hunting and gathering

I thought that everything I needed was all picked out, but I was wrong, Looks like I'm going to spend a little bit more money in order to save it. Food and gas are creeping back up again so I started thinking about a long term solution to reduce the costs of both.

Ruger 10/22

Something I've been meaning to do is to hunt for meat. I lucked out in that many of my coworkers are long time hunters and their experience saved me a lot of time. With their help I narrowed down my choices to the rifle above; a scope will be added to take advantage of its range. I picked jackrabbits as my prey of choice because of their high availability and are always in season. They're a great red meat substitute for beef recipes. Males weigh about 9-11 pounds with the females at 11-13 pounds.  The cost of the rifle and scope totals under $300 with the ammo at $14 for 50 rounds. The best thing is I can hunt other similar sized animals with this rifle to vary the menu. In case some of you find this disagreeable. I don't enjoy killing. I have no illusions about what I'm choosing to do and only do so for self sustenance on a limited income. Which leads me to my other money saving goal.

Honda CT110

With some of the meat covered I needed a cost saving way of gathering veggies (until I learn which desert plants are safe to eat) without having to drive my gas guzzling truck to the store. I have Brian of Many Wheels to thank for this one. I saw a picture of one on his blog and knew instantly that it was what I've been looking for all along. Before this I was torn between getting a scooter or a bicycle, but decided against the bike in the end. The exercise aspect of a bike is great but doesn't work if the nearest store is too far to get there and back in a reasonable amount of time. I'll rely on hiking and rock climbing for my exercise since I'll have more time later. I was originally looking at getting a Ruckus (Honda) or Zuma (Yamaha) but they cost too much (3k). The discovery of the CT is perfect for my needs and well within my price range. They're not made any more and only available used (around 1k average). I really love the semi vintage look and hope to find one that's slightly beat up so it'll be overlooked by any would be thieves. In the event anyone has designs of liberating my CT from me I've already got a security system in mind.

I think I'll name her Madeleine

It's been too long since my last one and I sorely miss having a german shepherd. I've wanted to expand my family for a while now but circumstances never allowed for it. The time will be right next year! What about "the beagle"??? The dogs will compliment each other well since they're both working dogs and I'll have plenty of work for them. I'm still researching this one and haven't made a final decision yet. I'm only undecided because of unknown challenges of raising a pup on the road. Still, I'm leaning very heavily towards doing it. I've got a year so we'll see how things develop.