Category Archives: Miscellaneous

And here is the “catch all” category for stuff that doesn’t have its own.

Dove Hunting

by Woodsbum

I just got back from a week long trip to Eastern Washington to go dove hunting. Although the weather turned and pushed the doves out we all had a great time. It truly was a very needed vacation.

My new dog, Angus, got a chance to do some retrieving and working the fields. This was his first real time out chasing birds and he did great. After a few years of experience, I think he will be one incredible bird dog.

Angus

Here are a few shots of the area where we hunted.

Wheat field

Dove area

The doves, when they aren’t pushed out due to a turn in the weather, are usually pretty thick. When we went a few years ago I had my limit in about 3 hours. This time I couldn’t hardly hit a thing, but my wife got her first 2 critters ever. It was her first time hunting. She did great. I only got 5 and my father got 2. The wind was pretty harsh that first day when the doves were still in so getting the lead down was almost impossible.

All said, we had a great trip and my dog got some really good training. He started to learn how to walk a field, used his nose to find a few down birds, and retrieved them for us. We had to kind of walk him out a bit at first, but he really did great.

Angus watching birds

I really can hardly wait for duck season. Getting him to go for his first water retrieve should bring big grins!

Homemade Applesauce

Leave a reply

by Woodsbum

I searched for quite a while before I found a good applesauce recipe. Most call for all sorts of weird things. I really like this recipe because it is simple, basic and tastes great.

Here are the ingredients per my batch. Some math may be required:

18 lbs of apples
3 cups of water or apple juice/cider
Juice of 3 lemons (approx 1/2 cup)
1 1/2 cup brown sugar (packed of course)
5 teaspoons of Cinnamon

First thing you will need is your apples. I used half Gala and half Granny Smith. They are much better if you use them before they get too soft.

Make sure you pick up one of these:

Apple slicer

These slicer things make short work of peeling, slicing, and coring an apple. When you pull the apple meat off the device, just cut the whole apple coil in half, then throw it into the pot with the ingredients. There is no need to play games with adding things one at a time. Just toss it all in and put it on low heat to start cooking down.

Cut and ready for cooking

Once it is all cooked down and the apples are soft, you need to pull the apple out and blend them. I use a Ninja like this one:

Ninja

The hot applesauce will be a bit running, but it will be perfect to just jar up and can. I left about 1/2 inch of headspace on my jars and then water bath canned them. The 18 lbs made a little over 6 quarts of applesauce.

Ready for canning

The whole process took about an hour and half from start to finish. The best part is how great the applesauce turned out. I don’t think that I have ever had any store bought or homemade applesauce that tasted better.

As a side note, I do things a bit different with my cinnamon. I purchase the sticks in bulk and then grind it myself as I need it. This gives a stronger taste without the bite that you get with the preground stuff in the stores. Even the smell is better.

Have some fun and good luck. I am getting ready to can some peaches that we picked up in Wenatchee sometime this week.

Coal Forge

Leave a reply

by Woodsbum

This week I have spent every available moment working on my Truck. Last fall, I ended up losing the engine and mistakenly picked up a long block that was built by S&J Motors out of Spokane, WA. From the beginning there was trouble. The first time I turned it over, there was a really bad tappet sound like the valves needed adjusting. The problem with adjusting the valves is that the lifters are hydraulic. There is no adjustment for them. Days, weeks and months of fighting with this motor and S&J finally led me to where I am today. I had to do the following:

Replace the flex plate
Replace the lifters
Replace the timing chain tensioners
Disassemble the engine back to long block or there about several times
Change out coil packs
Remove rockers to check valves and springs
The list goes on and on…….

I now have the timing chain tensioners installed, but after the last time I ran the truck and drove it around the block to see if the noise was associated with some hydraulic lifter/tensioner I now have what seems like a cylinder misfire or burned valve.

S&J has been 100% useless in this entire process and have basically just thrown out things for me to look at. They are doing everything that they can to somehow blame me for this engine that didn’t even have the timing chain tensioners adjusted correctly when they shipped it to me.

