Shootout at the OK Corral!

28 Nov 09--We took a drive up to see Cathy's aunt Mavis and uncle Robert today. They live about an hour's drive from Tallahassee, in Donalsonville, Georgia. As I told you before, they both have farms up there, about 250 acres between them. All their fields are awaiting planting, so there was nothing for me to take pictures of, like corn or whatever. Here is Mavis with Cathy. And then Mavis, Robert, Chelsey, Eleanor, Cathy and Brenda in Mavis' house.

Interestingly, Cathy's mother's maiden name is Faircloth, and both Robert and Mavis (her brother and sister) live on Faircloth Rd. Robert lives off one side, and about 50 yards down the road lives Mavis on the other side. It's sort of cool to live on a road named after you, huh?

This is a cotton field being picked. This farm is right behind Robert's house and belongs to Mavis' daughter and son-in-law.

Robert has always liked me (haha), so he let me take some pictures on his farm equipment.

So what we really came to do here, aside from visit with Mavis and Robert, was to shoot some skeet out in Robert's fields. So Eleanor stayed back at the house with Mavis and Robert let us shoot his 12 and 20 gauge shotguns, and then we shot his .22 revolver and Cathy's .38 Special! This was a blast!!

Cathy and Robert did all the loading of the shells and bullets, and Cathy basically showed me, Brenda and Chelsey how to handle the weapons and what to aim at. In the picture below, Brenda is actually falling a bit backwards from the "kick" of the shotgun. I started out trying to shoot right-handed, but as I found out in the military, I can't close my left eye to look out my right eye when shooting, so I had to swap to left-handed.

I wasn't too good at it to begin with, but after a few practice rounds I ended up hitting a total of 7 clays....5 in a row! Cathy acted like she had been practicing daily for the past month...hit every clay but one all afternoon. If you click on the 2nd picture here, you can see her clay shatter in the air. Conversely, if you click on the 3rd picture, you will see the full clay flying thru the air that I missed.

Robert mostly acted as the clay puller for us, loading the machine with one or two clays depending on how we were shooting. But he did take a few shots himself, and needles to say he was pretty good. When Cathy and I shot together we both hit our clays, and when Robert and Cathy shot together they both hit also. The same cannot be said for Chelsey and Brenda...haha!

Only after seeing the pictures did we realize that Chelsey needs to work on her shooting posture...that elbow is a little high!

And although you can't tell it from the picture, this is the 2nd time that Brenda fell backwards a bit from the kick of the shotgun. The barrell of that shotgun started out about shoulder high before she shot here! haha

I think Cathy has been watching too many cop shows...look at the stance on her!!! Shooting the pistols was cool, too. All of us, except Chelsey, actually shot holes in the cans that Robert had placed on the ground. Chelsey came real close, but no cigar! That is my actual hole in the can!

Time to go home...everyone say goodbye!

Had a great day, so I took Robert's shotgun home with me and he doesn't know it! haha

Thanksgiving Day!

26 Nov 09--Had Thanksgiving dinner at Cathy's parent's house this afternoon. Cathy's uncle Robert and one of her sisters, Brenda, came, too. Robert is Cathy's mother's baby brother, 53 yrs old (I think), a year younger than me. Robert is a farmer, has cows, and works the land for a living. Robert claims that he works hard, but over the years every time I have seen him he is "waiting" to plant the next crop, so it has always seemed to me that he had a lot of time on his hands. haha

From left to right in the picture below is Robert, Cathy's father Ed, Cathy's sister Brenda, who is one year younger than Cathy, Cathy, and Cathy's mother Eleanor.

Brenda's daughter Chelsea joined us after dinner. Chelsea is 18 and just signed up for a couple classes at the local college...she starts in January. Chelsea never saw a camera she didn't love, absolutely ready to pose whenever she sees a camera. haha

After dinner we all played a game that Brenda brought over. Basically it was a "throw the sand bag in the hole game", which after much toil, Ed and I beat Cathy and Brenda in a sudden death throwdown. Ed came through for us, scoring the final 8 points in what ended up a rout!

After the game we all stood around taking pictures of each other. In the final picture Brenda is laughing out loud because she finally found someone she is taller than (me)!

Charlton Heston, Who?

23 Nov 09--Almost finished painting Cathy's parent's house, so before I forgot I wanted to show you a few pictures of the house...this is where Cathy grew up.

Front of the house:

Back of the house:

Ed has a good-sized vegetable garden back there, but you really can't make it out in the pictures. The first time I came to Cathy's house they had a chicken coop out there...pretty cool!

Seeing as we were winding down, one of the final things that had to be done was to move Ed's gun case to paint the final wall. When I got to the house the guns were laying out on the bed.

And then Ed and Eleanor went to the back yard to take a few shots at some passing birds!

So guess what we had for dinner?! They gave me no choice, and I didn't figure I should argue with them. haha

Work, Work and More Work!

18 Nov 09--We put Cathy's mother and father to work today. As we were inside painting again, there is Cathy's father Ed cleaning some blinds outside....and then there is Cathy's mother Eleanor going behind Ed to make sure the blinds are actually clean! haha (Of course Ed doesn't know that Eleanor was checking up on him.)