SATURDAY: A visit to the Malabar Sugar Shack

Folks dressed in period costume show how maple syrup was produced years ago. They were part of the recent Malabar Farm syrup festival where displays ranged from primitive syrup production to full operation of their modern sugar-shack. Please stop by Saturday and enjoy our tour.

WEATHER NOTES—

Over a foot of snow paralized much of Ohio Saturday, setting records in most areas of the state.

I peeked the camera out the front door to make this image showing an earlier effort to shovel a path around the front of the house, across the upper deck and down to the barn where bird seed is stored.

Please note the complete absence of any other human tracks in the snow.

A regiment of happy birds, though, applauded that effort to keep their commissary restocked.

Our earlier Spring-like weather was further insulted with overnight low temperatures in the single digits.

BULLET RELOADING; VERY CAREFULLY--

Reloading ammo is a sport that has come a long way since frontiersmen used to do it on the run with their flintlocks.

Today, instead of powder horns and lead balls the ammunition reloader uses a wide range of very sophisticated tools to create cartridges that often out perform those from the major ammo manufacturers.

Local NRA Instructor and shooting range owner Dave Baker has been reloading more than 40 years. He believes, “About 2 shooters out of 100 are active reloaders and estimates they save about 30 per cent of the cost of factory ammunition.”

“There are several other advantages,” he continued. “It is a very nice hobby by itself, which often leads to more shooting which itself leads to better marksmanship. And, it allows the reloader to experiment on developing the best load possible for his guns.”

Some reloaders enjoy the hobby in order to reload ammo that is no longer on the open market, thus allowing them to continue to enjoy grandpa’s old and reliable fire arm.

Every gun will demonstrate its own preference for specific ammo. The reloader, by carefully chosing between a wide variety of powders and an even wider variety of bullets and primers, plus, adjusting the powder load within carefully measured limitations can zero in on a load that is safest and most accurate for his gun.

“A person new to the process should always work with an experienced reloader at the beginning,” Baker cautioned. The process has its perils for a careless hobbyist. He has the remnants of a .44 caliber revolver that exploded on his range because it was accidently loaded by that shooter with twice the normal powder charge.”

Fortunately, because of his constant focus on shooting safety, Baker’s range is equipped with steel baffles between shooting positions which prevented the incident from injuring nearby shooters.

Some folks refer to such guns as that .44 as “Spontaneously disassembled,” he quipped.

Baker has a Dillon Progressive Press which uses a turret of four dies to somewhat automate the hand-powered process. The old primer is extracted, the empty brass is resized for the new bullet, a new primer is pressed into place, the powder charge is loaded and the new projectile is crimped into place.

After a careful set-up and testing of the first few loads, Baker can load about 400 bullets per hour and loads mostly for his range customers.

Examples of other tools in the process include a tumbler that cleans the previously fired brass and allows for its inspection, precision micrometers and calipers for bullet and brass measurements and a digital scale for precise calibration of powder measure.

Some reloaders add a chronograph to their stable. This is an instrument that measures the velocity of a fired projectile. Yup, you simply fire the bullet past the instrument and it will tell you that bullet was traveling, say, 1053 feet per second.

Powder loads used in the reloading process can produce pressures in your gun exceeding 30,000 pounds per square inch.

You want to do this stuff very carefully indeed.

.357 magnum 115 grain, semi-jacketed hollow point bullets are pictured on the left. On the right are finished, .357 cartridges.

YOU KNOW YOU ARE HAVING A BAD DAY…

…when, while standing in the kitchen and preparing supper, there is a horrible, crashing thunk just over your head, and, while doing a tactical retreat from the noise you watch a tree branch penetrate the ceiling.

This was the day after a mild ice storm and a 14 hour power outage. But, this particular branch finally succumbed to the weight of the ice.

I have the good fortune contractor son Brian lives nearby and a robust patching job was soon accomplished—compliments of he and his crew, my grandson Dane and daughter-in-law Kate.

I was reminded of the old saying:

“I cried because I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet.”

