Log Cabin State Of Mind

~Our friend Klietus standing at the southwest corner of our little log cabin

If I had a dollar for every time I've heard someone say something like, "All I need is a little place in the woods..." followed by something close to..."...and an old truck, and I'd be perfectly content", I'd have at least enough money to buy that old truck.

Most of the time I've heard someone say this it's been a guy who feels tethered to a corporate job and encumbered by a mortgage. Take away the corporate tether and the mortgage encumbrance and you have someone who likely sleeps well at night and spends less time than most worrying about money, or more specifically, the lack of it.
Forgive the personal reference, but I was one of the guys saying this kind of thing for years and years. I'd be less than genuine if I told you we settled for a little house in the woods and an old truck, but I did decide there wasn't anything else I wanted bad enough to become beholding again to a bank or corporation in order to get it. I decided that from my perspective we had enough stuff and I was content with not having more. We gave up the chase for bigger and better. We made the conscious decision that we had enough and that we could even do with less, need be. Oh, and I did actually get the little cabin in the woods and I'm working on "the old truck" (my old truck is an old Tahoe with 261,000 miles: I won't consider it old until it hits 275).

If you feel encumbered by too many bills or too many bosses in a big corporation, give some serious thought to how you might become un-encumbered. I realize most of the folks in the world are just trying to survive and don't have the same options many of the folks reading this might have. But if you want to change your situation and feel you have options, consider exploring some of them. If you don't and you're willing to settle for the same Ol' same Ol', there's nothing wrong with that if that's what you feel most comfortable with. After-all, there's nothing wrong with driving a new car.

Californication

~Smurf Dawg

This is my good friend Joe "Smurph Dawg" Murphy. He's the President and CEO of Select Sales and Marketing. He's been in the consumer products business for over 30 years. This picture was taken shortly before the fire got out of control.

Considering Smurph is a long time corporate executive and works in an industry where attention to detail can be the difference between success and failure, you might have thought he would've noticed the grass around his brush pile hadn't seen much water in quite some time, before he set it on fire. Once he did, the pile of "extensively dry sticks" took off like a shot, which interestingly didn't stop him from gladly posing for this iPicture, shovel in hand. For my part, once the fire was clearly out of control (which ironically was mere seconds after I took the iPhoto), I tried to act like it was no big deal/regular stuff as I worked frantically in an effort to help my friend contain what could now be officially referred to as a "brush fire". In short, order our situation looked like it was only a matter of time before it officially became a forest fire-like the one's you see nightly on Southern California's Eye Witness News.

As I beat and stomped and whacked at the flames I had visions of making our "Live, Local, Late-Breaking" 6 o'clock news with the lead in, "Two local men set Hobbs State Park on fire and burn it TO THE GROUND". The thought of being known far and wide as one half of "Two Local Men", is something I didn't want any part of. Any story where you and another guy are referred to as "Two Local Men" rarely if ever ends well and more times than not involves the police or some kind of tribunal, especially if you live in Arkansas. I was now clearly sweating the situation.

As it turned out, we must have been living right as we eventually got the fire put out before any of the surrounding homes were engulfed in flames. One humorous memory (it was funny later that day) occurred when I looked up and didn't see Smurph anywhere around. After several minutes went by of "No Joe anywhere in site", I saw him come stumbling up from nearby Beaver Lake with a frantic look on his face, dragging a 48 qt ice-chest that after much tripping and stumbling now contained maybe 2 or 3 quarts of water at best. When he threw the contents of the cooler on the fire there wasn't enough water in it to make even a little bit of an audible hiss. I looked at Joe like, "Serioiusly"; then we both went back to stomping and shoveling dirt. Later, when I asked him about the cooler caper, he told me it sounded like a great idea at the time.

The moral of the story: keep an eye on California....and do the opposite of what they do.

