Not one of the photos in Saturday’s post was captioned. I didn’t describe the excellent grub’n’grog we enjoyed at Rapp’s Barren Brewing Company. I didn’t talk about treating our good girl Scout to a long buggy ride on a beautiful autumn evening.
And I didn’t say what was in all those Ball jars.
The pyramid of three pints on the picnic table is local honey. It was a gift to Deb on Friday from one of the bank’s customers.
The half-dozen jars on the table in the cabin hold salsa, dill pickles, pickled garlic and three kinds of jam. All are homemade.
One of the jams, a jar that I chose, deserves special mention. Once again I’m including a photo of the label — “Kentucky Bar Fight.” The main ingredients are blackberries, blueberries, jalapeños and bourbon. Seriously.
The woman who made it graciously offered me a sample, and I’m here to tell you that it’s absolutely delicious.
The homesteading fair itself, where we bought the canned goods (as well as bags of freeze-dried salsa and fruit) wasn’t a big deal, really. The best part — and the reason we’d do it again — was the connections we made with people.
Simple people. Country folk. Creative and resourceful, warm and helpful, they made it an enlightening, encouraging experience.
Today’s completely (or arguably) unnecessary task involved knives. To be specific, it dealt with four Bark River fixed-blades, all of which either needed a lanyard (according to me) or were due for a replacement. I pulled out my box of assorted paracord and decided which knife would get what color or pattern.
Two of the Barkies have red liners, so they got red lanyards. The other two got weaves that appealed to me at that particular moment.
No braiding, no beads no baubles — these are meant to be purely functional, a single strand of paracord with a figure-8 knot. I’ve heard it called a “pinky lanyard.”
When I’m doing a repetitive task, or if I want to stabilize my grip, I’ll trap the lanyard between my ring finger and pinky (or put my pinky through the loop) before grasping the handle. I don’t remember who first showed me the simple trick, but it works very well.
It’s especially helpful with small knives, effectively making the handle longer.
So these four fixed-blades — Micro Drop Point, Gunny, Bravo 1 and Bravo 1.5 — are all set. I have a Bark River Little Creek, an Ontario RTAK-II and the Spartan Blades Alala I’d still like to do. Maybe a few others.
We have running water and a septic system here on The Mountain, but neither is connected to the cabin. The drain line to the septic tank ends near the front door, and the line coming from the well terminates just past the hydrant.
Both are buried. Both need to be dug up (exposed) for connections to be made.
That’s what I did today.
Standing between me and those pipes was rock and compacted clay. I knew that the digging would be no picnic, so I warmed up on the sewer line, the shallower of the two. It was, in fact, relatively easy to get to, a foot deep and away from the cabin.
Keep in mind that I couldn’t use tools best suited for displacing rock and clay — my pick mattock and my digging bar stayed in the shed. To avoid cracking the PVC pipes I was after, I had to use smaller tools, go slow, and take small bites.
Think of it as a combination jailbreak and archeological dig.
Digging up the supply line was more difficult. I didn’t know exactly where it was, so I worked my way down next to the hydrant. The white PVC showed itself about 30 inches below grade, and (naturally) it ran toward the north wall of the cabin.
The last stretch of digging, a little over two feet horizontally, was done with a survival shovel, a small trowel, and gloved hands, most of that underneath the end of the cabin. Hard work, to say the least.
But it’s done.
I covered the fresh holes with scraps of cement board and barn tin. I also made a mental note to remember to be careful when I remove the covers, considering that those holes will make dandy snake traps.
Now, hours after I finished the job, I’m really starting to ache — knees, back, hands. I’ll take a day or so to recover, and then I’ll move on to whatever’s next.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB