janestarz | Great tits and arrows! *

After our exercise at the gym yesterday

palanthe carelessly remarked she'd never practiced archery before. This, of course, had to be remedied. Combined with little to no wind that evening and NoKey staying home from taijutsu training, we gathered three bows and a bunch of larp arrows and traipsed down the stairs.

Out the back door, Palanthe spotted a chick with great tits!

No, wait. That's not right.

Palanthe spotted a great tit chick. A chick, of a bird called the great tit (Dutch: koolmees). Right. That's how you say it. A youngster that was just learning to fly, but had fallen from the nest and somehow made it to our back door.
It was very frightened of us large predators and tried to hop away. After trying a few times to pick it up and escort it to a semblance of safety (and failing), I remembered I had brought my camera to take pictures of my new bow.

Taking a good picture of a great tit chick is rather hard.

When it hopped away under the fence I could no longer reach it, but its parents were nearby. We left them to it, hoping the chick would learn to fly instead of be eaten by Random Neighbourhood Cat #4.

And then we went shooting!
Getting my new 35 lbs bow strung was rather hard, but we managed in the end and I asked NoKey to take a few pictures.

I'm happy with this photo as it shows my technique and stance, which looks rather good even to a lay person like myself.
I tried explaining archery to Palanthe but NoKey was far better at it than me and took over while I stood target. Her first loosed arrow flew true and hit me on the right leg. She was shooting with Beriadanwen's 20-25lbs bow, which is an easy draw. It's still hard enough to not hit your arm (especially as a woman, since we overstretch our elbows easier than men) and I fear she will have a shiner on her arm from the effort.

We all took a bow and just shot distance, trying to reach over the fence. Instead, thanks to our efforts to gain some altitude, some of the arrows got tangled in the branches of the willow tree.

Spot the arrows! There are three...

NoKey, being as stubborn as he can be, decided to try and shoot them down, showing off his prowess with a bow. It was rather hard, and since the arrows didn't have time to turn around in flight (going vertical), they came down pointy-end first.

(I am rather proud of the composition and colours of this next photo though)

We even tried by other means to get the arrows down, but in the end we had to admit defeat. NoKey managed to get one down, but there's still two stuck up there.
Still, it was fun to try out my new bow. Unstringing it took even more effort though. 35 lbs isn't what it used to be -- but dayum, I'm happy with my new bow.

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*) This title brought to you by my rather devious mind. Har har har.