Your Backup Hobby

RobertB wrote: I strung it with 30-lb braided line so I can throw lures into brush without fear, but I might take it off and replace it with 10-lb monofilament. Or at the very least take all the line off and put it back with much more tension. I thought I had enough tension when I spooled it on the reel, but the line gets caught often enough when casting that I know I didn't spool it onto the reel quite right.

Mono is good while you build confidence with a casting reel--if you birds nest so bad you can't rescue things and have to cut it all off, it's easier on the wallet than braid. A bit of electrical tape around the spool will keep your initial knot in place after the reel is filled with line (and yeah, there should be some tension as you do that).

We hit an all-time high for this date of 82 today, so things feel close...but Minnesota's opener isn't until May 15, which is a decades-old, hand-wavey "we have to protect them while spawning" measure backed by no science whatsoever. Lots of people are running over to Wisconsin, which recently changed to allow year-round catch and release.

I think I just stole a Maple tree.

The electric company sent a truck out to trim trees near the lines and, right next to the entrance to my flag lot lane, they cut down what I believe is a Sugar Maple tree. A good sized one too, likely two cords of wood.

And they did that thing where they chunk it up and people can come along and grab the pieces. The rounds are maybe 24 inches across, and I grabbed them.

Then I got to thinking. I've never given it a second thought when the cut trees are along some remote patch of road and guys with pick-up trucks are grabbing them. But this was on the land that my neighbor owns (the one I've never met in the two years I've lived here in spite of sharing a 350 yard property line with his 80 acre plot) and it got me to thinking that, if that had been MY Maple tree I think I might have wanted it for myself.

I'm trying to figure out if I'm guilty of Grand Theft Firewood or not.

I have no doubt someone else would have grabbed it if I hadn't. But that's not exactly an exonerating statement. In the meantime I have 29 big pieces of evidence in my driveway, and about 75 small ones from where my kids started splitting it this past weekend.

The real moral dilemma I'm dealing with is the piece I left behind. It was too big to lift, so I left it there until I could come back down with a hammer and a couple of wedges. If I grab that piece, is that TWO felonies, or one long one? I'm not sure I want to be a repeat offender.

Ah, rural rights of possession. My favorite story with this happened years ago. A coworker hit a moose on her way into work. Several passerby stopped to "help". After ascertaining she was OK ( the car was fucked ) a squabble ensued to see who would get the carcass; fortunately her husband showed up with a pick up to haul it away to the local butcher.

I guess if I wanted to be on good terms with my neighbor, I'd go get that last piece, then go knock on my neighbor's door and tell them that you have the wood if they want it. Spin it like, "I grabbed all the wood before those pesky firewood grabbers got it," etc. If they want it, you're a heck of a guy. If they don't, you're still a heck of a guy, now with free firewood.

Yep, that's the one.

COVID has helped me rediscover my love of scale modeling. Over the last year I built a really cool 1/350 Klingon K'T'inga (the one from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, kit by Polar Lights) and added a lighting kit to it. Currently I'm working my way through the Moebius line of Batman '66 figures - really great molds of the character faces that are spot on (with the exception of the Joker, where they seem to have confused Cesar Romero with Vincent Price) and an absurdly complex D'agostino build of the Millennium Falcon.

It's gone so well that my wife has started building dollhouse kits and furnishing them, and we've turned our now spare room into a craft room in the house.

JoelCFC25 wrote: Mono is good while you build confidence with a casting reel--if you birds nest so bad you can't rescue things and have to cut it all off, it's easier on the wallet than braid. A bit of electrical tape around the spool will keep your initial knot in place after the reel is filled with line (and yeah, there should be some tension as you do that).

I saw this on Youtube, and it's worked for me a few times already. When you get to where the line is stuck, squeeze the spool with your thumb on the line, and reel in a little bit. Be sure to squeeze hard, It might take more than one try, but eventually the knot magically disappears.



ETA: Magic wore out, and had to pick a really nasty knot out yesterday. I had turned the brake all the way up to show the missus, then turned it back down and forgot to use my thumb on a cast. At least I didn't have to cut it out. While I messing with my reel, a bass swam in front of me a few times to laugh at me.

The mtb bike trail work behind my house continues. The first time I paced it out it was a little under a quarter mile; each time I go out I find some new options and add a bit; now its .32 miles one way . And I'm finding more places I can increase the distance as well. I'm really having fun with this; plus its good exercise for my upper body cutting stuff and raking off the detritus and leaves to expose the trail bed. I am holding off riding it as long as possible; I want to enjoy it when I finally do rather than stop and have to change something.

Photos, please.

I took a few but they kind of suck. Right now with no leaves everything is....brown. Once leaves fill in I think it will come out better.

My sister bought my boys suet and peanut feeders for their birthdays last fall, and we've enjoyed watching a variety of woodpeckers, blue jays, nuthatches, chickadees, juncos and albino squirrels enjoy their bounty outside the playroom window. Apparently I decided that wasn't enough, though, and picked up hooks, seed mixes and feeders for orioles, finches, cardinals and hummingbirds. And I still have to go back for mealworms for bluebirds when they're in season. Plan to follow this up by building some houses and perches, too.

So my band's third album is out today. If you're into post-punk stuff along the lines of Joy Division, Bauhaus and The Cure you might dig it.

sounds-like-winter.bandcamp.com/album/fight-the-stairs

Also I have a new side project that recently released a demo single of sorts. Tales of gin-soaked dockside demise and grim victoriana.

sealungs.bandcamp.com/album/sea-lungs-pt-1-2

DarthJoJo wrote: My sister bought my boys suet and peanut feeders for their birthdays last fall, and we've enjoyed watching a variety of woodpeckers, blue jays, nuthatches, chickadees, juncos and albino squirrels enjoy their bounty outside the playroom window. Apparently I decided that wasn't enough, though, and picked up hooks, seed mixes and feeders for orioles, finches, cardinals and hummingbirds. And I still have to go back for mealworms for bluebirds when they're in season. Plan to follow this up by building some houses and perches, too.

My wife and mother-in-law are big on feeding the birds. I have a little plastic feeder stuck to my window, and it gets a lot of cardinals and finches. Occasionally a robin or a starling will show up and throw all the seeds around looking for ones it can eat.

The seeds also attract skunks, raccoons, and possums at night, and occasionally we get to see a groundhog climb a tree to try to get to the feeders.

RobertB wrote:

DarthJoJo wrote: My sister bought my boys suet and peanut feeders for their birthdays last fall, and we've enjoyed watching a variety of woodpeckers, blue jays, nuthatches, chickadees, juncos and albino squirrels enjoy their bounty outside the playroom window. Apparently I decided that wasn't enough, though, and picked up hooks, seed mixes and feeders for orioles, finches, cardinals and hummingbirds. And I still have to go back for mealworms for bluebirds when they're in season. Plan to follow this up by building some houses and perches, too.

My wife and mother-in-law are big on feeding the birds. I have a little plastic feeder stuck to my window, and it gets a lot of cardinals and finches. Occasionally a robin or a starling will show up and throw all the seeds around looking for ones it can eat.

The seeds also attract skunks, raccoons, and possums at night, and occasionally we get to see a groundhog climb a tree to try to get to the feeders.

And depending on where you are, bears. They love bird feeders esp when first leaving hibernation in the spring. Best to take them down then.

My suet feeder gets flying squirrels at night.