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Best advice for improving at darts:  Laser focus.  Commit to hit.  Use your natural drift.  Each dart is a new shot.  Find a good throw and find a good set of darts and stick with them. _____________ OUR DART SELECTION I have found that a 20 gram old school nickle dart suits me just fine. I also like those of John Lowe's glory years, Unicorn, 21 gram, 35mm barrel, with 8mm diameter, 2ba thread size, and 90% Tungsten, complete with his pear shaped flights.  Or, the current model of The Power's darts are made by Target Darts, not his prior sponsor of Unicorn, and are a 24 gram tungsten barrel at 40mm with a G4 short shaft.   Swapping out for an intermediate or medium shaft, together with regular flights might benefit most players, as it did me. Our daughter is currently throwing well with 27 gram Femme Fatale by Laser Darts, which goes to show that younger players or women, or both might benefit from the heavier darts (opposite of what you might think as a novice, that lighter is better for beginners), which the heavy throwing pros might find 21 gram darts to be the ticket.  The heavier weight of the dart helps get it to the board, which Phil Taylor moved from 21 grams to 26 grams as he got older, saying he "needed a little more help hitting the board."  I prefer the intermediate shafts and Unicorn Fin flights. _____________ A GAME FOR ARCHERS Much is speculated but if rumor holds true, the game of darts had its origin during the reign of King Henry VIII of England. It is believed that he told his archers to practice their arching skills all year round

I recently posted about 12 gauge loads.  This post concerns 20 gauge loads. Modern factory shotgun loads are often labeled in "drams equivalent" or "dr. eq."   A dram of black powder is 1/16 of an ounce.  Dram equivalent means the powder charge in the shell is supposed to produce the same shot velocity as the listed dram equivalent of black powder. So if the box is labeled 3 drams equivilent this means the velocity will be the same as a black powder shell containing 3 drams of powder. For the past 15 years, I have been shooting, nearly exclusively, the Mighty-Lite target load from Estate Cartridge Company, which is the shell favored by Buz Fawcett in his Wingshooting Workshop.  Since graduating from the workshop, this has been the shell in my cartridge bags.  As luck would have it, Estate Cartridge was a small Texas specialty loader and they were sold to a larger competitor who abbreviated all of their lines.  My favorite shells are now a thing of the past, but I was not immediately affected, as we purchased these shells by the pallet, so I had plenty on hand for some time and had first bought them at $3.50 a box, and thought they were expensive when then had gone up to $5.  They were excellent for patterns, with high velocity, low deformity, and low recoil. The Mighty-Lite in 20 gauge, was a 2 3/4" shell, with 2 1/4 dr. eq., 3/4 oz. of shot in #8, at 1350 fps.   Not wanting to leave any stone unturned, I bought (in quantities) every 3/4 oz. shot shell I could find in 20 -gauge (and it turns out there are only a few): Products Fiocchi Low Recoil Trainer 20LITE, 20 Gauge, 2 3/4", 3/4 oz,

I loved this post, so I had to re-post it here for my daughter to read.  Reminds me of several of my favorite Gene-ism's like: Find one thing and learn how to use it. Be a big fish in a little pond. Buy the best, you only cry once. Have a good handshake and shake hands with everyone you meet from the janitor to the CEO. Fast cash makes fast friends. I got four gold coins my boy, here's two and the other two are enough to get you head in a sack, if things don't work out. Fast cash, makes fast friends. Grease the spokes, not just the wheel. He was filled with other practical advice as well, such as when shopping for a shotgun, "Buy the best one you can afford, my boy, then learn how to use it." "Learn one thing and learn how to use it well. That's how you become really good at something. People that are always switching around looking for a new model, whether it's a gun, a car, a wife, whatever, they never really get good at using it well and getting the most out of it." Be a big fish in a small pond. You don't want to be a small fish in a big pond, you never get anywhere that way. Marriage is like, well, imagine prison. Then don't change anything. It only takes five years for the ring on their finger to drop right down around their pussy. Always buy a house with a good view, has an east facing driveway if it snows so that it melts quickly, and make sure their is a liquor store within a 5 minute drive. Yeah, get

