This last weekend being one of the only ones lately when we were entirely free and clear to go do something fun, without the kids, without the jobs, without anything else hanging over our heads, we took ourselves up to the mountains for some good clean fun. It’s not quite my birthday yet, but we like to stretch these things out, and a birthday week and a half is just fine with me.

So when I came home on Friday, Junior had a little something for me. I’d asked for a trailer brake controller, since the last one burned up. He presented a gift bag with a very nice trailer brake controller in it, and when I asked if he could install it for me, he asked me to go show him where on the truck I wanted it. So we walked outside and opened the truck door, and there it was, already installed. I love having a handy man around the house.

 

 

We’d already decided to go shooting the next day, so we were packing up guns and making sure of ammo and things, and he started pulling rifles out to show me. He’d brought some from home, and a new shotgun he’d recently bought, and I’m never sure what guns he has anyway. So he handed me a lever action Marlin and I looked at him funny. I knew his 30-30 was a Winchester, and we’d just been talking about buying me a Marlin 30-30 that had popped up on the grapevine, but decided it was going for too much. Besides, I’d just got my birthday present, so I was thoroughly confused.

But no, the Marlin he’d handed me was a .357 lever action of his dad’s. Junior said it was one of his favorite guns to play with.

So then he handed me another lever action. I assumed this time that it was his 30-30, but I turned it over and looked at it, and it was a Marlin too. I looked back at him, and he just grinned and said, “Happy Birthday.” Yeah, he’d picked up the Marlin after all, and I really should have guessed based on a slip in the conversation earlier in the week, but I might be a little oblivious. So I’m delighted to have one too, and I might do a little hunting with it this fall.

 

    

It came with a low-power scope, but I like the traditional iron sights on a 30-30, so we took it off, and will probably give it to Seamus for his deer rifle. It was a ton of fun to shoot and really not that expensive to feed, compared with some of our others.

 

 

     

Speaking of others, it was also a trip to finish sighting in my 30-06. I’d bought it from his Dad earlier in the year, and Junior mounted my Christmas scope on it. He’d started sighting it, but I had to also, to make sure it fit me correctly. I was a little afraid of the kick, as I usually shoot a .243, but it wasn’t bad at all. By the time we were done, I was regretting wearing a bra, as the strap was sort of embedded in my shoulder.

 

     

I didn’t know what kick was though, until Junior brought out the muzzleloader. I’ve always wanted to shoot one, so we played with that a bit. It’s a modern rifle for hunting, not a historical-type model.

 

    

It uses pressed powder in premeasured charges and shoots a .50 caliber bullet. And it kicks in a different way than the regular rifles, more of a pushing than a sharp movement. But when you have the butt just slightly out of the pocket of your shoulder, you end up with a numb arm and a spectacular bruise, and I might be just a little bit afraid of that gun now, even though it was my own fault.

 

    

It was a lot of fun to see the giant cloud of smoke erupt, and it sure reaches out and touches the target.

This wasn’t all of the weekend; we wandered around the wintering area, but didn’t find any shed antlers. We went out to dinner on the way home. We stopped by my folks to show Junior their house. And we spent a good chunk of day yesterday looking at houses ourselves. The shooting was one of the best parts though; good, clean, stress-relieving fun. But then, I always have a lot of fun with this man, and I expect to keep having more for the rest of our lives.