Mistwalker
Gold Member
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2007
- Messages
- 19,037
The last several weeks have been very busy ones for me, and a lot of my photography work has been dedicated to professional projects. So I haven't been around here as much as I would like lately, but that doesn't mean that this forum and my friends here haven't been in my thoughts, that is definitely not the case. In fact if anything it would be the exact opposite. This sub-forum has become for me the equivalent of a local pub of sorts. A place where I come as often as I can to see what is going on, interact with friends, and just catch up.
Lately I have been working on a lot of new material for ASG Magazine and their series of survival field manuals. Engaged Media is so much easier to work for than Harris Publications was, and I am working with an editor I have always liked when I did work for HP. I already know the titles and themes for several issues to come, so I have already submitted material ideas for them. Thus I have already been very busy, and in this heat...seriously worn out by the end of the day.
But sometimes I still have time for personal thoughts and photography and get to share those.
Lunch was delayed yesterday, delayed until later evening, due to a meeting downtown. I even had to replace the ice and water in my trail cooler twice to keep my food cool in the heat while keeping myself hydrated. But I did eventually have a few moments of peace at the end of the day, so I went to one of my favorite meditation spots to have lunch. Sadly there was no water flowing in the wet-weather stream, but it is still peaceful there.
These flowers will soon become toxic berries, but that doesn't seem to worry the ladybugs
The wild grapes are looking surprisingly good for the low amount of rain we have had.
The Wine Raspberries are doing well all things considered... better in some places than in others. These were looking pretty good. And a few were even ripe enough to eat.
It has been a drier-than-usual-summer here, so I haven't bothered forcing a patina on the Terrasaur. I have just let it develop naturally through use. But it is starting to develop from a lot of use in the field and in the kitchen. So it isn't quite so shiny and new anymore
I have come to like this Terrasaur a lot. It's large enough without being too large, it's tapered so it is light for its size compared to a full tang version I used years ago, it's in a handle configuration I really like. Plus being a Joe Flowers design interpreted by Andy Roy, it is the product of two of the least tactical minds I personally know, and I mean that as a compliment. Working for three companies that produce cutting tools purpose designed for combat operations means that line of thinking gets old quick, and I need a way of escaping it.
We did finally get a little rain, a short but intense afternoon storm came through. But it evaporated almost as fast as it fell. Hardly any signs of it at all were visible in areas under the canopy.
My little trail cooler comes in handy for keeping foods cool, as well as keeping me hydrated
88F and no mess
One of the projects I am working on is a series on teaching wilderness skills to children. Alayna has been helping work on this, and we have spent a lot of time together this summer, for which I am grateful. She has been doing really well, and we have been having a lot of fun as well as a lot of activity. Her grasp of how the ferro rod and tinder interact with one another has grown quite a bit lately.
These photos come from another series of shots we did with her starting the fire. I can't show the photos I submitted for publishing here, but I can share these. I thought it was cool that she wanted to take her own photos of the scene afterward. Of the photos I cannot share here I think one series is really cool, so I will describe it. I have a series of shots taken at 6 frames per second of her igniting the fire. I have in uninterrupted numerical sequence the five shots that go from her being still, to her sparking, to sparks still flying through the ignited tinder, to her pulling her striker back, and then the tinder starting to burn more. I was really glad to get that series, and really proud of how hard she has worked to understand the technique. She goes to the woods on hikes with me a lot. If anything ever happens to me while we are out in the winter, I want her to understand cold weather injuries enough to know to avoid them and know how to do so. So we have several projects planned for the year in between her getting time to also just enjoy being a ten year old and going swimming and what have you.
I picked up a Bear Cub some months back for Lisa, because I know she likes pointy too, just like me. But she still prefers the Bushboot model, so I have been letting Alayna use the Bear Cub some. She handles it very naturally, and it seems to do well for her. So now, when I save up the money, I think I am going to try to get her one with Starry Night Burlap, or the colorful snakeskin one I can't remember the name of at the moment. The Bear Cup has several similarities to the Kephart model I enjoy using for bushcraft, so it seems like a good one for her to use when I start teaching more on those subjects.
