A quiet place in the woods

Lots of hooks!

2012-02-27T11:11:00.005-06:00

Been practicing lots of hooks at my forge lately. They're really coming along if I don't say so myself!

Make sure you check out my blog dedicated to the blacksmithing! Quiet Place Forge.

Happy IPSD 2012!

2012-02-20T16:09:00.000-06:00

Happy International Pipe Smoking Day 2012!

Can't believe it's been one year since I started smoking a pipe.

Also made an S-hook for Grandma during her visit today!

Faster and faster

2012-02-16T17:19:00.001-06:00

Society just keeps getting faster and faster. And where have all the craftsmen gone? Working towards a slower life.

A sign

2012-02-13T17:34:00.003-06:00

Some of the younger kids on my bus have a hard time with my name.

When I tell them "I am Mister Wright," they think I'm joking with them and saying "I'm Mister Right." Or something.

So I've been wanting to make a sign with my name on it for my bus, and I finally sat down this past weekend and made one.

Further blacksmithing

2012-02-12T16:23:00.001-06:00

Got to practice making hooks at my forge today!

Video update

2012-02-10T10:04:00.002-06:00

Sugar on par with tobacco?

2012-02-02T09:28:00.001-06:00

Is Sugar So Dangerous That It Should Be Regulated Like Alcohol and Tobacco? | TIME.com:

"Sugar poses enough health risks that it should be considered a controlled substance just like alcohol and tobacco, contend a team of researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)."

I've been thinking this same thing for quite some time.

All these campaigns against tobacco and to a lesser extent alcohol, yet we down sugar by the pound.

The way I see it, sugar is much more harmful because of the incredible amount we consume.

The problem with luxuries

2012-02-01T00:00:00.000-06:00

There isn't anything wrong with luxuries ... as long as you recognize them as luxuries.

The problem occurs when folks forget how to live without them, as is largely the case in modern America.

A couple years back a man in Tulsa, OK, wrote the newspaper upset that all the food in his fridge had spoiled because the power was out for several days ... because of an ice storm.

Everything outside his door was covered in ice, yet the food in his fridge spoiled.

It almost defies belief. Surely the vast majority of folks would have the presence of mind to know how to handle such a situation. But I fear if it ever came down to the wire we might be disappointed.

Other things are not quite so obvious.

I am embarrassed to admit, it took my Beloved and I just about the entire past 15 years to learn how to bathe properly without the luxury of hot water out of a tap.

It's the little things like that that no one thinks about anymore which are the toughest nuts to crack. And when you do solve the problem you look back and think "Why did it take me so long to figure this out? It's so simple!"

One of my goals is to put some of the things we've (re?)discovered down in writing to share with others.

Back to Basics

2012-01-29T00:00:00.000-06:00

This was one of the first books we found in our search about how to live a simpler life.

I love it.

It's not incredibly detailed, but I don't think that's what the author had in mind.

What it does is provide an introduction to a very large number of subjects, and in that it does an incredible job.

It makes a great spring-board into many self-reliant projects. Whether it is growing a garden, building a log cabin or making a rug.

Learning a new hobby

2012-01-28T10:40:00.000-06:00

I've always wanted a good hobby that I could do with my hands that wouldn't cost a ton of money.

Blacksmithing has interested me for quite some time but it was never anything I thought I'd be able to do. But wandering around YouTube etc I've found it's actually much easier to get into than I ever imagined.

The three necessities

2012-01-25T09:47:00.000-06:00

So how do you learn to live well without spending much money?

First you have to redefine your priorities.

If you grew up in America in the last 30 years or so you have been flooded your entire life with advertising telling you that you need this or that.

You have to understand in every single case those advertisements are unequivocally untrue.

You do not need anything they're selling on TV.

"Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind." ~ Thoreau, "Walden."

The way I see it there are three necessities in life and they are:

Food
Clothing
Shelter

And I only include shelter because I have no desire to be homeless. But I've read accounts of folks living very well while being technically homeless. So if that floats your boat go for it.

This is the absolute essence of learning to live simply, and it is extremely difficult to accomplish. Not only will you be battling your own preconceived notions, you will be battling everyone's around you as well. And in some cases you will even find these notions codified into law.

