Wild West

There is always something going on at my parent's house. Whether exercising the horses...

... or doctoring the cattle, my family stays busy with fun and work pretty much all day every day. This little calf broke its leg. I got to help put a splint on it. After the splint was on, we realized that the break was higher up in the leg, in its hip. We had to take the splint off cause it was causing more problems that not. The little guy has since been tied down onto a sled to keep his leg immobilized while it heals. I hope he is okay, that broke my heart a little to see him in pain.

Another activity we got to participate in while in Idaho was shooting guns. This has become a recent tradition around the holidays for us, as it is the only time we have been home to get to do this. We drive up the road a mile or two to the dry farm. The dry farm is land that my Dad and uncle own. They grow crops, such as alfalfa and wheat, on some of it. It is called the dry farm because they don't irrigate it, the crops just grow with the help of natural rainfall. It's so pretty up here, especially in the winter when the ground is blanketed with white and everything is so still and quiet.

On our first shooting expedition, we shot only handguns. They had three different handguns, a Glock .45, a semi-automatic 9mm and a small .380. My brother Tyler, his wife Kelsey, her mom Patty, her sister Rachel, my mom, Brian and I were the ones present. 

Happy with ear plugs secure.

Here is Brian holding the 9mm pistol. This is right before he shot it.

Shooting the 9mm. I don't think he hit anything, but it sure made a lot of noise.

Here he is again sporting the empty 9mm and the empty .45 after shooting off a magazine from each. Happy guy!

My mom even got in on the fun and shot the 9mm. She took aim with the first shot. But after that she just pulled the trigger boom, boom, boom without waiting. Afterwards, she said that it scared her and she just wanted to get the shooting over with. It was hilarious.

Kelsey's mom took a turn with her .45 handgun. She was the best shot of us all, hitting two of the bottles we were using for targets.

Here I am, modeling the .380 handgun.

I shot the .45 first, and was not expecting it to kick as hard or be as loud as it was. Although I have shot rifles and shotguns before, this was my first time shooting a handgun. I shot each of the different calibers, and they are kind of scary.

You can tell how unfamiliar I am with handguns by my awkward shooting stance. I would aim the gun's sight up with my target, then get nervous and close my eyes before I pulled the trigger. Needless to say, my aim wasn't very great. Although, I did end up hitting one of the cans on the ground.

I went shooting a second time with my brother Luke, sister Kiley and brother-in-law Scott while Brian was on his work trip to Las Vegas. We drove up the same road, but not quiet as far up the hill as before. Again, it was such a pretty day.

This time around we shot .22 rifles and a .410 shotgun. 

It was a little colder that day, so here I am all bundled up shooting the .22. I also got to shoot the .410, which is my favorite gun. Someday, when we move back west and become a little more settled, I want to buy a .410 for myself. I threw out a list of various types of guns to Brian at some point when he got back from his trip, asking which one he wanted. His answer was simply "Yes."

Here is my sister Kiley shooting their semi-automatic .22. It's always fun to go shooting with Kiley, because she can't just close one eye, so her facial expressions are great as she tries to when lining up her shot. She may have been practicing though because she didn't ask anyone to hold her left eyelid closed this time. Or maybe it's just because she had a scope.

Our targets were far enough away that we needed binoculars to tell if we hit what we were aiming for.

I love my brother Luke! He is hilarious and is always making everyone laugh. I hung around with him quite a lot while I was home, especially while Brian was gone, and he cracked me up constantly. He is my best bud for sure.

It was nice to get outdoors in the fresh air and do some activities that we don't get to do here in NYC. Life in Idaho and life in NYC couldn't be any more different.