How does all this issue with my truck even remotely have anything to do with a coal forge? Well, I am glad that you asked – Without my truck, I have been unable to go pick up the coal forge and tools that someone is going to give me if I drop by to pick it up.

Since I have no truck, I am going to have to drive the 500 miles round trip and haul this entire setup back in our Subaru Outback. Hopefully, this forge breaks down to a point where I can make it fit in the back of the car.

If all goes well and I get this forge back to my place, I will be starting to make things the minute my current projects are caught up. This means that it will probably be some time this fall at best. There are 2 motorcycles, a truck, flooring in the house, 35 feet of fencing, painting the eaves of the house, a retaining wall and transporting 3 trailer loads of yard debris and trash to the dump before I can even think about starting a new project. “If I want to keep from getting throat punched by my wife, I will have to get those other projects completed first,” is what I should have said.

Keep your fingers crossed for me because if I can get the forge, I will start to make some things and sell them on my website at seriously discounted prices.

Google Recording and Tracking

Leave a reply

by Woodsbum

I found a post on SHTF School today about Google history and tracking. References to this are all over the Internet, but I had yet to actually find the settings until today. Once I pulled up my history page I was almost sick to my stomach. Every voice search I had performed for the last couple years was there. I could literally click the audio file and hear my voice. The scarier one is the location search. There was several years of data stored up to include my trips back East for business and my daughter’s graduation. The even scarier thing is that it actually shows the exact route I took through the Everglades, all around the Carolinas, trips locally, and even the layovers on the flights I have taken.

Here is the link to see what Big Brother is tracking, that they let you know about.

After some searching around, I figured out how to delete my history and all the audio recordings. I have yet to figure out how to delete my location history. This really scares me because I don’t trust anything. It would be real easy to look at my location history and see that I like gun stores, being outside, and where I go. Since I am so paranoid, although I would never do anything that would jeopardize my gun rights, hunting rights or freedom, I would hate to somehow get profiled by Big Brother just because I want to be left the hell alone. Getting lumped into some “bad guy” group just for doing LEGAL activities that some libtard back East doesn’t like does scare me a lot.

Deleting the other stuff was pretty easy. The options are at the top of the page and you just choose “Settings” to get to the delete option. Maps and location are a bit trickier. Here are the instructions from Google:

***************************************************************************

View or delete your Google Maps history

Your Maps history shows you places that you:

Reviewed
Saved
Shared
Were asked to review
Answered a question about
Searched for recently

Your Maps history will only be saved if you’ve turned on Web & App Activity.

Computer Android iPhone & iPad

View your Maps history

To see your Maps history, follow the steps below.

Sign in and open Google Maps.
Click the Menu > History.

Delete Maps history

You can delete places from your Maps history one at a time. To delete all of your Maps history, you’ll have to use your computer.

To delete a place from your Maps history, follow the steps below.

Sign in and open Google Maps.
Click the Menu > History.
Check the box next to the item you want to delete.
Click Delete.
Optional: To delete a day, check the box next to the day > Delete.
Optional: To delete all of your history, go to the top and click More > Delete options > Advanced > All time > Delete.

Note: Deleting all of your search history from Maps doesn’t include places you’ve saved, shared, or were asked to review.

*************************************************************************

Whether you are as paranoid as I am or just want to keep nosey people out of your business, this is a good thing for you to look at. I noticed that places that I had never actually gone into showed up as “locations” that I had been on the map. For instance: I don’t go to Burger King, but there sure were a lot of them listed on my map. It makes me wonder if just driving by something will get it to trigger and save the location. You could get yourself into trouble in a place where there are more strip clubs than churches just by driving on the wrong road.

Good luck with this everyone!

Oregon Letter to Dept Fish and Wildlife

Leave a reply

by Woodsbum

I ran across this today and felt compelled to share. This is the letter that the Anderson family received:

OR DFW Letter

This was their response:

Anderson Family Response