Bungling along...

"Ignorance and bungling with love are better
than wisdom and skill without." -Thoreau

Thoreau has always intrigued me, and at the same time I often feel H.D. is a tremendous buzzkill. He always finds the beauty in nature and the foolishness in humanity.

I think this rather idealistic. I have found both beauty in nature and foolishness in humanity, but at the same time, I have found nature to be somewhat harsh and unforgiving at times, and I have found the best of all possible in human beings.

On the other hand (can you sense ambiguity here?), I am often comforted by nature and disappointed by humanity.

I am wrestling with a problem. I am an avowed and chronic bungler. I am a mistake waiting to happen. I do dumb things and find myself thinking, "What were you thinking?" The answer usually is that I was thinking about doing what's best, but with a limited set of data.

Yes, I am an astute bungler, and I dabble in ignorance on the side.

My Saving Grace is that I love. Sometimes like Othello, who loved not wisely but too well. But most of the time, I try to do the best I can with what tools were given me and the few I picked up on the way to the game.

I struggle. I fail. I pick myself up again, fail, and pick myself up again. I am getting very strong from picking myself up. I am also learning how better to fall. I am a Black Belt in psychological Aikido.

This is a tough time of year for me. I have a pretty severe case of Seasonal Affective Disorder, which has a stupid acronym. I use lots of giant lights and do all that stuff what is supposed to help, but I really need is to live in Patagonia half the year and in Alaska the other half. That's not my style, nor is it in my budget. I am firmly rooted in 43°4′N 89°24′W.

I usually don't write much when my energy is low or when the darkness kicks my butt, because I don't think anyone needs to read about how difficult life is with seasonal depression. But I also don't want my words to be misrepresenting the Canoelover Life. It ain't all dragonflies and paddling gear.

There are times like this when I sit and ponder the wondrous life I have; fantastic Wife 1.1, great Kids 1.0 and 2.0, Dog 2.0, etc. I have House 2.0, and have now lived in this home longer than any place I have ever lived. My home is my taproot, and we share it a lot with others. Friends enrich my life beyond my wildest expectations.

So welcome, friends, to the Canoelover of November. Five more weeks to Solstice and then, once the corner is turned, on we go to light and love. I'm looking forward to it.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

The Sunshine of the Night

There are few things that are more aggravating than writing a detailed blog post about the Coleman lantern and having it get sucked into the black hole that is cyberspace. It was a pretty good post. Trust me, it was excruciatingly detailed and had a lot of history about the evolution of the Coleman lantern.

The good news is that now I have done my first edit, and it'll be a lot shorter and probably more interesting. Buh-bye, unnecessary details.

The facts of the matter are these:

1. We own three Coleman lanterns that we know of: a 5155 (propane), a 288 (white gas), and a 220F (see #4) .
2. There may be a fourth. We're not sure.
3. Some of them are newer and without personality, which means they start quickly, don't flare up and make sooty black smoke, and are utterly boring. But good.
4. One of them is a 1969 220F, a common enough lantern to be noncollectable unless they are in the original box with the original documentation. Then the Japanese buy them for $250.00. The Japanese are weird about vintage gear.

Which brings me to the meat of the former post...what to do about the 220F. It is temperamental, flaring up when you start it unless you futz with it, like a second violin who likes to be the last person playing the tuning A during warm-ups.*

Once the 220F is fired up and settles down, it works okay. A little bit dimmer than its newer cousin, our 288, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it. It just isn't quite right.

The 220F in question

A few blocks from the shop is an old-school Coleman camper dealer with all the parts necessary to rebuild the 220F. It might cost me ten bucks to buy a new generator and get her all overhauled and rebuilt. Which would be fun for me because I like futzing with old gear.

At the same time, it's probably a waste of ten bucks because it's still running fine, just a little rough. If it were a V8 it would be missing on one cylinder occasionally when down-shifting. You might get to it, you might not.

While contemplating this small dilemma, I got all profound and stuff. It happens to me at the weirdest times, like while polishing the glass of the 220F when a flare-up blackened the top of it with nasty greasy soot.