Dave Baker, owner of Bake’s Best Shot, a shooting emporium near Lexington will join us Saturday and offer a peek at ammunition reloading. Baker, a NRA Certified Instructor and reloader with over 40 years experience will show us how to safely assemble ammo, the home-made way. Please stop by.

Editor's Note: We're a little tardy with our post this morning. A moderate ice storm Tuesday was sufficient to snuff our electric service from 8 p.m. last evening through about 10 a.m. or so today.

FOGEYISM’S ELECTION SQUIBS--

The election pundits never cease to amaze me. These days we often read of their speculation about Republicans crossing over to vote for Obama in many primaries; the theory being--no matter how noble--they are anxious to rid the political process of the Clinton(s) once and for all.

That’s insane when Obama is already favored to beat McCain—the GOP presumptive nominee—by a large margin this fall.

If Republicans were trying to manipulate the Democrat nomination don’t you think they would be trying to nominate the weaker candidate?

And, this sheds light on an even more pertinent problem--

--which is; this scenario is a clear demonstration of why many states have closed primary elections. The primaries are for political parties to choose their candidates for the fall election.

When voters can freely participate in the other party’s nominating process the kind of electoral mischief alleged above is not only possible but likely.

This is the same as having members of the Bengals football team in the Brown’s locker room at half-time.

That’s how Ohio’s semi-open primary voting process works. Any voter, regardless of their party voting history, can ask for any party’s ballot in the primary.

That needs fixed.


and…VOTE COUNTING IN CUYAHOGA COUNTY—

As a former elections official I fear we could be heading toward embarrassing turmoil in Cleveland election night.

They have had several political tugs-of-war with Ohio’s Secretary of State of late; the most recent being her forcing them to replace their recently acquired, multi-million dollar voting system with one more to her liking.

Naturally, she thought this latest system would get its first test in a fairly obscure election where the winning presidential candidates would have been chosen long before the primary contest arrived in Ohio this year.

Now, with the Clintons struggling to preserve their political dynasty, Ohio has been thrust into the limelight as the vote count here could be the death knell for that once pre-ordained campaign and the world will be watching us very closely tomorrow night.

Where things often go astray when all is working normally, they will be running an untested voting system with only about 60 days of preparation. Already they have had a failure in vote counting with one of their optical scanners reading the paper ballots *gasp* they will be using for the first time since election antiquity.

I shudder to think what might happen up there as I recall the vote counting fiasco the country recently endured in a Florida presidential election.

Let’s hope I am wrong.

In spite of my assertion that Spring arrives today, Mother Nature continues to pummel us with Winter-like weather. This is Max doing some exploration while he and I worked our way out to the road after Thursday’s snow. Then, as if to slam-dunk the following postulate as ill-advised, we got treated to an additional 3 inches of snow yesterday. And so it goes.

SPRING BEGINS WHEN?—

When I posed this question recently at the local watering hole, everyone’s favorite answer was, “When the custard stand opens!”

So much for those scientific urges.

Actually, the astronomical answer is on that March day known as the Spring Equinox which is when the sun crosses the Equator on its annual “migration” northward and everywhere the days and nights are equal in length. “Equinox = equal nights”.

In our hemisphere and because the Earth is tilted 23.5 degrees on its axis in relation to the plane of our orbit around the sun, we watch our days get steadily longer from December to June and steadily shorter from June to December.

This year as the sun drifts our way that magic day occurs March 20th. Now, don’t expect your local hours of daylight chart to show exactly 12 hours of daylight and darkness on that day. There always will be a few minutes variation because this measurement is taken when the sun actually pierces the horizon and not everyone has an identical horizon to view.

Plus, the Earth’s atmosphere distorts those nifty sun beams—exactly the same phenomenon that gave us a reddish glow to the eclipsed Moon just a week or so ago.

However, I don’t fret much about such things. I think the meteorologists have a much tidier answer. Spring begins on March 1st and includes the months of April and May. Summer is then June through August. And so forth—the seasons being incrementally three months long year round.

Besides, who can ever fault Spring arriving several weeks early!