The Monster in the Kitchen

Each year for Clay's birthday we plan a big party. I always justify the splurge saying it's for him- the kindest, most generous, best husband ever! And... I love an excuse to plan a good party! So a few months before his birthday this year I took out my little black book of party ideas to have the annual convo. As I cleared my throat to begin my brilliant plans, he politely told me the only thing he wanted for his birthday was to have friends out to the ranch for the weekend. Oh... okayyyy then. He checked with his family, made his guest list and like a good wife I sent out his evites. Wow, totally anti-climatic...

It was probably a few weeks later I had an epiphany... what the heck are we going to do out there in the middle of February with a dozen people? Oh and then there is that little budget thing... I totally panicked!

I took a few days... weeks of convincing but Clay finally got me on board with buying this automatic skeet/trap/clay thing? Despite looking a little scary and taking over my kitchen for a few weeks during the cold weather it is probably one the coolest things we have ever invested in! All you need is open space, "clay pigeons" (not to be confused with being pigeon shaped???) about $5/100 at any sporting goods store, gun/ammo and it powers through your car battery. Other than the initial cost of the machine we couldn't have spent more than $50 for people to shoot skeet the whole weekend... and it was really fun! There are a lot of games you can play (all somewhat resembling 'HORSE' in basketball) to keep larger numbers of people entertained. Touche Clay, genius! I never doubted you...

More info: Just click on the picture for the link at Cabela's. Disclaimer: It is huge and doesn't come apart (think 1/2 to 3/4 refrigerator, you need a truck bed to transport). You can also put a 'wobbler' on the bottom to make the skeet/trap more challenging, definitely something you can add later. Also, keep your eyes peeled at Walmart and K-mart for clay pigeons and shotgun shells to be on sale. Fun fact: If you want to sound like you know what you are talking about: a skeet course (kind of like golf course) is called "sporting clays", if the clay pigeons are being fired while moving away from you (shooting it before it gets out of distance) it's called "trap", if there are two machines shooting side to side in front of you its "skeet". This machine is considered a trap machine. I have learned a lot of un-fun facts about this stuff too if anybody is interested.

4/5/11
The Pioneer Woman wrote all about shooting trap this weekend... indulge in her adorable blog entry here.