screened porch
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It's snowing here again, on my driveway that was almost clean.
Get out from around that corner, Spring!
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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
"Carl's Lounge" (Off-Topic Discussion, Traditional Knife "Tales & Vignettes")
- Thread starter jackknife
- Start date
Get out from around that corner, Spring!
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Warm vibes sent to everyone !
r8shell
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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Glad to hear it! (that the power is back on, I mean. Not that it was out in the first place)Great news!I have a sister in Dallas, their power is back on as well.
We'll be boiling water for a few more days in Austin, but that's just a mild inconvenience; I'm grateful to have water at all right now.
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I just got back from the most amazing walk. It's finally above freezing and the sun is out. The ice covered trees are shimmering and making crackling noises as they drop slivers of ice.
Looks like one to remember
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- Nov 28, 2012
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Oh what a difference 5 and a half decades makes! When I was a kid, weeks like this would have been wonderful and magical. Snow on the ground for a full week, icicles, staying home from school! We don't see this very often in south-western Tennessee. Apparently this is in the top 4 snowiest periods since we have history of weather, and 3 of those have been in my lifetime (and quite memorable).
We've been lucky at my home - we did not lose power or internet, but the city water pressure is a mere trickle and they are telling us to proactively boil water before consumption. I have rinsed and reused a number of old whiskey bottles (of which I am well supplied) for water storage, after boiling of course. And I am making sure to disinfect all water I consume (generally in the form of ice cubes) with some of the contents of the not-yet-emptied bottles still on the shelf. Purely for public health reasons, of course.
I work from home already so no snow days for me, but my wife has had all week off. Nice to have her home full time, at least until next week. It should warm up to above freezing tomorrow so hopefully most of it will be gone in a few days.
We've been lucky at my home - we did not lose power or internet, but the city water pressure is a mere trickle and they are telling us to proactively boil water before consumption. I have rinsed and reused a number of old whiskey bottles (of which I am well supplied) for water storage, after boiling of course. And I am making sure to disinfect all water I consume (generally in the form of ice cubes) with some of the contents of the not-yet-emptied bottles still on the shelf. Purely for public health reasons, of course.
I work from home already so no snow days for me, but my wife has had all week off. Nice to have her home full time, at least until next week. It should warm up to above freezing tomorrow so hopefully most of it will be gone in a few days.
I took a short trip to slaughter a goat and get it butchered this morning, but got there before the slaughterhouse opened. While I was waiting I went to the nearby park along the C&O canal, where I found this very interesting old lift bridge, now repurposed as a pedestrian crossing. I read it was originally built to allow rail cars to cross the canal to deliver coal to a power plant.
This benchmark was set on the abutment at a much later date:
The nearby industrial buildings are now used by the park service, but there is a brick plant nearby which operated until just last year, I think. There is a large creek which flows into the Potomac here and it was very swollen. I’m guessing by the gauge on the side of the building that floods are pretty common.
As it turned out, they didn’t have any goats left, so I got a sheep instead. It really gets my goat when you go to get a goat and they don’t have any goats to get...
(Not really - I enjoyed the excursion!)
Jack Black
- I’m “ping”ing you here because you seem to like industrial history and architecture...
This benchmark was set on the abutment at a much later date:
The nearby industrial buildings are now used by the park service, but there is a brick plant nearby which operated until just last year, I think. There is a large creek which flows into the Potomac here and it was very swollen. I’m guessing by the gauge on the side of the building that floods are pretty common.
As it turned out, they didn’t have any goats left, so I got a sheep instead. It really gets my goat when you go to get a goat and they don’t have any goats to get...
(Not really - I enjoyed the excursion!)
Jack Black
- I’m “ping”ing you here because you seem to like industrial history and architecture...
r8shell
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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I took a short trip to slaughter a goat and get it butchered this morning, but got there before the slaughterhouse opened. While I was waiting I went to the nearby park along the C&O canal, where I found this very interesting old lift bridge, now repurposed as a pedestrian crossing. I read it was originally built to allow rail cars to cross the canal to deliver coal to a power plant.
This benchmark was set on the abutment at a much later date:
The nearby industrial buildings are now used by the park service, but there is a brick plant nearby which operated until just last year, I think. There is a large creek which flows into the Potomac here and it was very swollen. I’m guessing by the gauge on the side of the building that floods are pretty common.
As it turned out, they didn’t have any goats left, so I got a sheep instead. It really gets my goat when you go to get a goat and they don’t have any goats to get...
(Not really - I enjoyed the excursion!)
I read your post as meaning you brought your own goat to be slaughtered and thought, "How nice for the goat to get a walk along the banks of the canal on his last day."
So do you pick out the sheep, like from the lobster tank at a seafood restaurant?
Pretty much!So do you pick out the sheep, like from the lobster tank at a seafood restaurant?
