Little Tree’s Ramble, February 1998 Greetings to family, friends, and customers,   Well the big news around here is moving into our house and the launching of a new business, importing and selling Steyr-Mannlicher competition guns. We moved into the house in May or thereabouts, gradually shifting things a truckload at a time down the 100 yards or so from the trailer to the house. We moved in with most of the second floor unfinished; our intent being to leave it that way for awhile and catch our breath financially so to speak, but that wasn’t to be. The coming of the business necessitated that the downstairs bedroom/office become strictly an office, so the upstairs projects got under way again. We still don’t have all the necessary cosmetic trim around windows and doors downstairs either, but gradually are working on that too. The attached green house out front is still mostly a big ditch and heaven knows that the yard looks like a tornado came through yesterday (Volunteer labor for landscaping gladly accepted). Hopefully this time next year will see all the necessary projects done or at least near fruition.   The opportunity to import and sell Steyr-Mannlicher competition products was offered to me after some unexpected turn of events back in the summer and is something that I am enjoying a lot and that I expect will not leave me unrewarded for my present expenditure of time and money. Steyr-Mannlicher is an Austrian firm with a century old tradition of making fine, quality products and is highly regarded in the gun world. Most of what I will be handling is precision built airguns with numerous gold medals in their past. (And their future!) If any of you are interested in owning one of the world’s finest airguns, you now know whom to call. They are the most fun you’ve had with your clothes on in a long time. Kind of like eating a potato chip, you can’t stop with just one shot.   We have also purchased a computer and are now computer people too. (God help us all.) Like sentiments others have expressed, we also are continually amazed and frustrated beyond all means with the technology. Checking for e-mail is now a daily ritual (who’s kidding who, its more like an hourly one) and if you want to talk to us that way we are pilkguns@infoave.net Our web site can be viewed at www.pilkguns.com as soon as we get it completed which should be sometime soon. Learning how to operate this silly computer is also a great consumer of time. I have always been one to believe that for most part, that you should happen to life, not let life happen to you; with a corollary to that being, for the most part, people make their own problems. (I’m not ruling Providence out in this, just that 90% of what happens to us is directly related to our response to the 10% that we have no control over such as weather, luck if you want to call it that or {as I believe} Gods’ intervention either good or bad.) However this past year, and these last few months in particular, I have mostly felt like a swimmer valiantly struggling to swim upstream as the flood of my life rushes by. Our canine search and procurement committee is proud to report a replacement Great Pyrennes was added to the household sometime last February. You might recall I related last time how Emily was going around collecting "Kinder money" from people, even strangers who happened to display some change, so that she could get a new Kinder, (Kinder, short for Kindermadchen or nanny, was the name of her previous Pyrennes who got killed in the summer of 96 and whose replacement, due to our house raising expenditures, was not in the immediate budget). When I finally brought the puppy home, first I had business to transact with Emily. She had to give me the Kinder Money for the puppy (hard father that I am). By this time, the Kinder Money has become a thing unto itself, and she does not want to part with it. (Isn’t that just like human nature, where we make the means of achieving something become more important than the thing itself, whether its worshipping God, saving for retirement, or buying a dog.) Anyway after showing her the puppy and refusing to let her have it until she gives me the money (which was probably only 7 or 8 dollars in change), she finally gives in and makes the swap. After a few minutes of dragging the puppy around we ask her what she is going to name the new dog. She thinks for a little bit, then asks, "can I name it Kinder?" Rhonda and I look at each other, shrug our shoulders and say we guess so. Emily explodes in delight, jumping up and down, clapping her hands, and hollering. The dog whose nose is only inches away from this outburst is visually upset by all this, who after all, has just rode 3 hours in a strange vehicle and left all that it has ever known in its 12 weeks of life. I tell Emily to calm down, that she’s scareing the dog; Emily says " well, why is the dog scared?" I explain that the dog is in a new place, and doesn’t know where it’s at. To which, Emily leans down to the dog, says (in a voice, like you idiot, don’t you know where you are) " You’re in Monteagle, Tennessee" Kinder soon became quite attached to the kids but it didn’t take Emily long to decide that Forrestman needed a pup of his own, so part of the yard sale money from the big move went into another animal addition, Mr. Jake (Herr Jochem) a male Pyrenees puppy, who was added sometime in July. Our garage has a new set of headlights peeping out into the world; they are attached to a recent vintage Volvo wagon, 740 Turbo, ready to carry Rhonda and the kids out on their sundry journeys. Rhonda’s red 64 Corvair has made its way to Indiana where hopefully it will live a more peaceful life. I guess our Corvair phase is waning, but I would still like to find a nice Corvair Rampside (pickup truck) to add back to the fleet. We also had a short fling with a Toyota Camry wagon, but decided immediately that it was really too small, not to mention that it is a decided candidate for Ugliest Car of the Decade (I knew that when we bought it, but Consumer Reports ranks them so high in reliability and it was a good price, and we hadn’t found the Volvo yet). The dogs are not quite sure what to make of these new vehicles though; being used to the characteristic whirr of a pancake 6 Corvair engine (you could carry the house away with their help if you are driving a Corvair.) Our approach in the Volvo is still met with unfriendly barks till we emerge from the car. However, the Corvair powered UltraVan still gets met with happy barks from the dogs and excited squeals from the kids as it rolls down the drive after an extended trip.   