Cool Cove Town

~Elfin Cove, Alaska (taken with my old Nikon camera that used actual film--they had those in the olden days)

Tyler and I visited the place you see in this picture in the summer of 2001. It's a tiny little town nestled in a secluded spot west of Juneau and it's called Elfin Cove. It's somewhere in the middle of a boat-load of ocean and a butt-load of mountains, near the northwest corner of Chichagof Island. We stopped off for an hour or so to look around while on our way to fish for King Salmon. It was one of the coolest little towns I've ever seen in person and one day I'd like to go back. It has a year round population of about 35 people as I recall and of course the only way you can get there is by boat. I think I'm right about the population, but I'll check that out and report back (I also have to report back on the deck re-do project, the barn lean-to project, the distillery project and a few other projects: I better get busy or someone's liable to start thinking I'm making this stuff up!

Critical Thinking

I'm giving serious thought to how I'm going to break it to my bride that I'm "in the market" for a trail bike (motorized). This is going to involve some critical thinking.

A couple of years ago after not being able to get one of my motorized "Barn Gadgets" started, I said to her, "The next time I say anything about buying something else that has a motor in it, would you remind me I said I wasn't ever going to buy one more thing that has a motor in it!" Now I realize I hadn't ought to have said that. Just like everyone knows 15 minutes could save you 15% on your car insurance, they also know that most boys who grew up in small town America in the 60's and 70's, love things with motors. Especially recreational things like motorcycles, 4-wheelers and tractors. It's not that the guys from my genre don't have an appreciation for blenders, food processors and the Clarisonic Brush, but try riding a blender "down through the creek and up to Mike Watson's house"---it simply can't be done. With that in mind, the official thought process begins. I'll keep you posted...

Freedom

As I sit here on our front porch drinking coffee this Memorial Day weekend Saturday, I was struck by  the fact that the only noises I hear for the most part are birds chirping (which is driving Jinx wild) and Maxie Pad grooming his legs with is big Ol' Labrador tongue. No bombs going off, no machine gun fire, no car bombs. I'm not worried about being drug off the porch by some jackboot thugs, hauled into police headquarters for questioning over where I got the bible, or having to bow down toward the big palace on the hill to an egomaniacal emperor. I/we don't have to worry about these things because we live in arguably the freest and greatest nation on the planet (Canada and a very few others as well). And we're free because of the millions of men and women who are serving/have served our nation in our armed forces. Although I can honestly say I don't ever take my freedom for granted, I do too often forget to thank God when I crawl out of bed in the morning and put my free feet on our bedroom floor to start my free day. A day when I can do about anything I choose or go anywhere I want without the fear of any of the unthinkable things already mentioned happening to or around me. Today, I'm thankful for people like my cousin Darin Volkart, who spent 2 years of his life in Iraq, and my next door neighbor, Ray Bonser, who for the last 63 years has carried metal in his chest from a shrapnel wound he received in the Korean War. I'm Thankful for folks who performed peace keeping duties around the world like Uncle Raymond and Don Baird. I'm thankful for guys like Granddad Stewart and Uncle Urcel Robertson who fought in the Pacific during WWII, witness to things so unthinkable they chose to live the rest of their lives trying hard to not even think about it, much less retell the stories. I'm thankful for people like my Great Grandpa "Paw Paw" Keil who fought trench warfare during WWI: I can only imagine what that was like. And I'm thankful for all those men and women who continue to serve the free people of our free nation, in the various branches of our military and law enforcement organizations. I'm thankful I can walk back in my house, get another cup of coffee, and come back out here to listen to the chirping of the birds...and not the bursting of bombs, thanks to people like my cousin Darin. Thanks "Big D"....I love you man!

Log Cabin Upkeep

~Weathered Redwood cabin decking 

The guys who built the deck on our cabin made a couple of mistakes that have bothered me for 10 years. First, they didn't leave space between the decking for proper water drainage, which is of course a long term problem for exposed wood. Secondly, they drove the deck screws in too far, penetrating the surface of the wood, which in addition to not looking good allows water to penetrate the wood surface. Left unchecked, these screw holes will rot out over time. For 10 years I've wanted to fix the problem and yesterday I began that process.

