To the right is Craggy Wash north of the airport in Lake Havasu. I found it beautiful two years ago, and it still is. This is a morning shot looking down at my Airstream and in front of my is Gary and Becky's fifthwheel. When you walk you find trash dumped which is sad, but it would only take a few years to erase most of the marks people have left. This was yesterday morning. After a very humid hot night, we made the decision to only stay the one night and then go north to Las Vegas, out to the boondocking area, north shore of Lake Mead. It is cooler here in Neveda, about 10 degrees cooler, and we had quite a blow last night that woke me several times. Calmer now.

	This was from the first full day of Gary and Becky et al landing from Minnesota's fierce winter. This is at the Scaddan Wash, a 14 day free area in Q. Gary is mounting 6 Unisolar 64 panels all on new brackets and wiring them in - all in one day. L to R, Big umbrella, Becky, little umbrella, Emily and Erika, and on top, Gary.

Almost 100 percent after a 12 day flu/cold. Left are mountain flowers that I photographed on the way to my little dry falls area. There is much to catch up on, so here we go. The bow broke as you know, sorry for leaving the sad picture in prominence for so long. I was ordering a blank -- a stave - to make a hickory bow and saw that someone had a beautiful bow that they had made, in the same fashion as mine, hickory backed with silk and I won it on ebay and after much confusion on their shipping got it. I have been shooting it and love it. Possible pictures later. Hard to take a picture of myself shooting it without a tripod and I haven't found a free good one yet. I have fletched three of my arrows, all with different primitive approaches to fletching. Definitely pictures of those soon.

Here is the dry falls from a distance. It is about a mile away from where I write this, and it is hidden. You have to follow an arroyo into the lower mountains and there it is. Closer picture below. So I've been watching gold and silver rise, wheat and carbohydrates rise faster than gold and silver, and the dollar fall. In that arena I have purchased more ammunition and shipped it to Oregon, and when Dianne was here we went out and did some shooting with the handguns (two Makarov 9mm). I also ordered a surplus rifle which is an excellent value - military surplus - Mosin Nagant (Moo seen Nah Gon). They are still only about $120 after buying, shipping to a federal license holder, and paying a little extra for hand picked out of the surplus crates. It is an excellent hedge against the fall of the dollar and I will probably buy the carbine (shorter) version of the same gun.

There is a spiritual element of this gully. The size here has no perspective, but the worn blue rock face of the dry waterfall is blue green and beautiful to see and touch. This is a place I found two years ago while looking for Barsik, my cat.

Here is a closer view of the dry falls. I am slowly hurrying to leave Q. I am slowly hurrying because this coming week will be quite warm, but I'm anxious to get up to the north shore of Lake Mead. As you've probably read, Lake Mead is disappearing, fast. Even when I was there last year, the white high water mark was way up on the hills above me and the boat ramps and campgrounds were almost a 1/2 mile to the water. I want to experience the red rock one more time. Gary is on the move and will be heading to southern Oregon, and I hope he makes it because I am headed there for the first of April. March will be spent at Lake Mead, and then I will go north as the weather permits.

Just before I caught the flu, this was my last big hike up. That is Q mountain below me. I used the wonderful pack my brother gave me - a LowenPro pack for carrying the camera and water. That's the pack resting on the rock monument of this peak. Up was not too challenging as I was very strong then, but the down, since I just pitched myself over on to the slope of loose rock and cactus, was "entertaining" in a loose bowel sort of way. I'm torn between the alternatives that lay before me. I return and start the garden at TJ's April 15th. I'll start the tomatoes and squash plants in the trailer on the way. I should arrive with sturdy stout tomatoes ready to be hardened off. I'm taking casa blanca, poles and all with me, to make a green house to harden off the plants and start little ones. The water tank back in Elmira is full and waiting for me. Much to do when I return. This year I will work only have time at the helpdesk, which will give me time to bear down and garden development and other projects. Big composting this year, big food year.

Above, Q in the distance and Quartzsite north and east of it. The garden is going to be a money saver of enormous importance this year. Wheat and corn, which are the underpinnings of almost all we eat - it feeds the cattle, chickens - thus milk, eggs, meat, cereal and break - have gone buy the factor of 3 up in price. This will impact us seriously in the next few months. Just as the economy collapses, food will shoot up. Energy equals food - growing, fertilizing, harvesting, transporting, insecticides. Oil at a 100/barrel because of peak oil and the collapse of the dollar as the world reserve currency - that equals extremely high food prices. Grow a garden this year, that is the highest dollar per hour for your labor that you will ever get, oh, and the TASTE of homegrown tomatoes - OH MY God!

