Darrell

I've used far fewer than expendable, above, but I've had no failures at all.

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I'm a fan of Lee Alox. I would think that cooking up one's own recipe would be messy and probably more expensive. Check out the price of bee's wax.

^^^ My wife and I spent a week driving around eastern Tennessee to see if we wanted to move here. It became notable to us if we drove more than three or four miles without seeing a church! There were places where we saw churches on both sides of the road. We've been here a tad over five years and really like it. But as Fujimo states above, the prices seem to be skyrocketing. I see five acre parcels selling in my area for well over what I paid for my 20. So it goes.

Well, darn it! I wish we were a bit closer. That's a pretty fair price these days.

The costs of running a brick and mortar store are MUCH higher than running a mail-order business. I wouldn't have suspected quite that much price difference, though.

The dog that moved in here, uninvited, finally convinced me that a fence was needed. But I have a big property with a lot of woods, and a fence wasn't super-practical. So I bought a Halo collar, and subscribed ($6.00 a month) to their service. It's worked VERY well for Katy. You use something like Google earth to define an area that the dog is allowed to roam free within. Once that's defined the collar and application work together using GPS. When the dog gets within 10 feet or so of the boundary, she gets an audible warning. If she get to the boundary, she gets a shock. And Katy WAS in shock for the first few days, wondering, I suppose, where the monster in the woods came from. But within a very short time she was well aware of her boundaries and respects them. She'll walk out to the mailbox with me, but stop a bit short of the warning boundary and wait for me to return. Even a filthy squirrel can't entice her to cross those boundaries, which is amazing. The system isn't cheap, about $500, but compared to a fence it's not bad. And one can change those boundaries at will. If you go on vacation you can easily set a new area for the dog, though I've not tried that.

I miss shooting mine. It's hard to find a safe place to let er rip.

VERY funny! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF2hYNS9NqA&t=21s&ab_channel=AaronKengAvar

A farmer named Clyde had a tractor accident. In court, the trucking company's fancy hot shot lawyer, was questioning Clyde. "Didn't you say, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine,'?" asked the lawyer. Clyde responded, "Well, I'll tell you what happened. I had just loaded my favorite cow, Bessie, into the..." "I didn't ask for any details", the lawyer interrupted. "Just answer the question, ...please. Did you, or did you not say, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine!'?" Clyde said, "Well, I had just got Bessie into the trailer behind the tractor and I was driving down the road...." The lawyer interrupted again and said, "Your Honor, I am trying to establish the fact that, at the scene of the accident, this man told the Highway Patrolman on the scene that he was just fine. Now several weeks after the accident he is trying to sue my client. I believe he is a fraud. Please tell him to simply answer the question." By this time, the Judge was fairly interested in Clyde's answer and said to the lawyer, "I'd like to hear what he has to say about his favorite cow, Bessie". Clyde thanked the Judge and proceeded. "Well, as I was saying, I had just loaded Bessie, my favorite cow, into the trailer and was driving her down the highway when this huge semi-truck and trailer ran the stop sign and smacked my John Deer Tractor right in the side. I was thrown into one ditch and Bessie was thrown into the other. I was hurting, real bad and didn't want to move. However, I could hear old Bessie moaning and groaning. I knew she was in terrible shape just by her groans. Shortly after the accident a Highway Patrolman came on the scene. He could hear Bessie moaning and groaning, so he went over to her. After he looked at her, and saw her fatal condition, he took out his gun and shot her between the eyes. Then the Patrolman came across the road, gun still in hand, looked at me, and said, "How are you feeling?" "Now tell me, what the heck would you say?"

I, too, have a number of arms in the safe that have been fired very little, and a few that haven't been fired at all. Like a lot of guys on here I just find it hard to resist adding one. But I tend to be a buyer, not a seller. The guys that I've transacted with from TGO have all, without exception, been on the up-and-up, and I wouldn't hesitate to deal with any of them again. But of course it's always important to check out what you're buying and satisfy yourself that the deal is fair.

It seems that a fairly large percentage of neighborhood disputes involve dogs, and trying to discuss barking or aggressive dogs often results in hard feelings. We live in a time where people have trouble taking responsibility.

I'm not seeing the problem there.....

Assuming that you're walking on a public road, you have every right to do so. YOU are not waking the man, his uncontrolled dogs are. I find it incredible that the police told you not to walk on the road. Whomever told you that just doesn't want to deal with the situation. You might consider wearing a body cam and getting the neighbor on video. You might also consider speaking with an attorney. What a rotten situation! Good luck. Added by edit: My initial assumption was that your neighbor was carrying a rifle as a way to intimidate you, which is illegal. But it's possible that he was carrying his rifle because he didn't know what was riling his dogs, not as a means to intimidate you. When I go outside to investigate a noise or something, I am always armed, though not always visibly.

Off-topic, but I've made the same comment about motorcycle dealerships. I worked for the Navy, and young sailors would come off a deployment with a sack full of money, go to the MC shop, and ride off on a bike that they had no business on.

I bought an Ruger LCP in .380 for the boss, and she was comfortable shooting it but was unable to rack the slide reliably. I ended up buying a LCR in 357 Mag, which she's just as comfortable shooting (loaded with 38 SPL). She wasn't going to be swapping mags in a fire fight anyway, so the wheel gun was better for her.

Never met you, but howdy just the same.

Best wishes!

Thank you! My resolve was weakening by the minute!

Man! I hope I'm never too old to ride! If you can toss a leg over it, you can ride it.

Do you travel west of Knoxville? I'd be interested if you do.

Yeah, 9mm brass can be picked up at the range pretty easily, and you won't get much for it unless you process it first. I think it would be pretty easy to sell, cheap, on this forum if you were in Tennessee. There are surely quite a few members in the Memphis area. Maybe try an ad in the classifieds here? If you just want to be rid of it, but don't want to throw it away, you can take it to a local range and leave it with a "free" sign on it. Or check around to see if there's another recycler near you who might buy it for scrap.

It's still not clear DeepSouth. Are you giving it away? Do you want to sell it? Are you just asking for comment? I was surprised that a recycler wouldn't take it. Maybe post it on LSN or Craigslist and a local reloader may want it.

I checked into that and in the end I think it makes more sense for me to own my own machine and heavy brush cutter. The forestry mulchers that you describe are REALLY expensive. I can rent one on a skid-steer for about $3500 a week, but the machines burn 20 gallons of diesel a day, so add $80 of fuel x 7 days for another $500 plus another $500 for delivery. And then I would have to work at it for 8 hours a day to feel like I'm getting my money's worth on the rental. And I'd have to go to town every other day for diesel. You're right, I think, that the rate those guys charge is pretty fair considering the cost of the machines, cost of maintenance, and cost of fuel, plus a fair wage for the operator. I'm one of those who has more time than money, though, and I enjoy working with machinery to boot. I have 20 acres, and I'd like to take the underbrush out of almost all of it, so it's not going to be a job that's done in a day or two.