Why you should always carry a gun on baking day

The Lords of Perversity decided to scold me for my weather bitching earlier with a gorgeous and wind-free morning. In fact it’s early afternoon and it still hasn’t gotten unacceptably windy. I did laundry this morning followed by a nice long walky with the boys, came back and laid out materials for bread.

And I was just in the last stages of kneading the dough ball when movement outside the kitchen window caught my eye. A big old ground squirrel was playing around, right by the junk pile next to the powershed/pantry where they like to hang out.

Well, I can never sneak up on them. The only one I ever shot outside the live trap, I got through the open window. But this fellow was so big and so brazen I had to give it a try.

My 22/45 is holstered in my range bag under the kitchen counter. I pulled it out, jacked a round into the chamber, and very quietly crossed the Lair, opened the door and let myself out, slipped off the porch and around the powershed, certain he’d be long gone…

…and there he was! Proud as a peacock and twice as easy a shot. Lined up those lovely sights on his chest, squeezed the trigger…

…and nothing whatsoever happened. Startled, I actually had to look at the safety to see that for some reason I had flicked it on the last time I serviced the pistol. It never once occurred to me to check it. Why would I set the safety on my own unloaded pistol?

While I was cursing myself for such an unbearably rookie mistake, the squirrel was re-thinking some recent and important life choices. So now I had a running shot at the squirrel, which of course I missed.

I must have been a sight, flour and dough halfway to my armpits, flour-daubed apron flapping in the breeze, chasing up the ridge path to see if I could get one more shot at that misbegotten squirrel.

No luck. But I know where the first slice of fresh-baked bread is going this afternoon. With peanut butter. Come and get it!