My realization is that I am a lot like this 220F. I am not temperamental and I don't flare up, but I am sure I am not running at 100%, physically or spiritually.

For years, maybe a century, the Coleman by-line has been The Sunshine of the Night. The average user won't see it since they put it on the bottom of the lanterns, and I bet 99.44% of the users never turn the lantern over other than to check the model number should you need a replacement part. But there it is, along with the old Coleman logo. To quote Bruce Hornsby, "That's just the way it is...some thing should never change."

So while I am not exactly running a peak efficiency, I still put out a decent amount of light. I might have a small hole in one of my mantles, but otherwise I am quite sound. I feel accepted by the Larger Light, doing my small part to bring some Sunshine to the night that is the world today. We need more lights, and if they sputter and smoke a little bit, that's just the way it is.

At the same time, for ten bucks I can fix this old lantern, 40 years old and still kicking. In some ways I am sorry it is not a 1962 model like me, but then the metaphor would be too much, even for a guy who never met a phor he didn't like.

So what would it take to make my light a little brighter? Should I invest the time and resources to gain that extra few candlepower that might illuminate a dark corner in someone's life, or do I content myself with pretty bright?

I have never been one for stasis. I like moving forward. I like growing and refining myself, not necessarily because Larger Light won't accept me as I am, but because it's what makes life interesting and enjoyable and challenging. It's the same reason my friend Steph jumps off cliffs wearing a wing suit. She is interested in pushing herself to accomplish new things, even though she could easily rest on her pile of Base Gear and have accomplished more than most of us will in a lifetime.

I am in the continual process of rebuilding myself. So it stands to reason might want to stop in at Jerry's Camping and grab a rebuild kit for the 220F. I think it would be good for both of us.

Some things should never change...that's just the way it is...but don't you believe it.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

*It doesn't matter, second violin. We won't hear you anyway.

Happy Samhain!

It is a wonderful thing to wake up next to your best friend, even if her hair looks like Medusa. Half a can of hairspray can make big hair very scary, especially if you go to bed late. When Wife 1.1 lay down on the bed, her hair crinkled. It sounded like cellophane, which made us laugh, since there are people who actually do this on purpose.

But last night...I was married to Supergirl. Actually, Wife 1.1 prefers Superwoman, as Supergirl, to quote Wife 1.1, "implies a certain lack of experience." I did not ask.

I am not really a Halloween guy. I also think people who spell Halloween Hallowe'en are halloweenies.

Digging my Celtic roots,

Canoelover

Araneus diadematus a.k.a. "Agatha"

It was an eagle-eyed Canoelover Jr. who first spotted her. She had built a lovely web between our downspout and a juniper a full six feet away. The strands of silk that connected the downspout to the juniper were thick and cable-like, and the web was lovely, symmetrical and a work of art, despite the repairs needed after an evening of collecting moths.

In Autumn I often put my little camper trailer in our driveway, pop it up, plug it in, and get busy writing orders I wouldn't be able to write in the office. The Shack is awesome but sometimes I want to be on my portable screen porch and have power too. So I set up the trailer and in twenty minutes I'm working away via remote link to the office.

I put the dog blanket on the smaller of the two beds and Gracie will spend some time sleeping while I work, but one can never have too many pets. Agatha was hiding under a leaf, maybe four feet from where I was sitting. In my peripheral vision I could see her, front legs resting lightly on a couple of key threads that would allow her to pick up the smallest vibration. Once in a while out of the corner of my eye I'd see a little jump, and Agatha would be on that juicy little fly like a pro wrestler dropping off a corner post onto another pro wrestler. Except with Agatha, it was real.

Agatha is (they winter over so she's probably still alive) an Araneus diadematus, a lovely name for a lovely arachnid. Commonly named a Cross Spider (easy to see why), I prefer my own name for her: Bejeweled Orbweaver. Agatha looks like she's covered in diadems, and to be honest these pictures don't do her justice. Her coloring was much more vibrant but the light was flat.

