Appleseed Shoot

It's been so long since I've posted that I suspect anyone that used to read this has become bored with waiting and has moved on to other more interesting blogs. Oh well, I'll write about this last weekend anyway!
I wish I had some pictures because as we all know a picture tells a thousand words, I don't have a digital camera and I never bother getting the film in my SLR developed anway so it's a waste of time to try using that even though I love photography. Two of my bothers and I are planning on climbing two mountains on the West coast this summer so I will have to get a digital camera for that trip since I couldn't possibly climb 12,000 feet to the top of a mountain and not take pictures! Back on the subject of this weekend and the appleseed shoot...
When I heard about the appleseed program (www.appleseedinfo.org) I knew I just had to attend a shoot, I like shooting and have done it for years but had never been taught the proper way or any tricks for accuracy so I figured an appleseed would be perfect for me. Unfortunately there were none held within a decent driving distance of me so I couldn't attend, but that didn't solve the fact that I wanted to go to one so I figured if I hosted one I could attend! To make a long story short, this past weekend was the first appleseed shoot in North Dakota and it turned out great! I don't need to go into all of the details of what went on because Jonathan already did that on his blog so hit the link and check it out there, he has pictures up so it will be a lot more interesting anyway.
The week preceeding the shoot was extremely hectic for me because of work schedule (14 hours a day in the tractor) and chores at home with the horses running to town (literally, down main street) several blown tires on the pickup etc. you know how it goes when you have a lot you want to do. Something had to be left undone and the garden was sadly neglected. The morning of the shoot I had another tire blow up, not just a flat but a complete BANG on the front tire while going over a bump, the tire flew off to the ditch and I decided that I didn't want to deal with this last intrusion of my schedule so I just drove the rest of the way to the farm on the rim, ruining it in the process but I have a stack of those so it's not the end of the world.
Despite everything we got the signs out on the road and I wasn't late to my own farm for the shoot.
I wasn't sure what to expect from the appleseed shoot but I figured I had to learn something, I surprised myself by making Rifleman the first day with a score of 225 but I kind of cheated because the rifle I used fits me like it was custom tailored and shoots so naturally that it's a wonder I missed any points at all. If anyone has a Marlin model 39A for sale I would like another one because I love them. I was expecting to learn how to properly shoot but I didn't expect to have the revolutionary war history stories be so much of an incentive to get myself in gear. The stories told reminded me of other stories that I had read and it kind of lit a fire underneath me that's still burning a little.
The second day, using everything I had learned the preceeding day, I was shooting Rifleman score regularly and the shoot boss asked me to help with range safety and to give pointers to the others. Jonathan (who had also made Rifleman) and I did that job for the rest of the day and I thought I learned nearly as much watching and correcting others as I did being taught myself!

I've decided to become an Appleseed instructor, it's more than just shooting well, it's part of keeping this wonderful country free and honoring what the founding fathers did and gave up to give us this country and the freedom that we have and are throwing away with each stroke of the president's pen. We recognize the big names in the founding fathers list, like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Samuel Adams but let's not forget the men and women that gave everything for the freedom that we take for granted every single day.