Shaving as Therapy

I've taken to "retro-shaving" outside on our deck, weather and time permitting. I use an old-fashioned badger-hair brush, a straight razor for the easy parts, and a WWII double-edged razor for the difficult parts. The outdoor lighting is perfect. The deck overlooks the beehives, I watch their comings and goings while I work up a lather. I bring along a suppressed .22 in order to pick off the chipmunks raiding our garden. (I usually get at least one, and the rifle's stock has become stained by repeated applications of shaving cream.) Ajax the Great Dane watches me intently. Liz brings me a cup of coffee and inspects.

If shaving outdoors with a straight razor and a wet badger, a big dog, bees, a rifle and a fancy redhead who anticipates your needs isn't manly, I don't know what is.

Politically Correct Insanity

Just returned from a week of Cub Scout camp with my stepson. Never again.

The camp director looked like Jabba the Hutt with huge bugger-grip sideburns. I figure he likes the job because the only respect he'll ever get is from little kids who don't know better.

Most of the counselors were pimply-faced nerds on power trips. About half of them still hadn't come to terms with being gay. Their primary job was shouting "NO RUNNING!" all day, every day. That's right, running was not allowed. I'd like to meet whoever it was that decided it was both advisable and possible to keep hundreds of adolescent boys from running for a week.

Adult leaders had to sign a paper acknowledging affiliation with some religion. Any religion. The Cub Scouts are non-denominational now, which is a step in the right direction, but leaders are still required to believe in some deity. Think about that for a minute. They don't care which invisible friend you have, but you're required to have one. I wrote down "Dogist", hoping someone would ask me what it was so I could say "If I can't eat it or hump it, I piss on it".

The boys were constantly preached to about being green and respecting the earth. Yet every meal was served on styrofoam plates with plastic utensils and glasses.

We weren't allowed to strike matches. We could get the campfires ready, but only the pimply-faced gay Hitler Youths had the authority to light them.

No touching was allowed unless you were administering first aid. Some bimbo screamed at me for picking up a little hoodlum who was kicking another. She told me to apologize to him. When I declined she began shrieking "I AM ALPHA! I AM ALPHA! YOU WILL APOLOGIZE! DO NOT CONDESCEND TO ME OR YOU WILL BE TALKING TO THE CAMP DIRECTOR IN HIS TENT!" I am not making this up. I just walked away. She later got into a no-kidding catfight with another den mother. The boys were upset and crying afterwards. I explained to them that chicks are crazy and they might as well learn it now.

I confidently predict that most of the twenty boys in our pack will eventually be staunch Democrats because there's no logic in them and they feel entitled to handouts. We certainly didn't do anything to encourage self-reliance. Five will someday weigh over 300 pounds. One will never make it past working at McDonald's. Three will end up in prison. Actual conversation with one of them:

Spoiled Little Bastard: "I AM NOT GOING TO EAT THIS! YOU HAVE TO GET ME SOMETHING I LIKE!"

Me: "This isn't a restaurant. Eat what's on your plate, or don't eat it."

Spoiled Little Bastard: "I WANT TO GO HOME!"

Me: "I want you to go home, too."

Gear that Works: Linen Buckets

I love these things. First encountered them in Zimbabwe years ago, where they were used because they kept water cool via evaporation. When they get wet, the linen swells and becomes stiff and watertight, and it's stronger than cotton. These particular ones are French army surplus. Bought them to keep in my car because they're better than plastic bags for picking fruit, mushrooms & etc. Today I noticed a bunch of ripe Staghorn Sumac seed heads. Stopped, gathered a bucketful, then steeped them in cold water in the same bucket. Strained through a cloth, added some honey, and had "Indian lemonade". I'll keep one in my daypack this hunting season and be able to bring a few pounds of acorns or hickory huts out of the woods every day.

