So the dent in my car and the deer on the side of the road reminded me that I hadn't had time to go to the shooting range lately and pop a few rounds off. I'm not a gun nut, and I don't necessarily enjoy sitting on a hot range shooting at paper circles, but I like to keep my skills sharp. So I took a few hundred rounds and my .22 and had the range to myself.
Depending on what I hunt I generally use my 30-06 because in New Mexico I was typically stalk hunting elk, javelina or deer. I think that's too much firepower for Missouri, but I didn't bother with a tag this year because its just not the same here. Seems like most people do private land leases for hunting and sit in blinds waiting for an unexpecting deer to walk through. I don't know if I can handle that boredom. I definitely prefer stalking the animal. But then again, maybe that's why I didn't have much success back in New Mexico. This was the first time at the range when I needed to put a white background behind my hanging targets so I could see the target.
I have terrible eyes but corrected near perfectly with my contacts. But last year all of a sudden I needed readers. I'm 49 so I hear that happens. But it was so sudden and timed right with my move to St Louis. One theory I have is that before the move I was foraging 6 days a week in the vast wilderness so my eyes were in a constant state of exercise looking in all directions and all distances. You had to to survive and also because of the beauty of both the flower and the mountain vista. Once I moved to St Louis my foraging dropped to just a couple days a week and you can only see a few yards ahead because land is relatively flat and covered in forest. I think my eyes just stopped being exercised. I've noticed that the past month as I've gone out foraging more, that my eyes have improved slightly. All I know is that it's only going to get worse from here.
After shooting we decided to hit the wineries. You may not know this but Missouri has a major role in the world's wine scene. To my taste now they wines are mediocre on a good day focusing mostly on Nortons and Chamberlins, but there's 200 years of growing. THIS short essay gives you the history. The fact that the French wines were saved in part to Missouri wines in pretty interesting. We decided to hit all of the ones in the area in one fell swoop (and we did swoop at the very end). We started at Cave Vineyard which is named after its large cave on the property. They don't really use it and they make you buy a bottle of wine if you want to see it, but its a good start for our wine tour.
Next was the Crown Valley Brewery and Distillery. Very big, very corporate feeling but decent enough moonshine and beer. I liked their sour beer enough that I bought a 4-pack to enjoy with dinner. Crown Valley also has a vineyard which left us ready to move on, but there's some history I want to drop in. One of my aunts is an avid genealogist. And in our cabin you can find all sorts of interesting documents that she's brought down over the years. BTW, she has our family line traced back to the 1600s. One of the documents is a recording of all of the grave sites and cemeteries in the region. On one of the pages I found the line "old slave graveyard." Now I'm sure I learned about Missouri's role in slavery and the Civil War back in school, but I'll admit I'm rusty. As I started asking locals, it turned out that this area was filled with old confederate plantations, and in fact, the Crown Valley Vineyard was the largest plantation in the area. They only tore the plantation building down in modern times to put in the vineyard. And, that graveyard can be found on the property of the vineyard (but is not part of the public tour). Hearing all of this opened my eyes as I started reading names on old dirt roads a bit differently, looking at land plots, and thinking about modern Missouri rural politics. [Please remember everyone that we agree not to talk politics on this forum, so let's not and just note the history of this area.]
Starting to feel our cheerios, we headed off to Chaumette Vineyard. I kinda liked the wine here - not sure if it was the wine or the placement in our tour. But if you're ever in the area, this is probably the best food you'll find. We eventually sobered up and came back for a belated anniversary dinner and really enjoyed it. Finally we we to Charleville Winery. These are the little guys and I think the best of all of them. Again, if you go and don't like it we'll just say I was sloshed at this point, but I do think its really good. The fun thing is that we could literally walk over the hill for 20 minutes and be at my cabin. By drive it was a bit further but these are neighbors and when I told the owner who I was it was clear that my family had been regulars over the years because she knew a bunch of them. Nice to know my family is keeping up with their indulging! Our grandmother from the area, who died about a decade ago, when we had her viewing we all knew what we had to do - everyone brought cocktails and placed them on her coffin and we had a party. The quote of hers that we all retell the most is when someone mentioned a fatty dessert at a restaurant she said, "Honey, at my age I save all of my calories for alcohol." That's Grandma Irma Okenfuss for you!
When I got back to the cabin that night I started looking over a topo map that someone had left which had some interesting markups. Persimmon field caught my eye!
