Dead-Eye Hoover

Last year, you may remember, Butch got himself a pellet gun. Since it came for a “tool” show at the local fire dept. and cost a whopping $25, you can imagine that accuracy is not way up there the list. Butch has been on a mission to run the squirrels and grackles away from the bird feeders.


He is on voluntary 10 week lay-off until the end of September. Which, if you give it some thought, is way more than 10 weeks. He’s going to get his cataract fixed while off. So you can imagine my thoughts when I saw him getting ready to aim at something, realizing that he shoots a gun right handed. I hadn’t noticed before and I thought maybe that’s part of the reason he’s having such trouble hitting any target. Of course, that really made more sense when I realized that he was sighting with the eye he has the cataract in. Sigh…. no wonder he can’t hit the broadside of a barn.

So anyway, he’s been watching the bird feeders and shooting out the doors. I worry about where the pellets he’s shooting are actually going. I imagine the dairy farmer across the road is probably wondering why the girls aren’t giving milk like they used to do.

This spring we had a problem with voles. So he wandered down to the local hardware store and they sent him home with some poison which he put down the holes and we’ve seen no more of them since. Last week, we were eating dinner when a critter ran across the top patio. Our immediate thoughts were the damn voles were back, but no, this was just a little mouse. So Butch creeps out the door and basically chases him down the path. We go back to eating and sure enough the little bugger comes back, at which point Butch grabs the (un)trusty pellet gun and goes outside. I looked out and he was aiming down where the ground meets the house and is going to shoot this mouse from about 4 feet away. Did I say this was just a little one? So he shoots at it and I call out did you hit it, and all I got for an answer was “get me another pellet” and like a dummy….I did. At that point I went in the house, cause I figured the mouse was probably the safest one of us standing outside at that point. So I hear him shoot a second time, and then I notice out the window, that he’d now beating it with the stock end of the pellet gun. (which I think is the only way to get something with that damn thing)

Whatever Earl!



UPDATE: Son#1 loaned him his pellet gun. I came home from work last night and he told me he had actually shot a grackle right off the bird feeder. He was all proud of himself. He said he’d left the carcass out there as a warning to the others until just before I came home from work, cause he knew I’d have a cow if it was still there. I don’t think he appreciated me asking him if he was going to have it mounted.