Billy Badass (a.k.a. Fredde Norgren) making and shooting primitive bows

Although it hasn't showed up on the blog lately, I'm very interested in making wooden bows, especially without power tools. The Luddite patiently walked me through my first one a few years ago, and it shoots like a charm.

Fredde Norgren is from Sweden, therefore his blood is made from digested rotted fish and can stand temperatures that would break my face. In the first video he makes a bowdrill fire and a greenwood longbow, and in the second he (very handily) shoots another wood bow to show what it can do.

The videos are worth watching just for his brisk, stoic demeanor as much as the skills being displayed.





Enjoy watching different kinds of geeks in their native environments,

Bp

[original link via Patrick Gracewood, of the world-famous Gracewood Studios]

Visit with The Luddite

So I'll be gone til Wednesday PM, for a quick visit with The Luddites. I didn't have time to stack up posts ahead of time so *gasp* there will be a gap in postings.

I hope to get a few in before The Wife and I leave for her little brother's wedding too.

Ya'll have a great time watching the Hindenberg economy while I'm gone.

Soon

Bp

Little Dudes: Clemmys marmorata -- Western Pond Turtle

There has been a turtle sighting at The Luddites' pond in The Shire. We are hoping (and descriptions indicate) that it was a Western Pond Turtle. These handsome little dudes are considered "sensitive" in Oregon, and are more rare as you head North. Eugene seems to be an oft-mentioned breaking point where the turtles begin to show a marked decline in numbers as you travel North.

The introduction of the locally destructive-yet-tasty Bullfrog (Rana catesbiana) is often noted as a major detriment to Western Pond Turtle populations in the West. Habitat destruction, as usual, is the most obvious and impactful element hurting this Little Dude though. Gigging up and eating some Bullfrogs (be sure of your identification if you choose to be a biological vigilante, which I highly encourage) sure wouldn't hurt.

So, time will tell -- The Luddite and Mrs. Luddite are quite excited about the prospect of rare animals on their property and have promised to keep me updated.

Enjoy the uncommon sightings,

Bp

Nutria, and why we should develop a taste for them

Here is a video from Discovery News quickly explaining what Nutria are, and why they are a problem invasive species. We have them in Oregon, and they're spreading. So far the best site I've found about them is Nutria.com from the Louisiana Department of Fish and Wildlife -- it gives biological, environmental, control, and culinary information.

In the South, they have bounties on their heads (tails actually) and are served in restaurants, after a quick naming face-lift to Ragondin (as they are known in France). My father, the big geek, ordered it when he was in New Orleans a few years ago and really enjoyed it. Ragondin certainly sounds more appetizing than a popular common name for them in the South of Swamp Rat.

I've got this thing about trying to create and encourage human exploitive markets for damaging invasive species. Having humans very interested in harvesting a particular animal or plant has in the past produced spectacularly decimating results -- why not apply this here and now? Make the next haute cuisine dish based on Ragodin -- create a run on the animals like we had on Redfish after Cajun cuisine became popular in the 1980's. I'm trying to develop plans for Starling-based "perfect nutrition wild-bird" catfood as well, but that's probably worth a post on its own.

By the way, Nutria Fur is fabulous -- similar in quality to Beaver. You know you want some guilt-free fur -- admit it.

Mr. Luddite might have Nutria in his mill pond, and if the water is clean (sure looks clean) they will become dinner in the near future. Expect a report.

[photo credit nutria.com website]

Enjoy your edible invasive species,

Bp

Luddite finds Kings on the coast

Received this image today over email from a very happy Luddite.
His spider sense got tingling and sure enough he found some Boletus edulus, or King Boletes, or Ceps, or Porcini.

I like many wild mushrooms for eating, but when I had these for the first time -- I hesitate to say this, but I think they blow most others out of the water.

(waits for lightning from the mushroom gods)

They all have their place and flavor and compatible dishes, but Ceps are just so dam good. Ok... Black Chanterelles are super tasty as well. And Matsutake have an incredibly unique and robust flavor... okok, it's apples and oranges. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, all that rot. They're all good.

It's just I don't get Kings where I pick hardly ever. So, the grass is greener down the coast today.

I'll recover from this green, envious tinge momentarily.

Enjoy your friends' successes,

Bp

Geeked out in sword class today

Had my first Aikido sword class today. I've never trained in martial arts weapons before, so this was a completely novel experience. I have to admit, I freaking loved it.

I'm thinking this puts me into a whole new level of nerd/geek/dork territory. Perusing the vernacular definitions of these words (see links), I'm thinking this falls into more than one category. I say, Nerd and Dork. Geek seems to have an element of neophilia, and this interest is the opposite... I wonder what the word for that is. "Oldophilia?" I'll just say it's a Luddite persuit -- no electricity needed.

