New Rifle Range

Tore down the other -- its straw bales were soaked and moldy -- and chopped briars, baby cedars, and poison ivy down by hand to extend my meadow's rifle range by 12 feet, for a total of 100 feet, suggested shooting distance for .22s to minimize chance of ricochets. Forked the rotten straw over the weeds at the margins, hoping to put a damper on their regrowth. Bales of straw are expensive, $5 apiece, and really hard for me to carry -- so this time I brought home two rather than five. All bales are belted with twine around the middle, and this time I got smart and lay them on their sides so the binding wouldn't be cut by shots gone astray. I set the bales atop metal shelving that got fatigued and lay down and twisted itself until it was an inch or so high; this serves to raise the bottom bale a bit above the ground. The shelf was in the garage, as scrap.

Did this all by myself over about a week. Clearing twelve-plus feet of virgin brush and then mowing it was the sweatiest part.

The lower target is a "Dirty Bird" "splatter" target that makes hits easier to see at a distance of 100 feet. Note the bull's eye! The upper target is an "auto-reset" target, made of iron, cleverly designed, I bought from a store incongruously called Midwest Marine. The targets in a row, when hit, will fly backwards and upwards, sticking there until you hit the top target, which will release them all to the original position you see here. This target folds flat for storage, very cool.