Both kids are doing quite well. (You wondered when I was going to get around to them.) Forrest(2) calls Emily(4), "Emma" and she is a very good assistant Mother to him as well as being a translator to the adult world, when necessary, of his not quite understandable English. She is also helping potty train him by encouraging him to go use the potty as often as possible. Actually I think this a joint effort at swindling dear ole Mom and Dad, as Forrest gets some chocolate for peepeeing and a milkshake for poopooing (renamed "hippopotamus making" by Emily) and Emily shares in the loot. Forrest seems to have learned to ration the required emissions to the minimum possible when not wearing a diaper. Late breaking news, check out the cover of the May issue of BLADE magazine, available March 1rst on your newsstands. It features probably the nicest and most unusual set I’ve ever done. A knife and gun engraved with scenes from the tomb of Tutankhamen (King Tut). Photos of the set also recently appeared in a Japanese knife magazine and a similar article is expected in AMERICAN HANDGUNNER magazine in the July/August issue out on newstands OUT RIGHT NOW. Actually I have been holding off writing this letter till I could tell you when to look for these articles. Also, I have just returned from The Firearms Engravers Guild show in Reno where the gun received Smith & Wesson’s Artistry in Arms award for Most Exquisitely Engraved Handgun. Along with a very nice plaque, I received a new 7-shot revolver, which hopefully with sufficient parboiling and seasoning will prove edible, without incurring major dental work. I’m sorry to say my German has not improved a great deal since my last writing; too much to do stands in the way of devoting the time I would like to it. Our 98 plans include purchasing a satellite system so the kids can watch German and Spanish programs on TV (das fernsehen) and learn those languages (and the parents! J ). Emily came upstairs to the cupola (my workshop on the third floor) the other night, and told me "Daddy, the news hour is on with Jim Lehrer if you want to come watch it" Never having actually watched or shown in any interest in the News Hour, I was impressed with her parroting the information and her new sentence composition and I need to get those forces at work doing something useful, like foreign language acquisition. Here’s a few "snapshots" from the last 12 months: Emily and Forrestman "surfing" down the stairs. The carpet people had just carpeted the steps to the second floor and Emily and Forrestman were both, sliding down them headfirst, bellydown. Emily was OK, but Forrestman was on the verge of tipping head over heels on each descending riser. Driving a bright red van across the Swiss Alps, enjoying the sunny day and the snow crested peaks, with the occasional tinkle of cow bells out my open window, Suddenly, I’m staring at nothing but blue sky in front of me like Wile E. Coyote sailing off a canyon wall after the Road-Runner. Just as my heart is sinking through my chest, I realize that this is a switchback, and that the road is really there, only now it is supported by trestle and arches as it curves back into the mountainside. This is the first time I’ve seen a U-shaped bridge before, but I would see several more before I got to the bottom of the Alps on the Lugano side. Switzerland is really a photogenic country, with few exceptions; everywhere you look is like a postcard. On the banks of the Mississippi River in St Louis, Emily walking up to the base of the St. Louis Arch, looking up and around the curved structure and announcing " Granddad Scott made this" then "And Grandma Teeny helped him." While my dad does have a master’s degree in engineering, I didn’t know his resume quite included that one. Sleeping out under the stars in the front yard with Emily, Forrestman and Kinder (Rhonda opting for some much needed sleep indoors alone). Waking Emily up an hour or so before dawn so she can see Orion’s belt as it makes its appearance in the summer sky (She can pick out the major constellations and had been bugging me about not seeing Orion before we went to bed)   Emily jumping down from the dining room table after being given permission to go to the bathroom and announcing "I’ll be right back after these messages!"   Forrestman, happy as punch, handing me an inkpen after I demanded it from him because he was writing on the closet wall in his bedroom. A minute later I looked over and he was scribbling away again. "Forrest man give me THAT inkpen" He happily handed me that one. A few minutes later and he’s scribbling wide open with yet another pen. " Forrestman, how many ink pens do you have?" He reaches back into his closet and comes back with a handful of maybe 20 ink pens. No wonder he was unconcerned about giving me one or two. Maybe I’ve finally discovered that black hole in the universe where all the ink pens go; it’s in his closet. Well, that’s it for now. See ya around!