I started by checking all the way around the underside of the wrap-around deck for water rot. I was relieved to find there wasn't any; which is a testament to the water resistant properties and overall longevity of redwood. I then unscrewed several boards for a closer examination of the underside and again found things in good shape. I also wanted to see if the "Life-time Guaranteed" deck screws had held up: they had.

Now the fun begins: unscrewing each of the 200 or so 16' long redwood deck boards, sanding and sealing each one, and then screwing them back down, this time leaving the appropriate space between boards for proper water drainage. The deck is well off the ground, allowing for good air circulation and relatively fast drying time when the deck gets wet from rain or dew. If the deck had been built close to the ground, I'd probably be replacing most if not all of the nearly 1600 square feet of redwood deck (approximately 3200 linear feet of 2"x6"). At a few bucks a linear foot, that would have been a pretty expensive deck remodel. I'll keep you posted.

~10 year old deck screws still in good shape

Easy To Please

~Jinx was apparently curious today about early morning driveway activities

Max's favorite thing to do is to ride around in the "Max Mobile". I'd guess that of the 260,000 miles my old Tahoe has logged, Max has been on board for at least 75,000 of that--maybe more. If I'm not taking him with me when I leave the house, I have to be careful not to let the keys jingle when I take them off the hook they hang on above the desk in the kitchen. When I see that he's watching me closely-which is pretty much all the time-and when I'm not planning on taking him along, I'll actually pull the old slight of hand maneuver in an effort to distract him from seeing that I'm getting the keys off the hook. Then I'll walk out the back of the kitchen and exit quietly through the front door, as if I'm just going outside to check on the grass or get the mail. He probably still knows I'm up to something, but it makes me feel better about not taking him along: he gets very excited and then very disappointed when he discovers it's a false alarm.

Unlike most of his human counterparts, Old Max is pretty easy to please: 2 square meals a day, a few head pats or belly rubs, and at least 2 or 3 ride-alongs each week. And after that as they say...he's good to go.

~Ebony and Ivory?

~"C'mon man...."

~Waiting patiently 

This Old Bridge

Yesterday I drove way up north (about 40 miles as a crow flies, 80 as a truck drives) to meet with world class general contractor and log home builder, David Phoenix, of Phoenix Family Building Company. David and his crew operate out of Centerview, Missouri and travel all around the midwest, mid-south and beyond building high quality homes for folks with discerning taste. They're currently building a very nice and secluded 5000 square foot log home overlooking Table Rock Lake, for one of his clients out of  Kansas City. I plan to go back up sometime in the near future to watch them work on the log portion of the build. It's not a Pioneer log home, but Dave told me it's a very nice 12" milled log home shell and should turn out to be a real nice home. His desire is to get to a point where he's only building log homes for Pioneer Log Home clients. He and I are on the same page. I only represent Pioneer and it's my desire to assist David in getting there as well.

While trying to find the building site, I came across this little gem nestled in a river bottom of the Southern Missouri foothills. For the better part of 59 years, this bridge was the only way to get across the James River anywhere near this part of the country if you wanted to conduct commerce or visit a friend in the once thriving community of Galena (not to be confused with Galena, Illinois--a completely different town). As you can probably tell, this bridge was certainly worthy of 6 or 8 minutes of my time.

I've found that when I take time to look around a little instead of just being focussed on getting where I'm going, there's all kinds of cool stuff sitting around that would be real easy to just drive past without really even noticing. Had I not taken the time to pull off the road when I saw this structure and "snap" a few pictures with my camera (my real camera-not my camera-phone), I wouldn't of had any idea about the history of this cool old bridge. I also know that for the 10 folks from China who occasionally read this blog, you've got to be thinking to yourself that a bridge built in 1927 isn't an old bridge at all, rather, is just getting broken in. But for us short term thinking Americans, that's an old, old bridge. Of course, we consider a house built in 1992 and old house: which makes me realize even further that we really are just a bunch of silly Americans over here-silly and too often short sited in our thought process. We're not short sited about everything-some of our folks are focussed as far out as August...which is the beginning of the college and NFL football season. Now that I think about it further, I think we've got some work to do as an overall society. Maybe I'll tackle some of that in a future post or two. Silly Americans!

