a box!

ok, so way back in APRIL i received in the mail a very exciting box. it had some things in it, but the most exciting was this thing:

trail spirits

sometimes at my local mountain bike venue, these little guys show up next to trails. i have a theory about how they appear and where they go to, but it's just a theory.

some seasons they seem to be all over the place.

this season i only found three:

...and sat down beside her...

my parents have weird senses of humor.

as a child my dad taught me the little miss muffet rhyme:

little miss muffet sat on a tuffet
eating her curds and whey
along came a spider and sat down beside her
and said:
"whatcha got in the bowl, babe?"

mmmhm. yeah. things were like that for me and my sister.

very funny, dad.

anyway, i was at my dad's house some weeks ago and we saw this beautiful spider in the planter near the door:

a little research tells me it's a black and yellow garden spider, which is somehow slightly unsatisfying in terms of species identification.

"yes, i could tell it's a black and yellow spider. it is black and yellow. and it's a spider."

anyway.

lovely animal.

adventures in deliciousness

ok, so it's autumn, which means the very best of cider donuts. go ahead, buy a whole bunch. at the cold hollow cider mill they're six dollars a dozen.

ok, now you are out at your campsite and you have stale cider donuts.

this is what you should do: pop one of those babies on a roasting stick and slow roast it alongside a marshmallow.

i do not need to tell you how to proceed next.

tour of casa quince

here you go.

tables turned

you know, venture vermont. and i can't just do a thing. i have to DO it.

so maybe i've already built the one camp table from found wood and twine, but i have to keep doing it. i spent a week working on this one. when i moved on to casa quince there was an appalling lack of camp furniture.

i like to keep my bags off the ground and have a place to put down my book and my binoculars and my map bag while i'm sitting in my chair. or, you know, it's nice to have a flat place to keep my mustard and sauerkraut while my tofu dog is grilling.

if you have enough big fat stumpy logs on your site, they'll do just fine as endtables and such, but casa quince had just one of those and only JUST big enough to hold a beverage and binoculars.

so i thought something in a free standing table would be a nice addition to the site.

so the first thing i set about to do was scout around on my board and collect nice pieces of driftwood and beaver cut. that sort of takes a while, building a collection. and then after a couple of days i had enough to start thinking about how i would use the pieces in a frame.

i had intended to build something on this general plan, but i had this gorgeous curvy complex piece of driftwood i wanted to use as part of my base on one side, so that presented problems of balance and just plain how to lash it together snugly.

i puzzled over it for a while, trying out one thing and then another and settling more or less on a structure that would hold up and be sturdy.

the problem with curvy pieces that want to roll how they want to roll is that while you're lashing one piece to another, things come loose.

so i had to lash the frame and then joint by joint go around and re-lash it, and even halfway through putting on the table surface i hd to re-do some.

but at last i had a nice sturdy table.

it makes a nice addition to camp.

pinkwashing

i have written about this before.  i'm pretty much against the trend of slapping ribbons and tshirts on ourselves and our cars and excusing us from actually helping people because we've done our part for "awareness".

awareness itself is a huge industry these days, which taps the public's wallets and makes them feel like they're doing their part, but doesn't do much to help researchers or patients. breast cancer "awareness" is now a huge profit-making enterprise, which really kind of sucks for a lot of reasons.

the big business of breast cancer
the cancer industry
think before you pink

on top of which, there's that thing about equating womanhood with breasts and the whimsical depersonalizing campaign to save the boobies. yeah, because it's not the women (or men) who have the disease we need to save or support, we need to save those all important tits.

so yesterday i was minding my own business in the grocery store and a woman i don't know came up to me and said "i see you're wearing your pink".

i was visibly confused.

"because wearing a pink shirt means... it's breast cancer awareness month..." she stammered.

