Sunflowers and More Pistol Drama

 The sunflowers were pretty close to peak this week.

 I just put a row of them in the pumpkin patch and they did well here.

 The center of them blew over and by Sunday morning, a bunch more had also gone.  Glad we got to see them before the collapse.

 Here's the pumpkin patch with the sunflowers in the background.

 So far, they are growing like crazy.  I can't even find my rows anymore.  There's quite a bit of pigweed in there also - just to torment me.

2.6" of rain this week.  Now that it is August, we're getting typical June weather.  I'm not complaining. The temperatures were lovely this weekend/

 Well, maybe I am complaining.  I couldn't keep up with scraping the mud off of my boots .

 There are some pumpkins of various varieties developing out there.  The vines have grown so much, it's hard to navigate thru the field.

 Delicata squash - I'm not sure what I'm doing with these.  I think I don't harvest until the vine starts to dry up.  I had lots of oversize zucchini and I'm not sure that I found all the plants.

 There are rows in there somewhere.

The weeds were taking over some of the clover plots.  It was just dry enough to mow.

 Various flowers in the prairie plot.

 The salamander pond has refilled.

 The deer continue to keep my soybean plots mowed down.  Since I sprayed with roundup, I have a lot of bare dirt.

I decided to try over-seeding the soybeans with brassica this year.

 I got the seed spread and then we got another 0.3" of rain overnight.  We'll see how this works out.

 I did disk up a strip that I plan to eventually plant in turnips.  The chicory/clover in this field is gradually being invaded with weeds.

 After my troubles last week with misfires, I spoke with Ashley Emerson who is the current owner of Garrett Cartridges.  Garrett Cartridges  He was very helpful and gave me some suggestions.  I got out both my S&W's - 629 and 329 - and gave them a good cleaning.

 Then I went to the range and fired them with no issue in the 629, but had misfires on double action in the 629.  I shot some Hornady loads in the 329 without issues.  Confusing.

Ashley had told me to call him back when I had a chance to work on it again so I did.  He was pretty convinced I was getting a marginal firing pin hit on the 329.

 One of the things he suggested was that I compare the firing pin protrusion on the two guns.  This is the 629.  I could see the straight shaft of the pin and the radius on the end.

 Here's the 329.  I could barely see the radius on the end of the firing pin.  I'll be on the phone in the morning getting this gun back to the factory.  I certainly don't need unreliability in my bear defense weapon.

Ashley is a talker but he helped me sort thru the issues.  His guess is that something is impeding the firing pin from completely seating in the shoulder inside the frame.

In addition to taking my call at whatever hour on the weekend, he's also sending me a replacement box of ammo. He didn't have to do that but I sure appreciate it.

 I also shot a few groups with the 30-06.  I want to be 2" high at 100 yards in preparation for the elk hunt in WY.

 One very good 3 shot group and the others were ok.  I had a flyer on the one hold.

 Trying to get in shape for the trip.  My backpack is full of boxes of 300WM and 45-70 ammo (for ballast).

 This is my Saturday walk.

 I am finally seeing some monarch butterflies.

 It seems like they were late this year.

More rain overnight and the center of the sunflowers are really blown over now.

I put on my rain gear and went out for another walk in the wet.

 Some trailcams from last week when we had a visit from the Chicago grandkids.

 Lots of coyotes still.

 A few weird bucks.

 Does and fawns.  I bumped a fawn out of its bed during my walk in the rain.

 Here the buck with the split tine and a smaller buck for reference.

 Nine points so far - he's pretty nice.

 You can see the split G2 in this shot.

 More respectable bucks are around.