That Is All She Wrote For 2012!

Yep, “She” is about over. "She" being the year 2012. This will be my last Blog Post until next year..

I don’t need to sit and wonder where it went.  I keep a calendar log and I can look back to see where it went! Day by day, every day I keep track of all kinds of things including the high and low temperatures for the day and anything else that I consider special that happened that day. Why do I do this? I don’t know, habit I guess, but I have done it for years and years. Even way back when I was working for a living.  It really comes in handy more than you think it would.  I can’t count the times we have looked back in those calendar logs when we wanted to remember stuff.



As I look back on 2012, it was a good year for us. We were able to enjoy our home here in North Ranch near Wickenburg, AZ during the Winter, Spring and part of the Fall of 2012.




We completed our place in Custer, South Dakota this Summer by adding on the Shelter for the Motorhome.


As a sort of “Finale”,  we decided our very last project would be a front porch. We wrapped that up in August. We had the opportunity to sit back and enjoy both these places that we had worked so hard for. We are so happy with both of our homes, it is like a dream come true. We thank all of you that had such an important part in making many of these projects come true. I think I can say all our projects are completed and we are now able to relax and enjoy the benefits…. 

As I said, we have a lot of great friends to be thankful to for all of this. So many that I can’t even name them all in fear of missing someone. But you know who you are and so do we.  However, it was our Heavenly Father that put you all in our lives and made all these blessings happen.   We continue to praise Him for his presence.



I don’t have room to mention all the events that took place this year but one of the most meaningful and pleasant for me and Ms Pat was the birth of Granddaughter Shala’s twin girls, Alice and Cora. They are so beautiful. What a gift from God!!

When we left South Dakota in September, we had a wonderful trip on to Florida where we spent time with friends and family. It was hard to leave them as there is never enough time. We continued on home to North Ranch where we have been comfortably enjoying the winter and staying unbelievably busy.

It was a GREAT WEEK and it was a GREAT YEAR!!!!

We want to wish everyone;

A Happy and Safe New Year…….

Thanks for stopping by………come on back again when you can.

Mike

This Blog is Published every Sunday and Wednesday..

Santa Stopped By

Christmas was a quiet day around here but Ms. Pat informed me early that Santa had stopped. Terri, our daughter, surprised us with this beautiful glassware.


Ms. Megabyte2 didn’t want to get up, so she just stayed on her kitty quilt that Ms. Pat made for her.


Later she ventured out to Ms. Pat's chair with her lap quilt in it. She really loves all these quilts that Ms Pat is making.  I was in the chair next to her with my computer on my lap and the TV blaring away. With all the bad weather they were showing, I was glad we were all at home with no plans to go anywhere.


Ms. Megabyte2 gets tired of watching TV but she loves to sit on my chair at the dining table and watch out the window.


Ms. Pat spent most of her day in her sewing room. She was looking for a table for her sewing machine and found this one in Wickenburg. Just what she wanted but it had this sewing machine with it. Well she talked me into going and hauling it home for her. WOW, was it ever heavy. I asked her why she needed another sewing machine, as she already had a really nice one. She answered “Why do you need more than one gun”?.................Hmmmm, the defense rests!


The new machine is a Pfaff and is all set up for “small jobs” on this little table.  Ms Pat says she can take this machine to her sewing classes and not have to take the other machine out of the sewing table.


Here she has her favorite machine, a Bernina, set up in the new sewing table behind a “new” project she has been working on. I asked her what the project was and who it was for but I didn’t get much of an answer. Hmmmm, looks interesting.


Wow, all these parts and pieces, all sewn together one by one. Gee....this quilting is a LOT of work but Ms Pat loves it.     


I don’t know what this is or who it is for, but it sure has lots of Cowboys, Horses, Spurs, Boots and Sheriff’s Badges on it!  Very interesting.......


Now the big pieces and the little pieces start coming to together……


These corners are complicated.   Good thing Ms. Pat has lots of patience!


It's still on the "drafting board" and Ms Pat says it will be a real challenge to get all those little squares to match up but she is getting there.  It's shaping up and I think it's beautiful!!  Boy, I sure hope I know who this is for!!

In between all this work on the quilt, Ms. Pat cooked a beautiful Christmas “HAM” dinner and all the trimmings.   She knows I love Ham and Man-O-Man, she cooked a beautiful one!! Plus, we still have a bunch left over!!  I don’t get much Ham, so it was a special treat from my “special” lady.



It is a GREAT WEEK!!!! 

We are so thankful for all the many blessings we have as we paid tribute to our Lord Jesus Christ on His Birthday.