Directions:

Directions:
Watch the above sun with your favorite person by your side while slow sipping your favorite adult beverage or perhaps a nice glass of iced tea-sweetened or unsweetened; whatever tickles your fancy.

Watch the bottom sun the same as the above, with 1 to 2 cups of good coffee, tuned to your liking or keep it natural...just like it came out of the pot. Either way, "You can't go no better"!

Another Log Cabin Friday Night

This past Friday evening we drove out to the cabin with our friends Klietus and Julie. Nothing fancy, we just grilled up some excellent pork chops, asparagus and corn on the cob while the girls relaxed on the deck. Kliet thought it would be nice to do all the work since it was Mother's Day weekend; I was agreeable. The pork chops turned out stellar! Klietus and I chased our's down with a couple of Shiner Bocks from the lone star state, while well water was the beverage of choice for our ladies. Kliet pointed out that my old Weber charcoal grill had a hole in the side along with a few other maladies and I quickly deduced that it was time to let go of another $85 or so and get a new one. I think this grill lasted about 15 years or so and that's after sitting out in the rain and snow without a cover for all those years. I'm convinced a simple Weber charcoal grill is about as good and as simple as it gets when it comes to grilling protein and vegetables. When you're done, you just put the lid back on and walk away from it until you're ready for your next grill out. No need to waste your money on a grill cover because if you buy one it will likely blow off with the first good breeze that comes along and if it doesn't, it will just get raggedy and have to be replaced at some future point anyway and I like to let my grill rough it. Besides, the sun, wind, snow, rain and hail will give your charcoal grill endearing character...kind of like Klietus.

Speaking of Klietus, we did a little recon on the barn and discussed the various potential layouts for our upcoming distillery operation. He suggested a layout that suggested to me he might have gotten into the Jack Daniels when no one was looking. No offense Kliet, but next time we review the barn  we might ought to re-look at that suggested layout you came up with. I think it might look different after a peanut butter sandwich and bottle of water....I'm just saying'.

Oh, and just as we were getting ready to head back into town, I came around the corner of the cabin and found this Goomer milling around in the back of my truck. I snapped a quick picture before it jumped down and ran off in the woods. Darned if I have any idea what it was or what it was doing in the back of my new truck. Next time I'm out there though, I think I'll set a couple of traps and see what I might be able to come up with. I'll let you know if I catch anything....

Sweet Boston Beer

~A picture taken off a computer screen of a picture taken with my iPhone (before I figured out how to get  pictures out of iPhoto without taking pictures of them with my telecamera) 

I've observed that if you take a picture with a glass of beer in the foreground and a pretty woman in the background, you end up with a nice picture. No doubt we've gone a little nuts of late taking pictures with our phones, but it is awfully handy. Actually, what we have are cameras that also work sometimes as a telephone (in the case of the iPhone), but anyway you look at it we're all taking a lot more pictures today than our parents did when they were our age and it's of course because of the tele-camera most of us carry around all day. I think there's a pretty good chance that if a young person lives long enough most of them will depart this world because of some malady caused by holding their telecamera up to their head most of the day, except when they're driving of course--I mean, especially when they're driving. That's apparently the preferred time to text, read emails and post on Facebook. It's rare today to see someone driving a car who isn't also glancing or even staring down at their telecamera. When you do catch someone focussing on driving their car, it's usually some older person who just never quite caught on to the concept of driving and smart-phoning. It doesn't mean their not smart, it probably just means their wiser than those who do. And as the saying goes, you don't get real old being a fool.

PS. This was a test of the non-emergency rambling man website. If you like reading actual blog post void of occasional rambling and blundering, stay tuned--there's more stuff to come that doesn't involve so much rambling. You have to admit though...that's a very nice picture!

