David Ruppert

Every year out in Bryans Mill, all of the land owners and permanent residences get together for a blowout weekend. It’s the one time where almost everyone shows up. For some reason, beyond my comprehension, it happens during opening weekend of squirrel season.

Why I’m not so clear on its timing is due to the fact that almost nobody hunts squirrel. It’s simply an excuse to head to the woods, leave the women and children at home, and blow things up.

This year was fairly quiet for the rest of the land owners out there. We did run in to a few of them, which in turn led to a 20 mile hike up and down dirt road by a literal convoy of UTV’s until 3 in the morning. But other than that . . it was a surprisingly civilized squirrel camp.

Chris and I brought out several friends this year to join in the general anti-hygienic, overly inebriated death and destruction.

I didn’t shoot too many photos, but did manage to catch a few while we played ‘war’ off of the back porch.

Many of us don’t get an opportunity to pull out the guns on a regular basis, so when the opportunity’s presented, most of our friends go significantly overboard. Which, honestly, is one of the reasons we get along so well.

Brian’s shooting his Caltech pistol.

From the look on Brandon’s face, Chris just said something highly offensive.

Scott sits down with Chris’s .35 Remington. Ear protection is a necessity with this one.

He looks happy with his shot, though he’s probably just glad it’s over with. Trust me, he’s fighting back tears.

Josh sits down with his 22-250.

While I was trolling up and down the deck, this little guy got right in my way and wouldn’t move. Soo, I took a picture. If you can see his lips, he’s saying ‘cheeeeeessee’.

A little later in the day we headed down to a different part of the property to shoot a little skeet. Don’t worry, they’re biodegradable skeet. We’re totally green.

And at the end of the day, this is where you can always find Brandon. Sitting in his chair, filling up his damn BB gun. He’s totally addicted. It’s a little sad.

Shortly after we got the property, Chris bought an EZ-Go Workhorse gas golf cart to get around.  Cause, lets face it, walking blows and coolers are heavy.

A couple of months in to it, it became apparent that the little golf cart that could . . . couldn’t.  The ‘golf cart of lifted golf carts’ became a larger, more difficult-to-store Barbie Jeep.

So the search for a new mode of transportation began.  We wanted something that could carry the family around . . and that meant either two rows of seats, or two carts.  As luck would have it, two rows of seats is cheaper.

The Mule.  TA-DAAAA!

It’s a ‘07 Kawasaki Mule Camo 3010 Trans 4×4.  The ‘Trans’ is because it will convert from a two seater with a large bed to a four seater with a smaller . . cuter bed.  We opted for 4wd because it’s cool.  We opted out of the diesel because we’re cheap.

Sooo, we gassed it up, strapped on some Top Gun Ray Bans and headed out to show off what had to be the manliest of all glorified golf carts.

Within a few minutes we got stuck.  Damn.

Tires were in ruts, carts were on their sides, egos were sufficiently urinated on.

Within a day I was busy Googling things like “hell yeah utv” and “largest lift kit for girlie Mule”.

We started by some basic ‘pimping’ in the form of a gun case [to hold the bolt action 20ga snake charmer], hatchet and shovel.  All necessities should Red Dawn ever come to fruition.

We decided on a 2″ lift, the largest they . . . uhh . . make? I know, that’s what I said too.

Yeah, he’s reading instructions. Yeah . . . we’re in trouble.

We also decided on a Viper 4500lb winch.  We eyed up some nice Warns and the like, then saw the price, laughed and moved on.

The winch came with a mounted switch we put just under the steering wheel along with a remote that we mounted just off the front fender.

Lastly we opted to add a Hi-Lift to the front of this bad boy. Notice the crushed empty beer can. Everyone knows Mule altercation can’t happen without a nice can of go-go juice.

It required welding some bolts on to the front bumper for storage.

It took a couple of nights, but all in all things went fairly smoothly.

The result, a more expensive glorified golf cart.  Brilliant.

After a decade long search [and a 4 month long closing debacle], my brother and I finally found a small piece of land to catch a few fish, shoot a few guns, and have a few beers.

Two and a half hours to the east, near Mt. Pleasant, rests the tired, empty town of Bryan’s Mill. Nothing happens there. In fact, nothing happens within 45 minutes of there, which is perfect.

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Finally following through with a borrowed idea I posted juuuust over a year ago, I’m going to attempt to post a picture, probably taken by my mobile phone, once a day . . week . . month whenever I think about it.

As luck would have it, I’ve been taking pictures on my phone since I got it months ago, so I’ve got some content stuffed in reserves. Hopefully that’ll keep this going, at least for a little while.

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