My New Toys

My birthday was August 7th.  I went up to level 29!  Woohoo!  I guess most people are sad about getting older, but trust me, it's been no small feat to survive this long.  I'm going to enjoy every year (level) I've earned.

(Victory!)

I usually have to work weekends, but I had my birthday off.  :)  VikingPrincess and VikingLad were on vacation, so they couldn't watch the little kids, so I had a family friendly birthday.  I did want to go see Suicide Squad, but that was not to be.  VikingDad also wants to see that, so we'll have to wait until we have a free night.  Instead I took myself to see Ghostbusters, which is light and entertaining.  As a geek, I completely object to the whole idea of a Ghostbusters remake, but, aside from that, it was a fun movie... plus there were cameos from the original, which I enjoyed.

Another enjoyable thing about my birthday was the cake and ice cream.  Woot!

But the best thing about it was MY NEW TOYS!  When I was in Summerland (a wonderful Pagan festival in NW Wisconsin), I got to try throwing tomahawks for the first time.  It was loads of fun, so for my birthday I bought myself two throwing axes.  One is a SOG fasthawk, the other is a medium sized Nordic style throwing ax with a wooden handle.  I also bought a leather sheath for it.

So, like any honorable barbarian, I went to try out my new throwing axes in whatever I could find that looked somewhat like a target.  (I learned if you miss and hit a villager on the head with the blunt end instead of the pointy end, they might still die.  Good to know.)  ;)
I threw those suckers into any dead tree I could find.  Some were too hard and I could not (yet) stick the axes.  (I'll work on it)  After that, I thought I should throw them into a softer target so I picked a large round hay bale.  Not a good idea.  I managed to throw my Nordic ax all the way to the exact center of the bale, so I then had to dig it out.  I tried dead trees in various stages of decay.  While a very decayed tree practically explodes on impact, it's not very satisfying because you could probably attain the same result with a rock.  Finally, I settled on wedging a partially burnt log from a past bonfire into the old couch that VikingDad put next to the fire pit.  (When our couches get too clawed up from our feral children and dogs, instead of trashing them, VikingDad loads them up in his tractor and drives to the middle of the pasture where our bonfire pit is.  Then, when we have a bonfire, we burn them.)
Wedged Burnt Log In A Couch worked fairly well as a target for my new sharp pointies. 

At this point, I decided to be a good mom and teach WildGreenBoy how to throw pointy things.  He just recently had a birthday (he turned 7), so I determined he should also share in the birthday fun. 

His form could be better, but it's the thought that counts (the kinds of thought that goes, "Kill it with a pointy thing!").
And, like a proper barbarian child, he also had fun climbing trees and running around in the woods.

The problem with running around in the pasture finding targets for my fledgling throwing abilities is that, when I miss, although my fasthawk is fairly easy to find in the tall grass and brush, sometimes the head of my Nordic ax comes off... and the ax head is horribly hard to find in the tall grass.  So I determined to make myself a suitable target to put in the front yard at some point.

So a couple days passed.  One night, I came home late when it was dark and raining.  The next morning, I was telling VikingDad of my troubles finding my ax head when I miss, and he was kind of smirking the whole time.  "Why are you smirking?"  I asked him.  "Look in the front yard," he replied.  I went to the window, drew back the curtain, and right in our front yard was a huge upright log, obviously a new target for me and my axes.  :)  Apparently VikingDad set it up for me the day before when I was away, and when I came back I didn't see it because it was dark and raining. 

It makes a wonderful target, although, as you can see, I've already gouged out entire chunks of it.  That's the most thoughtful thing VikingDad has done for me recently, so I am appropriately pleased with him.