I think they're beautiful. I am supported by David Hume, who stated that "beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them." Or to quote Benjamin Franklin (a.k.a. Poor Richard), "Beauty, like supreme dominion, is but supported by opinion."

You don't have to think Arachnids are beautiful, but if you can suspend whatever cultural biases that were inflicted upon your psyche at an early age, I promise you're going to enjoy a great many more beautiful things.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

A Kindred Spirit

I don't know who this is. But I like him/her already.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

The Shack

This is my office.

It's not the office I work in the most, but I am working in it right now. Okay, not right now, but I am writing, and this is, without a doubt, my favorite place to move ideas from brain waves to

words.

The wood stove is creaking, its first fire of the year burning out the cobwebs and the little bit of creosote that has accumulated in the stovepipe. I threw some chunks of hickory into it, a mistake because hickory burns so hot that I usually only use it in the winter. It's only in the 40s outside and the door is open so I don't roast.

I did fall cleaning today, washing the windows (three times on the outside, twice on the inside) until they are almost invisible. The screens have been vacuumed and safely stowed behind the dry sink, and there's more light in here than there has been in months. The sun is lower and clears the eaves. The pine carsiding glows like burnished gold.

I sucked up a few hundred fly husks, sucked dry by the house spiders who often live in the windows during the summer. I let 'em stay, they eat the stray mosquitoes that blunder in and then go to the light. I guess going to the light is a bad idea for skeeters too.

My little oak table is now clean and ready for the laptop, a connection provided by Verizon's wireless. Amazing that I can sit here in the gas light, heated by wood, the ticking of my alarm clock, and the only modern noise is the fan on my laptop.

I just adjusted the damper on the stovepipe to allow a single puff of smoke into the room. The pine was never varnished, so when it gets some heat from the stove it starts to smell a little like a sawmill in here, and the only thing to do is to add a puff of hickory smoke. The Shack is a censor, releasing perfume to the faithful Shack Dwellers. In this case, me.

---

This is my first time using The Shack since last winter. The summer occupants are usually road reps who need a place to crash as they pass through. A lot of friends have been out here these past six or seven months, but not me. Now, as the seasons change, it becomes mine again.

Outside you'd find half a dozen large elm logs, felled by the power company because a) they were dead and b) they were leaning the wrong way, i.e., toward the power lines. Through an act of intervention, the arborists were more than happy to leave everything exactly where it fell. This means firing up the chainsaw, a lovely beast given to me by my brother-in-law when he no longer needed it. It also means I can cut it to 15" lengths, perfect for my little stove.

The alarm clock is ticking 120 bpm. One loud click, one soft click, as the escape mechanism ticks, then tocks. I like the sound, it reminds me of laying on a pew in church, my grandfather's arm around me, my head laying on his arm, my ear against his watch, trying to hear the soft tick. Then quartz watches came out and ruined it for everyone.

I don't even own a watch, I own a wrist computer. Barometer. Compass. Altimeter. Stopwatch. It doesn't tick. It doesn't tock. It makes no sound at all, unless I tell it to beep sometimes. On the hour, when the barometric pressure drops too fast, etc.

The temperature at the ridgepole is 103 degrees. This is good, as one of the cedar shingles was damaged by a limb a few years ago, and a small leak has developed. Once I get the area dried out (probably tonight), I can climb up and re-shingle that area. Working with cedar beats working with asphalt shingles any day ending in y.

I have to turn the gas light up another notch. It's getting darker.

Better get back to my real work.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

How Cute is Your Baby?

The Row.

Added a few more boats to Canoelover's Row in the warehouse this morning. Time to keep the winter boats around and shuffle everything else off to hibernate.

So yes, I own a fair number (okay, obscene number) of canoes and kayaks. Then again, a plumber has a dozen pipe wrenches, a conductor more than one baton. My guess is that most elite runners have more than one pair of shoes and running shorts, more than one pair of socks. It's my business, it's my life.

Methinks my Canoelover doth protest too much.

Yeah, well, I'm just sayin'.

