Hiatus Update: My "holiday" continues, but all my berries and cherries are now picked, frozen, dried and now I'm canning the rest as jam and preserves. Will be visiting a couple of local lakes over the next week with whatever buddy wants to use my second zodiac (actually have two - one small 6'6", which fits inside the larger 7'6" and they both then fit in an 8' pickup box just perfectly, with all of the fishing gear fitting inside the stacked zodiacs). I have no shortage of takers, either.
I'll catch enough fish to fill all of the rest of my empty canning jars, then get the smoker out. Lots of work, but the benefits will be immense. Don't need to hunt this year, have enough venison and turkeys (a friend of mine farms them, and trades me a few for venison and/or bear.) Don't need to do much shopping this winter, either - considering wicked food prices, that's a positive.
Nuff of all that until
Skippable Drivel. I'll let you know the medical update then, too.
Smokes? Pretty much my usual flavoured cigars,
Phillies Blunts and
Kwiki Grapes. They go better with the canning, freezing and drying tasks. Usually only one small pipe per day, and the best smokes have been with my vastly underused
Ropp J05, with both
Black Frigate and Bengal Slices, and the pipsqueek
McQueen Miniature Prospector, which dotes on my own
Balkan Mix, and
TobaccoBarn's Traditional English.
I'll smoke basically English and a few codgers until I'm off the meds and have some tastebuds back again. Skippable Drivel below for a few yard shots that are worth posting.
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Skippable Drivel: In the cleanup of my disaster area, I dug out my old 6mp Nikon D50, the first DSLR I ever bought in ancient times. Had it converted to InfraRed back in the early days of digital, when I bought a Pentax D3, because it was compatible with all of my Pentax Lenses. I switched from Nikon to Pentax for this reason, and still shoot film with the Pentax MX, probably the best film camera I've ever owned. Here's a couple of yard shots in my private park: flowers are now fading, as fall approaches, but these were still prime; a wild rose (got lots of them) and some kind of blue flower that I don't know the name of.
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And here's a couple of infrareds taken with the old girl Nikon, a shot of the local winery's grapevines (just below the 97 North Highway and the cutbanks above the Nechako, which I've shown often but not in this context), and my new picnic table along one of my garden pathways, this one leading to my front driveway, and under the shade of a big tree. Nice place for a smoke! Traded another unused flyrod for the table. Win/win!
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With respect to a health update, the surgeon was extremely pleased with the progress of the operation. Success . . . . . but . . . . . . he wants me to continue the meds for another 3 weeks. So, it's gonna be small pipes and monochromes until the tastebuds return and the ear infection quelled. More whining on that later in a few days when I'm back to normal participation. Cheers.
