Genny Gives a Nursery Tour

 

Genny Shows the Nursery
Buy at Amazon

In today’s article Genny Shows the Nursery

She wanted to show off the nursery she worked so hard to create. Her family really helped, her mom and sister came and painted.  Additionally, her youngest older sister painted some really cool pictures.  She even sneaked in an apple with an arrow through it for Tell…

As Genny shows the nursery you can tell her pride in the work.  As well as the excitement of having our first child.  I am glad WT has a nice nursery.  However, I care more about the boy than I do his bed.

Update:

Now that the boy is 4 years old we finally packed up the crib, he doesn’t spend much time in here anymore – as he would much rather be out and around folks trying to get them to play policeman, army man, doctor, or, his favorite, cooker (chef).

I am glad he had such a nice nursery, but he is a lot more fun now that he is bigger.  Now the boy has a 2×4 loft bed that has stairs and his name on it.  I was going to build one, and even bought a book for it, but Genny couldn’t wait and found one on craigslist.

Handgun Scenario #6 Encounters With the Police

 

Handgun Scenario #6
Buy at Amazon

This video is a clip from the old TN handgun permit video.  It is being used under the fair use doctrine.

This video will show a brief encounter that a legally armed citizen will face.

Please watch it and then think about what you would do in this situation.

An armed citizen generally has an extremely compressed window in a use of force situation. If you have not spent some time seriously considering what would cause you to use force and the implications (Physical, Legal, Moral, Psychological, and Sociological) then you are setting yourself up for failure.

Consider your gut reaction and what you immediately think you should do. Then think about the implications of those actions.  See if it changes your mind on what you should do.

Answer these two questions:

  • Would I have taken same action as the armed citizen in the video?
  • If I had, would it have been legal?

I think this kind of handgun scenario training is invaluable to preparing a person to carry a gun for self defense.  If you never work on handgun scenario training you will have to work through the situation when it occurs.

This will waste precious seconds and may cause you to do the wrong thing.  Please look at the post on OODA loop for more information.

On the Next Page We Have the Discussion

Clint Smith on Pistol Malfunctions

 

Clint Smith on Pistol Malfunctions
Buy at Amazon

This particular video discusses how to identify, diagnose, and correct common pistol malfunctions.  I enjoyed watching it, and I learned some new ways to share information with others.  It is worth the time to watch.

Pistols are relatively simple machines, only a few things can go wrong and of what can happen, only are common pistol malfunctions.  Watch the video to see how an expert discusses ways to clear those common issues defensive firearm users may have to work around.

As I said before, I find Mr. Smith highly entertaining, but that only enhances my respect for his skill.

Clint Smith is an expert on the use of Defensive Firearms.  He is a Marine Corps Infantry vet, SWAT officer, and has been running Thunder Ranch since 1993.

I like his style, this thought process, and how he teaches.  When I teach firearms classes, there are several techniques and lessons that I share that I gleaned from Mr. Smith.

I have searched YouTube for good training videos to share, and I have found several clips of Thunder Ranch training videos.  Think of them as advertisements for their full length training videos.  (I don’t gain anything from this, but I do think there videos are a valuable and worthwhile purchase.)

 

How to Make Homemade Dandelion Wine

52 Unique Techniques for Stocking Food for Prepper
Buy at Amazon

At the best of times, survival situations are highly daunting and require a level of mental and physical alertness that is destroyed by alcohol. But what if your situation is not so dire? Your supplies are well stocked for months and you are not going to be in any danger for the foreseeable future, then it might be time for a bit of a drink.

If the local stores have ran out of stock, you are just going to have to rely on yourself to make your own alcoholic beverages. A good supply of alcohol is not just good for personal consumption.  You could also be used to barter for items that you don’t have.

Did you know that you can make wine out of almost any plant? It requires no special ingredients and the only thing that you might need is some sugar, yeast, acid and whatever you are going to make your wine out of.

The most common garden item that most wine makers choose to use, is the humble dandelion. You could make your brew out of any thing else that you have lying around like tomatoes or other vegetables.  However, dandelions are abundant and don’t really have any other great uses. Except for the leaves which are edible.