Grub lists

Packing and Portaging, Dillon Wallace:

Two weeks for two men, canoeing:

Bacon, 6 pounds

Salt pork, 2 pounds

Canned ham or meats, 5 pounds

Egg powder, 1 lb (equals four dozen eggs)

Milk powder, 1 1/2 pounds

Grease, 3 pounds

Fresh bread, 2 pounds

Flour, 12 pounds

Corn meal, 1 pound

Rolled oats, 1 pound

Rice, 1 pound

Baking powder, 1/2 pound

Potatoes, dehydrated, 3 pounds (equals 21 pounds of fresh potatoes)

Carrots, dehydrated, 3/4 pound (equals 3 pounds fresh carrots)

Onions, dehydrated, 3/4 pound (equals 3 1/4 pounds fresh onions)

Cranberries, dehydrated, 1/4 pound (equals 2 1/2 quarts fresh fruit)

Beans, 2 pounds

Peas, dehydrated, 1/4 pound (equals 1 1/4 fresh peas)

Coffee, ground, 2 pounds

Tea, 1/2 pound

Cocoa, 1/2 pound

Sugar, 5 pounds

Preserves, 1 pound

Lemons, half dozen

Limes

Prunes, 1 pound

Raisins, 1 pound

Salt, 1 pound

Pepper, 3/4 ounce

Standard Hudson's Bay rations, per man per day:

2 pounds of flour and 1 pound of salt pork, or

1 pound of pemmican and 1/4 pound of hardtack

Book of the Forest, Stewart White:

Provisions per man, one week:

flour 7 lbs.

pork 5 lbs. pork

tea 1/5 lbs.

beans 2 lbs

rice 1 1/2 lbs.

prunes and raisins 1 1/2 lbs

lard 1 1/2 lbs

sugar 1 1/2 lbs

oatmeal 1 lb

baking powder

pepper

salt

"This will last much longer if you get game and fish."

Paul Provencher (author of "The Last Courier du Bois)

bannock

bacon

fat (ghee)

salt

pepper

tea

flour

sugar (honey)

onions

Edna Calkins Price's (author of "Burro Bill and Me"):

two people for one month:

flour, 50 lbs

cornmeal, 10 lbs

beans, 20 lbs

honey, 10 lbs

coffee, 2 lbs

sugar, 2 lbs

oil, 1 gallon

salt

soda

onions

cocoa

dried apricots

salt pork

canned milk

canned bully beef

"When times were hard":

flour

coffee

sugar

grease

Meddling Neighbors

Our busy-body neighbors have been making anonymous complaints to the Department of Environmental Services and the Division of Lands and Forests, trying to stop us from cutting trees or building anything on our 52 acres. This bogus sign oughta give them something to talk about.

In the News:

Former Marine Chris Everhart was attacked by a black bear while camping with his sons in Chattahoochee National Forest. He couldn't get to his pistol. He killed it with a chunk of firewood. The Forest Service fined him $75.

This is the baddest dude since another former Marine, 62-year-old Dale "I got scratched up pretty good" Rippy, strangled a rabid bobcat.

I want to be on whatever team those guys are on.

Turtle Love

The things you see when you don't have a camera:

It was too windy for open water today - whitecaps - so I decided to explore a swamp. The wind was perfect there, just enough to keep the blackflies to a minimum. While hauling a canoe over a beaver dam, something that initially looked like a large paper bag slowly fluttering in the wind caught my eye. As I got closer, I could tell that it was something alive, but I was within a couple yards before figuring out that I was looking at two huge snapping turtles in the throes of passion.

They were on their sides in mud, with their heads under water. First they were 'spooning', then there was a great deal of clawing and scrambling and they turned face-to-face. Probably trying out new things they just read in the turtle Kama Sutra. Eventually one of them - certainly the female - left in a huff. Maybe his elbow was on her hair. Maybe it was just that time of the month and she was crazy. Anyway, no snuggling, no post-coital turtle cigarette. He probably won't even call her. She probably gave him a bogus phone number anyway.

Heaved the cad into the canoe by the tail. Measured his shell with a dollar bill: 21". He was remarkably docile. Probably still basking in the afterglow. Let him go with a warning not to trifle with the affections of others.

It was amazing how quickly they could simply disappear in a couple inches of water by burrowing under the vegetation and soft bottom mud. On the way back a couple hours later there was no sign of them, but by probing in the same spot I found another, smaller one. I'm always slogging around in the mud foraging for things, I'm going to mind where I'm stepping a lot more from now on.