Obviously, the boats that live in my row are excellent boats. Not a stinker in the bunch of them. Just ask me, I'll tell you. The problem is that I may be somewhat biased. After all, I chose them.

I really don't have much ego invested in having "good boats." I just like what I like, but after a few decades paddling I think I'm pretty good at evaluating which hulls are well-designed (most of them, honestly) and which ones were cranked out by someone who knew that canoes and kayaks need two pointy ends.

Which brings me to the topic of on-line reviews.

Let me just say I hate them. Not because the people who review the boats are not qualified to do so...some of them are, most are not because they lack a frame of reference. I'd venture a guess that I've paddled between 200 and 300 different hulls in my lifetime. A person who has only driven a 1984 Chevrolet Chevette is hardly qualified to talk about how well their car compares to other cars. For the record, we had a red 1984 Chevette. We called it the Shove It. Worst car I've ever owned, ever ever ever. The good news: it cost $5K new. Without A/C.

Canoelover's Internet Maxim Number 4 states that if you provide a forum for people to provide feedback, they will, and CIM #4a states that the more frequent the feedback, the less the person leaving the feedback actually knows about anything, period.

Internet bulletin boards tend to attract people who want to be important, or worse, want to be helpful. I recently sold a boat of a friend to a friend, acting as intermediary as Friend A was out of the country for a year and Friend B wanted a boat for her granddaughter. Friend B was stoked to get a sweet little solo canoe for her grandkids (they all paddle).

She made the tactical error of telling everyone on a canoe bulletin board that she had purchased this boat for her granddaughter. Immediately a fellow board member (let's call him Troll A) jumped on her, telling her that her boat was inappropriate for his granddaughter and would possibly endanger her life. She responded that she had purchased this little canoe via yours truly and she trusted my judgement.

His response: "I stand by my statement."

Excellent.

Turns out I was right, Troll A was wrong, and Friend B's granddaughter is loving her little boat. Troll A didn't apologize, really. He just made some reference to the fact that sometimes people are lucky that things work out.

The problem is that Trolls B through Z(10)²³ will all have opinions, and most all of them will be based on limited experience. How are you as a reader to know who's credible and who is a pompous ass? Credentials don't work because anyone can claim to be a canoe designer. There's no degree for canoe or kayak design. The best designers I know probably didn't go to college.

With so much ego invested in their choices of boats, they tend to be very, very biased toward what they own. Worse yet, a pair of them will engage in a sort of asinus asinum fricat sort of behavior that drives me insane (when I allow myself to be attached to that sort of thing, which is less and less common as I stay off these boards).

These are the people who usually give a Coleman Ram-X canoe 9/10 in a review. Because they have one, and these reviews are like asking a person "Please rate the attractiveness of your baby." You can't say 10/10 because people will think you're unbiased or have never seen another baby so there's no point of reference.

If you challenge them, remember you're saying "Dude, your baby is double-bag ugly." You have to expect them to justify how the fiberglass canoe their scout troop built in 1974 is the best canoe ever. The best answer is (and please practice saying this with me):

"Of course it is, you're spot on as usual."

For the record, a Coleman canoe floats. There ends its virtues.

Note this phenomenon is by no means limited to paddlesports. Substitute climbing harness, backpack, digital camera, camp stove or PDA and you'll find the same dogmatic chumps. Please shun them like the life-sucking vampires they are. They will draw you in. Just repeat the mantra listed above. It's like throwing salt on a slug.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

Playing Around

Playtime, Wisconsin River.

“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which.

"He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both.”

- James Mitchner

Amen, Mr. Mitchner.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

Tenth Annual Order of the Wisconsin River Lover's (OWL) Solo Canoe Trip

The Order gathered once again this year, and it was an interesting session. With 13 we had quorum so we talked about OWL 2.0. More on that later.

If you're not familiar with the way the OWL works, there are a few simple rules.

• No kayaks.
• Solo canoes only.
• No booze.
• No women (sorry).

