It seems like over the past months, by the time the work week is finished, all the weekend is used for is sleeping, as I’m too tired to do anything else. Not very productive but once the point of exhaustion is reached, there’s really not much that can be done about it. All the weekend projects get pushed to the following weekend, meaning the list of those ends up so long that they won’t ever be completed. Activities are just dropped, not worth the effort if the effort were even available at all. Not sure what is causing this condition and too tired to give it much consideration. I suspect it is just a lot of life catching up with things that have happened to me.

Regardless, yesterday for some reason God stopped by and I enjoyed a few hours awake. Once I recovered from the shock of just being among the living, I was determined to take advantage of it. I ran my long, long list of things I needed to do through my mind and settled on the top priority – check the sights on a pair of AK-47 rifles that I plan to use in a class coming up in November. Grabbing them out of the safe, I locate magazines, ammunition, a couple slings to hook on them and some other shooting gear and head out to my shooting bench (a picnic table).

Twenty-five yards down the hill from the picnic table is an old fishing dock jutting out about 12 feet out into our lake. One corner has collapsed into the water, most of the boards are rotten and it needs to be dismantled but I have been too tired to even begin that project. So, until then, it has served as the unofficial target when some firearm has needed testing for one reason or another. At the far end of the dock stands a 4” wide steel beam, reaching about 3’ above the wood surface of the dock. I pile all my toys on the picnic table, go put the dogs in kennels so they are a bit protected inside rather than be out with the noise (except the little furry deaf dog who doesn’t care in the least) and start loading magazines.

Firing the first rifle at the far side of the dock results in bullets zipping through the dock and large geysers of water flying up behind the point of impact. I fire at the steel beam a couple of times and consider that rifle good to go, it’s hitting where I’m pointing. Half a dozen shots and one rifle is finished. Picking up the second, I figure these guns are probably both fine, so I just shoot at the steel beam and get three center hits. Then, I shoot at the near side of the dock. The bullet goes through the dock, hits the water and the water blasting up blows an entire piece of wood completely off the dock. Interesting, I think, as I load up a magazine and open up on the near side of the dock in a concerted effort to disassemble the dock. Wood is going in all directions. I am really doing a lot of work taking that dock apart, yet I don’t feel particularly tired. This really must be the way to do a job correctly.

Eventually, I decide I have done enough manual labor for the day. I clean the rifles, put everything away, let the dogs back out and have a beer. The dock isn’t quite finished, but I do have a riot gun that I need to work on. If I can wake up next weekend, I believe that testing the riot gun on the old dock will be a fine undertaking. Good, honest labor. I bet I would not be so tired if I did this kind of work all week.