Pygmy

I have my Grandfather's straight razor and it is in very good shape, but I have never been brave enough to try to shave with it...... Not sure when it was made, but Grandpa was born in 1896 and died in 1967....

What a great picture, John...…<< BIG smile>>….

Snow has tapered off here in Dogpatch....Probably around 8"....I have got most of the shovel work done, but Now I have about two hours of shuffling my elderly legs along behind my elderly snowblower getting the driveway and sidewalks done.... No Legion for ME today...<<sigh>>…..

Come on out here to Dogpatch and help me shovel !!….

Probably starlings....

I still use my ancient Herter's beam balance scale.. My reloading is not a high volume operation...I never load more than 40 rounds at a time, usually less, especially when working up a load, when I usually only load perhaps a dozen rounds at a time.. I enjoy the process, just relaxing and taking my time weighing out each charge...

Nuthin' like a little piece of tail...….

Back in the day when I was stiil working, I used to cook up fish and game quite often and take it into my shop at work.. A trapper friend of mine would save me a skinned beaver carcass each season pretty much intact, but minus glands, etc... I would trim off all of the fat that I could, and roast the whole carcass on a rack in a blue porcelain roaster covered with an envelope of Lipton's Onion soup mix, until it was falling off the bones tender...The guys at the shop loved it...

Actually Steve, it's been a long time since I had ANY contact with a beaver....<<sigh>>….

Beautiful cat.... We only have a short 20 day season down here in Dogpatch...I'm looking forward to next year to see if I can catch another one or two...

Handsome Howie and I fished the Tioga River ( in PA) today for about three hours... As usual, he outfished me with a 6 lb. walleye and a 3 lb. walleye I managed to catch one around 18-19 inches.. We were fishing 4" white twister grubs on 1/4 oz. jigheads…. We are hoping to get some live chubs and give it another try in a couple of days... Nice to be out on the water again...

Me + 1 Mermaid....

Thanks, Dan...I wasn't aware of that...

There has always been a population of fishers in the Adirondacks..I have a NYS Fishing and hunting syllabus from 1959-1960 that lists a trapping season in the northern zone from Oct.25 to Dec. 31...I think the fishers, like the coyotes, expanded southward and westward as the forests matured and the habitat became more suitable for them.. Pennsylvania did stock a bunch of them in the north central counties and it is believed that this population has expanded northward into adjacent NY counties...I am not aware of any NYDEC stocking of them.. Although fishers have the ability to kill and eat porcupines ( more so than most predators) I don't think they are a favored food source for them...In the first place, porkies have a very low reproduction rate, and even in places where they are relatively plentiful, there aren't that many of them...Besides that, killing a porcupine without ending up as a pin cushion is quite a challenge, even for a fisher..They would much prefer to take easier prey, such as squirrels.. I think squirrels and other rodents make up the bulk of a fisher's diet, although they are voracious, opportunistic predators and will take rabbits, birds and most anything small enough for them to kill if they get a chance..

She told me she had to do a benefit show for the A.A. P.. S. ( American Aardvark Preservation Society) and she didn't want to turn them down since they had been so generous in sending her those pens and that calendar every year...

It was basically a wash for me....I had $80 invested and won $75.... I fried up a batch of crappy filets to nibble on while washing them down with Genny Light, and thoroughly enjoyed watching a good ball game all by myself... I invited Miranda Lambert and Jennifer Lopez over to watch the game with me, but I guess they both had prior commitments...

That would convenient..The book I'm reading right now weighs about ten pounds.... Call me a relic....Actually I am considering changing my screen name to RELIC...Hehehe....

Sometimes young people glance up at me from their smart phones when I walk into a waiting room with my book... I just tell them, " It's a BOOK...A few of us old timers still use 'em "....

I'm currently about half way through " Guadalcanal" by Richard B. Frank ( 800 pages)…. Excellent documentary, and a very readable style, for a book includes myriads of details concerning both Allied and Japanese perspectives of the operation...

There has only been one time when I really needed a gun, and I did not have one because I was in NYC and also in the employ of Uncle Sam, both of which precluded me carrying a handgun... Fortunately, a patrol car with 4 ( count 'em FOUR) of Brooklyn's finest came down the street and rescued my pathetic white ass... After that, I SWORE I would never be without the means to defend myself, as long as I had any control over it...

John Bernard Books.....<smile>….

Not likely....Probably The Mermaid will be with me, so I'll be on my best behavior ( which isn't very good)…. I'll also invite my niece ( who REALLY IS my niece) to stop by, because she lives close by and always enjoys a good time...

Sounds good to me, Rob … If it is at the Switz I may even be able to convince The Mermaid to show up with me...

I may be able to arrange to have her there as my escort..

Any of the places in Penn Yan would be fine for me, and it is no farther than Corning or Elmira for the western folks.... Just take rt 54 north from I 86 in Bath...Excellent 2 lane highway with light traffic this time of year, and from Bath it is just a tad further than Corning and closer than Elmira from Bath....