The OWL started out as small overnight trip with four people, Canoelover Jr. included, who was six at the time (see above -- from the first OWL). It was a delight, and over the years, it has grown. People move in and out as their schedule commands, but I always feel like there's someone who can't come who should be there. I don't like that feeling.

We do a section of the Lower Wisconsin from Mazomanie to Spring Green. Normally. Again, I'm getting ahead of myself. We ran the shuttle and found that lo and behold, it was beautiful as you can see. Tamaracks still verdant and deciduous trees attempting to turn a little, but nowhere peak, but always there are the sandstone cliffs, a few brave swallows still hunting for insects a few inches above the surface of the river.

The launch is less than optimal, but we manage just fine. It's more suitable for power boats but they're nice if we get in and out quickly. It does take a fair amount of time to load 13 boats into the river. It took a little longer because we were trying to help each other, trying not to step in the water though we were wearing rubber boots. It's a bad way to start the night getting a schloop of water over your boot tops.

I was close to last on the water so I stood on the dock and shot some pictures of the milling canoes. No one was trying to take off (except Canoelover Jr., who takes off as soon as he hits the water), and they formed small clusters while they waited for the last few boats.

Soon enough all thirteen boats plus two dogs were on the water. Canoelover Jr. is visible in the far left hand side of the picture, just a little dot in the reflection. That's how he rolls.

The OWL was two weeks later this year so despite meeting at 3:00 at Chez Canoelover, we barely made it on the water in time for it to go pretty dark. Gracie, being a sweet yet shortsighted Black Lab, went wading in the water like a hippopotamus while I was running the shuttle with four other drivers. So of course once it got dark, she started to get cold. When her shivering became noticeable I put my Mountain Hardware Monkey Fur fleece around her and tied the sleeves together in the front like a frat boy. She seemed to tolerate it. However, I gotta say it looks very weird.

We usually paddle a couple of hours, and so we did, arriving at the usual OWL campsite. There was no competition, which surprised no one. It was approaching freezing, and we started adding layers as time passed. In the end I had two long sleeve merino tops, a canvas shirt, and fleece vest and a fleece jacket (reclaimed from Gracie). And two stocking caps. I am a little light on the top there in terms of insulation. The good news is that a really short hair cut (like shaved plus 5 days) is like having Velcro on your head in terms of holding hats in place.

The wood situation on the River is pretty grim this far up as it is overused and downed wood is rare and hard to come by. We hauled in a giant Rubbermaid container of hickory (hot stuff), and Bill and Dave brought two big bags of firewood, which were perfect too. We we had no shortage of fires.

The companion ship of a group of friends around the campfire is one of the sweetest things about camping out. Even without the schnapps we conversed easily and shared stories and jokes. Ask Jim about the man who stuffed a cow udder in his pants. Or don't. Your call. All you need is the punch line: "Ma'am, don't worry, there's three more where that came from."

[Badump-ching.]

That was about as risqué as it got. It's also nice to share companionship without the need for profanity. These are not all religious people, but they're all good, moral people who love and respect each other. And with a group of 13, that ain't bad.

Well, we knew it would be cold, but personally I was thinking 35-40. It was not. Our water bottles froze. The new batteries in my GPS died before it could acquire satellites. People were piling on the layers and jumping around, trying to get some blood in their feet. It was not just cold, it was colder than a cast-iron witch's teat.*

The fog was beautiful and coated everything that was horizontal with jewelry-like hoarfrost.

And as the saying goes:

Red sky in morning, sailors take warning.

Red sky at night, sailor's delight.

Or as I said, "Guys, we're doing a stuff and run." What that means is everything we own is unceremoniously stuffed into our packs and canoes and we get on the water as quickly as possible. Of course, Horseman had to make coffee or we'd be forced to drag his caffeine-addicted sorry arse behind me with a towline. But he get his fix and we were on the water, just as the wind got a little frisky. Frisky is a technical term for 15 knots gusting to 25.

Of course, we all had to line up for the annual group photo. Don't worry, we put the fire out.

Respectfully and frigidly submitted,

Canoelover

--

*This is a real saying in Southwestern Wisconsin. I've heard the more common variant but the cast iron part sorta brings it all home for me. If you're offended by the term witch because you're a Wiccan, better leave town for Hallowe'en.

