Gloom and wind eventually gave way to gloom and rain Thursday morning. After a couple of hours of that, the gloom stuck around and the wind got serious, steady at 20mph and gusting to 50mph.
In like a lamb? Hardly.
Today’s post will pick up a bunch of stuff that doesn’t fit neatly anywhere else.
I won’t be emptying this can when the woodburning season ends. I’ve learned that it’s good to keep a supply of wood ash on-hand — it has hundreds of uses, from amending soil to cleaning to odor control.Tidying up around the original fire pit last week produced a bunch of branches and twigs, a lot of them dead and dry. I gathered the best stuff together and set it aside, close by but out of the way. It’ll be ideal for getting fires going — no foraging required.And as long as I have eastern red cedars around, there’ll always be tinder. Peeling the dry bark, then crumbling it into fine bits and powder, yields material that takes spark easily.I gave my picnic table the ol’ Eyeball Test when I relocated it a week ago, declaring it level even though I knew it was a hair off. Yesterday I paid a visit to my very own personal “shale mine,” grabbed several flat rocks and resolved to correct that.Informed by a 24-inch thrift-store level, I got it perfect in no time. Now when I set up my Coleman stove to make breakfast, my eggs won’ttry to run off the griddle.It was time yesterday to replace the batteries in my cheap-yet-indestructible Rayovac headlamp, the light I keep by the front door and use whenever I take Smudge out after dark. I acted on a tip from Bushradical three years ago and spent $16 on it, and it still functions just fine. The locking tabs meant to hold the case together, however, have broken off. Fortunately, the double o-ring seal is a tight enough fit that it seems to do the same job. Rock on.
(P.S.: The price of this chunky wonder is now $9.99. You should get one.)You haven’t read much about firearms here in quite a while. Don’t take that as a sign that I’ve changed my principles or my practice — I’m always armed. Away from The Mountain, I carry my well-traveled Glock 19 Gen3, now 20 years old. At home and in the woods, generally I’ll choose this 1980s-vintage Taurus model 66 in .357 Magnum. (For the record, the first two rounds are snake shot. The other four most definitely are not.)All six of the solar stake lights I resurrected last year survived the winter and are going strong.The runoff-control feature I built recently at the edge of the driveway has grown some — not because I put any more concerted effort into it, but because every time my feet detect a rock proud of the surface, I pick it up and toss it in that direction. As a result, it’s tripled in size over the last few weeks.This stretch of warm, dry and windy days has been good for my firewood stores. I sited the wood yard and oriented the stacks to make the most of midday sun and prevailing breezes. Next winter’s fuel is seasoning beautifully.When I wrote yesterday that “I’m a card-carrying member of The Spaceflight Generation,” I said it with pride.
I was just three years old on Friday, May 5th, 1961, but I remember where I was that day. My family was vacationing in Daytona Beach, Florida. We joined thousands of others on the sand that morning, our eyes on the skies to the south. After hours of watching military aircraft patrol back and forth offshore, we saw a ball of fire arc up over the ocean — the flight of Mercury 3, aka Freedom 7, atop a Redstone rocket. It carried Alan Shepard into history as the first American in space.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
