The sad state of the American male!

Time for a rant. I warned you way back in the beginning of this blog I wouldn't always be Mr nice guy. Sorry if some are offended, but, I need to say it! Keep in mind this is partially tongue in cheek. Several days ago I had the opportunity to over hear a conversation between three men. Well two talked and the third just sat there and nodded. It seems guy #1 (using the term guy loosely here) was tired of hearing his wife complain about the cost of their lawn service. Which was just over $100 a month and included snow plowing in winter. Guy #2 said the cost of a mower was too much to justify doing it yourself. The cost of a tractor alone was over $1500. Guy #1 replied that their fathers mowed the same size lots with push mowers and they cost about what one months of the service does. The problem for guy #1 was he couldn't figure out how to mow along the fence. Guy 2 mentioned a string trimmer. Guy 1 replied that string trimmer scared him and just mowing his city lot was getting too complicated. It all scared guy 2, that's why he pays a service. Yes people, scared and complicated were their words, not mine. We wonder why our country is failing. Yet, how can we manufacture products and have a strong economy when most of our population is afraid of basic objects. A task as simple as cutting grass is viewed as complicated? If the crap ever does really hit the fan bad, we are in deep doo doo. I don't have time to be changing these guys diapers for them. My advice for those guys! Turn off the TV idiot box. Get away from your computer. Make your wife do her own pedicure. Get a mower and mow your lawn. Let the grass grow a little next to the fence, the guy next door is too busy giving his wife a pedicure to care. Break the mower, get grease and oil under your pretty nails and fix it. Next you'll want to change the oil in the car, do it! Before you know it, you'll know what those thing hanging there are, reach down and grab them. The only thing I think you're really afraid of is something called testosterone. Stop eating so much soy, go get yourself a proper piece of meat for dinner and you might have some more of it! It's really not that scary of a thing. Sign this one. Woods, the unreformed male!

Thinking and eating outside the box

Here's a post about one of my favorite things, Eating! Like every red blooded American male I love cooking on the barbeque. Well we just gave away our grill. We found a better way. Actually I should give Pelenaka her due and tell you it was her discovery. Several years ago my darling wife decided the frugal thing to do was to can our food on a wood stove. So, we went shopping and found an old laundry stove in the weeds out behind a antique shop. Spent a bit over $100.00 to get it. We (well mostly she) have used it for three years now for food preservation and it does an excellent job. It also runs for almost free, something that can't be said for our vintage electric stove. A trip around the nieghborhood with a wagon after a wind storm yields plenty of free firewood. Maple mostly, with the occasional piece of walnut, oak or cherry thrown in. Well here is the big discovery. Maple and cherry twigs and sticks beat briquets or lump charcoal all day long. For one thing they are free rather than costing $5.00 for a 10 pound bag. Second they don't require expensive starter either. A strip of brown paper bag or news paper is all it takes. One of those square black grills with the round holes meant for veggies or seafood replaces the wire grill. Pictured above is yours truly roasting hot dogs and goat chops. The goat was the last of a young buck purchased from a friend last spring for $40.00. It lasted so long because I'm the only one that will eat it. The girls had hots and burgers. The jar in the background with the red lid is my home made hot/barbeque sauce. The sauce might just become a source of income. I took a bottle to work and stuck it in the fridge. I had it once. Today one of my coworkers asked when I was bringing in more. The bottle was in the fridge almost empty. The store bought equivilent cost almost four bucks for a ten ounce bottle. It costs me three to make half a gallon of it. Maybe I'll start charging my coworkers for hot sauce. You may recognize that bit of white to my right under the tarp in the picture, as a old fashioned claw foot tub. Yup! You guessed it. In the summer when the girls go to Texas to visit dad, we turn off the hot water heater and bathe behind a screen in the back yard. We just use the old stove for what it was designed to do, heating water. Sure beats having a gas bill! Last month our expensive new fangled front load washing machine broke. I have a strange feeling one of these days, I'm going to come home and find my wife boiling the clothes on top of this stove. Imagine that! Woods

I'm a rocklock man!