Apples

"Calville Blanc d'Hiver (1598) Antique variety from France, where it was grown in the king's gardens at Orleans; one of the premier gourmet apples still served for dessert in the finer Parisian restaurants; tart, strong, distinctive flavor."

I'm back. I was in San Diego for a sort 0f executive retreat/seminar thingy, the Outdoor Industry Rendezvous. An annual event, some 350 industry folks get together and network (a word I hate -- can't someone please come up with something better?) and participate in discussions and board meetings and hear some amazing speakers, like Kevin Carroll and Erik Weihenmayer.

It is a brain-stretching event, and I now have to go back to my office and comb through a giant pile of bills and checks, and delete 500 emails. Hardly high-order thinking. But it was great, and it was, after all, in San Diego.

Having been born and raised in So Cal, several of the conference attendees were curious how I, having been born a few miles from where we were staying, ended up in Madison, Wisconsin.

"Chenango Strawberry, 1800s, Chenango county, New York.
Delicate, beautiful variety with fragrance resembling roses."

Simple, really. I came for the apples. Not the apples per se, but what they represent.

You need to understand that California has two seasons; Green and Brown. The Green Season is pretty much November and December, sometimes stretching into January. The rest of the year is Brown season.

There is very little to mark the passage of time on a grander scale than the circadian rhythm. Weeks flow into each other and the idea of a cool fall fades from memory. My buddy Chris moved to California last year in October. "It just sorta stayed October," he said over dinner last Sunday night.

"Zaubergau Reinette (1880, Wurtenberg, Germany)

Largest of the russet apples with crisp white flesh and nutty flavor."

So yeah, California is weird. Not to say it wasn't pleasant to visit; I got out every day, usually twice) to get in some longboarding with the Big Stick. Won't be able to do that in Wisconsin for a bit. After a few days, however, I was ready to come home.

As I write this there is a large bowl of apples to my left. Occasionally one of the apples will embolden itself and throw off a little apple scent. There are five varieties of apples in the bowl; none of them are found in a grocery store, and while they're all apples, they range from sweet to tart, crisp to tender. They have subtleties the Red Delicious (well, they're half-right) and other long-distance apples lack.

At some point in the past 50 or 75 years, someone decided that we needed to breed durability into apple flavors so we could reach a world-wide market. They did so, and in so doing they bred out most of the taste. The problem my little apples have is that they can't travel very well, either drying out or bruising. 80 miles from Weston's is fine.

"Tolman Sweet (1750, New York) Light yellow,
faintly russetted, fall apple. The sweetest apple grown."

I don't mean to criticize Californians, really. They can't help it. They are, in some respects, a weaker strain of the human race. They don't know what they're missing. There is very little that is subtle about California, from its Governor to its produce. Quantity, not quality, seems to be the rule of the day in So Cal, and you can keep your quantity. Quality is what works for me.

Pink Pearl (1944, California). Named for the pink flesh which is hidden just beneath its yellow exterior. Crisp, tart, and aromatic, with a hint of grapefruit in the taste. Late summer variety, ripening in August and September

Next week's apples will be a different variety altogether. Cornish Gilleflowers, one of my favorites, is due out this week. I can't wait.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

A Walk In the Woods

This afternoon, we enter Autumn. Unless you're from south of the Equator, but I'm going to assume no one from Down Under reads this.

The Equinox will occur at 4:21 P.M. We then begin the long slide into darkness, which at our latitude is not insignificant. Soon it will be dark when I go to work and dark when I leave it, which is somewhat depressing but easily alleviated with some Happy Lights and copious amounts of snowshoeing. It's Karma for the Days Without End in June, when you can ride your bike at 5:00 without a light, and you can still read outside at 21:00 on your porch without a flashlight.

