As a public service...

...I post the following because the internet is desperately short of cute kitty pictures.

I think this is the sole survivor of a litter thrown by a now-missing black mama in my wildflower/weed patch. It took up residence in the bilge of the long-drydocked pocket cruiser where my daughter found and fed it a few days ago. I continue to subsidize its nutritional needs. Since last night it's been rooted where you see it, near the commandant's quarters deck.

New Dog Libby hissy-fits but is willing, upon command, to stop trying to turn it into lunch.

I'm no cat man, but a good hard-working outside, repeat outside, feline would have some pest control advantages around here so I'll continue the St. Francis routine.


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And just so no one thinks I've gone completely softheaded and barmy, I still concentrate on more important stuff than cats.

It's another rebuilt 1903 Springfield, someone else's good work from many years ago in the excellent .257 Roberts. it's too seldom shot around here, but Grandson and I blew the cobwebs from the barrel Saturday. Great fun, and it will be worked a little harder in the future.

Lyman. Real men don't have no truck with tilliescopes and laserites.

(Actually, I'm kind of proud of the bench. It's a retired oak entertainment unit banished from the living room when the flat screen electric teevee set arrived. An hour with the saws and drills turned it into a good rifle cleaning and tinkering stand.)

The Yellow Man's Burden

His Ineptness continues his mission to Asia, and we all praise the wider application of the skills which have brought him -- and the nation -- such acclaim for peacemaking in places like Benghazi and Gaza.

Banging with Gramps

The Great Annual Clan Pheasant Shoot-At is history, and Camp Jiggleview has reverted to its genteel semi-squalid quietude.  It is  now inhabited by a mere six legs (one biped plus New Dog Libby) compared to about 40 at the peak.

This gathering of armed citizens and their aristocratic dogs has been going on for close to 20 years. Its motto is something like search and destroy prior to grins over unhealthy food and a certain small ration of good whiskey. 

Every annual session leaves a special memory. This year it came from our friend Dan who shared the Camp J Transient Officers Quarters with my son, grandson, and four-leggers Ruby and  Storm. Dan suffered a minor thumb cut Thursday -- something about a small mishap with the action of his OU gun. Over Friday morning coffee he told me he would be leaving early because the wound had been badly exacerbated. I asked for details. 

Well, I was rearranging dogs in the sleeping bag and ...

And if that doesn't  perfectly capture the flavor of these things, nothing does.

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One more, almost as good.

I have an intricate range  box, the product of my late father's creative mind and careful workmanship. When my youngest heir and assign, age 17,  opened it he found a three-screw Ruger Single-Six, a Colt Huntsman, and a GI Colt 1911A1.

I allowed as how we still had enough daylight to run back out to the countryside for a spot of handgun practice and asked him to pick a pistol. Whereupon: "Let's just take the whole box." 

Is that a well-trained lad or what?

And yet another crisis in the our current Age of Ineptitude:

The Senate has scheduled an early evening procedural vote Tuesday for a sportsmen's bill that will decide the fate of 41 polar bear carcasses that hunters want to bring home from Canada as big-game trophies. Hunters killed the bears just before a 2008 ban on polar bear trophy imports took effect, but were not able to bring them home before the Fish and Wildlife Services listed them as a threatened species.

A small suggestion: Whenever an issue of this magnitude rises above the decision-making capacity of a clerk-typist, turn it over to a smart GS7.  Give him or her 30 seconds to say yes or no, or to order a coin toss.

Fer krissakes.

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AP characterizes the bill as 19 measures "favorable to sportsmen." Okay, but I'll bet my second-best rifle that at least 17 of them -- including the bears -- do nothing more than fix idiocies previously created by by presidents, congresspeople, or the unelected regulators of national life.