Thank you for stopping by and we hope your Christmas was as “blessed” as ours.

Mike

This Blog is Published every Wednesday and Sunday..

Merry Christmas !

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM OUR HOUSE TO YOURS.....wherever you may be!! 

 JOY TO THE NEWBORN KING...because that's what Christmas is all about!!

It was a GREAT WEEK!!!!


God Bless you all!!


Mike and Pat......and of course Megabyte2

This Blog is Published every Sunday and Wednesday..

My Brothers Birthday.

I only had one sibling, that was my brother Richard. Richard was born on December 22, 1943. Saturday will be his 69th Birthday.


This family picture was taken in about 1953. Richard would have been 9 or 10.   I was always told that I looked like Mom and he looked like Dad. I never noticed before, but you can see in this picture  how that resemblance holds true.


This is a picture of my brother and me with Mom and Dad at their 50th Anniversary celebration. I don’t have many pictures of Richard and these are two of the few. It would have been in 1983 when this picture was taken.

Unfortunately we lost Richard and he went home to Heaven October 12, 1997. I remember the day he died as if it was yesterday. We were full timing in our RV and were parked in an RV Park in Livingston, Texas. We were with our good friends Louis and Janette and were watching the Atlanta Braves play baseball on TV.  We were all avid Braves fans and watched nearly every game. I remember we were all sitting in our RV and I happened to look out the window and see a Sheriff’s car patrolling up and down the streets in the Escapee’s RV park. I remember how odd I thought that was, something I had never seen before, patrolling the streets of an Escapee's RV Park.  I mentioned to everyone about that and that this sure wasn’t a high crime area. But the game had our attention and we went right back to watching it.

Suddenly Ms. Pat said “Well, that Sheriff’s car is parked right out in front of our RV and the officer is coming to the door”!  I thought Good Lord”, what did I do? My first instinct was to run and hide.  I laughingly told Ms. Pat to tell him I'm not home!  Sure enough, the deputy asked if this was the home of Mike McFall.  I was always one that knew it was best to meet problems head on, so I decided to “give up” peacefully.  I immediately ran to the door and the officer said “Are you Mike”? I told him "Yes sir!   He went on to say that he had a message that my brother had just had a massive heart attack and that I should call my parents immediately. Wow, I was stunned.

Back in those days we didn’t have cell phones and Internet anything like we do today.   Most of the time hardly no one knew where we were.  Except my son Scott in Lincoln, Nebraska. Scott kept pretty close contact of our whereabouts. He worked for the Nebraska Highway Patrol and kept a description or our RV and the license number just in case of an emergency such as this. My mother knew to call him first if they ever needed to locate us. He knew we were in the vicinity of Livingston, Texas in an RV park. He wasn’t exactly sure which one, so he called the Sheriff’s office and had them check all RV Parks in the area. Well the Escapee’s headquarters RV Park is quite large and well known, so I’m sure it didn’t take the deputy long to figure out where we were.

So we immediately ran to the office and got on the pay phone and called Mom. She was extremely upset and told us that Richard had a massive heart attack and did not survive.  That was a terrible shock and set back to us all.  He was only 53 years old. We told Mom that we would be there ASAP. We immediately left our RV in the park and drove non stop to Alliance, NE to be with family.  This was an extremely hard time for my parents as it was for my brothers family. Richard was a superb family man and had 3 beautiful girls.  We drove straight through for over 24 hrs to get there.

I want to dedicate this Blog to my brother Richard today in his honor. He was a great guy, my one and only sibling. I remember at the time thinking how difficult it must be for my parents to lose their youngest child. They never ever got over it, and I now see, many years later why. You just don’t get over it. You go on with life, but you never get over it.  How well I now understand.

I have missed Richard more than anyone will ever know. It is the honest truth when they say you miss things more when they are gone. I can attest to that with my own two boys.  First was my Brother, then Dad and Mom have both since departed this life and moved on to that great life in Heaven.  I’m still here holding down the Fort, so to speak. But I know they are all up there above smiling in that “better place”. Praise the Lord!

Richards Birthday was so close to Christmas, I always felt sorry for him because his Birthday wasn’t given much attention since it was so close to Christmas.    He used to tell me “You're lucky your birthday is in June”!  I always told him that he was “special” since he was born so close to Jesus’s birthday.

So Richard, ole Buddy, I want to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!  You are missed BIG TIME!

It is a GREAT WEEK!!!!

Thanks for stopping by….

Mike

This Blog is Published every Wednesday and Sunday..

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town !

