Assistance From The State, New Scope Set Up

 I have always used the Ohio State Forrester in my region to advise and assist me.

In the past, I have worked with Lee and Brad on invasive species control and timber stand improvement (TSI). I also took Lee's advice and installed a warm season grass prairie plot. Lee has retired and Brad has apparently also moved on, so I made contact with Gavin who is a new addition to the department.

We had a quick tour and then went to work marking up trees for removal on 3 acres of an oak stand.

Now I've got my work cut out for me. I really appreciate the expertise from these guys.

We also looked at a few special areas where I had questions.  One was this stand of young white oaks.  I wondered whether I should be picking the winners in this competition.

Gavin said yes so I later picked three to save and also girdled some adjacent poplars that were competing.

Ever since my last New Mexico hunt where I shot an elk at over 600 yards using the guide's gun, I have been considering switching to a dial scope on my gun.  My South African PH, Arnold, has been telling me about these Swarovski Z5 scopes with a ballistic turret (BT).  I sprung for one to replace my existing Vortex on my 30-06.

It's a pretty neat turret system where you can zero your scope, set the zero stop, and then assemble some external rings with color markers that you set for whatever distance you choose.

Some scope manufacturer's achieve this same result by selling custom cut turret caps.  But every time you change bullets, ammo brands, or location, your custom turret may be off. The Swaro system lets you adjust for these things yourself.

I zeroed my scope at 100 yards and then set a green dot for 300, a yellow for 400, and a red for 500.

This is my sight in at 100 yards - my eyeball bore sighting had me on paper at 100 yards.

After I got that set, I shot this 5 shot group.  Not sure why it was off to the right - don't think that there was much wind.

I got the 2.4x -12x version that has a 50mm objective.  I picked medium height integrated base/rings.  They were supposed to be good up to 50mm objective.  It was pretty tight and I would have liked the scope back just a little more but I didn't have clearance for that.

Anyway, I set the rings up based on the GeoBallistics app for my Barnes 168 grain load.  I moved back to 220 yards and dialed per the app.

Elevation was perfect - little bit of horizontal stringing (me I'm sure). I've still got to verify the longer shots.

Then I got Eric and my rifles cleaned.  Downward tilt to avoid junk in the action.

Last week I found a dead deer in the pond - this week it was a bass.  Related?

I did some more of my invasives control this week.  Multiflora rose and autumn olive were the main targets.  It never ends.

The dogwoods are in their glory right now.

I had the bush-hog out cleaning up a few areas and I was chased in by the rain.

Some shots from last week.

It's a climb up to this camera.

This was an interesting shot.  It appears to be a coyote slipping under the electric fence into the orchard. No evidence that he got zapped.

Most of the photos of the coyotes are a blur - they are always on the move.

Nice fox shot.

And a bobcat.

The bucks are starting on this year's antlers.

The does are starting to show a little bit.

Having some minerals.

It's prime time for turkeys and they are active.

Did you notice the foreground in this one?

They do come in to clean up at the birdfeeders.

FB Impulse Buy and a Floater in the Pond

Facebook marketing has succeeded in making a sale.  This is what I bought and I thought I'd share the process with you.

The FB algorithm has been feeding me ads for this mechanics rolling shop chair.  I'm not sure what logic it used to target me - I'm not a mechanic.  But the pitch was "got a sore back", "uncomfortable working at low levels", "tired of cheap products that fall apart", "want to buy American", etc.

Well, I do have this 5000 sq ft pole barn with a concrete floor.  And occasionally, it would be really handy to have a rolling seat with back support where the seat elevation can change to match the work (think gutting and skinning a deer).  So I clicked on the link and went to check out the product.

Wow, $625 for a rolling stool.  Plus there's options like a tool tray (down by the wheels) and the sidekick (seat level tool holder and spray bottle holder that looked like a beer holder to me).  But if you buy them as a package, the price drops from $835 to just $720.  Started to buy and thought the better of it.  Seemed like high quality stuff and could be pretty cool, but too rich for me.  I clicked out.