"it's just a shirt," i said.

sign

while i was living out on "remote site 15", i took to calling it "casa quince", which i thought was nice and catchy and kind of home-like. on my last full day there i carved a pretty sign for it.

open letter to that park ranger who's way too excited about her job

dear that park ranger who's way too excited about her job*,

ok, maybe i will start by saying that even though i characterize you as "way too excited about your job",  i have probably mischaracterized you because your job is an awesome job, your park is an awesome park, and you are good at your job.

have you ever been in a park or other publicly managed tract of land and you meet the ranger and s/he seems not very happy to have people come in and use the park because people might make a mess or something?

and i'm not going to tell you what park it was (and it was a long time ago) but we got yelled at by the ranger for trying to sneak in when in fact, we had stopped at the gate, looked for the ranger, read the sign about putting the day use fee in the little box, put our day use fee in the little box, and went on our merry way.

...until the ranger caught up with us.

that was not a happy ranger.

but you, ranger who is super happy about your job, i have met you in your little stationhouse, out in your park, and on the lands surrounding the park proper. you seem genuinely delighted by every public contact with your park, even if it's just someone coming in to buy ice or firewood.

i think you understand fundamentally that people who use public lands are more likely to support public lands and also that every public contact is an opportunity to invite and to educate.

recently i learned from you information about historical park use, invasive species around the park, and even the date and time of our recent lunar eclipse. that last thing i would have known about except for i was out camping and not at home near my usual sources of information.

plus you're just a pleasant person to talk with, a welcome visitor in my day.

so thanks for your work. thanks for your enthusiasm and for the care you put into your job.

see you out there.

love,
flask



* "that ranger who is way too excited about her job" is not an anonymous ranger, although this letter might could apply to other rangers in other parks. this particular ranger is in fact, jessica hagerman who is the ranger at little river state park in waterbury, vermont. she is an awesome ranger and little river is an awesome park.

not that hillary for america reads this blog

they certainly don't respond to unsubscribe requests.

just now i've gotten ANOTHER email from those asshats.

Friend -- This deadline matters. It would mean so much to me if I had your support before midnight:

get this through your head: i am not your friend. i'm not supporting you, and i never have.

open letter to the hillary clinton campaign

dear hillary clinton campaign,

for some reason you guys send me emails like i support your campaign.

i don't.

i mean, if it comes down to hillary or ted cruz, i'll take hillary, but i won't be happy about it.

please stop sending me campaign emails. i keep unsubscribing from your mailing lists, but you keep clogging my inbox anyway.

on my latest attepmt, you made me watch a political ad before you told me you can't process my request.

come to think of it, ted cruz is looking better all the time.

love, flask.

maybe you noticed

i suddenly stopped posting after a good daily streak.

turns out i was camping longer than anticipated.

smooch.

goals

i'm going camping.

in real time, by the time you read this, i will just have come back, because i like to post ahead in case i go camping or something.

anyway, i have goals.

i want to learn to draw something.
i want to write a letter. on paper. with ink.
i want to whittle some things.
i want to make an adjustable eyeglass holder from cord.
i want to build a lashed camp table out of dri-ki.
i want to read a novel, maybe a novel and a half.

and you know, mess around in boats.

open letter to people who manufacture and sell tampons

dear manufacturers and sellers of tampons,

this plastic applicator asshattery has got to stop.

nevermind that applicatorless tampons are really more ecologically sound than the cardboard, but really. i get that sometimes we just don't want to have to jam a finger on up in there.

but plastic? seriously?

i thought we were trying to pack our landfills with LESS plastic, not more. and i realize that you don't really care about my opinion because i'm not your target demographic. one day soon i will buy my last box of tampons ever.

did i mention that day is coming soon?

anyway, it's harder and harder to get tampons of any brand or size or package without the plastic that's really going to jam up landfills and when you DO manage to find cardboard ones, they include either a sample plastic one OR the package includes a suggestion to TRY the modern, easy-to-use plastic ones.

