Gardening with rifles.

Hello dear readers... oh hand on I just had a look at my webstats, let's make that "Hello dear reader and the rest of you who land here after typing "scaly dragon porn" into Google with your left hand because your right hand is otherwise engaged."

Bit of a blogging hiatus over the last couple of weeks as I was on holiday after the HK debacle and before that was too busy telling anyone at work what a complete and utter clusterfuck the HK operation was to get any blogging done. Anyway back now and with concrete poured, greenhouse erected, raised beds made and a whole load of other "grow it yourself" stuff done.

However I'm not entirely sure I'm going about this latest "save the planet grow your own food it tastes better and is good for you" thing that seems to be going on at the moment. Sure all those things might be true but it's so far cost me a small fucking fortune to even get going. Tomatoes, peppers and chillies all need to be grown more or less indoors so that's 180 quid for the sand, cement and gravel, 200 quid for a cement mixer (I have lots of concrete to make later on so I splurged on a new one) then 800 quid for a wood greenhouse because the aluminium ones are crap so all in with pots, compost and the all important little sticks that say what each plant is I've spent the best part of 1300 quid on this so far which would buy a hell of a lot of chillies I reckon.

Yes I know I could have done things cheaper. We did make a start with a cheapie plastic "greenhouse" which was basically thick plastic over a flimsy frame which is getting results but it (a) is dropping to bits already with one part of the "door" held together with bulldog clips after the zip broke and (b) looks dreadful.

The beds were a bit cheaper - just 80 quid for some timber and a bit of my time to screw it all together and 20 quids worth of timber treatment. We're only going to use these for stuff like lettuice and expensive veg like white onions though as living in the middle of a swamp where the predominant industry is growing things I can pick up a 25kg sack of maris pipers for under a tenner and that lasts us most of the winter so sod growing my own spuds.

Oh and the chickens... wow we get free eggs and they are much better than the shop bought ones. And the chickens themselves were cheap as we got ex battery hens so it was just a fiver each as a donation to some hen-hugging charity and they are cheap to feed. Ah but they need a house to live in - I got a plastic one as when I costed the timber to make a traditional henhouse the plastic one came in about the same price. And then living in the middle of a swamp as you do as soon as you get chickens you end up with rats.

So now I have a shiny new air rifle to deal with the rat issue. Got a reasonably priced 200 quid one from China (so now Blackpowder is not talking to me because I got a girly gun rather than a proper one) and there is something quite theraputic about sitting on your deck in the evening blasting away at the furry little bastards and at 15 metres even a crap shot like me can hardly miss and they just go "squeek" and fall over (apart from the one I had to finish off with a brick as I fluffed the headshot) but yet another expense I could have done without.

So there you are, self sufficiency and growing your own food. I would not recommend it unless you already have a very well paid job. But you do get to kill rats with a gun.

Consult the book of armaments

Armaments, chapter 2, verses 9 to 21




Well not quite, but it seems that some company who makes rifle telescopic sights has been putting coded bible verses on their hardware:

One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads:

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Firstly if I saw 2COR4:6 on a bit of military kit I'd just assume it was part of a batch number or something but I'm really curious as to what the hell that quote has to do with the item in question - unless it has some clever way of illuminating the target.

The usual suspects have been banging on about how this gives ammunition to the Taliban, Al Kibble and all the other swivel-eyed rugbutters who say that this is a "crusader army" against muslims. Well yes, that's because that's exactly what this is so we might as well dip the bullets in pig fat before firing them (hey it worked before!).

Also on the American based forums where this got a mention the general consensus is that Trijicon sights are actually really rather good (Blackpowder - can you confirm?) - maybe Jeebus wasn't averse to a little duck shooting on his days off, I guess being able to walk on water comes in handy when you're wildfowling.