I'm back

As if you missed me

Went down to visit my parents this weekend. They just celebrated their 50th anniversary. A wonderful thing to note, although it makes me feel like a piker for not succeeding in marriage.

In any case, used Dad's sizer/luber to get 300 .45 bullets ready for loading. Good weather for it; chilly outside, warmer in the barn, and a nice rain falling. Very nice rain, I should say. Their area got 1.75" as of the time I left yesterday, and my guage said about the same in OKC. That's the most rain the area has had since September or October, I forget which. Now, to crown things off, it'll hit 28 or 30 for the low tonight with a chance of snow. Only thing I planted last week(while it was warm) was a rose bush, and I can just put a bucket over it tonight.

One reason I hadn't lit the forge in a long time was that the entire state was under an outdoor burn ban; wildfires everywhere, lots of property damage and some injuries. Even if there hadn't been a ban, it was so dry I don't think I'd have risked it; a coal forge doesn't throw a lot of embers or sparks, but I wouldn't have wanted to take the chance.

Last week had a chance to meet a friend at the range for the first time in months. Didn't accomplish a lot, but did try out some handloads in .30-30. I'd never used IMR4064 powder for this cartridge before, and it seems to work pretty well. I'm going to load some more tonight for more thorough testing next time.

One reason for getting friend out to the range was for stress relief. His wife had a baby about a month ago, all that went just fine as I mentioned before, healthy 8lb. girl. Then wife developed an infection in the incision(caesarean section). Antibiotics didn't do the job, and she wound up back in the hospital for surgery to clean it out and major-level antibiotics. It came out during this that the culture showed five different bacteria in the infection, and- according to the doctor- only way it could have happened was in the OR, which means the room and/or some of the equipment wasn't properly cleaned and prepped, which really went over well as you can imagine.

So infection under control, but she can't nurse the baby because of the medications. And then, a few days after went home, had a reaction to one of/the combination of meds, and got hives and swelled up and wound up in the emergency room for a day.

So by the time all this was settled a bit and things on a more even keel, getting hubby out to the range for a while seemed like a good thing to do.

Well, I've got powder to measure and bullets to seat.