WHY, tampon industry, WHY?

is it THAT much cheaper to produce plastic? and how much cheaper would it be if we put a surcharge on you for every one of these plastic things that goes in a landfill and a super penalty for each one of these plastic things the gets found on a beach or parking lot or ocean?

how then?

because we all DO pay for that.

it's time for you to stop this nonsense.

love, flask.

views from the rez

here are some pretty views of and from my campsite and stuff.

morning fog, view from my chair

view of campsite from water

messing around with boards

it's like an anti-gravity recliner

neighbors at night

party lights

fall and summer. view from chair.

view of campsite from south

view of campsite from north

packed up to go

goodbye, old friend.

it happened a long time ago, and since then i have kept the red bike in my garage, not wanting to part with it, and also knowing i could never ride it again.

but my garage is small, and i recently added another bike and a paddleboard to my collection, and i still want to be able to put my car in there.

so i called up bike recycle vermont. they do some really fine work in the arena of rebuilding bikes and making bike transportation accessible to everyone. they work out of the old north end, and they said they would be happy to take my beloved old bike and turn it into parts for bikes that other people will love.

which is the best i think i can hope for.

goodbye kiss

when things go right

i was getting together some pretty pictures to share about a recent camping trip, but i have this one blurry picture that represents one of those fantastic moments in your life and i thought i'd just break it out for you.

i went out and made camp early in the day on friday. barb comes from work on friday and if i want her to be happy about starting my adventures the SECOND SHE GETS DONE WORK i sort of think i ought to do the prep work.

so all she has to do is show up with her boat, her sleeping bag, and her own personal gear.

...and here's the important part: a nice fresh pizza.

and i get a text from her that she's loading her boat and i hop on my board and go to meet her.

it's a fantastic sunny evening, with long golden light over still black water and when i meet her halfway up she is almost the most perfect thing i have ever seen, placidly paddling down the reservoir and SHE HAS TWO PIZZA BOXES STRAPPED TO HER BOAT.

so we stopped right there. i sat down on my board with my feet hanging in the water and we ate pizza in the dimming day.

and then we went to camp.

sometimes life is just perfect.

board hanger

i think i mentioned that i got a paddleboard.

yeah, so there's a thing about storing the thing.

and hanging it from the garage ceiling seems like the thing to do, so i went on the youtubes to see if there was a thing about how to do that (because of course there is) and i found this:






so i went to the hardware store and i bought the things i needed, and managed to put it up.

only when i went to put my board up in there, i realized one real problem for me with this design: i am about a foot too short to use it comfortably.

but i had a headstart in that i had a good idea of how the original design worked, so i just modified it so i had a second pulley instead of a front cradle and now i can just put it in the thing and hoist it up.

here's me building it.

get your shit together.

recently i was checking out a couple of empty campsites and at at the top of the ridge, you know, right where you'd PUT a composting toilet if you had such a thing- i came across a pile of shit daintily covered with toilet paper.

ok, let's start here.

if you are taking a dump in the woods, there's some disagreement as to the proper disposal of your shit depending on the environment. most sources suggest digging a cathole and burying everything if no toilet is available.

NO sources recommend leaving a big pile of two or three days' worth of shit and covering it lightly with toilet paper under any circumstances.

in the case of THIS hatwipe, leaving a pile of shit like this is especially egregiously wrong because the view from the place where this person obviously squatted on more than one day INCLUDES  A NICE CLEAN MODERN COMPOSTING TOILET.

seriously. in order to squat here, you had to ignore the toilet.

*sigh*

in order to squat here...

...it's hard to ignore a BUILDING here.

i mean, granted, it blends in with the trees and my picture is out of focus, but that is definitely a BUILDING. it's like fifteen feet tall.

camp table, take two

for the venture vermont challenge i built quickish at a campsite a table made of found wood and twine.

it wasn't at all an elegant affair, but you could put a couple of bags on it to keep them off the ground which is all you really need sometimes.

but more recently i was out on "the rez" at a different campsite with a general dearth of appropriate camp "furniture", so on one of the days barb was out there, we put my paddleboard under tow and went out in the kayaks to harvest dri-ki in the uninhabited coves.

we found wood for the fire, nice driftwood for table making, and two fat logs that make super lovely endtables.

and i spent a happy day working on design and execution of a new table for the campsite that is both stylish and sturdy.

i'm not good at it yet, but i am learning.