Abandoned

Today my hiking buddy (Laura) abandoned me in favor of a visit to Grandma's horse barn. She'd rather ride Spirit, a Morgan Horse, in the woods than hoof it on her own two feet with the rest of us.

I hit the woods with Reid and his son Everett. The weather threatened to be nasty with a chance of humid and ended up being muggy but otherwise fairly nice.

I played around a bit with lashing, fed the boys parched corn and Muscovado, taught Everett how to snare squirrels (no squirrels were harmed during the lesson or at any time,) and generally had a decent time hanging out away from the cell phones, televisions, and other nuisances of daily life.

I managed to catch a peek at a Top Secret project Reid's working on with Mike Stewart at Bark River Knife & Tool and, I think, expressed my anticipation adequately by asking him to put my name on TWO. I can't divulge any of the details here but it's something I've worked on myself in the past and just never came to a satisfactory solution. I can tell you it is a knife.

I got to see the new BRK&T Sperati that Everett snagged during his last visit to Escanaba and asked nicely if he'd give it to me. No dice. By the way, that's Amboynia Burl on the handle. It really had an amazing figure and depth. Excellent choice Everett.

We had spiders again today. Looks like this summer isn't as good for them but it's pretty good. A sizeable wolf spider took up residence right near our camp and wasn't the least bit intimidated by the loud humans nearby.

No mice though...

Thanks for reading,

B