Hey, it's Christmas here at North Ranch in Arizona. This is the front of our house and we have added a few more lights this year. Those lights around the window on the right are little Harley Davidson emblems, They are compliments of good friend Gregg. He also gave us a string of lights that were shotgun shells with lights in them. Neat!


There are also lots of signs that Christmas is in the air inside the house. Ms. Pat has the place all decorated up. Here is her beautiful table setting.


The refrigerator reflects this time of the year, and the Christmas cheer rack is decorated with Christmas bows and Ms. Megabyte2’s hanging stockings.


The window sill above the kitchen sink looks neat as Santa skates on the “Ice”!


The front door which is inside the screened porch is decorated with a neat little Christmas tree we obtained several years ago from our good friend Dale. It is especially pretty as it changes colors constantly.


Here is our “SPECIAL” Christmas Tree. Special because my Mom made it at a ceramics class in an RV park in Apache Junction, AZ, where they spent their winters for over 10 years. Ms. Pat always adored the tree and Mom made sure she got it when she left us.  So the presence of this little tree is special, because as I look at it, I see Mom. We sure miss her, as we do all the other members of our family that aren’t here with us anymore. However, we know that the Christmas celebration they are having up in Heaven has to be one of the greatest of all….


All this Holiday excitement just wears Ms. Megabyte2 out, so she crawls into her bed and curls up with her buddy.

We hope you all are enjoying all the holiday decorations as that big date gets closer and closer. The King is Coming, The King is coming!!


It was a GREAT WEEK!!!!

Thanks for stopping by and we hope your Christmas shopping is done. The stores are packed down this way.

God Bless you all, as we say a prayer for all those involved in that terrible tragety at the school in Newtown, CT.  We are all so saddened by this horrible event.

Mike

This Blog is published every Sunday and Wednesday..

Now This Is FUN!!

This is the target our friend Milt showed me how to make so we can target practice right on our front porch or about anywhere. It's real easy to make and only takes a few minutes. It is 1/2 inch Schedule 40 PVC. Home Depot sells these 2 inch pieces of it and it takes 9 of them and 6 Tee’s and 4 elbows and that’s it.  The one above is not even glued together, I can take it apart and store it if I want to. It works out so the plastic ammo falls down into the bottom of the back drop and you can reuse them.  All of the PVC pieces are 24 inches long, the only one I cut was the bottom feet and I just cut it in half.  Oh, it also takes 4 caps for the feet if you want to use them. 

   

This is a side view. You can use anything you want for the backdrop. Milt’s wife Jayne made a canvas backdrop for theirs but I just happened to have this old naugahyde window shade that we took out of the Motorhome when we put automatic shades in it. It works perfectly but even a heavy towel would work…..


What do we shoot this target with? Aw Ha, I knew you would ask. This is one of the types of guns you can use.  They are called “Air Guns”.  Some are spring driven, some are electric. There are Gas Guns that use CO2 or Green Gas.  Green Gas is simply Propane.  We use the Propane. Our pistol is a replica of a Glock, Milt has a Colt 1911 and another friend Jerry has a Smith and Weston. They even have revolvers.  Jerry loves his because he can use it while out riding his horse in the desert. It don't make enough noise to even scare his horse......


This is Ms. Pats real Glock, see how identical they are!   They are even close to the same weight. The slides are the same, they take down and come apart the same too. It's unreal!


If it wasn’t for the orange plastic tip on the Air Gun, you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. The bright plastic tip on the barrel is, as I understand it, required by law.(not sure about that)  The magazine is filled with propane gas from a regular portable camp stove bottle. You can get lots of refills from each bottle. You can even get a special fitting that enables you to refill the small camp stove bottles from your BBQ grill bottle. Neat !!



This is the Ammo and the different gas bottles you can use to fill the Air Pistol.  It really is not a toy but I don’t believe it would do more than sting real good if you got hit with one of these light plastic bullets. I even doubt it would go through the screen on our screened in Porch. But I don’t know for sure!!  We are presently waiting on one of the special brass filling adaptors before we can shoot it.

This is Milt and Jayne in their back yard in Surprise, AZ with two of the targets. Milt is a long time Range and pistol shooter and extremly fast and accurate Maybe all this practice is why!! Jayne just began shooting with the girls class at Wickenburg sportsmans range, but she is becoming  proficient very quickly.