Phil stopped by when Dianne was here for three days and had me take pictures of some eccentric spiders he had knapped. He also did some anks - one of which Dianne bought. His skill is unsurpassed in the lithographic crowd. I have decided not to go south this year. I'm drawn north, and I can't say why. There was something about the Valley of Fire that I loved. Even Government Wash. One factor to be determined is EVDO Verizon cellular access - which is how I'm doing my internet connection this year. I haven't looked to see if there is signal where it needs to be for me. Email is very important to me, and I won 't give it up for more than a day, so I have some investigation to do. Scott and I took the satellite dish off the roof - thank you Scott! - and the truck is 110 lbs lighter. Out of kindness he traded me a wireless router that actually works with my verizon card, so now I have wireless again without the cellular card being plugged into my laptop, and thus my Ubuntu Linux machine got up dated and I can use it on line too. Give me a very warm and fuzzy feeling. I have to solve this similarly when I get back to Elmira.

There are more pictures - I haven't started working on the mass of Palm Canyon pictures, but the sun is up and making it so hard to see this page, even with the blinds closed. There is much more going on for me of course, more than can fit in this page, but I suggest gently that the woo woo among you look up Wilhelm Reich and the word Orgone and then Croft. Stretch your brain. Lot of foil heads around this subject and it doesn't go away, even after 50 years. But hey, religion sticks and it's even more ludicrous.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008 5:27 PM

Boom! Tillering has ended at 50lbs at 26.5 inches of draw with a catastrophic failure of the fades - incomplete adhesion of the silk - not enough glue and the grain not being parallel to front face of the bow caused the failure I think. This was doomed at this weight because I mis-read the grain in the red oak floor board some months ago at Home Depot in Eugene. This one is done. The next will also be a board bow, hickory from a furniture lumber mill. I'll be in my trailer, hold the calls.

	Left: I'm using two colors of dacron. This is called B-50 and comes in 1/4 pound bobbins. It is already waxed with beeswax. The board is my Flemish bowstring compact jig. I made it from a piece of cratewood and willow cutoffs from the arrow making. I tie to post 0 and begin. Above: All seven strands of the dark brown are wound, and that center post has a 70 next to it which is the bow length nock to nock, unstrung. No measuring required (except to build the jig of course).
Because of the way the loops will be made, each strand of the dacron should be a different length. Here I cam cutting the 7 strand string.	Here the cut has been made and the first group of 7 strands is ready to be lifted off the form. I did the same thing with a lighter color dacron for the second 7 strands.
To start the loops, I have waxed both bundles over the last 8 or nine inches. I have a 3" mark and an 8 inch mark on the side of the bowstring jig. I measure 8 inches to the longest strand and pinch it there. Right. I tie a temporary bit of dacron to begin the twisting of the loop.
I cannot photograph the twisting, as it take two hands and there is no one to take the picture. Here I have twisted the first three inches by the mark on the board. I then folded the loop in half, matched up the two colored bundles with their same color form the main string, and continued twisting each group then rolling it around to make the braid just as in the first three inches. This forms the loop.
This was my first double loop Flemish and my fourth string off the jig. The others have no bottom loop but are braided to the end. Traditionally the English longbow was tied on with a bowyers knot on one end and a loop on the other. I hurt myself several times before I learned to tie that knot correctly.	Above: I've completed the loop.This is what they look like before they are trimmed of ends and waxed. I then did the same loop with a slightly smaller diameter to to the bottom of the string. The lower nock can be tighter. Left: Here is the finished bow string, ready to be stretched. It is currently hanging in la casa blanca where with about 50lbs in a plastic bucket is helping it stretch. In the picture you can see that after making both loops I twisted the bowstring. After stretching, the way the Flemish string works is that you twist it to make the string shorter, or untwist it to make it longer. The perfect length for this bow will be when the string is one fistemeil or fistemelle (make a fist and put your thumb straight out. That is the correct height of the bowstring from the bow when strung, for you).

