Once again, I've let the blog sit idle for months. Honestly, I've been disgusted all year about the garden here, and haven't thought much about posting when all I would do is complain. All in all, the strange weather this year gave us the worst garden we have ever had. NO corn, onions or green beans at all; very few potatoes, and little of everything else other than brussel sprouts, cabbage, and misc. peppers. It was pretty much a total write-off for the year. I'm disgusted, but not discouraged. Soon the garden will be pulled and prepped for winter. We'll hit it again in the spring and do it all over again.
In other news, I am finally back to work. A friend got me a job with a sprinkler contractor, and I've been working steady since mid July. I have to admit, that even as active as I normally am, the first week or two kicked my ass! But now I'm back in the swing of things, and we're 7 weeks into a new jobsite. The place is a total nightmare of coordination, (as far as architects and owners), but we're chugging along doing everything we can. It's steady work, a full paycheck, and only a 45 minute drive. I'm not going to complain at all.
Now that I'm back to work and we're catching up on everything, the plan it to concentrate again on keeping the house well stocked. With the instability of being in a construction trade, I never know if or when that next layoff may be around the corner. We're slowly adding more to the food stores and also to other things we kept well stocked in the house. After doing things this way literally saved our asses over the last 2 years of my layoff, I will never be unprepared for another similar event again. In doing so, we're well prepared for anything else that gets thrown our way....power outage, illness, extreme weather, or even the zombie apocalypse. I'd rather have everything than not. I'll be documenting the preparedness along the way through fall and winter.
Over the winter, I'll be doing a couple gun builds that I'm hoping to post about as they go. I plan to rebuild a Ruger Mini14 (that I bought with a folding stock) into a scout-type rifle. I plan to go with a full length synthetic stock, a mid-rail mount (thus the scout rifle comparison), with a red dot scope. I also want to pick up a 12ga pump (preferably a Remington 870) and build the HD shotgun I've wanted for quite a while. But this may wait until spring since deer season is fast approaching and used shorguns will be few and far between. I'm also considering picking up a Mosin Magant surplus rifle and toying with it. It's almost impossible to say no to a tried and true WWII era battle rifle for $100 or under when I can find 4-500rd cases of ammo for under $80. For years, I always turned up my nose at these rifles, but now I can really appreciate their simple reliability and beauty. I always need more projects, right? LOL

And.........it's that time of year again! Time for the big Halloween bash! I've wanted to start the yard haunt, but the past 2 weekends have been nothing but rain. This weekend calls for sunny and 70's, so I'll be running full bore to get as much done as I can. There are new additions this year, but I'll post those as I get them up in the yard. They're good ones!!!!!!!!!!