Butcher's bill: 252.

I have never, ever worn a sidearm.

Until today.

You get used to it pretty quick. Hardly ever remembered it was there, until I needed it. And then, after you've seen quite graphically what the energy inside that tool can do, you think hard about what's strapped to your belt.

For a minute or two.

I have never, ever ridden a four-wheeler.

Really.

Until today.

Quite a baptism by fire. A twenty-some mile round trip through mud, gullies of not quite frozen ice over boot-deep icy water, clay fields littered with selenite crystals

and decorated with ice crystals on everything not dirt or wood,

up and through badlands, across saltbush flats, through sage draws drifted with snow.

Starting with thick fog that hid all but the closest features,

into a sunny midday, and ending in a cloudy, cold evening well after sunset.

I have never killed anything with a handgun.

Until today.

Six times. 'Nuf said.

I have never had a Welsh sandwich before.

Until today.

Some strange concoction of an unidentified pickled vegetable, organic, lumpy cheese, and alfalfa sprouts. Apparently staple luncheon fare in Wales. It tasted good out there in the sage and snow, but if I never have another, that's fine with me.