Conspiracy!

From my own family no less! It appears that after a long streak of not being able, for one reason or another, to keep my presents a secret, Farmmom went to great lengths (even recruiting my boyfriend to blatantly lie to me about being an anxious weirdo in order to find out where exactly my gun was) to keep this one secret.

See, it seems that EvylRobot conspired with her too. He sent her some leather, she did some tooling, sent it back, and he made a holster out of it. Throughout all of this several people managed to keep it a secret from me.

The finished product is nice:






I was told I had to do a review, on top of being bamboozled by my dearly beloveds. What a world.

So far I'm impressed with the workmanship. Farmmom's tooling is great, the rose is one that I had admired a few times on a belt pattern (this is me sucking up to my mommy) and Robot's craftsmanship is good. There's gonna be a little fit adjustment as I wear the holster in... it's a little stiff to form to me where I prefer just yet, but the difference in position is about an inch, so it's not that huge a deal, as it breaks in a little I'll move it and it'll conform.

I like that the clips are reversible. I can wear it IWB or OWB and the swap is a couple of screws. The clips are also extremely sturdy and very much stay where they're put, which is a requirement. Also, I'm a big fan of where he put his logo. I don't mind advertising for him when I'm showing it off, but I like that it's covered when the gun is in the holster. It wouldn't work well with the rose on a full time basis.

It's pretty clear that Robot uses something with a texture as his backing when he works his leather.. there are some cross hatched markings on the back side of the leather, and an odd mottled texture behind his logo, all on the back, where it won't show, and will probably disappear with wear. Not a deal breaker on the holster, were I paying for it, but being as familiar as I am with leather and having a passing acquaintance with working leather, it's something I noticed.

I'll update more as I wear it and figure out how it's gonna break in. So far, in the adjusted position it's fairly comfortable, for a brand new holster about five times thicker than I'm used to, since my last holster for Walter was a floppy crappy thing.

I am very pleased with my sooper secret gift, though.

Merry Christmas Everybody

Here's hoping that all have a happy, safe, and loving time this holiday season.

White Christmas?????

We spent yesterday morning trying to get feed to critters. We spent the afternoon curled up by the heater watching it snow and blow.

This morning Farmdad had to dig the door out so the dogs could go do their business.





They loved it. They could look in the dining room window!

As of yet there is not a highway in the county that is open

Banner Day

Monday was a banner day for me. Farmdad and I took a road trip up to see Salamander and play in the funshop he works at.

See for all of my untold years I have bought several weapons for Farmdad, Farmgirl and the son and grandson and had bought myself a rifle or two but had never bought myself a pistol. I've had several over the years. Some were gifts. Sometimes Farmdad would come home with something new and tell me "honey look what I got for you!!" thinking that would keep him out of trouble and some were just flat stolen from him when I particularly liked something he came up with.


After fighting with Workman's Compensation for over two years they decided that I was due a small (very small) settlement. I got said check in the mail a couple weeks ago and was trying to decide what to do with it when life went "Rodeo" around here.

This weekend it hit me what I wanted to do with it. I was gonna buy a pistol for myself. I mean what else would be as satisfying? What else would help get rid of the stress of the last several months than turning money into smoke and noise? I needed some recoil therapy and it would be so much better with a new toy.

The shop Salamander works at always has a very nice inventory. I figured I could find something there that just begged me to take it home since every time I go in there I have to wipe the drool off my face. I still couldn't afford some of the pistols they always have there but was sure something would catch my eye.

We arrived shortly after the shop opened and I ran Salamander from display case to display case looking at this one and that one. Eventually I narrowed the choices down to 3 or 4 different pistols and of course they were all in different areas of the store. Needless to say I finally made my choice and Salamander started the paperwork.

This is what I ended up with.







A Smith & Wesson M&P 9. No it's not flashy. No it's not anything anyone is gonna squee over. But it felt nice in my hand (after we changed the backstrap) and it talked to me. It wanted to come home with me and be my friend.

I also got Farmdad a Ruger 22/45 for Christmas, which he got early since he was along and actually picked it out for himself.

We stopped on the way home and ran some ammo through both of them and I am extremely pleased with my new little friend. The recoil is just barely there and the darn thing shoots very well. I was hitting quite well with it from the very first round. I don't have anything on paper since we just stopped on a country road and just threw a couple soda bottles out there for targets but the soda bottles looked a bit ragged after just a couple magazines. It is a very FUN gun to shoot and I am quite sure I will use up the remainder of my stash of cash buying ammo for it.