[edited to remove irrelevant parts]
They have a large barn where the animals are kept between delivery from the farm and slaughter, and you go there to select your animal. I usually tell the guy how much I want to spend and let him pick it out and weigh it. My wife sometimes likes to choose the animal herself, but I trust the worker’s judgement, since that’s his job. It’s always the same guy.
[edited to remove irrelevant parts]
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Believe it or not, I have seen goats in trees many, many times! I never stopped finding it amusing, even after a couple of years.Personally, I like picking my own goat. They're best when picked fresh off the tree.
Will Power
Gold Member
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Goats in trees? 
Money grows there too right? Next it will be swimming cats 
Money grows there too right? Next it will be swimming cats 
I took a short trip to slaughter a goat and get it butchered this morning, but got there before the slaughterhouse opened. While I was waiting I went to the nearby park along the C&O canal, where I found this very interesting old lift bridge, now repurposed as a pedestrian crossing. I read it was originally built to allow rail cars to cross the canal to deliver coal to a power plant.
This benchmark was set on the abutment at a much later date:
The nearby industrial buildings are now used by the park service, but there is a brick plant nearby which operated until just last year, I think. There is a large creek which flows into the Potomac here and it was very swollen. I’m guessing by the gauge on the side of the building that floods are pretty common.
As it turned out, they didn’t have any goats left, so I got a sheep instead. It really gets my goat when you go to get a goat and they don’t have any goats to get...
(Not really - I enjoyed the excursion!)
Darn you!
Your post made me homesick a moderate amount. As much as I love my adopted home in Texas, I do miss the eastern hardwood forest and our hikes, bike rides, and canoe put in points along the C&O Canal. That photo looks like up around Williamsport. I think Karen and I covered most the canal trail between D.C. and Cumberland. Good Good memories. When our son John was at Frostburg supposedly getting a higher education, we rode back with him and did a bicycle trip back down to Germantown. Took a few days of leisurely riding and we made use of the hiker/biker camps they have every 10 or 15 miles or so.
Darn you!
Sorry to make you homesick! That was indeed Williamsport.Darn you!
Your post made me homesick a moderate amount. As much as I love my adopted home in Texas, I do miss the eastern hardwood forest and our hikes, bike rides, and canoe put in points along the C&O Canal. That photo looks like up around Williamsport. I think Karen and I covered most the canal trail between D.C. and Cumberland. Good Good memories. When our son John was at Frostburg supposedly getting a higher education, we rode back with him and did a bicycle trip back down to Germantown. Took a few days of leisurely riding and we made use of the hiker/biker camps they have every 10 or 15 miles or so.
Darn you!
I have not biked as much of the canal as you did, but as a child and teenager I canoed every part of the river from Knoxville (a little bit downstream from Harper’s Ferry), down to Swain’s (just upstream from Great Falls)- many times. We used to camp on the islands in the river - by “camping” I mean we spread a tarp out on the ground and passed the night. By the time I was in high school, my father had no problems dropping me and a friend in at Brunswick or somewhere and saying “see you at Swains in a couple of days!”.
He used to drop us off on the Appalachian Trail as well, and pick us up a couple of days later at a predetermined rendez-vous. All this being many years before cell phones of course.
This last November I did a short overnight bike trip from my house in Rockville to the hiker-biker near Edward’s Ferry and back, to test out my budget setup, and hopefully this year I can find the time to take a couple of longer trips.
You may also be interested and possibly sad to hear that White’s Ferry has finally ceased operations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White's_Ferry
(Funny, I was unaware of the somewhat, uh, dubious Confederate associations of the place until I just now read that, despite having read a book about Ball’s Bluff many years ago.)
One of our favorite canoe camping spots was, to put in at Edwards Ferry, paddle up river about 2/3ds the way to Whites Ferry, and camp on some small islands on the Virginia side of the river. Good memories theres. Then directly across the river from Violets Lock was the Old Washington Canal, that had fallen into a mild white water run down to almost Swains Lock. Then paddle over to Swains and back up the C&O canal to Violets Lock where we started.
The C&O Canal Trail from Cumberland down to Williamsport took in some pretty country. Damm I do miss it!
The C&O has some really great history in it. Without the Ferry, the retreating Confederate army may have got cut off, and history would've been a wee bit different. And over its years, they had some very colorful characters in both the boatmen and lock keepers.
Small world! We really did share the same stomping grounds.
At one point my dad helped me build a john boat out of I think 1x16(!) [edit: that sounds wrong, though I think it was 1x12] lumber, with a 1/4” plywood bottom and a 1x4 keel. It was about 16’ long. That thing was heavy (car top carry only -we didn’t have a trailer), but once you got it launched, it drew almost no water. In the summer when the water was low, you could take it through the small channels on the Virginia side of the islands, and places like the Washington Canal, and even if there were just a couple of inches of water, you could push yourself through with a pole.
Another favorite memory was fishing for channel cat out in the middle of the river at Point of Rocks.
Sorry if we are boring everybody else here...
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