Benjamin’s 17th Birthday

  So, of course on Benjamin’s birthday we had to do something that involved guns! 

We went to the shooting range with a few of the Suermann brothers after lunch:

Jonathan

 

Andrew

Lisa

Jesse shooting and Andrew spotting

We moved up to the trap field to shoot clay pigeons with our shotguns:

L:R Noah, Joel, a stranger, the stranger’s dad, Jesse and Jonathan

L:R Andrew, Benjamin, Jonathan

We had some family over in the evening and had Benjamin’s favorite meal, Chicken Pot Pie, and Kate’s first try at Chocolate Cake with Ganache (stay tuned for future cakes).

2/6/13

Masked Bandit Gets Trapped

   We’ve been waking up in the morning to find the trash from the trashcans all over the yard.  Benjamin setup a trap outside near the trash cans to catch the culprit which was most likely a masked bandit.  This morning we (or actually Lydia) found this raccoon in the trap:

6/30/11

Andrew’s 17th Birthday

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   For my 17th Birthday today we ate brunch and drove over to the shooting range to shoot some trap with our shotguns.  Benjamin did pretty well and we were surprised how well Noah did with his 20 gauge.  However, we’re looking forward to doing more practice over the summer.

Correction: The video title says that we’re shooting “skeet,” but we’re actually just shooting “trap” because the clay pigeon comes from in front of you and flies away from you.

Another Beaver!

Benjamin caught another beaver in one of his traps today!

  We drove to the house of a very experienced who helped Benjamin skin the beaver without flawing the pelt.

   After saying goodbye we saw about 8 deer along the sides of the driveway and they were only about 20 feet away.  By the time we had the camera out we only took this one picture before they had run away.

Benjamin Catches a Beaver!

 

When Ben checked his trap this morning he found to his delight that he had caught a beaver!

His beaver trap is very powerful and it had broken the beaver’s back, so he died instantaneously and painlessly.

 

Beavers can be very destructive to farm land because each year their dams flood hundreds of acres of crops.

A friend/neighbor who is also a VERY experienced trapper and hunter showed Benjamin how to skin the beaver so that he could keep the fur.  Our friend was very helpful and did a great job of explaining the process to Ben and to the rest of us who were watching.  Later in March Benjamin will send his beaver skin in a package with a couple of other trapper’s skins to a tanning facility where they’ll be properly tanned and sent back.

Removing Benjamin’s Traps-Video

Trapping Opossums

     Benjamin has been trapping again this year, but hadn’t caught anything until today when he found the two opossums in the barn. Today is also the last day of the trapping season here in Missouri until next winter.

   Sometimes Benjamin kills the animals he traps and skins them, but he decided to go ahead and let these two marsupials go.

A Fall Through the Ice

   This morning Benjamin went to the creek to retrieve one of his beaver traps.  While he was trying to get it the ice broke and he fell into the water that was well over his head. He had on his waders, which made it worse because they were filled up with water and added a lot of weight. He was able to climb back up on the ice, but now he was soaking wet and close to a mile away from home. Thankfully before he had fallen in he had taken off his coat because he had gotten too warm. Therefore he was able to  wear something dry for his torso, but is was still a long and cold walk back to the house!

   Later this afternoon the three of us went back to the creek to help Benjamin get the beaver trap.  It had “caught” a log and we weren’t able to pull out the log without a saw.

  I wanted Benjamin to reenact his incident of the week on camera, but he said he’d only do it for money and named a price that’s well over this filmmaker’s Dramatization Budget.

 

 

This is a dam that the beavers made in the creek-it keeps this portion of the creek a couple of feet deeper than it would normally be.

 

You can kind of see here how the trap has engaged on the branch.

Pictures from Benjamin's Birthday (Trap Shooting)

We went to the Jay Henges trap field and shot 2 rounds each (50 shots.) We finally got to tro out our new shotguns. I (Andrew) used my side-by-side double barrel 12 gauge. Benjamin used his pump, camoflauge, 12 gauge, turkey gun. Noah used his black synthetic pump 20 gauge. We also brought out single-shot, break-down 20 gauges.

We're pretty new to shooting and had never shot by rotations, but at the trap field we met a nice man who taught us to shoot in rotations and gave us some very helpful advice to improve our aim. It had been about three months since we had gone shooting, but we did alright and had a great time.

Benjamin 13th Birthday

Today is Benjamin's 13th birthday! To celebrate this day we're going to go shoot some trap with our new shotguns. We'll be enjoying the comapny of our Grandpa while we shoot. We'll also be having a small party on Saturday. I'll add some pictures soon...