Flathead Catfish Man

~Cousin Dustin (the one doing the holding up)

This is my cousin Dustin "Duster Man" Volkart. He's from the Russellville, Missouri branch of the Volkart family and he comes from a long line of Volkarts. When Dustin isn't busy fixing, installing or dismantling something for someone or for himself, he can usually be found fishing, hunting or gathering. From everything I know and have heard about the Duster Man, he's quite the industries individual and he's not afraid to get his hands dirty. My guess is, if you had a coon in your attic and wanted to get it out of there, you could call Dustin and he'd "git 'er done" for you. He'd probably be more likely to turn the coon loose rather than turn it into a coonskin cap, but then again, he'd look pretty darn good in a real coon skin cap, so I can't guarantee anything. My guess is, if the Discovery Channel had met Dustin before they met that one guy they call the Turtle Man, Dustin would have his own show except it would have been called something like "Big Flathead Catfish Man" or "Big Buck Man" or "Mushroom Man" or maybe "He Can Fix Anything Man" or......you get the picture.

PS. The next time you need help deciding on what kind of truck to buy, give Dustin a call--he'll steer you in the right direction!

A Good Deal On Ice?

Several of my friends took to calling me "Rustic" a few years ago for somewhat obvious reasons. My wife has decided recently to start having me stand in front of signs bearing that word while she takes my picture. She took this one a few weeks ago when we were visiting my home town of Rolla, Missouri. The Rustic Motel has been operating there in the exact same location since I was in Jr. High-maybe since I was in grade school. Word on the street is that it's owned by a hometown guy named Jim Overby. I don't know for sure if that's correct, but maybe one day I'll do some research to find out. Then again, maybe I'll just go with the information in hand since I don't necessarily need to know who owns the Rustic Motel in Rolla.

Oh, and apparently you can get a bag of ice at the Rolla Sonic for $2.59. I'd have to know how big the bag of ice is before I could tell you whether or not it's a good deal. In any event, I wouldn't make a trip there just for the ice. Even if it's a 40 lb bag, you'd probably spend a lot more on gas then you'd save on the ice (that would, however, be an awfully darn big bag of ice at any price). Besides, you can get ice just about anywhere, so why go out of your way if you don't have to. And if you're from Yellow Knife, Norhthwest Territories, Canada, I hear you can just walk outside and chip it off the ground 9 or 10 months out of the year, which would actually be at least one very good reason to consider a move to Yellow Knife. Just think of all the money you'd save on ice...and gas too, since once you got there your car probably wouldn't start most of the time!

Still Here....

~"Seriously?"

Just so you don't think I/we've gotten lost or have been taken way out in the middle of nowhere and left for dead....this is Tuesday evening about 11:05 pm central time (the picture was taken much earlier in the day)...

Distilling Research

~Max hangs out in the shade at "Stinger and Goob's"

While "Stinger" is at the office and the girls are checking out Dallas's newest and purportedly largest Belk, Max and I decided to conduct a little front porch research into the world of distilling fine spirits. I certainly don't want Klietus to think we have less than full confidence in his abilities (we didn't appoint him "Master Distiller" just because he happened to be standing there when we decided we needed one), but there's more than a good chance he's out fishing right now and not at the library reading up on why copper makes the absolute best still or why American White Oak makes for some of the finest oak aging cask on planet earth (something we're not short of in County Barry). I also wouldn't expect anyone on a fine day like today (81* and sunny in Dallas) to be spending their spare time studying up on why barely needs to be steeped in water for two days before then getting kilned over a perforated metal floor, or, like they did in the old days, spread out over a cement floor to a depth of about 2 feet while getting turned over regularly with wooden shovels to prevent the roots from matting. Although these are things any serious Master Distiller would certainly need to know, you can't expect a man to become an expert at anything over night-certainly not. My guess is, it's going to take Klietus at least a couple weeks of some pretty serious research before he's ready to fire up the new still for our first Micro-Batch of award winning "My-Crow Missouri Bourbon". Yes indeed, I believe the key to distilling award winning bourbon, is in the expectations: expectations that are much, much lower than everyone else's!