I'm doomed.

Ps/addition: I posted this video at school, and hadn't heard the audio til just now. Wow, what a strange selection of music to go with the visuals. Hilarious.

Enjoy your esoteric pursuits,

Bp

Luddite wedding photos: Motley crew, showing off a ribbon shirt

Couple of pictures from The Luddite's wedding that don't involve a latrine. So the first picture is, from the left: The Luddite, Shady Kate (of the Canukistani Crew), The Wife, T., Tony, Bp, Jmichaell.

Second picture: The Wife and I posing as prompted by the photographer to "be romantic." Just can't take a statement like that seriously. I chose this picture specifically because it shows off the beautiful work The Wife did on the ribbon shirt I'm wearing. The shirt is sewn from scratch, and I believe is the first one she ever did. Not a simple design. If you didn't follow the link, the short explanation of a ribbon shirt is Native American Formalwear -- normally a clean pair of jeans, cowboy boots and a ribbon shirt.

Enjoy your formal occasions,

Bp

Two weekends off take their toll -- quiz becomes rectal exam

Oh yeah, completely failed a quiz today in organic chemistry. One weekend out of town in the beginning of the semester was doable (Luddite Wedding), this second weekend (Cousin Wedding) got me where it hurts -- just too much time off. Luckily you can drop one quiz grade every term (semester, term, quarter... whatever they are here), so that will be my one.

Failing is kind of like breaking a leg or getting a rectal exam -- before it happens you are all freaked out, but after the experience the worst part was really the anticipation. After that, it's a short sharp shock and then just time to heal. No big.

Enjoy your life endeavors,

Bp

Fantastic Crapper post 2: instructions and diagram

The Luddite's parents did lots of educational outreach inside the crapper. Here is a diagram of the basics of the design and a few of the instructions.

There are other schools of thought about how to deal with Humanure, such as the method espoused in The Humanure Handbook. But they are much more hands-on. I think the right decision was made to use the most aesthetically pleasing method of composting in this situation. We mustn't forget, this is a toilet for a wedding, after all.

Enjoy your widening horizons,

Bp

Fantastic crapper -- home made composting toilet portrait

It is strange that during the preparations for a friend's wedding, during the wedding itself, and after the wedding, the main topic of conversation was the crapper. I like the term crapper, in deference to Thomas Crapper who didn't, it turns out, actually invent the inside toilet. But it's a good story, regardless.

Back to the composting toilet pictured above.

It gathers its own rainwater for handwashing, it doesn't smell, it doesn't poison the groundwater below it, it fertilizes directly and then provides compost for use year after year.

I have like 3 minutes -- I'll make another post about it today, but in short The Luddite's parents built it, used his eco-friendly Land Ark Northwest wood treatment on it, and put in snazzy things like a naturally-curved (I believe Alder) limb as part of the door. It's just too cool for school, and was the talk of the town at the wedding.

I'll post more pictures and descriptions soon.

Enjoy your calls from nature,

Bp

Man Purses, a frog

To my surprise, my two uncles and I all carry Man Purses, or Murses, or as my TV-watching friends call my leather bag, The European Man-Satchel. I had to take a picture of the Murses all together, to which Uncle Terry exclaimed -- "hey, we're Mursenaries!"

The second picture is of a frog near the river at The Luddite's place. [addition: I know know that this little guy is a Hyla Regilla, or Pacific Tree Frog]The Wife and I both love frogs -- she screams like a little girl when she sees one, and I smile, knowing that the environment nearby must be in at least decent shape. Environmentally, frogs are the canary in the coal mine, so seeing them brightens my heart.

Ps: There is an update in The Fur Shark Chronicles.

PpSs: Gamers, note the WoW shaman icon pin on Uncle Terry's black leather Murse. GEEK!

Enjoy randomness,

Bp

Promised Photo Archive 3: visit with The Luddites

The Luddite and I have been friends for many years. We spent much of this time talking about how it was we wanted to get by in this life, how to live in a way closer to our hearts while still being realistic about the world as it is. He's now begun in earnest to live in this way, and its exciting to watch. We both want to live more sustainably, with less (or no) reliance on modern services, with less of an ecological footprint, eating healthy food we in large part produce ourselves, and closer to nature. He and his fiance are well on their way to their version of this dream (there will be a picture of the lovely lady coming soon, when I talk about their business).