Our new firewood guy brought us some of the best firewood in 2017-2018.  He had great mixes of Colorado spruce and Engelmann spruce, split beautifully, along with ash, oak and sugar maple, with some pine ponderosa scattered in, we went through a lot of it.  Fatwood is the greatest fire starter you can find.  Add about 5 sticks to the bottom of your log cabin stack and viola, great fire, with no paper or other kindling of any kind. ____________________________________ Fatwood From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Fatwood is derived from the heartwood of pine trees. The stump (and tap root) that is left in the ground after a tree has fallen or has been cut is the primary source of fatwood, as the resin-impregnated heartwood becomes hard and rot-resistant over time after the death of the main tree. Other locations, such as the joints where limbs intersect the trunk, can also be harvested. Although most resinous pines can produce fatwood, in the southeastern United States the wood is commonly associated with longleaf pine (Pinus palustris), which historically was highly valued for its high pitch production. Coniferous tree sap is a viscous liquid, that contains terpene, a volatile hydrocarbon. Over time the evaporation of the terpene changes the state of the sap; it slowly gets thicker until it hardens into resin. New fatwood leaks the sticky sap, while in aged fatwood the sap has hardened and is no longer sticky. At every stage of the aging process, fatwood will burn readily, even when wet. Because of the flammability of terpene, fatwood is prized for use as kindling in starting fires. It lights quickly even when wet, is very wind resistant, and burns hot enough to light larger

From https://tribalcollegejournal.org/four-legged-healers-horse-culture-as-medicine/ What do we think of when we hear the word “therapy”? Living in the modern world that we do, some may think of psychological treatment that they would receive in a clinic or hospital. Others may think of group counseling meetings. We must recognize that these are interventions that are based on the western European paradigm of illness and diagnosis, in which an individual is experiencing “symptoms,” and treatment draws upon scientific knowledge to reduce those symptoms. Now, placing ourselves in history, what did our ancestors do for therapy? Those who still practice traditional Native culture may think of medicine people who use plants, herbs, or other natural remedies. Of course this would not be called therapy, but rather something like medicine or healing. Taking it even further, let’s imagine our ancestral nations when they were flourishing cultures. What might we discover? Images reflecting the “Masters of the Plains” may come to mind; societies in which all goods and practices were tied to nature in every way. I am suggesting that these images do not only reflect visual scenes or cultural practices, but that they also demonstrate a health and wellness paradigm. That is, living well meant there was no separation between nature and the people. We knew our place within nature; we knew that we are nature. As such, we honored and learned from our relatives, such as the horse nation, buffalo nation, and silent nation (plants), about living in balance. The extent to which we currently see ourselves as individual people, separate from nature and each other, is a sign of our adopting a western European paradigm as a result of colonization. However, during this current generation, as prophesized by Black Elk, many

In 1902,  Jack O'Connor, this country's foremost gun and hunting writer was born and he died in 1978 just two days short of his 76th birthday, was born in Nogales, Arizona, where he grew up in what he fondly described as "the last frontier." It's interesting that fellow outdoor writing legends Jim Harrison and Jim Fergus have settled in and around Nogales in more recent generations.  Being a prolific reader, I have made it a goal this year to read all of his books, after owning a half dozen of his best known best know books for over 20 years now. Jim Casada of Outdoor Life, https://www.outdoorlife.com/articles/jim-casada/2007/09/remembering-jack-oconnor writes this about O'Connor: O'Connor was the product of a hard land and a difficult childhood. His parents drifted apart and then divorced when he was quite young. Fortunately for O'Connor, his maternal grandfather, James Woolf, was a key formative influence during O'Connor's boyhood and saw to it that the youngster had ample exposure to the outdoors.  "Bird hunting was grandfather's dish," O'Connor would reminisce in one of his literary works. Woolf, who hunted birds with a vintage Purdey, endowed his youthful protage with a sense of style and an appreciation for fine guns that would be reflected in O'Connor's writings.  From O'Connor's mother, who was a teacher, came a recognition of the importance of education. Following a short stint in the Army, O'Connor pursued undergraduate studies at Arizona State Teachers College and the University of Arizona. A few years later, after earning a master's degree in English from the University of Missouri, O'Connor married Eleanor Bradford Barry. Theirs would be a marriage marked by mutual devotion, countless wonderful days spent afield together and the rearing of four children. After he

