philoshop

A good friend in Franklinville used to pick a backpack full of apples from his property the day before hunting. He'd sit in his stand and throw them at the ground to make a good thump that deer would naturally come to. Is that considered baiting? His stand was right next to the old orchard. I'm thinking it was more about lazy deer who didn't want to pick apples off the trees but were waiting for them to drop. My property had a salt/mineral lick area in the woods when I bought it. The hunting part is only an acre so it's not like I had a lot of options to get away from that "baited area". Was I guilty of baiting if I hunted near it?

Thanks for joining our "family". I'm a long way from Westchester, but I'll give you the most sound advice I've heard in the last 50 years: just spend as much time in the woods as you can. Even if it's only a couple of hours. And don't just "hike". Stop often, watch, listen, pay attention, and be curious about everything that moves or makes a noise. The more comfortable you become in the woods, knowing how the birds and squirrels, and the nearby traffic on the road operate and such, the better hunter you can become. Just friendly advice from an older guy. Best of luck to you.

Are these the people you would want to have absolute control over your freedom if you happened to disagree with them politically?

The end result of this, as stated earlier, is that good and decent men will never again participate in any sort of politics. If that happens then the swamp wins. And BIG GOVERNMENT becomes the ruler of the people. It's important to fight back. The Dems are willing to play dirty and they play for keeps. If you're wearing 20 oz gloves in a boxing match they'll have lead weights around their knuckles. Honorable men who severely disagreed with one another used to have gun duels. The rules were ten timed paces in opposite directions before turning to fire. The Democrats today will take eight paces and turn around to shoot you in the back while you're following the rules. It's unfortunate that most Republicans haven't wised up to this. The Dems want some power back and they don't care one bit about how they get it or who they destroy to get. It's painfully obvious.

She didn't hire the lawyer. The activist lawyers found her and convinced her to participate. That's why she won't ever be allowed to participate in the hearing on Thursday. She's be guilty of perjury before she ever let her right hand down after the oath, and her handlers know that. You don't have to be a genius to see this stuff for what it is, you just have to pay attention to the reality.

I can assure you she is being well-paid by the "resistance" group of the left that's 'sponsoring' her. That's the reason she's come forward to produce this BS. She's so willing to be a leftist martyr that she's lost her mind. That's sad. She'll be left hung out to dry or completely thrown under the bus in the coming weeks. There's nothing there, and there never was, but the accusations won't stop because it's the only thing the left has to operate on. On that point I actually feel a little sorry for these "accusers". Dedicated to the cause, but too stupid to realize how they're being used by people who don't give a crap about them.

I'm very sorry to hear this.Thoughts and prayers to you and your family. Big pasta meal for the healing, my friend. My Italian Grandad has been gone for 45 years, and my half Italian half German Grandma for about 30 years now. I still think about them a lot. They raised me and potty trained me in their outhouse. That was not fun in the middle of the winter in Wayne County. And it's not often that you sit down for breakfast with a plate of hot peppers on the table. I don't ever remember a meal in their house without a plate of hot peppers on the table. Maybe that's why the outhouse sucked so much.

I didn't even bother with the bench rest gun or the fancy ammo. 50 year old Monkey Ward rifle and some ammo that happened to be laying on my bench.

My cousin is a retired wildfire Chief/Marshall in southern Texas. San Antonio area. A guy in his mid-sixties with a hell of lot of knowledge and experience regarding wildfires and the destruction they can cause. His point is that people with stupid ideas about nature cause way more damage than the fires. I didn't argue with him about that. He's a bigger tree-hugger than anyone on this site could ever be. But he's smart enough to see the reality. And brave enough to call out the idiots when they're being idiots. He's lost coworkers and friends over the years in Texas brush fires. It's not quite the same as forest fires, but burning to death in either case is not a good way to go. The crap happening in California is entirely preventable. Remove the politics, and insert some common sense. Lives and property don't have to be lost.

I had fun with that somewhat philosophical post.

I hate to insert politics into this, but why don't the tree-huggers in California (and the western states in general) want to stop the wildfires they keep having. Too much dead wood on the ground and too much old standing timber. Thin that crap out and watch the forest thrive. That's exactly what Mother Nature is doing, but if people did it no one would lose their lives or their properties in the process. That owl they think they're protecting is as dead when it's burned to a crisp as it is if some guy with a saw cuts down it's nesting tree. It can fly away and find another tree for it's nest.

I'm not shy about bragging about my own wood-working skills: canoes, kayaks, guitars, furniture, all of that...but in most ways that's just a matter of tab A going into slot B. Building things that have utility rather than being purely art.(Not well said, because artwork has a very definite utility in this world). A table needs to stand, a guitar needs to make music and a canoe needs to float. Being able to see what's inside a piece of firewood and bringing it to life is a completely different thing, and Wooly, my friend, you are mastering it. Bravo!! I spent several years in Architecture school. I don't know which famous Architect said it, actually I think it was a sculptor, It may have been Mies Van der Rohe, but one of my professors repeated it often, and it applies here: Start with a big block of material and take away everything that's not the art you seek. The trick/skill is in knowing if you are taking away too much or not enough. The owl is in the wood. Your job is to reveal it. Enough of my philosophy for today. Time for lunch and a beer.

