Good news! My dilly-dallying to send this box off finally paid off! The lot of 10 cheap-o scissoring pipe stands will make it in the box when it goes off to stickframer (Tomorrow, I promise!). Not anywhere near the quality of the stands already in the box, but you can leave these little pipe perches on the deck overnight in the rain with no worry.
I finally got a chance to smoke my pipe this morning and tried some of the C&D Constellation and found it to be a very approachable english blend. I should try another bowl with a bit more moisture to it but I could easily see this blend as an all-day english. I didn't find any element of it distinctly sung to me, just a satisfying meat-and-potatoes english blend, which is exactly what you want some times.
I'm excited to try the Pirate Kake, it's my first crumble cake/plug so I was glad to have my trusty folding knife on me. It smells like a campfire when you extinguish it with a sudden deluge of water. Too windy out this evening to smoke outside and I'm not too sure I could ever scrub the walls clean if I smoked it inside but I'm sure there will be an autumn evening perfectly suited to this blend in the near future.
Apologies again for sitting on this box for so long and not participating in the thread as actively as I should. Now that my schedule is settling down (for the foreseeable future) I am excited to send this box in to the hands of you fine and patient folk!