Take heart, it's not impossible. You're not the first to decide to make these changes. And it is easier than ever to find others of a like mind with which to communicate.

A different drummer

2012-01-24T00:00:00.000-06:00

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

~ Henry David Thoreau, Walden.

American Reel Mower

2012-01-23T00:00:00.000-06:00

Before we know it, it will be time to mow our lawns again. Luckily I love my reel mower!

Gas mowers are loud, stinky and can damage the nerves in your hands with their vibrations. Not to mention they require a constant supply of materials you have to purchase (see: The other debt).

When properly set up and sharpened and on the right kind of lawn a reel mower makes very little noise, doesn't require any fuel and takes no more time to use than it's motorized counterpart (perhaps less if you count all the time not taken filling it up, checking the oil and yanking on the string).

Mowing with the gas mower was always a chore I dreaded, but the reel mower is something I actually look forward to.

Here's a short vid of my mower in action!

The other debt

2012-01-22T00:00:00.000-06:00

I talked last time about staying out of debt.

In that post I was talking about what everyone considers debt (loans).

But there's another kind of debt which is much more insidious, because folks don't talk about it as debt.

Rent falls into this category. As do services like contract cell phones and internet subscriptions.

Any agreement you make to pay for anything in payments over time is debt.

But it goes even further to include things like the machines you purchase.

For example if you purchase a chainsaw you are placing yourself into an agreement to purchase fuel, oil and maintenance for the machine or suffer the consequences (an unusable machine).

The big problem with this kind of debt is that it is unavoidable. In our society (unless you want to be homeless) you will have some.

The trick is to learn which ones you can avoid by finding alternatives.

No debt

2012-01-21T08:32:00.003-06:00

If there is one thing I've learned, it's that debt is a killer.

There is no such thing as good debt. Debt is a slave master. You are promising away your future time for immediate gratification. It is not worth it.

If you are in debt you are no longer free to do as you choose, you must meet the obligations of that debt or face the consequences.

"Owe no man any thing ..." ~ Romans 13:8

If you have the option to stay out of debt, stay out of debt!

If you're already in debt, get out of debt as fast as you can!

Vanilla

2012-01-17T00:00:00.000-06:00

Some folks really like consuming fancy things.

They buy the rare wines, the micro-brewed beers. Premium coffee, lavish chocolate and hand-blended pipe tobacco.

The common varieties of these items are monochromatic — they lack nuance — is a commonly heard complaint.

I prefer the vanilla. Give me a Dr. Pepper, a Hershey's chocolate bar or a corn cob pipe full of Carter Hall and I am one happy dude.

Retirement

2012-01-16T00:00:00.000-06:00

"... I no longer saw any sense in spending the best years of my life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part."

~ Bradford Angier, We Like it Wild.

Rivers to Run

2012-01-15T08:43:00.000-06:00

Some of my fondest childhood memories are the Ozark mountain float trips my father took us on. In fact those memories played a large part in my desire to move back to this area after many years away.

Larry Dablemont and his family have deep roots in these mountains and streams and in this book he shares a large part of that history.

In addition to the area's history, Dablemont discusses the various forms of life to be found on the streams. He also talks about fishing and how to safely camp.

A big draw of the book for me are the plans and instructions on how to make an old-fashioned wooden johnboat of the kind his grandfather pioneered.

Dablemont has an easy writing style and an evident love for his subject matter. This was the first book of his I purchased, now I have to collect them all!

Here's an old photo I found of my Beloved and I's first float trip together back in 2002!

How to get off the hamster wheel

2012-01-15T00:00:00.000-06:00

The answer is simple, pulling it off is another story.

If you don't want to have to earn a lot of money, then you have to learn how to live without spending money.

Now obviously in America today if you don't want to be homeless you have to earn some money. But the amount of income a person needs is significantly less than what they would have us believe.

It's like Thoreau said:

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone."

So my Beloved and I began a long quest to discover exactly what it was we could afford to let alone.

What I want out of life

2012-01-14T00:00:00.000-06:00

This March my Beloved and I will celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary.

Right from the start we yearned for a different kind of life.

Through the years our vision of that life has changed and been refined. We've learned a lot and made many mistakes.

But we've finally whittled it down to one thing ... we want time.

Time to do what we want. Which is to be together.