It's now official. A rock makes my gun go bang. Last weeks gun show turned up this Traditions flintlock PA rifle. This wasn't my first choice. I really wanted a .45 caliber to save on lead and powder expenses. This .50 caliber gun came along at a price I couldn't refuse. Actually I missed a 20 yr old unfired Navy Arms KY rifle for half the money by minutes. It was a .45 too. That seller was parting out his brothers estate at bargain basement prices. By the time I got there though all his flintlocks were gone. I am happy with what I have though. I've found a complete set of spare lock parts for less than $30.00. That includes two mainsprings and two frizzens. This gun isn't likely to end up out of action in my lifetime. There is only one problem. This gun is 5 inches longer than my gunsafe is tall! That's OK, I've been looking for an excuse to go safe shopping! If I like this gun at the range, I may just have to scrounge up the smallbore version too. It was pointed out to me today, that I'm not posting often enough for one of my fans. Be patient my friends, a couple minor health issues have been keeping me off line. I should be back in a few weeks.

A tribute to the "hell box"

Everyone needs a "Hell Box". What's a "Hell Box" you ask? It's the workshop equivilent to the kitchen junk drawer. No, I didn't come up with the name. I got the name from a writer named Granville King. Not sure if that's his real name or a pen name. Ol Granville wrote for a magazine called "pickup, Van, & Four Wheel Drive back in the 70's. GK was a desert rat living in the Mojave and wrote of his travels in his WWII vintage Jeep. Today I was reminded of ol GK and his story about "Hell Boxes".We've got a local gun show tomorrow and I have a pair of CVA percussion rifles I'm taking to trade toward a flintlock if I can find one. I disassembled one of these rifles at one point intending to refinish it. Never got around to that project. I went to put this gun back together last night only to find the screw that holds the tang missing. Taking the screw from the other rifle (above left), I headed out hardware shopping. The place I currently work doesn't have it, so I headed to the place I used to work. All I could find long enough in an M5 thread was a socket head screw(center). I figured if I had to I could grind the proper head onto it, so I bought it and a nut. When I got home I remembered the "Hell Box", and found the flathead M5(above right). Pictured below are my "Hell Boxes" or HB's.Those readers that are mechanicaly inclined already know about HB's. For the rest of you let me explain the HB concept. HB's are a very delecate and magical things. They must be properly fed, housed and treated. Feeding them is easy. Most projects has a few parts left over when you are done. Parts you will probably never need again. When this happens a few of those parts speak magically to you and say "Don't throw me out you'll regret it". These are the parts that give a HB it's magic. Find a suitable container and place it in a dark place. Under a workbench is best. That is where a HB's magic is strongest. Treatment is easy. An occassional stir is all that's required, a tap of your toe is sufficient most of the time. Do all these things and the HB rewards you with it's magic. You see all those magic talking parts have the ability to breed. If you are lucky and follow the magic formula they will breed those odd and unusual parts that you need every now and then. When pulling out your HB to look for that item of your quest, be sure to talk to it in a calm gentle voice, telling it what you need. But, be careful, don't get greedy and push your luck. Your HB might bite if you do. Today after finding my M5 flat head screw, I made the mistake of not showing my gratitude, and continued to dig for a more suitable subject. As I stirred I nearly cut myself on a double edge razor blade. This blade was in like new condition as if schick made it yesterday. Obviously something my HB bred on the spot to tell me it's displeasure for my lack of gratitude. I took the razor blade and put it in the drawer with the others. I then profusely thanked the Hell Box for it's generosity, promissed to feed it soon, and returned it to it's home beneath the workbench. That my friends is how a Hell Box works. Good luck on starting yours. I couldn't imagine not having mine. Just remember to always express your gratitude when your HB pays you back. Woods