.
Lately I have been working on a lot of new material for ASG Magazine and their series of survival field manuals. Engaged Media is so much easier to work for than Harris Publications was, and I am working with an editor I have always liked when I did work for HP. I already know the titles and themes for several issues to come, so I have already submitted material ideas for them. Thus I have already been very busy, and in this heat...seriously worn out by the end of the day.
But sometimes I still have time for personal thoughts and photography and get to share those.
Lunch was delayed yesterday, delayed until later evening, due to a meeting downtown. I even had to replace the ice and water in my trail cooler twice to keep my food cool in the heat while keeping myself hydrated. But I did eventually have a few moments of peace at the end of the day, so I went to one of my favorite meditation spots to have lunch. Sadly there was no water flowing in the wet-weather stream, but it is still peaceful there.
These flowers will soon become toxic berries, but that doesn't seem to worry the ladybugs
The wild grapes are looking surprisingly good for the low amount of rain we have had.
The Wine Raspberries are doing well all things considered... better in some places than in others. These were looking pretty good. And a few were even ripe enough to eat.
It has been a drier-than-usual-summer here, so I haven't bothered forcing a patina on the Terrasaur. I have just let it develop naturally through use. But it is starting to develop from a lot of use in the field and in the kitchen. So it isn't quite so shiny and new anymore
I have come to like this Terrasaur a lot. It's large enough without being too large, it's tapered so it is light for its size compared to a full tang version I used years ago, it's in a handle configuration I really like. Plus being a Joe Flowers design interpreted by Andy Roy, it is the product of two of the least tactical minds I personally know, and I mean that as a compliment. Working for three companies that produce cutting tools purpose designed for combat operations means that line of thinking gets old quick, and I need a way of escaping it.
We did finally get a little rain, a short but intense afternoon storm came through. But it evaporated almost as fast as it fell. Hardly any signs of it at all were visible in areas under the canopy.
My little trail cooler comes in handy for keeping foods cool, as well as keeping me hydrated
88F and no mess
One of the projects I am working on is a series on teaching wilderness skills to children. Alayna has been helping work on this, and we have spent a lot of time together this summer, for which I am grateful. She has been doing really well, and we have been having a lot of fun as well as a lot of activity. Her grasp of how the ferro rod and tinder interact with one another has grown quite a bit lately.
These photos come from another series of shots we did with her starting the fire. I can't show the photos I submitted for publishing here, but I can share these. I thought it was cool that she wanted to take her own photos of the scene afterward. Of the photos I cannot share here I think one series is really cool, so I will describe it. I have a series of shots taken at 6 frames per second of her igniting the fire. I have in uninterrupted numerical sequence the five shots that go from her being still, to her sparking, to sparks still flying through the ignited tinder, to her pulling her striker back, and then the tinder starting to burn more. I was really glad to get that series, and really proud of how hard she has worked to understand the technique. She goes to the woods on hikes with me a lot. If anything ever happens to me while we are out in the winter, I want her to understand cold weather injuries enough to know to avoid them and know how to do so. So we have several projects planned for the year in between her getting time to also just enjoy being a ten year old and going swimming and what have you.
I picked up a Bear Cub some months back for Lisa, because I know she likes pointy too, just like me. But she still prefers the Bushboot model, so I have been letting Alayna use the Bear Cub some. She handles it very naturally, and it seems to do well for her. So now, when I save up the money, I think I am going to try to get her one with Starry Night Burlap, or the colorful snakeskin one I can't remember the name of at the moment. The Bear Cup has several similarities to the Kephart model I enjoy using for bushcraft, so it seems like a good one for her to use when I start teaching more on those subjects.
.