All the equipment that you need, is a sealed container to ferment your wine , an airlock to let air out of the sealed container but not let air in, and some bottles or jars to store and age the finished product in.

Making wine is an easy process and anyone can do it if they have the slightest bit of knowledge on the subject.

How to make dandelion wine

Ingredients:

  • Quart of yellow dandelion flowers.  Rinse them thoroughly
  • 8 cups of sugar
  • Gallon of boiling water
  • Lemon slice
  • Orange, sliced
  • Packet of yeast. If you do not have yeast, then you are not going to want to completely seal the container that the wine is fermenting in so airborne yeast can get in.

Procedure:

  1. You are going to want to place your well rinsed dandelion flowers into boiling water and boil them for 5 minutes. Then remove the blossoms, discard them and let the water cool to about 90 degrees F.
  2. Make sure that your sealed container is sterile before you add any thing to it. You can easily sterilize your fermenting container with boiling water but make sure that you are thorough about it because any bacteria left in there is going to destroy your wine.
  3. Put the dandelion juice that you have created into your seal-able fermenting container. Then add the rest of the ingredients and stir them in thoroughly.
  4. Attach the air lock, which can be made out of tubes and pill cases, similar to a water bong. Then let your wine ferment for about 13 days. The best way to tell when fermentation has stopped is when bubbles stop forming inside the airlock.
  5. Siphon your dandelion wine off of the sediment in the fermentation container and seal it in preserving jars and let it age for about a week.
  6. Wait a week and enjoy your dandelion survival wine.

That is how easy it is to make your own wine out of whatever you can find lying about. If your wine does not taste right or tastes like vinegar it is probably because there was too much bacteria in the wine which killed the yeast, ate the sugars and excreted acetic acid. This is easily solved but not everyone has packets of yeast in their bug out bag.

AR-15 Dimpled Primer Safety Tip

 

AR-15 Rifle Safety Tip
Buy at Amazon

Today I want to share a AR-15 Rifle Safety Tip for those that have decided to keep an AR-15 rifle in Condition 3 (The chamber is empty and hammer is down with a charged magazine in the gun). Typically this is used for “trunk guns” or law enforcement patrol rifles. Occasionally someone in a rural area may choose this combination of firearm and condition of loading for a home defense firearm. However, living in a subdivision, I worry about over penetration so I use a shotgun instead.

Soooo, let’s say you hear a bump in the night and choose to get your AR and slingshot the charging handle and load a round into the chamber. You take whatever tactical measures your plan calls for and the situation resolves itself without your having to fire your rifle. You then drop your magazine, and eject the spent round. Most people will then put that round back in the magazine and topping it off to full capacity.

AR-15 Rifle Firing Pins Dimple Primers Upon Chambering

This seems a reasonable action doesn’t it? Unfortunately, due to the design of the AR, this could lead to a Negligent Discharge (ND) at some point in the future. You see, an AR-15 style firing pin is free floating and when you chamber a round the firing pin will continue forward and slightly contact the primer. If you look closely at the primer of your ejected round you will notice a slight firing pin indent on it. This is not even close to the indent needed to cause the primer to ignite, but it is enough to compress the priming pin cup closer to the anvil. If you keep using the same round as the first round of your ready magazine, eventually the CUMULATIVE impacts will be enough to cause the round to fire.

This is one reason military specification (mil-spec) primers for 5.56 are harder than civilian primers for .223.

The solution is simple. Since you are never going to be in a hurry to clear your firearm (always holster reluctantly), instead of topping off the mag with the ejected round, strip a random number of rounds out of the mag and replace the dimpled round in the middle of the pristine rounds. That way an undimpled primer is presented to the chamber. Obviously, you’re also going to have to rotate magazines after some point. But, I would suggest if you are chambering a live round for tactical situations that often without firing, your either have a VERY high risk lifestyle, or are doing something wrong, and in either case you should schedule more range time to practice and to burn off all those dented primers.