It is time.

Welcome to the holiday season, everyone.

Ours begins each year with an chorus of gas-powered chainsaws, echoing across our rows of Tannenbäume, (coni)fear and destruction in their wake.

And lo, the scent of evergreen terror and murder doth make a delightful wintry bouquet.

It really looks like they’re doing a number on them this year, so I expect our view to look very different by Thanksgiving.

As I’ve said, we’ll certainly miss seeing them…but hopefully they’ll help make amazing Christmas memories for families all over the country that will last lifetimes.

I’ll post some final pictures as the harvest begins to slow down.

In other rural news, I swapped out the rifle I’d borrowed from a neighbor with a different, more noob friendly one. And by this I mean it isn’t bolt action, so I can simply squeeze the trigger to fire it repeatedly. Alas, I wanted to keep the magnifying optic/scope/thing on it rather than the unnerving red laser dot (which I felt never really worked quite right), which meant I needed to do something called “sighting” the rifle.

It’s exactly what it sounds like. Just shoot at something until you align where the scope looks like it’s pointing to where the bullet hits.

It took me…some time to get this right.

The ones at the bottom were the first few shots. Then all along the right you can see where I wasn’t quite sure which direction I was supposed to turn the screws on the sight to align it.

Then those final three hit right in the center of the knot and I called it a day, having learned the very basics of a new skill.

I countered this preparation for violence and destruction by reminding myself why it was I was doing it in the first place…

Simple answer: I like my chickens more than I dislike firearms.

See you tomorrow.

j.s.