Here is how I am making the arrows. A reader wrote and said not to forget arrows. I'm haven't. Right to left (just to be different this morning) are 4 willow shoots, fresh and curvy. The bundle to their left are about a month old. The are bound together to begin their drying process and to straighten. The bundle in the middle is from last year. They are bone dry. Except for one in that group they have had their bark removed, and straightened as necessary by heat after rubbing the shaft with vegetable oil. The finished group is farthest left. They are all currently cut to 32 inches, and weight 550 grains.I will trim them to 30", final sand and match weights and stiffness, stain them and varnish them. Then I will put the turkey feather fletching on, and build points. These will all be getting blunt points that will be attached with hide glue for target practice. The heads will be removable and the very best and most consistent will get homemade hand forged broadheads. Yes, I know you can buy hardware dowels at Home Depot and Walmart. Why willow? My goal is to make as much of the bow, arrow, quivers from local, very local, materials as possible. The Hohokam and Pima used desert willow suckers for their arrows (but they shoot much lighter bows, around 30lbs pull).

Saturday, February 2, 2008 8:07 PM
Bow project pictures - the continuing saga of my first flat board board bow, 70" long. Should draw 50 lbs. at 28 inches when I'm done tillering - if I don't break it before then!

	This is the bow on the tiller stick earlier in the week. Slowly I filed and scraped marking stiff areas and "hinge" areas. Also you can not here that the right hand side is not bending in the same arc as the left (bottom limb of the bow). I was considerably thicker on the upper limb and worked to reduce it. I tillered about 4 times, taking off just a little each time - mostly because it is hard work with just a file, scraper and sand paper.
	Here is the tiller late last night. I was at 22 inches of draw, but what is very different is that the bow is no strung with a flemish bowstring that I braided using dacron B-50. It has 14 strands of dacron. The curves are a better match to each other, but now you'll notice that I'm stiffer in the lower limb out towards the end. I corrected that throughout the day but then disaster struck. My new bowstring is only tied on the bottom during tillering, and I did a sloppy job adjusting it -and it slipped. I thought the bow had blown up. It lept off the tiller stick and rapped my knuckles and one of the screws in the tiller stick ripped a small pencil eraser sized chunk of the silk on the backing.
I cut the little bit of ruined silk away and smoothed the underneath oak and put a larger patch across the silk there. It is dry but I'll have to wait until the afternoon tomorrow to go back to the tillering stick. My knot slipped because I did not have beeswax, but that's another story.

Above is the balance scale I made last week for weighing the arrows as I work them down to the correct weight and size for the bow. I'll have pictures of the arrows for you later. They are very cool. The scale is a bit of brass wire, two dry willow sticks, a sardine can and a tuna can. I use pennies for the known weight, each penny is 2.5 grams which is 38.5808 grains per penny. Each arrow should be 10 grains of weight for 10 lbs of pull of the bow. 50 lb pull should have a 500 grain arrow, which is about 12.5 pennies. I've worked down seven arrows to just above that weight at 32 inches. The arrows will be shortened 1.5 inches which will put the arrows right in at 500 grains/arrow.

Here is the bow strung low - not the full depth it will be strung too when the tillering is done. You notice the silk does not connect across the handle on the back (the side facing you). The handle will be rounded and formed to my palm and covered with goat leather laced and glued, and none of that will be visible.

Thursday, January 24, 2008 9:31 AM
Lot'o'pics this morning. I took pictures of the altoid can kit and they are ready and will ship on Monday or Tuesday from Oregon, for those who have already ordered them. I believe we have the mak-ins for 12 more. Details under the pictures. Also, I have a few pictures of the hike up Palm Canyon that Phil and I did, two days ago. It's raining here in the desert and one wet coyote already went by the window. I hope he understands that a little rain equals a lot of grass equals a lot of bunnies and ground squirrels. You're right, probably not, no more than we understand our resource limits and we have those enormous heads that the rest of the animal world makes fun of (when they're not running from us).

Lets start with the altoid can emergency kits. You can simply create one yourself by looking at my pictures, adding specific things that tailor the can exactly to your location and needs, or you can buy one from me. I spent some time getting all the stuff, buying a lot of altoids, begging empty cans etc. There is always an enormous trade off in the end about what goes into the can. A lot of that is based on my ability to use what is in the can. These can's have a learning curve, and while I encourage everyone to have one in the car, their pocketbook, fanny pack, or backpack, if you haven't spent the time to learn to use it, to actually make a fire for instance, your best hope in an emergency is that you are with someone who does know how to use a compass, a flint, make a fishing pole, etc. They will bless you even as they mutter under their breath, god that person is useless. I recommend education, and doing.