I've put 6 or 7 of my canoes and such into Canoelover's Row in the warehouse. One of the benefits of owning a paddlesports shop is your own row in the warehouse. It holds twelve boats and allows me to clean out the garage in the winter. Now I know that Canoelover's Row sounds like a bad English novel about the sexual repression of Victorian England. Or maybe I've seen too much Masterpiece Theater. Yeah...that's it.

But I digress. The main point is that it's going to be Autumn, and I love Autumn. A lot, but probably not as much as my daughter. Her beautiful essay can be found here.

We went for a walk in the woods (and prairie) on Saturday with Kelly Blades, our P&H/Pyranha/FeelFree sales rep. Our industry is socially incestuous, and the differentiation between friends and sales reps is often a blurry one. I can only think of a handful of reps with whom I don't like to spend time, and I'm usually not alone in that regard.

I've known Kelly for a good decade or longer, can't really remember, but when he visited for some business reasons, which took an hour or so, we had a whole afternoon to kill. We decided to walk it to death.

Band-winged Meadowhawk (Sympetrum semicinctum)

There were a few late darners swooping around, some of them getting in their last mating hurrah, but mostly they were moving lethargically. The Meadowhawks were another matter.

The genus Sympetrum is composed of smaller than average dragonflies with the wonderful name Meadowhawks. Meadowhawks are so named because they a) fly around meadows and b) are the Cooper's Hawk of the odonates. They're good hunters and they can wreak havoc on the local fly population.

They're also lovely creatures. But then I'm biased.

I like the Band-winged dudes. Especially back lit.

White-faced Meadowhawks (Sympetrum obtrusum).
Sometimes you gots to get your freak on.

While the whole genus Sympetrum can be bloody difficult to field ID, a few of the species are considerate, like the White-faced 'Hawk, with a big white face (!). They're not exactly rare but they are uncommon, so to get a shot of a pair copulating was pretty cool, especially since I had the wrong lens with me so I was shooting a 200mm zoom free-handed without one of those expensive VR lenses that cost more than some small cars. Not complaining. Actually, I am.*

The taxonomy of an odonate is fairly complex, with lots of little subtleties that identify species that are to the naked eye almost identical. Wings are often used as a way to identify species in the field. Besides the lovely amber saddles on the Band-winged 'Hawks is an equally lovely red stigmata on the leading edge of each wing. Saint Francis would laugh heartily if he knew that a few centuries after his death, insect taxonomists would name that spot on the wing in honor of a famous recipient. I think that highly appropriate.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

*If some benefactor wants to improve my photography, please do me extremely generous favor of sending me this lens. Or this one. Just send me the Hubble and I'll be happy. Just make sure it has the Nikon bayonet mount.

It's Steel Season!

Da forge. Propane, not coal. Faster, more controllable, and it reduces Black Booger Syndrome.

As the summer winds down into cooler fall (I know someday it will), it's time to switch over to blacksmith mode. I have two 40 pounders of propane and a full set of hammers (including a new Peddinghaus I custom shaped), but the steel rack is somewhat sparse. Time to hit the steelyard.

Flat stock? Tubing? Hot rolled rounds? Cold rolled square? 1/2" plate? They got it.

A steelyard, for those who are uninformed, is like a lumber yard, except:

• There is no lumber.
• There is, instead, steel.
• You can get two or three times as many shapes of steel than you can of lumber.
• The people there (apologies to lumber yard employees) are a lot smarter.
• That's probably because they've been there a long time and are paid more than minimum wage.

Beautiful 5/8" rounds, 20 feet long. Some 1"x1/4" angle on the right.

There's something wonderful about Wiedenbeck. Probably because it's a third generation family business, there is a pride about the place, and it is, despite the challenges, spotless. You can eat off the floor of that place. And despite the signs, you can walk around all you want if they recognize you as a regular customer. I guess I am semi-regular, I get there 4 or so times a year. Not many blacksmiths around I suppose.

One of the best things about blacksmithing is the quality time I get to spend with Son 1.0. He's developing into quite the artist, and is actually a pretty decent welder. Maybe better than me. He'll be making more crustaceans I am sure this fall.

"I peench."

Respectfully submitted,

Canoe(and steel)lover