an impromptu shooting party (with dogs)

  Over the weekend family and friends got together at my family’s farm to enjoy the chilly sunshine and test our shooting skills, which were largely negligible.  We got some of my father’s lesser used guns and decided to use up some ammunition.  We took the dogs along and some thermos’s of hot chocolate. Brother set up the targets against the dam of the pond and we set to work.

I hadn’t done much shooting for some years.  Others had never shot a gun, so with one exception it was a pretty lame group.  The cute little six-shooter pistol didn’t help as something was wrong with its sights, and they couldn’t be adjusted.  My father tended to be attracted to unusual guns, so we also got to shoot a .22 rifle with what dad called a “carnival” loading system, similar to what is found on guns at carnival shooting booths. I have no idea if that’s what’s it’s really called or not.

Fortunately, my brother is an avid hunter and was there to teach and help with the particulars.  He also did all the loading of guns and cleaned them afterwards. The dogs enjoyed being out in the woods with their people.   They ran around like crazy at first but soon settled down patiently.  The bank of the pond protected us from the wind, but the hot chocolate still didn’t last long.  It was a fun way to learn a bit and get rid of some ammunition at the same time.  We all said we’d like to do it again, but now that there’s been some snow and it’s gotten quite chilly, we may not want to stand around in the woods for two hours for a while.