By the way, the gamers in the audience will know The Luddite as Cuivien the bard in EQ, or Thorvald the dwarf-in-a-dress in WoW. Although I prefer the pseudonym Luddite, I was really really close to naming him Grizzly Adams for the blog, check out that Amish beard man, you go.

Pictures: The first is Uncle Terry and The Luddite his'self in front of the cabin where he and Mrs. Luddite now live, next is getting to their cabin via boat, the last 3 are overviews of the river bend where they live. I'll leave pictures and explanations of their very cool business for another post. Remember you can click on the pictures to get a bigger size/better look.

Enjoy your far-flung friends,

Bp

Report from the road, now in Medford (was near Reedsport)

Just woke up, the news is playing on a small TV in the kitchen, and there are uncles about. Two of them to be exact. It's always a trip to be around blood family, as The Wife will attest -- we all laugh alike. We just have a similar "vibe." Despite all the differences in lifestyle and worldview, our bones are the same.

Yesterday and the day before we spent on a beautiful piece of land on the Smith River near Reedsport Oregon. Uncle Terry and I were visitng The Luddite and his fiance, soon to be Mrs. Luddite. They live on 200+ acres on a river bend with Elk, Black Bear, and meelions of frogs for neighbors. We had a fantastic time, and I did snap a few pictures. I will have to get my computer and my camera to set aside their differences and communicate when I get home, come hell or high water.

Today -- we fish. Uncle Terry and I are now visiting Uncle Tom in Medford Oregon (no literary reference intended). He is a fisherman, and asked that I invoke my inner fisherman when I visited. We will ply Uncle Terry into joining our inner fishermen with beer and make a day out of it. There will be bass and probably sunburns to come.

Enjoy your blood relatives (remarkably, they age when unattended),

Bp

Tea and Tirade: Sunday Morning at its best

I'm feeling fantastic this morning, I'm not hacking up pieces of lung, I'm slowly catching up on schoolwork, and I had fucking FANTASTIC tea first thing.

As you may remember T. and I have been working our way through some sub-par samples from India for The Jasmine Pearl Tea Merchants. It's a rough gig, testing teas, but we take on our portion of the labor for our friends at the shop.

So this morning, T. suggested we have a "real oolong" -- one of the primo standard oolongs that Jasmine Pearl stocks, instead of trying out more samples. The samples, once you get out of what India knows best in tea -- blacks -- were very hit and miss, mostly miss. So, we've been drinking bad tea for weeks now, basically. T. pulls out some Jade Oolong off our shelf, one of Richard's beautiful wood-fired teapots (perfect for two folks) that we have, and we did it up right.

Holy Cow the difference was staggering! I mean, really staggering. The first cup was absolutely full, the flavors ranging from floral to grassy, with plenty of "Gan." Gan is hard to describe, but it's basically a fullness of taste that lasts on the tongue and changes over time. It's one of my favorite aspects of premium high-mountain Oolong teas from Taiwan. You just can't get that quality in low-elevation teas. The flavor lasted through, oh I think 7 or 8 brewings, ending in a nice palate-cleansing grassy astringency, letting us know the tea was brewed out. Fantastic experience.

For some reason there was an Orgonian newspaper sitting around on the living room floor, maybe they are accidentally delivering the Sunday Only editions to us again. Happens all the time. Right on the bottom of the front page is an article about a debate raging in Milwaukie, an eastern suburb of Portland known for a weird mix of redneck/rural flavors with more standard Portland South East activist/green types.

This debate was centered around hanging clothes on clotheslines. It's one of the voluntary simplicity moves that are becoming so popular in Portland lately. Maybe huge environmental problems won't be solved by this type of thing, but it's got a great Luddite feel to it, saves money for electricity, and makes clothes smell great. Apparently there's a contingent in Milwaukie that wants to make it illegal in their city, calling it an eyesore. This set T. *right* off. "These dam people need to get out of the country, need to see a 3rd-world country! My God! Pull your head out! It's *laundry* for God's Sake! What if your dryer is broken? What if you are poor and trying to save on power bills? These people need to see multi-colored saris drying along the edges of rice fields -- how gorgeous that is. God, look at me, one little headline and I completely lose it. That's why I don't read the paper, I swear."

It was a good tear he got on, I was impressed -- we hadn't even had caffeine yet.

The conversation then turned to the dangers of remaining single and insular into later adulthood. How this seems to create some serious problems for folks including solipsism, a resistance to "getting out and mingling" because hanging out with folks who don't share your world view leads to problematic situations demanding introspection, eccentricity, strengthening false world views and philosophical beliefs, among other things. This was rich conversation fodder and I think I'll need to visit it in another posting, as I have to get going with my day.