Remembering Norris

Yes remembering Norris. A man I never knew. It all started about ten years ago at a Place called Creekside Gun Shop. I was out for a saturday afternoon with buddies. Creekside had a shooting range and it was free to use. After our shooting session we would always head inside to spend whatever was left after buying ammunition. In the used book section was a copy of "Guns and Gunning" by Captain Curtis. Not a book I was exactly interested in. But, next to it was a copy of Ed McGivern's "Fast and Fancy Shooting". That was a book I wanted, but, being a first edition it wasn't in my price range after buying 30/40 Krag ammo and 44 specials for the S&W TripleLock I was playing with that day. When I returned Fast and Fancy to the shelf, I by accident knocked "Guns and Gunning" off the shelf. It was then that I was introduced to Norris. You see a hand written christmas note and ten pictures fell out of that book. The note said "Norris; Merry christmas, the eleventh one. Hoping there will be eleven more such happy ones. Pet" At that point in my life I hadn't met a woman I considered spending more than a christmas or two with. So, there may have been a little sentiment there, on my part. The first picture really stirred something up in me. In my deepest memories I could remember boat houses just like those. And between the ages of six and fourteen I spent more than a few hours in a wooden skiff just like that one with my grandpa.

Or maybe it was the guy in me that deer hunts with obsolete weapons. I don't know if that'a a Marlin or a Winchester. I do know it's not the usual carbine, that's a full length rifle barrel. Or maybe the vintage car nut in me was spoken to by the 37 ford sedan. Maybe, my first car back in high school was a 38 ford pick up truck.

Maybe it was the picture taken beside the lake. I wouldn't mind having that cooler to add to my vintage gear collection

Nice bass Norris! I can taste that one rolled in my grand aunts blend of spices, cornmeal, and milk now!

I hope Norris had the means to hang this musky on the wall! The one my grand uncle Gerald caught in the 1970's was only half that size. I wonder if that is "Pet's" shadow taking the picture, it does look like a females outline. Another picture of what appears to be the same fish. The only photo in the pile with any information on it. Written on the back is "Crowe Lake July 48".

Well it's obvious, I spent four bucks and bought the book I didn't want. It went home and sat on a desk corner for a month. Then one day I was looking at an old road map of Ontario, that was in my granpa's stuff. Like I said, I spent alot of time with grandpa in an environment that looked an awful lot like these pictures. I spent two weeks every summer at "Harrolds Camp" at Gores Landing, Rice Lake, Ontario. Right next door was the boat works where those cedar skiffs were made. And that day looking at grandpa's old map I saw something I never knew about until that day. Just a few miles over the hills north and east of Rice lake, there is another lake, It's name is Crowe Lake. So, you might say Norris and I shared summer playgrounds. We were just a few miles and a few decades apart from each other.

And you know, for a few years I really envied Norris. I mean a woman that loved him enough to by him a book for christmas. A book about something he really loved to do.

Then Pelenaka and the girls came into my life. I no longer felt envy towards Norris. I felt an even deeper kinship, to this man I never knew.

Woods

Six hour canoes and chamber inserts.

