Road trip

Tomorrow mornin', bright and early, I'll be commencin' on a road trip of awesome proportions. Hence, the reason it's been pretty quiet on here. Between workin' 12's and tryin' to bang the bike into shape for said trip, the preparation has been purty much consumin' me the last week.

I'll be suckin' down a good bit of miles and visitin' a buncha family and friends along the way, so I ain't gonna waste time tryin' to post every night. So, it'll be quiet here for another week, but hopefully I'll have some decent pictures and a few good stories, plus get y'all caught up on the last few weeks of blog fodder.

Wish me luck, and check back soon.

Cheap broadhead target

Some things I'm okay with spendin' good money on, but an archery target ain't one of 'em. I've never been real keen on blowin' $40 bucks on layered foam with cheap plastic cinches that they pawn off at the box stores, that inevitably give up the ghost after a few hundred shots. ($40 is about as cheap as they get... some of the better brands exceed several hundred dollars.) And while they have other cheapo targets out there for less than $20, they ain't made for broadhead use. For the most part, my practicin' sessions are strictly with practice broadheads in preparation for the huntin' seasons, so I needed to find a better solution than blowin' money on a new broadhead target every year.

For about $10 and an hour of time, I whipped up this ugly but functional portable target. And while it might not last any longer than the box store cheapos, all I gotta do to renew it is throw in a few bucks worth of new insulation panels and hit it with the spray bomb again.

I just wrapped her up tonight... an official field test will likely happen tomorrow.

Even the gun manufacturers are fuckin' it up

Seriously. It's embarrassin', and it gnaws at one of my many stupid little pet peeves. Then again, Marlin recently got bought out by Remington, and Big Green can't seem to stop screwin' the pooch as of late.

MAGAZINE.... IT'S A GODDAMNED MAGAZINE.

Some damn good zucchini bread

For a fat man, my culinary skills are purty much piss-poor. It's damn near embarrassin'. If it doesn't involve wild game, bacon or eggs, I'm a lost cause.

That said, every now and then Google steers me in the right direction, and I pull off somethin' decent. Such is the case with zucchini bread.

Jesse and my sis-in-law have a purty good garden goin' over at their place, so at my nephew's birthday party the other week, they sent us home with a monster zucchini. When I coerced my girl's brother over the other night to help with some bike repairs, I decided that in addition to the standard wild game fare and fresh bluefish from last week's fishin' trip, I'd whip up some zucchini dishes to go along with it.

I found what looked to be a decent recipe, read through the comments to see what improvements needed made, then headed off to destroy the kitchen.

What I came up with, amazinly enough, might actually rival the culinary talents of my sis-in-law, who's family can whip up some ridiculous zucchini dishes.

I'll copy the final altered recipe below, both so you can give it a whirl, and for my future reference... I will most definitely be whippin' this up again.

***

Ingredients

- 3 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 cup veggie oil
- 1/2 cup applesauce
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 3 teaspoons vanilla
- 4 cups grated zucchini
- 1 cup chopped walnuts (I didn't add 'em)

Directions

1. Grease and flour two 4x8 pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon together.

3. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla and sugars together, then add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture. Stir in zucchini. Pour mixture into pans.

4. Bake for 50-60 minutes. Use a tester or toothpick to poke the middle of the bread. When it comes out clean, the bread is done.