From http://www.twinrocks.com/legends/168-medicines.html His father had shown him how to cut the stems with an ancient flint blade from the sacred medicine bundle and to sprinkle pollen which in itself was a prayer. His gather had told him too that flowers have power, that they belong to Mother Earth and that they should never be broken without a purpose. He knew that "purpose" meant "ceremonial," that the plants were as important to a chant as were prayers, songs and sandpaintings, that their uses had been decreed when the Navajo were created, and that the decrees were irrevocable. Dezba: Woman of the Desert; 1939, Gladys A. Reichard.The so-called Mormon tea or Brigham tea is a mountain bush that grows on high slopes. There are two kinds: one of yellowish green and the other of purplish green. On a few occasions our camp had a Mormon cook who knew not only how to prepare food well, but also a great deal about plants and animals. I had the opportunity of drinking some of this tea prepared by him. When it is brewed from the fresh plant, it has a n astringent taste; otherwise it tastes like sarsaparilla and is quite pleasant. The plants should be dried in the sun and then boiled for ten to fifteen minutes to make the tea. Our cook told us that Brigham tea grows at higher levels to get away from sheep! All animals are very fond of it. When suffering from distemper, horses and cattle develop a great craving for it. The Early pioneers, while crossing the desert, found that it made a good drink, and considered it Heaven-sent. There is even a patented concoction made from this herb and sold today over

Much has been written about the Horses of the Sun in Navajo mythology. Look up a Navajo legend about horses and you’ll find a version of this story. Johano-ai, the Navajo Sun God, starts each day from his hogan in the east, and rides across the skies to his hogan in the west, carrying the shining golden disk, the sun. He has five horses: a horse of turquoise (blue), a horse of white shell, a horse of pearl shell, a horse of red shell, and a horse of coal. When the skies are blue and the weather is fair, Johano-ai is riding his turquoise horse or his horse of white shell or of pearl; but when the heavens are dark with storm, he has mounted the red horse, or the horse of coal. And a further interpretation of the colors is found in this accounting: The five horses of the Sun Father are a way of telling time, Navajo style. White shell and pearl horses represent dawn, turquoise is noon, red shell is sunset, and jet or coal is night. 1952, King of the Stallions, print courtesy of Charnell Havens

Stampede Strings & Bolo Ties Adapted from the Perry Null Trading Company newsletter The bolo tie has nothing to do with the Argentine throwing weapon that consists of three round stones tied together with leather thongs. With that thing around your neck you were in trouble. It was also not invented by some fellow in Arizona with a good imagination in 1940 something. In fact, the bolo tie has been around in some form for many years.  For white consumption the original form was known as a stampede string. In the 1850’s inmates in Deer Lodge Prison were braiding them out of horsehair. It was time consuming, which was probably the idea. The cord went around the crown of the hat and though the hat with two small holes. The hanging cords were joined together with a slider, also made of hair. The tips were two large fluffy tufts of hair hanging from the cord ends.  In a stampede or a tornado the cord was snugged up under the chin with the slider. It might not keep the hat on your head, but it did keep the darned thing on your person. A similar cord—gold—went around the brim of the hat of a cavalry officer. The next development was also part of the cowboy’s dress. The scarf—bandana, neckerchief and 17 others, some not fit to print—was a common item of dress. It was pulled up over the face when riding drag, eating the dust of the herd. Or robbing a bank if that was your thing. The tie slide is faster to slip off.  The Zuni version was pretty early. Sheep vertebrae have a hole the right size for the purpose. The earliest ones were painted, then came