I know what you mean about swapping out parts. At one point in my woodshop I had no fewer than a dozen routers. A complete shelf of them, each with a different bit for a different job. It looked a bit silly, actually, but the time it saved me not swapping bits and doing setups over the years was well worth it, and time was money. My friend in Kentucky has had a 250 for a few years and he's been very happy with it on his horse farm. Just cleaning up blow-downs and cutting fence posts and such. I ended up spending the money on a 260 because I planned on working it hard on a daily basis as a firewood saw. It's basically a pro version of the 250 with higher compression, faster chain speed, and a few other details. It's made to run 10 or 12 hours a day, every day, for years. It's one of the top picks for climbing saws among arborists. A friend of mine in Iowa has an 026, basically the same thing as the 260, and he's cut hundreds of cords of firewood with it for the past couple of decades. I think he said he put a new spark plug in it a couple of years ago. That's dependability. I essentially gifted the 260 to my brother for all the firewood help he's given me the past couple of years. His box-store Husqvarna died and he was looking to replace it with something dependable. If I still had that saw, we'd probably be talking about some sort of swap so that my mom could get one of your owls. She has a thing for owls, and still has a small deer antler carving I did back in maybe 6th grade. I remember my fingers being covered with band-aids because the only tool I had was a relatively dull pocket knife. Ha, ha.

Congratulations to you on a wise decision. You won't believe the difference in the wildlife after removing some mature timber. And you'll probably even pocket a few dollars in the process if there is some valuable hardwood. Sounds like you have a good guy doing the work as well. All the best to you.

I just bought an old Ford Ranger after the min-van croaked. I'll make the trip if it'll help keep you in business. Be forewarned though, I only work for beer and pizza. And a piece of floor space for the night if there's too much beer and pizza and lifting logs during the day. All the best to you, my friend. I'll keep trying to get run over by a Fed-Ex or UPS truck so I can buy one of your pieces.

Two saws now? One for each hand? He, he, he. I remember the 172, but what's the other one with the regular round-nose bar? A 250 Farm-Boss maybe for bucking and slabbing? Nice brand choice, BTW. You're getting to be really good at this my friend. I mean really good. That is a very nice piece of work. Congratulations.

You folks certainly eat better than I do. I almost bought a hotdog from off those roller thingies at the gas station today before stopping myself. Got home, opened my kitchen window and shot a couple of squirrels instead. Basic Italian bread crumbs and chicken-fried with some broccoli in the pan. Side of pork-n-beans and a slice of crusty bread. Sorry, no pics.

I can't think of two guys I'd rather have at my back in a dicey situation than those two. Tough and battle-hardened SOB's, both of them. Actual red-blooded American patriots. None of that fake sissy stuff we hear about every day. Over and out, before I make someone angry and make them head to their safe space..

One of my hunting friends is six foot four and 320+ pounds with a bald head and a Fu- Manchu mustache. He's a prison guard at Ossining penitentiary. He could ruin your day if he felt it was necessary, but he's actually one of the nicest people I know. He was always complaining about pooping in the woods, so the rest of us in the hunting group pitched in one year and bought him a toilet seat that fits into his truck's receiver hitch. What was a little odd is that he never even considered it a gag gift at all. Take a dump, back up two feet, repeat. I'm in the middle. 5'6" and about 150#. These guys are mostly retired now career Army on the left, and career CO on the right, so I don't think they'll mind if I publish their photos. This post got seriously messed up somehow. I'll stop now before I screw it up any further.

For some reason I flashed on that white beastie from one of those kid's Christmas stories. What the heck was that thing supposed to be, anyway? Yeti? Sasquatch? Capiberra from Bizzarro's place? I dunno. Just as I read your post my refrigerator kicked on and I nearly gave myself whiplash spinning around with my gun drawn. Be careful my friend, and be nice to the older folks here. He he he!

I don't know what to say. Quiet time in the woods is the only thing that keeps me sane. Being able to share it with a friend often makes it better, but sometimes just being alone is best. I'm very fortunate to have an acre of woods just out my back door. It's not the "big woods" Adirondacks, obviously, it's just an acre of solitude. I can still hear the vehicles on Rte 14 in front of my place. And I don't take any electronic devices with me. It's absolutely amazing how a couple of hours in the woods can reset your entire outlook on life. Watching the squirrels and the birds, the woodpeckers intentionally beating their own brains into mush. The deer that wander through the area munching on foliage and then going over to the dry drainage ditch looking for a drink. Thank God for that.

It was my choice. No one is making me do and I can walk away at any time, it but I think it's important to keep people informed. We no longer have a serious media to do that. For you, I'd even sweep part of my 800 SF of shack space out and let you use my air mattress for an overnight. I'm not kidding. I know lots of backwoods places around this area. Even a long weekend wouldn't do it justice. I can't hike any more, but paddling short distances is still in my repertoire as long as there is no portage required. Show up in a month or so with your license, shotgun, and duck stamp. It's the most fun you can have with your pants on.

That was a much-needed morning with nature. Just sitting out there for a while cleared a lot of the cobwebs from my head. The only thing better than that is a slow trip in a kayak or canoe down a calm river. If anyone is interested in helping me get my old Coleman canoe out of the rafters of my brother's barn this weekend or next, shoot me a PM. I can't do it alone any more and wouldn't really want to paddle alone anyway. Warning: If you're grumpy, grouchy, irritable, or just plain mean I might charge you for the sight-seeing trip. And probably make you pay for lunch as well. I'm generally a good guy, but I can be just as grumpy and grouchy as my guests when it comes to sharing a canoe. I'm serious about the invitation for a short canoe trip (half day event or so) if anyone is interested. I haven't been out to the Clyde River/Galen Marsh area in years but I grew up paddling around there before I was even old enough for a driver's license. It's a pretty spot. Bring the fishing rod, just because...

Dead calm here. Almost too quiet, if there is such a thing.