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.

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?

Got frisky with the girlfriend!

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?!

heyho wrote:

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?

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.

BaronVonEissler wrote:

Got frisky with the girlfriend!

Went treasure hunting today:

Remnants of an old farm. Fireplace is still standing and whats left of a barn. Around its old fields is growing +30 year old trees, I think.

These old wells are biggest hazard around. Good thing this one was so easy to spot, but sometimes wells old wooden cover is growing plants and stuff and its almost impossible to see until you crash through. Location of wells can be surprising too. I been finding many wells right in the middle of old fields, current forests so around old farms keep your eyes peeled to the ground.

Usually this is the biggest treasure you find though. Just a nice warm spring day when you just kick back and make some food, coffee and just sit around in these old magical places listening to singing birds and time just seems to stand still. Its almost like real world problems and worries cant touch you around there.
Yeah I love outdoors and I love these old abandoned places with or without any intact buildings. Got me right into flashlights these hobbies because when it gets dark, light is your best friend. Night trips into these places are really awesome too or just coming to spend some good time without digging like a dog around.
This mmorpg called life is pretty awesome, right? Safe trips!

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

MtnDon wrote:

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.

It is. Too bad its almost impossible to find places untouched by humans. No matter where you go you always find some stuff that is manmade, but can I find untouched forests. Nope they are extinct. Mankind really should stop swapping nature into useless glass pebbles called money. We just aint living right.

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.

Beautiful location and pictures MtnDon, luv it.

Great stories guys.

All that happened here on the ranch lately is hanging an old kitchen cabinet donated by a friend into the barn yesterday , was a real beetch trying to lean 3 feet off a step ladder over the work bench and lift it up onto a 2×4 shelf that I mounted to get it level and at the right height.
Should have had someone else here to help or at least to call 911 but got er done and now have more workshelf space available and a place to house things.

Also was a nice day today for PA, so took the old Mazda pickup out for a ride and delivered a rarely used extra gas grill to a buddy for use at his cabin.
So now it’s off my deck and don’t have to worry about it coming through the glass door when the never ending west wind gets her.

And last but not least the Eagle landed this morning so that was a good surprise:)

Later,
Keith

Did a thorough vacuum sweep of my apartment. Left no spot untouched. Nothing better to make home feel pleasant again after the rain brought down all the drought dust and made hoovering not pointless.

went for a long ride on a Jetson Bolt. Lots of fun!

MtnDon wrote:

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.

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Yeah cutting trees and using falled trees aint bad if you aint doing like big corporations are doing. I aint saying that we should go hugging trees and stop everything we do, BUT clearcutting and even taking all the branches and stuff left from harvested logs away is a baad thing to do. That aint doing nothing more than also taking all nutrients away from that area which usually returns back to the soil when trees die as part of natural cycle. It also looks horrible. Like a warzone. Also all those naturally falled trees are pretty useful for ecosystem. Insects love those and those do pollination and serve as food source for birds and other small animals etc. etc. In nature nothing is ever useless.
In our country alone there is about 250 different nesting bird species and almost 100 of those are endangered, just because one of the “smartest” species is acting up and being just plain greedy.

Loving that ranch vibe that I’m getting from those pics. Being and living as a part of the surrounding nature so it would last to other generations and just stayed healthy is stuff that we should all aim for. We should serve the big natural cycle and not take too much advantage of it. Sustainable living, living for yourself and not for the man and stuff.

riding road bike 88 miles last week
just getting things done, with some unnecessary miles

learning new knots

sewing or trying to

cooking

wle

Today, for the first time in approximately 10 weeks, I was able to attend a community ecclesiastical function. It was absolutely blessed!

I cut the lawn using my riding lawnmower. It does have a modified LED headlight (Lawnmower LED Light Bulb), but that should still count, right? In the middle of winter with the cold and snow, I always think about how nice it will be again in the summer cutting the lawn. It’s very relaxing and the fresh cut grass smells so good.

It’s even more enjoyable since I used to have a walk behind lawnmower and cutting the lawn was such a chore. It’s still a lot of work every other time with trimming and blowing, but it’s so much less work and quicker now.

Did a little evening trip today. Pics, I think we all like pics so here is some, maybe too many, but anyway:

So again old farmstead.

Old sauna.

Well, well, well, its a well. Pretty interesting location.

Same room at summer time. I visited here also last summer, because these places have always different feel at different seasons. Its also interesting to see when nature takes over little bit more and more every year.

There has been great view to the lake when farm was having its glory days back in the 60’s which probably was its last decade.
Also a great place to sit down and enjoy some food and coffee. Gotta say those Thermacells are one of my favourite gear all-time. No need to worry about annoying mosquitos or more nastier black flies.

Until I return again.