Non-Flashlight Things You Enjoyed Doing Today

This morning, we went for a walk in the mountain woods surrounding us. Some would call it a hike I guess as it was 3 miles. We thinned this three and four years ago. Most of the trees went to a timber dealer and to free firewood to those who would come and help themselves to the downed trees. The slash still needs burning, but that needs co-operative weather.

I’d rather be here than at work most days. In fact I’d rather be at work here most days than anywhere else.

Sorry about the sun glare.

The only two areas that I enjoy more than flashlights are: 1. Ecclesiastical things, and 2. People. Family and friends.

Third is Things. Of these, flashlights bring me the most happiness. After that, comes Places. I live in a normal nice residential neighborhood. I try as best as I can to enjoy my daily six mile, brisk, hilly walking routine, but loose animals are an unpredictable risk of threat of vicious attack.

Looks like good trail bike riding country MtnDon. :+1:

Finished my new kitchen. Installed the oven, 3 fase cooktop and a Quoocker tap.

Finally extended an ethernet cable to the raspberry pi in the bedroom to gain access to content from my TVheadend/Emby server.

What do you mean you’re not supposed to solder them together? :smiley:

Got frisky with the girlfriend! :wink: :person_facepalming: :open_mouth:

Dirt/trail motorcycles are great for exploring. There are old logging trails, most of which are officially closed, but berms don’t slow down a bike much.

Got accosted by a murder-hornet that pulled a knife on me.

Had to beat it into submission with a Totes folding-umbrella.

True story!

Lightbringer you enjoyed it? I always said you are bonkers!

Hey, I brought an umbrella to a knife-fight… and won.

Are you sure you’re not Jackie Chan?!

Ahh! Well for a short run of Gigabit or less, I’m sure it won’t matter too much…

I ran Cat5E (was going to buy Cat6, but got to use “what I need” off a spool of Cat5E a friend had, for free) through parts of my house. Also have my raspberry pi setup for a pihole, a network drive, and a DLNA server. I can download content straight to the appropriate folder on the shared drive from my PC, and stream it to whatever DLNA-compatible device I please. I’m planning to do an openVPN server as well, but have not gotten around to it. My home network is a hobby but networking is also part of my job.

Finally got myself a proper knife lubricant (KPL), I have been using mineral and tool oil in the past but they gunk up very fast. Disassembled and maintained 5 knives, the action on them improved quite a bit specially the ones that use bronze washers.

The bottle is tiny with just 10ml of fluid but the level hasn’t even moved after applying to 5 knives. I expect this little bottle to last for years.

I hope your wife doesn’t read this. :slight_smile:

Exploring is great fun. Finding old remnants of past activities is a great bonus. We’ve found traces of old homesteads and sawmills. A few times we have been lucky and found a few obsidian arrow heads that would probably date back a few hundred years.

old GIF, but did the same thing today.
the can behind the plates is the target.

I didn’t find it today but, my last day off I went walking the creek bed behind my house. Found an old condensing coil. About 12 inch in diameter, foot and half tall and about 14 winds. Got me thinking back to when a buddy and I made moonshine about 25 years ago. We didn’t make it to sell, just for our own consumption. I don’t drink anymore and won’t but, it sure got me thinking to all the great times him and I had just making it. We were in the woods just cutting up and goofing off like kids do. I am sure our shine was horrible but, it did the trick. We had an old pot someone gave us. 10 gallons of mash I think it held. Some copper pipe of different sizes and we were off to the races. We never did use a thumper, we probably should have, looking back on it now.

Anyway, that coil just made me think back to a different time and how much my life has changed since then. 2 years after that I had my first child, lived on a working family horse ranch outside of Haughton Louisiana, not far from the Shreveport/Bossier City area, Worked 12 hours a day 7 days a week to help keep the ranch going and loved every minute of it. I learned things living there that they don’t teach in books and schools. Now there is nothing that I can’t fix, drive, or blow up.

Sleeping one night with the windows open one spring. Louisiana only gets 2 days of spring a year mind you. My wife wakes me up screaming bloody murder. So I jump up and ask her what wrong, she says somebody is coming through the window. I grab my pistol and Maglight off the nightstand and shine it at the window, now this all happened in just a few seconds, something coming in the window alright but, it’s not human. Horses broke through a gate and were wandering around, one stuck its head right through the screen to have a look around. My heart was racing as I shined the light over there, thinking for sure I was going to have to do the one thing I hoped I never had to. I quickly lowered my pistol and burst out in laughter. For a solid minute I couldn’t stop. Cheeks and belly hurting and tears streaming down my face. The wife thought I was crazy but, the laughter must have been catching because she started laughing too.

It was a epic moment I will never forget.

All of that came rushing back to me by an old copper coil I found in an old creek long forgotten. I am keeping that copper coil til the day I die. I hope someone takes care of it when I go.

In the SW US one of the things that make for enjoyable exploring is searching out ancient sites such as those from the Anasazi Indians. For 1,000 years, long before Columbus, the Anasazi Indians were lords of what’s now the American Southwest. Some of their dwellings are preserved as national monuments and have visitor centers. There are hundreds more that do not appear on maps made public. Way off the beaten track. Some of the stonework is amazing. The paths to these cliff face dwellings can be daunting.

Alas, the spread of the internet has caused damage to many of the ancient sites. Twenty or thirty years ago myself and a friend did a lot of exploring (Jeeps) the SE corner of Utah. We found sites in various places on land that was national forest or BLM. Those of any significance often had a weatherproof can (ammo can) someplace with a guest register, a short story, and a “please leave as found” note. There were still often pottery shards, even dried shrunken mini corn cobs and bone fragments. Very few people visited these sites and those who did left them intact. A few years ago I revisited some and discovered the historic remnants gone. A search on the internet finds many maps and even GPS routes.

I also have a moonshine story, but will have to leave it for another time.

Beautiful location and pictures MtnDon, luv it.

I like cutting trees, when it is to improve the forest or to make use of the trees. Today I cut a couple that had fallen on a fence. Then I repaired the fence where the fallen trees had broken gate posts, using some new and old posts, some new and old wire.

Then I loaded the small trailer up for cut logs for a friend to use as firewood.