“I like my new eyes!”

So right after I wrote the post below, the day suddenly turned social. I got two phone calls in quick succession, both of which required me to saddle up and go visit neighbors. Coming back by a roundabout path to avoid an unexpected road grader, I ran into Ian who had just arrived on his property. And Ian brought with him

-wait for it-

You were guessing he brought guns, right? Well yes, but he also brought More Chickens! Yes! Personally I suspect these will be more like sacrificial lambs, but hey.

The notion is this, as I understand it: In permaculture there’s this thing called a ‘food forest.’ You arrange matters so that recognizably edible food grows more or less wild, without a lot of cultivation. The high desert isn’t the most logical place to put such a thing, but if we were logical people we wouldn’t live here.

Now, last year Ian and Landlady both independently proved that it is possible to grow garden plants without a lot of what most people would recognize as cultivation. It takes practically industrial levels of soil preparation and of course you need some way to provide water, but once those things are in place and grazing animals are discouraged the plants grow just fine.

So Ian got to wondering: Would it be possible to encourage meat animals to live here, feral and with minimal protection? He brought a dozen pullets from three chicken varieties, each of which are certified to be absolutely lousy domestic poultry – i.e., they are not known for being stupid and trusting. He pre-built a hutch in which they will hopefully roost and shelter from predators. Given water and maybe a little food, will they survive to maturity? I’m personally hoping yes and betting no. Unfortunately the experiment had to be moved forward several weeks ahead of schedule because one of the cocks started crowing, A no-no in a crowded urban neighborhood. So they’re rather younger than planned. But at least so far they’re staying under cover. We planted the coop on blocks under the shelter of a juniper thicket, and I guess I’ll search for count survivors when I bring them water.

And of course none of that has anything to do with the title. This being Ian, of course he brought a whole bunch of guns and wanted to go shooting. I haven’t picked up a rifle since my last eye surgery, so it seemed like a good idea to me, too. We took this nice Schmidt-Rubin Gewehr 1911 – that Swiss straight-pull thing – out to the clangers. I’m still teaching myself to shoot left-handed, which may turn out to be a permanent thing. My left eye has improved dramatically, to the point where my distance vision is better than it has ever been but I can’t focus on anything less than arms-length away. Some cheap reading glasses fix that enough that I can use iron sights, but only with the left eye.

At somewhere between 150 and 200 yards, the first thing I noticed was that I Could See The Target! Turned out I could hit the target, too – for the first time in almost ten years of association, I (slightly) out-shot Ian!

“I like my new eyes!” I exclaimed.

I’m meeting him for supper in about an hour, and I intend to gloat.