a magic trick. He said he was hitting the cup, and I told him he was nuts, the cup should go flying. But when we went downrange and looked, he was right: the cup was riddled. An empty cup is pretty light, but a small, pointed shell moving at 1000 feet per second (almost exactly the speed of sound, just under) goes through pretty fast.

2. On the other hand, if you put a limestone rock in the bottom of the cup, and hit that with a shell, the cup explodes. The shell broke the rock into high speed shards, and the bullet itself broke up into shrapnel. Very cool, and exremely satisfying.

Drove home, but stopped at Pizza Hut. YYM and I were hungry (Monster Biscuits at 8:30 am, pizza at 3 pm), so we each ordered our own large pizza. Waittress tried to argue, counseling mediums, but we just stared at her. I was trying to be virtuous, so ordered the "Veggie Lovers" pizza. But the waitress rallied, showing she was a fine and sensitive young woman after all. She brought me the "Meat Lover's" pizza instead, which has four kinds of pork products and four kinds of beef products, all heavily salted and laden with fat. She got an extra tip for that. As I told my son, "I hate to make trouble. I'll just eat the one she brought."

Got home, took a nice nap, mowed the lawn at home, and then went with wife, the YYM, and the elder younger Munger, to see Blue Man Group. Very nice, funny and entertaining.

An excellent Sunday in central North Carolina.