Recently the book "Building the Six Hour Canoe" arrived at my local library. As promised I checked it out. It seems to be a viable project, however the instructions call for 4x16 sheets of marine plywood, not your average home center stuff. There is instructions on how to use 2 4x8 sheets with a seem in the middle. Also the completed canoe has a strict load limit of 250lbs. The 250lb weight limit rules out this project for me. I'm in the mid 240's on a good day and don't have room for something that can't at least carry one of my daughters with me. I also doubt the six hours in the title. A week of 2-3 hour sessions would probably be more like it. And I consider myself a moderately fast wood worker. The $65.00 project gun is in semi limbo until after either I buy supplies at this weekends gun show, or my Gun Parts Corp order arrives. I have already owned a 2.5" 410 adapter for 12 gage chambers. I have never used it due to 2.5" 410's costing twice what 12 ga shells cost. I may one of these days come accross some cheap 410's. Or I may get around to converting my stash of .444 marlin brass into brass 410's. Until then it will probably remain unfired. I did two weeks ago order a 12 ga to 9mm converter on ebay. It arrived within a few days. Made from aluminum by an outfit called Dina Arms. I was skeptical at first. Reviews I could find on the web weren't promising. Most claimed extreme inaccuracy. Because this project is meant to show that a practical survival gun could be built on a budget I ordered one anyways. Yesterday I grabbed a partial box of cast bullet mystery reloads. The thing functioned as promised, and at first the reviews seemed right about accuracy. First ten rounds were minute of garbage can lid at 25 yards. Shooting at a 3x5 index card with no markings everything went into a 12" area starting about 3" above the target. On the 11th shot I hit the target almost dead center. Carefully I opened the gun and noted that the 9mm stamping on the converters head faced down. This time I carefully reloaded the insert into the gun and made sure it went in exactly in the position it came out. This shot cut the edge of the previous one, the next two shots brought the group up to 2". I should add at this point it was raining a steady drizzle and my glasses were getting foggy. This calls for more tinkering. I am watching wear on the inserts rifling. I have a ton of cast bullet reloads to shoot, I am very skeptical about shooting jacketed ammo. Copper is much harder than aluminum and I suspect the adapter would wear out quite quickly. One other thing, I expected the report to be less due to the length of the shotguns barrel, it was actually quite loud. And, you'd be amazed at the amount of crud that goes out the end of a pistol barrel and stays in the shotgun barrel. In a few weeks I will order an all steel adapter from MCA and see how it shoots. I'm leaning towards a 32 H&R magnum adapter this time. I have a bunch of 32 S&W and 32 Longs kicking around. The other option might be .30 carbine, I have several hundred rounds of those. The other idea I'm toying with is .311 round balls meant for my muzzleloader thumb pressed into any of the above casings over a bunch of black powder. I've also considered and ruled out 30/30 or 45/70 adapters. I am leary of pushing the pressure in my guns frame as I'm pretty sure it's ductile iron like most cheap shotguns. Woods

Lessons on living.

Sidekick and Princess were out of school today due to administrators conferences or some other such bull. I worked all weekend so I get monday and friday off this week. Pelenaka had to take CJ to the Bufallo airport for his flight back to Texas at 4:30 am. This left me time to putter around and start getting the garage/shop ready for work that's been backing up. It's incredible the mess that can pile up in 4 months. Especially in a place that isn't being used for anything. Had several large coffee cans full of rusty nails and bolts, a few cast iron sash weights and a big box of old aluminum. I also had some Stainless, brass, and copper kicking around. But not enough to be in the way. I figure I'll wait to see what happens with the price of the SS,brass and copper. The steel and aluminum were in the way though. Asked if anybody wanter to take a ride out in the country. Pelenaka was napping from her morning at the airport and princess was typically being a princess and staying indoors nice and warm. Sidekick however sensed an adventure having never been to a junkyard and was all for a afternoon jaunt. So off we went, between the scrap metal and some deposit bottles and cans we had, we managed to make a whopping $6.00 and change,. Sidekick was a little disapointed at our meager take, so I decided to make a lesson of it. First it was an honest six bucks. We didn't steal anything, or do anything immoral to get it. We talked about all the places you could scrounge up scrap metal and what kind of money each would pay. The round trip from home to the junk yard and back used less than a bucks worth of gas. We stopped at a friends butcher shop. A pound and a half of lean ground beef was $4.00 and a trip accross the street for a pack of hard rolls was another $2.25. While we wandered the store I pointed out all the different ways six bucks could make a meal, or several for that matter. At the checkout I tossed another buck and a half in and got us a mounds bar and a diet dr. pepper which we shared there in the parking lot. Then we went home and cooked mom and the princess lunch. Hopefully the lesson took. The lesson that hard times are merely a state of mind that is. woods