I returned to my regular business but the next time I went to my email, there was an email from Vyper Industrial that says "welcome, take an additional $50 off".  Must be karma - I clicked on the save $50 link and went back and bought the $720 package.  With taxes it was $769.  I checked out.

Then it dawned on me - seems high.  Taxes aren't that much.  Shipping is free.  Looked at the order confirmation.  No $50 discount. Ok, I dropped customer service a note - I didn't get my $50 discount.  CS says that discount doesn't apply to already discounted products (ie the package deal).  Says so right on the email.  Guess it wasn't karma.  Like it says in the ads, "Buy once, cry once".

There's a 105% money back guarantee but I'm looking forward to it now and I go with it.  Three packages arrive (stool, tool tray, and sidekick).  I unbox and start the assembly process (reference earlier statement - I'm not a mechanic).

I start in on it.  The directions are for the stool.  There's additional directions for the tool tray and the sidekick.  But the accessory directions are like you already had a stool and were retrofitting the accessories.  And the accessories had parts lists that included things like bolts that weren't in the accessory package.  Hmm.

But I got to work on it. and started putting stuff together.  Beefy stuff.  Seemed solid.

I quickly learn that the direction diagrams show items like to put bolt 11 thru here and attach nut 13.  But all of these bags don't have anything labelled 11 or 13.  And there's lots of bags.

I use up the whole bag of 11's and the directions are calling for me to install more of them. Uh oh, is this the parts that weren't in with the accessories?  Then I open the lift cylinder bag and find another bag of 11's.  And with minimal disassembly (maybe not so minimal) and reassembly, I'm able to integrate the accessory directions into the stool directions.  But now I'm done.  And I have three unopened bags. What's this stuff for?  What did I miss?

If anybody ever does this after reading my blog, here's a tip for you.  In the back of the instructions there is this page that shows the part, the part number that's printed on the bag, and the number used in the instructions for assembly.  If you take all of your bags, look up the part number on this page, you can find the instruction number and write it on the bag like I did in green above.  It'd be nice if they were just labelled that way but they must have subcontracted the instruction writing out to Ikea or something.

Anyway, I eventually got it assembled.  I have no idea what those other three bags are about.  It seems pretty cool.  I took a shower, put on my lounging pants, popped a beer, and tried it out while cooking dinner.  It does seem like a quality product. $769 worth?  Hmm, we'll see.

So for my next adventure, I was out and about and noticed that my little pond house seemed to be leaning and trying to fall into the pond.

As I approached to inspect. I found a body floating in the pond beside the dock.

I'm guessing this was an EHD casualty last fall but why is it just showing up now?  I suspect that it died with low water in the pond and floated under the dock.  The water rose and it was trapped under there.  Wet weather and low evaporation all winter but I've got a pond leak and during the first spring dry spell, the water level went down and she was released.  Yuck.

So I was able to lasso her with the help of a rake.

I dragged her up onto shore.

And got her into the bucket.

I tried to drive her down into the woods, encountered a downed tree on the trail, backed out and went around thru the fields.

I got her down in the woods and over near a steep drop into a dry creek bed.

I hope that nature finishes the job quickly.  I'll have to get back on that pond house movement one of these days.

Joan and I did the camera tour.

Found this moth on the porch - Luna moth?

There are a ton of tadpoles in the pond.  I suspect it is from the toad eggs we found previously.  The fish usually gobble these up pretty quickly.

Last week's chores - multiflora rose patrol.

Thistle battle.

More photos from Eric and Tommy visit.

I found this pleasant discovery in an empty 5 gallon bucket in the barn.

The thistles are showing some signs from the spraying.  Curling up.

I had one camera slip down the pole and it ended up on the ground.

And that's where it spotted this bird. What is it? First identifier says Meadowlark.

Looking a little pregnant.

Antlers starting.

Coyotes.

Fox.

And lots of turkeys.