~Relaxing in the Dallas shade

~Reading "Whiskey World" by Charles MacLean

Duck Camp Bench

~Duck Camp Fireside Bench

I like doing things people don't expect. Like building them a simple log bench while they're out duck hunting for ducks that aren't there.

A few years ago I was on a semi-annual duck hunting trip with some friends somewhere around Stuttgart, Arkansas-the self proclaimed and duly appointed duck hunting capital of the world. Note: If that's true, there must not be very many ducks everywhere else, because we saw a total of like 9 ducks the past 3 trips. Which brings me back to my story about the log bench....

At the sound of the very loud and substantially annoying early morning alarm clock, everyone crawled slowly out of their respective beds, except for myself. I had decided the night before to sit this one out, so I just sat on the edge of my bunk-bed and watched while my friends scurried around in a frantic effort to get all dolled up (relatively speaking) in the required duck hunting apparel. Watching this event unfold gave the impression my friends were going to war with a one of the many terrorist groups instead of just driving a couple of miles down the road to sit in a duck blind and quietly wait for unsuspecting ducks to fly by so they could whack them-or more precisely, shoot in their general direction. By the time they'd pulled on several layers of clothes and assorted hunting paraphernalia, they had a heck of a time getting their duck hunting waders up over the substantial cotton mass they each now had on, which included everything from camouflaged socks and underpants to hats and flashlights (I could never understand the concept of a camouflaged flashlight, but that's another story). Once the guys were finished playing dress-up and had knocked down substantial quantities of Folger's Dark Roast, they left "duck camp" in a fleet of old pick-up trucks and assorted late model SUV"S, sounding more like an invasion than a mass exodus of mostly over camouflaged good Ol' city boys. After watching them drive off into the cold and damp early morning darkness, I slipped back inside and climbed back into bed. I was soon toasty warm and as I thought of my friends who would soon be trudging through knee deep swamp water and mud in the hopes of a record setting duck day, I dozed off for maybe another hour or so, as memory serves.

When I woke up the second time that morning, I leisurely slipped out of bed and fixed up a nice healthy bacon, egg, and cinnamon-role breakfast and washed it down with several hot cups of heavy pumpkin-spice cream infused coffee (I've since moved into nearly full manhood, drinking my coffee "black as the ace of spades" just like my Granddad Stewart always did), I went outside and milled around "down by the river" enjoying the Mid-South early morning. As I snooped around, I noticed several nice logs that had long ago washed up along the bank, and got the idea I'd make something out of at least one of them. I'd brought along a few of my Swiss made Gransfors Bruks fine cutting instruments in the event I got the urge to put blade to wood. I like to be prepared for anytime a raw wood remanufacturing opportunity might present itself, and I saw this as just such an occassion. I was glad I'd packed my draw knife along with the carving and large felling axes that my Swedish wood loving friends had so carefully and thoughtfully created by hand a few years prior.

After selecting a cyprus log of ample size, I whacked off a nice bench length piece and went to work on it with my draw knife. When I'd finished carving, I drug the necessary quantity of large flat rocks to a good spot adjacent to the boy's fire pit and stacked them in just the right fashion to accept the freshly carved bench log. Later that morning when the guys got back from their non-duck hunt, they were pleasantly surprised to find a new sitting bench located next to the old fire pit. Seeing as how they didn't have any deceased ducks to tend to (Tony did tell me he thought he saw one) they proceeded directly to the bench and started drinking cold beer on it. I must say, it did make a a nice addition to the fireside lying that took place that night.

The following day before we left, camp proprietors Lee and Paul asked if I'd sign the bench. As you can see, I gladly did so and appropriately included Lee's then 3 year old son Jake in the parting salutation.
I'd be interested some day in finding out if the bench made it through the last several duck seasons. I don't know whether or not it did, but based on the average of our numerous Stuttgart duck hunting trip results, I'm guessing most of the ducks did.