Milts gun just barely penetrated the cardboard target, then the bullets would hit the light canvas back, drop and fall right into the bottom pouch. So we will see.  I hope we don’t get any holes in our screens…. I have some scrap screen I will experiment on..   You should definitely always wear eye protection when using these guns or in the vicinity.. BE CAREFUL !!  Treat these as if they were REAL GUNS!! By the end of the week we should get our parts and be shootin!! As Milt says, this is a superb way to practice such things as trigger control and site placement and tune up your accuracy and even your presentation.  Plus, a little fun never hurt anybody…….right?

KCGAZ asked if we ever get any lead ricochets' when shooting the lead targets.  We never get any serious splatter from the soft lead bullets we shoot from the steel targets.  Once in a while you may get a little light splatter even when you're watching or from the adjacent bay but it is not enough to even sting or cut.  I suppose it may have happened in the past but that’s one good reason to wear eye protection even while watching or in the area.

Bob asked if there was a public holding company he should be looking into since we are having a shortage of loading components such as powder and primers. Well, it sure is getting scarce.  All the places I have checked are “out of stock” and “backordered” on these items. Where it will go from here, I don’t know. But if I were you and looking for an investment……..I would buy firearms themselves. I have never known anyone to lose any money on good name brand popular firearms. Far better than the Stock Market in my book! Plus, look at all the fun you can have playing with them!

That’s about it from here at North Ranch near Congress, AZ for the time being. I have to get busy loading up about 250 real bullets for us to shoot at the Range pistol match tomorrow.  

I have been meaning to welcome:

The Box Canyon Blogger…….
They have been aboard for a while now. I can’t find a blog for them but we are sure happy to have them drop in when ever they can….

God Bless you all..

Mike

This Blog is Published every Wednesday and Sunday..

Memory Season….

I ran across this picture the other day and it struck me as funny. I don’t know why, not something I would do, I don’t think. Maybe one of my boys would have, but Not Me!   But it brought back memories of back in the days I dealt with these big old boys for a living. I can almost read that  old Bull's mind as he thinks “What in the World”!!  


This is another one that really hit home with me. You have all seen those “Big Kitty Condo’s”, we have contemplated buying one for Ms. Megabyte2 many times. This is exactly what she would probably do if we spent the big bucks on one of these.  She would sleep on an old pasteboard box!!!   That is real true “Cat Logic”!! 


In Ms. Pats quilting, for practice, she made Ms Megabyte2 her own personal quilt.  It is pretty neat and has little mice and kitties, etc. on it.  She machine quilted the "little flowers" and "stippling" on the quilt.  That was her first try at "free motion" quilting. (Ms Pat filled in the quilting terms.)   I told Ms. Pat, “Now that you went to all that work for her, she probably won’t lay on it”.

Well, she sure proved me wrong! Ms. Pat laid it on the floor and left it for a while. It wasn’t long until she found it and snuggled down on it.  She likes it !! Thanks Mom!


Yesterday was the monthly “steel shoot” at the range.  Above is one of the guys shooting one of the scenarios which consists of only steel targets.  There were four different set ups.  See the little green line on the ground....that's the shooting line. 


This is a little closer look at the target arrangement, The green plate is the one you shoot first and then you proceed to the dreaded “Texas Star” in the center. You have to shoot the little black plates on the "star". When you hit the first one it knocks it off and that sets the “star” in motion and it rocks back and forth.   And if you happen to hit one of those standing steel targets in front of the Texas Star, you are penalized.  After you finish shooting all the black plates on the "star", you shoot down the "poppers" (the little men).  Then when you get all that done, you shoot the black plate way back in the shadows on the right and that stops the clock.  It's tough but fun and uses up a lot of bullets!

When we got home from the Range we started putting up Christmas decorations, untangling strings of lights and unpacking Mom’s faithful old "ceramic" Christmas tree.  That sure brings back memories. I can see Mom smiling while we sit it up…..


Milt and Jayne's beautiful home in Surprise, AZ.
We had to go to the big city Friday for another Dr. appointment, but one of our favorite shooting buddies ask us to stop by his place which is right in the area where we would be. He has a shooting set up that he wanted to show us, one that he could set up right in the back yard and shoot, or even maybe on our front screened in porch.  What?  Really?  Hey....we don’t want any holes in that screen. This Blog is getting a little long so I’ll wait to show you pictures and tell you more about it next time.

Thanks for stopping by, come on back Wednesday and I’ll show you our new Practice Range, if I get it set up like Milt and Jayne showed us.  It's NEAT!!

It was a GREAT WEEK!!!!

We continue to Praise the Lord and His Angels for all the blessings he provides us along with all the beautiful Memories of the past... God Bless you all.

Mike

This Blog is Published every Sunday and Wednesday..