What Did You Do Today?

[YosemiteBen]

On Sunday April 12 I will be doing knapping demonstrations for the local Gem and Mineral show! We used to do them many years ago as park rangers. So this hopefully will be a first for years to come. Yeah - getting paid to beat on rocks at an alternative work site!

[bubby]

Dang ben not many guys get paid to nap, i mean knap on the job

[JW_Halverson]

We had someone call today wanting to donate a couple rabbits to the Black Hills Raptor Center.  I sais, sure, bring 'em on over.  She shows up with 14 HUGE Jurassic buck rabbits!  I ended up spending the whole day processing rabbits.  I put the biggest one in the pressure cooker and the rest were chunked up in 1/4 lb servings for hawks and owls.  98 servings ready for the birds.  Probably a dozen servings of bunny noodle soup for me!

[Stringman]

I'm imagining the look of horror when this person figures out that you didn't keep them as pets for the visitors. 

[JW_Halverson]

I'm imagining the look of horror when this person figures out that you didn't keep them as pets for the visitors. 

She knows where these rabbits goes.

[MWirwicki]

I've been busy since Deer Season ended.  Into bow blank mode...

[Danzn Bar]

Wow...    Matt you have really been busy.................
DBar

[JW_Halverson]

I've been busy since Deer Season ended.  Into bow blank mode...

What the blankety-blank?

[osage outlaw]

My Dad picked up this giant Black Rat Snake for me today from the side of the road.  It was riper than a 2 day old diaper    I tried to skin it but it was to far gone.  He picked it up in the same spot I found a huge snake a couple of years back.  This one is bigger.  Its 7' from tail to nose.  I sure wish I could have found it before it started to rot.

[JW_Halverson]

What I do today?  Lemme see...Oh yeah!  I took my flintlock .60 caliber smoothbore for a six mile walk in the woods. Some folks would have thought that what with all the camo and all, I was turkey hunting.  No, certainly not.  That would have required TURKEYS.  Apparently, the spot I went thru suffered a multigenerational genocide of the entire Gallipavo family! I got all excited, thinking I had found gobbler poop, but it was just a stubbed out butt of a Pall Mall cigarette. 

However, I did find a nice 3-4 acre meadow at the top of a ridgeline. It was crisscrossed with deer trails.  Every 30 yards there was a large ponderosa pine overlooking a saddle, a trail, or a funnel.  There were signs of last year's scrapes and they were pretty big.  Plus, there were a dozen or so smaller trees that had been rubbed to death!  I definitely wanna get back here for deer season this fall!  Gonna try to pick up tree stands this summer at yard and garage sales!  Oh yeah!

[Eric Krewson]

Last night I was camped at Briarfield state park for the Children's Hospital Benefit Shoot when my camper lights went out, then my LP gas detector went off. After testing all the campground sources I decided the power problem was in my RV power converter. That plus the gas leak had me hooking up and driving the 180 miles back home for some camper trouble shooting.

No way to back my camper up my S-turn, steep driveway in the dark so I gave it a shot this morning. I hit the spot on the first try, something I had done only once before, usually it takes me 3 to 20 attempts to keep my 5th wheel off the grass when I hit that blind curve at the top of the driveway. It rained all night so a detour through the yard would have buried my heavy camper wheels to the axles.

I wasn't able to dump at the campground so I set up my emergency dump station that I pipe into my house sewer system, this took a while but got the job done. Except...... for the water running out of one of my storage compartments when I hooked up the black tank spray nozzles, dang. I traced the leak to a vacuum breaker connection under the bathroom sink, should be an easy fix.

I found the gas leak which was a BBQ grill stub connection that had somehow been turned on. There is cheap and there is cheap but the gas gate valve had probably been turned on by a stiff breeze blowing across its handle.

On to the electrical problem; Keystone hides their power converters and I haven't found it yet. This afternoon I will give it another shot. With a camper, you wake up in a different world every time you take it out of the driveway, something is going to happen that will try your patience.

[YosemiteBen]

good luck with that! better you than me!

[Eric Krewson]

Anybody who goes on a tear cutting osage will eventually end up with a bunch of random billets from who knows where.

My mission for the last few months, while I was recovering from shoulder surgery, is to splice as many of these billets together as I can and get them out of the corners of my shop. These two are staves #8 and 9 with about a half dozen more to follow.

This is pretty junky wood but will make a bow. I have a friend who makes "skinny minnie" osage bows around an inch wide, these will be perfect for him, he gets them tomorrow after the glue cures.

[Eric Krewson]

Here are more of my "questionalble" random billet staves, I finished up two more this morning. The snaky one is a friend's stave that I laid out.  Most of the wood you see in the background consists of more random billets that need matching.

[Eric Krewson]

I went turkey hunting Sunday, felt poorly, things weren’t right so I drove myself to the ER. Just got out of the hospital, Dr Heaton ran me through the cath lab and added a couple of stints to my heart. I suspected things have been going downhill for a while and was about to schedule a stress test.

All is good, no heart attack, had a couple of 80% blockages, no heart damage.