This is how the can sits in my fanny pack. The one in the truck is similar but I don't have the parachute cord on that one. Which is very bad. The cord is extemely important in many ways - but in this case it stops you (me) from stealing things from the can, because you have to commit to winding the cord back on. I'm putting parachute cord on all that we sell.	Here is what the can looks like without the cord. The three rubber bands are part of the kit, and have many uses in snares and fishing.
Here is the can packed. Many variations have been tried over a couple of months and we suggest this layout. Click for a larger picture.	Click here or on the photo for a larger picture. This is everything that is IN the can. The duct tape and parachute cord is outside of the can when it is closed. There is a list of all that is in and on the can below these pictures.
Many variations of holding the fishhooks were tried. This has worked the best as it allows you not to lose the fish hooks when you want just one.	Four layers of duct tape act as your "moleskin" and repair repository. Duct tape is always the answer, but for blisters duct tape is the poor man's moleskin.
Ok, you're going to have to trust me on this, I put this back together, without care about the rubber band being pretty and I didn't wrap the cord as nicely, but it only took 1 minute to assemble everything back in the can. Commercial small emergency kits often have little tiny plastic packages all thrown together. Great, except there is no way to put them back together. This works.	This is what I carry on every walk. A good multitool, you in a carry pouch, and my survival can in my fanny pack. I consider this minimum for being anywhere away from "civilization." For being in "civilization" add a concealed weapons permit and your handgun of choice and size.

Here is a list of what is in the can:
one Light LED super bright, one Flint firestarter (actually Ferro Cerium), 6 fish hooks of two sizes (I've forgotten the two sizes, like 10 and 6), four Birthday candles (firestarting,light), one 18” snare wire (bunny gourmet), one Salt tube, one tube of Aqua tabs water purification tablets, two razor blades, two bandaids, 30 feet 6lb test monofilament fishing line, 20 feet 20lb test monofilament fishing line, four split shot sinkers, six strike anywhere waxed 1/2 length matches, and
small compass, a can opener, pencil stub and small post-it pad, 4 can length duct tape strips, and 20 ft of real parachute cord with seven strands inside (additional fishing line, lashing, etc). one altoids can (no guarantee on flavor). No the altoids that were in the can do not come with the can.
You also get several wordy pages from me included in the flat rate USPS Priority package which talks about each item in the can and how to use it.

Lazyman disclaimer - Everything in the can is subject to color change or replacement with a like type, can't be sure I'll aways get the same of each thing. I love the flashlight and have been using one down here in Q everynite - so I'll try and keep that the same as long as they are available. The cerro cerium spark sticks are hard but make good sparks, and I would like to find softer ones, even if it meant fewer uses. I would like eventually to put a eyelet on the each end of the snare wire too. So that's my lazyman disclaimer. Also if you are an idiot I take no responsibility for what you do with what is in the can. There are sharp things in here and I expect you might have to run with them. Once you open the can, you're on your own if you hurt yourself. If you hurt yourself with what is in the can you're an idiot. This is definitely not a present for children under 10 or so, and even then they would need training before using it. Enough blah blah blah.

Get started making several for the glove compartment, pocket book, or if you leave off the parachute cord, just for your back pocket. If you don't want to do it yourself - order one, two, or three from me!

Yea but what do they cost?
One - $41.13 (includes Priority 2 day USPS shipping).
Two- $74.03 (includes Priority 2 day USPS shipping).
Three - $107.34 (includes Priority 2 day USPS shipping).
PAYMENT - currently only paypal - to penchant@escapees.com (if I get a lot of orders - I'll make a paypal shopping cart - for now - just send me an email saying how many you want and go to www.paypal.com and pay me, penchant@escapees.com the amount shown. I will confirm the order without 24 hours - in case we run out).

I'll have the palm canyon pics up tonight - sun just came out - got to go. Sorry so many of you are cold today, but sunlight calls me with her siren cancer song and I must follow her out of my very small (but very comfortable) trailer. I'm going to go file on the bow a little. Can't tiller until tomorrow - want the silk and glue backing to dry fully.
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