Quick Appleseed review #1

I have decided to keep posting about our Appleseed Shoot until I am out of pictures. I don't want you to have to wait until next week, though, to see the end of the story. I'm going to, therefore, write an email with pictures from throughout the whole weekend every time I get a few minutes. That way the whole thing doesn't seem daunting as I have soooooo much to say and so little extra time this week. I'm going to be in classes this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and I need to prepare for that so this seems like a sensible plan for sharing all that I want to share.

Our big weekend began at 4:00 Friday afternoon when Jonathan and Peter Bartlett arrived. What a joy it was to see our boys greeting their friends! The first thing that they did was set up the camper (pictures for another post) and carry in the baked goods that their precious mother sent along to help us through the weekend.

Robert had decided to call Alex to advise him to come down from Interstate by Dawson and turn our way at Napoleon as the road up north was terribly muddy when the Bartletts came down. Robert was quite surprised then, when he called Alex and Alex said that he was minutes away from our place.

Within minutes a little, blue Kia pulled into the driveway and out stepped Alex and someone new to our family, Kyle. The men went and looked at the range right away and then checked out our swing set. Question. "How tall is that thing?" Answer. "Twenty-three feet tall."

On Saturday the weather was wet and chilly. Did that stop our Instructors or Instructors-in- Training (which is the Bartlett young men)? Hardly! Here Jonathan and Peter are sharing one way to use a sling with our bale backdrop in the background. You can see the targets all ready for bullet holes through them. Now to get those bullet holes to go in the right places. :)

Here Kyle, our shoot boss for the weekend, was working with me on a technique called, "Carding your sights." You get the target in your scope; then one of the instructors puts a card in front of your eyes; and you should be able to be right on the target if you didn't move. It shows you how much you move around and how much you need to work on developing your natural point of aim.


Here Alex is showing how to get the sling adjusted properly to help you in the standing postition. This was really great at stabilizing the rifle when you're standing to shoot. The trouble with it was when you get to shooting the AQTs, you shoot in sitting and prone positions too. I found that having the sling in this position for sitting and lying down just didn't work so I left my sling in the loop position all the time. This helped for the sitting and prone positions and I just suffered through the standing position, which you spend the least amount of time shooting in for AQTs. There just isn't enough time, for me anyway, to change the sling around in between times. I was complaining to Jonathan that it was so hard to move the sling around with a big, bulky coat. He said that it's worse in the summer on bare skin as it rubs on the skin and can irritate it. I guess one just wears longer sleeves then but it just goes to show that everything has it's benefits and it's drawbacks.

Peter teaching about the sitting postitions while Jonathan demonstrates them.

That's all for now folks. Keep checking as I'll post when I have time. Now to the books as I told Melanie (my BodyTalk instructor from New York) yesterday that I plan to test next month when she is in Bismarck. Now that I've made up my mind, it's not so bad. I just have to send her a bunch of session reports and study, study, study. If anyone wants to volunteer for a free session, let me know. It would be good to get some new blood as I need to have 50 sessions recorded by then. I can use older sessions too but, for what it's worth, I thought I'd make that offer. You can help me while I help you--how's that for a win/win situation? Sounds like good energy to me!!!!!!!!! :)