But this runs counter to everything modern society tells us. Which is that we have to want things, or in other words money.

The problem is you have to trade your time in order to get money.

Before you've even left your parents house you have to sacrifice the great majority of your time going to school so you can go to a "good" college. Even worse then you have to mortgage future time in order to go to college (also known as student loans) so you can get a "good" job.

Then once you've got the "good" job you're locked in for life. You belong to the Company. You show up when they say. You leave when they tell you you may go. They dick around with your schedule till you don't know which way is up. And they treat you like shit because they know there's a hundred other folks in line waiting to fork over the only thing any of us actually have (time) for the privilege of gaining a few numbers in a bank account so we can trade that for crap we don't really need.

We knew we didn't want any part of that. But how to get out of the hamster wheel? It's not as easy as it seems.

Afford to let alone

2012-01-13T21:39:00.000-06:00

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone."

~ Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Jumping off a bridge

2012-01-13T17:12:00.000-06:00

Growing up I was told — repeatedly — not to always go along with the crowd.

If everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you do it too?
What’s right isn’t always popular, what’s popular isn’t always right.
Go against the flow.
Prove all things.

I suspect I’m not the only one to have heard such mottos.

Thing is I really took them to heart. I didn’t follow the crowd. I marched to the beat of my own drummer.

And now I find myself ostracized even vilified by the very people who taught me this virtue. Go figure.

How to pack a pipe video

2012-01-09T00:00:00.000-06:00

I thought I'd make a video demonstrating my simple method for loading a pipe with tobacco!

Enjoy!

First briar pipe

2012-01-08T09:59:00.000-06:00

I said I was not interested in a briar pipe. Well I suppose I should've known that sooner or later I would pick one up. So when an unsmoked bulldog (one of my favorite shapes) came up for trade at the Pipe Smokers Forum, I jumped on it.

I thought, I've just got to see what the deal with briars is all about.

So there it is, a CPF French briar bulldog. From what I could find doing a very quick Google, CPF is Consolidated Pipe Factory. They were an American pipe company back in the day and were bought out by Kaywoodie.

It's pretty unique, I've never seen another pipe with brads and string around the bowl like that.

I took it for a test drive last night, and unfortunately found it gurgles really badly. And that's why I believe I'll just stick with corn cobs.

I did get a tiny little bit of why briars are so popular, but I've read too many stories of folks plunking a lot of coin down on a pipe only to find it's a bad design. I don't have the budget to play that kind of game. Corn cobs are all less than $10, and even the worst smokers of my bunch have never done what this pipe did.

I will probably eventually set down the money to buy one nice briar (like that straight Apple from Invicta Briars), because — and only because — my pessimistic side tells me that Missouri Meerschaum may not be around forever and it might be a good idea to have one pipe that will last the rest of my life.

Hopefully my pessimistic side is wrong though.

PS — Then again ... I could buy five Diplomats for the price of one Invicta and set them aside for a rainy day. ;-)

Fried squirrel

2012-01-02T21:08:00.001-06:00

I asked my Beloved to write out her recipe for fried squirrel so I could share it here. So here it is!

Cut squirrel pieces. I like to pound with my meat hammer to flatten slightly. Pat dry with paper towels.

In large bowl, mix 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup cornmeal, 1/2 tsp. seasoned salt, 1/8 tsp. pepper
Mix thoroughly. I have also experimented by adding 1/8 cup of italian seasoning bread crumbs and found it to be quite tasty!

Beat egg with whisk. Dip squirrel in egg. Coat with flour mixture. Until covered nicely.

Heat oil in cast iron skillet. Don't add the squirrel meat until you've made sure the oil is nice and hot. You can test it and tell if it's ready by putting a pinch of flour in the pan. If it sizzles and bubbles, it's ready.

Place squirrel pieces in hot oil and resist the urge to move them around. Doing this will make the coating fall off. Arrange carefully in pan and add the rest of the squirrel pieces. Let cook about 5-10 minutes. You'll see the top of the squirrel start to cook a little. That's good.

Then, carefully flip over and brown on the other side for the same time.

After that, put a lid on the skillet and set timer for 20 minutes, turning down heat slightly. When timer goes off, take lid off and let crisp. Drain well on paper towels.

Enjoy!