In Lieu Of Flowers

Mamaw rarely could handle flowers anyway, most of them set her off coughing. So, for our extended tribe who may wish to make a gesture, we ask that you donate to Hospice rather than send flowers.

Hospice is a wonderful, caring organization, and group of people, who do far more than they get credit for. The organization and people here were invaluable to us.

Feel free to donate to your local hospice care organization or if you prefer (one friend has already requested the information) you can donate to ours in her name:

Baca County Hospice
210 E 10th St
Springfield, CO
81073

Mamaw

In January, Mamaw was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer. It had already gone to her brain. They found a tumor the size of a golf ball.

They surgically removed that one, and treated the others they could see with a focused radiation procedure. Then she started chemo.

She went through a full course of chemo, and it halted the stuff in her lungs. She had to have two more rounds of radiation for the stuff in her brain though.

She had anxiety attacks, thanks to the changing brain chemistry. She went through all the misery that goes with chemo, including losing her hair. She refused to wear a wig. She said "I have cancer. I don't have anything to be ashamed of, if people don't like it, they don't have to look!"

She fell in love with one of the pups when we had the baby schnauzers around. When he was potty trained, he came to live with her. He had such a dramatic effect on the anxiety that her oncologist proclaimed him a service dog. He cut her medication in half, for a long time.

She never gave up. Never. The doctors were all amazed, nothing was progressing as fast as it should have for this aggressive cancer. She just kept going.

Until tonight. Tonight she lost the fight. Her body just ran out of resources to fight with, and in the end, it was a mercy.

She will be missed, and loved, always and forever, but her fight is over now.

Rest In Peace, Mamaw. We love you.

Protips

Some handy hints for dealing pleasantly with your cashier:

1. When you're loading things on a belt that runs under a raised platform for anything, make sure the tall stuff will miss it. If you fail to do so, don't glare at the cashier when your two liter bottle of soda falls over.

2. Take a moment as you're loading the belt to realize that if you want things bagged in an organized fashion, it's far more efficient if you organize them a bit going in. Regardless of whether you're ok with your Irish Spring sitting on top of your ground turkey, they're not allowed to do it. Grumbling about having bags with one item in there is sort of counterproductive when you have chemical products scattered down five feet of belt, and one bag will hold approximately six inches worth of stuff on that belt, reasonably. Less, if it's heavy.

3. If you have special requests regarding items, for instance, if you want a price check on something to make sure it costs what you think it costs, put that either at the front or the back. If you stick it in the middle of four million tiny items and tell us about it while it's still in your cart, we will forget, because we have a lot more shit going on than you realize.

4. It's not the cashier's fault. Unless that person dropped your eggs or threw your bananas against the wall a few times before throwing them in the bag, they have no control over what happens to your shit prior to it landing on their belt. If there's a problem in the store, by all means, inform someone, and the cashier may be the only employee you see during your visit, but don't throw blame at them. For the most part, they only leave their register for breaks, and they damn sure aren't spending their breaks running around the rest of the store messing stuff up. In fact, chances are, they're spending their breaks huddled out of the way somewhere trying to convince themselves they need the job more than they need to strangle the next customer that attacks them for something they have no control over.

5. Yes, at our store, we have a system to call the people who handle the front end management electronically, but please remember, there are several cashiers, other customers, and other responsibilities. They will get the message, but they may be running around the store for another customer, or helping another cashier, or doing a dozen things that require their attention, and they will get to your problem as soon as they can. Your issue is important, but we have no way to prioritize these things, it's first come first served. And no, there isn't a code for "this customer is going to punch me, come quick!" Although there should be.

6. If you're at a checkout that doesn't have a belt, please remember that we don't get the go-go Gadget arms until we've been with the company five years. If the counter is five feet long, and your stuff is at the end? We can't reach it. Much as we appreciate your concern for the well being of our muscles, by the middle of a shift, your attempt at assisting us in stretching and limbering up is not going to be as appreciated as you would like it to be.

7. Last, but certainly not least.... When there is limited space on the belt, and you want to get your stuff on there, we totally understand if you want to stack some stuff on top of other stuff. However. If you put long items under or behind other items where we can't get to them, eventually we have three feet of cleared belt, but for one item, which we can't move because there is other stuff on top of it, and we can't reach the rest of your crap either. Leave heavy items in your cart, they give us hand scanners for those. Place long items on top of everything else, not on bottom. Oh, and clothes? If you have five hanging items, and fold them all together on the belt, the chances of our ability to handle them smoothly and efficiently drops to zero. You don't like waiting, we don't like making you wait. If we work together on this and you don't do dumb stuff to make our jobs harder, we'll all have much better success.