Besides all the eating, relaxing, swimming and eating we did last weekend, B found a new favorite sitio activity.
He found Paulo’s air rifle and stash of slugs.
For three and a half days, between naps and hanging out with the neighbors, he played with the gun.
He and Paulo made up competitions, they floated oranges to sink, Coke bottles to shred, and a big bottle full of sand to try and knock over. They even let me try it a few times and I must say I’m a fairly good aim. I probably couldn’t shoot a rabbit for survival, but maybe a very large and slow turkey if I had to, and no Coke bottles escaped my deadly aim.
B wins though. He shot a bottle cap off the top of it’s perch from about 40 feet away. With all that practice all weekend, his aim is dead on.
He used up all of Paulo’s slugs and resorted to fishing the undamaged ones out of the shallow water of the pool in desperation. Once they were flat he had to finally give up and let Paulo have his gun back.
I have to admit it was fun to shoot, and I love seeing B smile like a school kid when he’s having fun. He works hard at a stressful job for us, and I love to see him let loose.
It’s also good to know he can hunt down our dinner during the zombie apocalypse, whether it’s by shooting a rabbit or chicken, or catching fish in the forest. My man’s got skills.
I didn’t know the Scots were gunslingers! Not a bad talent to have in Brazil.
B says he grew up with air guns and used to shoot them all the time as a kid. He grew up in a pretty rural small town in Fife. He hasn’t done it for ten years or more, which is why he had so much fun last weekend. Yes, not a bad talent to have!
Where exactly is your sitio? My husband just explained to me that sitio is like a farm, not an actual proper location. It looks very cool and rural.
It’s outside Casimiro de Abreu, which is probably about a two hour drive north of Rio and an hour from where we live. The last 15 kilometers or so are on a very rough dirt road. Yes, a sitio is technically a small farm, but the word also seems to be used for something like a country house or cabin. This one is sort of a mountain retreat, although a rustic one, with two separate houses. The upper house has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room and a proper kitchen. It has a wrap-around veranda with hooks for six hammocks. I love those! The lower house has two bedrooms, a bathroom, a non-working sauna and an outdoor kitchen that is part of the big covered patio. There is a swimming pool you can see in the photos above, but it’s more than 30 years old and full of cracks so won’t hold water anymore. We’re still hoping Paulo will have it fixed some day, but we’re always welcome at the next door neighbor’s pool, or we could swim in either of two good swimming holes in the river right next to it.
Both houses have electricity, but it’s not always reliable. Both also have gas stoves, and the upper house has a gas oven. Everything we need. Love it!
It sounds amazing! Talk about a getaway!
Totally. We’re lucky to have use of it!
I bet you’re a good aim from all that camera work.
I’m a pretty good shot, too, from tennis and video games. Awesome hand-eye coordination, which was a real impediment when it comes to T’ai Ch’i. My first teacher, when I was 23 or 24, said “Tennis? Or video games?” When I said both, this old chinese lady said, ‘Well, it’s something to overcome.’
I tried T’ai Ch’i once, and thought it wouldn’t be hard after years of Tai Kwon Do and Tong Soo Do. Man I was wrong! I was so lost, lol.