How I Spent My Christmas Eve

MDM got a phone call at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve. It wasn't an elf wanting to know where to deliver my new Jeep Wrangler. It was another elf who said she was broke down in West Covina and her car was on fire! Sixty miles from home.
So MDM threw his tools in the truck and headed down the hill with the Mom. Found the elf at a Shell gas station eating pizza. Gangsters kept driving by her black 1999 Mercury Cougar giving us the eye. I got chewed out by the elf for giving them the eye back.
Turns out the elf's car lost it's water pump belt and it got hot under the hood sort to speak. By this time it was after 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve and nothing was open except the guy on the corner selling little plastic bags. Things did not look good. But then, at the last moment, a light shown in the east and MDM had an epiphany! Make your own belt!
MDM gathered up string and wire and grass and twigs and made a band that looked just like a bungee cord with the hooks cut off. It worked perfectly! We kept the rpm's below 2000 and hit the interstate. Max speed - 45 mph. We got the elf home at 10 p.m. and she promptly jumped in MDM's truck and drove off to the elves' Christmas party with her elfin boyfriend.
MDM hit the Jack and took the Mom to bed.

Merry Christmas!

The Squirrel Rifle

I was back home in Illinois the other day and thought about something I had read in The Wild West magazine. It was a story about a Winchester Model 1903 .22 Cal. Automatic Rifle that Buffalo Bill Cody had presented to the young son of one of the managers of his Wild West Show. Seems Buffalo Bill really liked the boy and even had the rifle engraved, "Presented to young son of so and so by Buffalo Bill Cody". The rifle recently sold at auction for $17,100!

Well, it so happens that my father had the exact same rifle. He used to hunt squirrels with it. Rockin' Randall has it now safely locked in a gun case. When I was home I told the story about the Buffalo Bill rifle and the big price tag. We laughed that dad's doesn't have the inscription and isn't worth the 17 G's. But I have found that it's worth between $850 and $1,250 dollars! Not bad for a .22 caliber rifle that they stopped making in 1932.

As I took the rifle from the gun case and looked at it RR says, "It doesn't shoot." I said, "What do you mean?" He said that David had borrowed it to run a raccoon out of the attic of his house and it wouldn't shoot. Had to bring it back and get a shotgun to dispatch the critter. I said it might be dirty from all the years of standing around.

When I got back to California I got to thinking. The only time I had ever shot the rifle was at least 30 years ago and I remember that I couldn't get it to shoot either. I took it apart and found that it was very dirty. Full of years of powder discharges and wax from shell casings. I cleaned it up and bought a box of CCI Stingers (the cool thing to shoot at the time). The rifle jammed about every third shot. I didn't want to be blamed for messing up the squirrel rifle so I put it back in the gun case and never shot it again. Dad soon after bought a brand new Marlin Model 94 .22 Cal. squirrel rifle with a four-power scope. He never did say why.

I decided to research the rifle to find out how much it was worth. As mentioned above, I found that out and much more. I got on a chat site about the Model 1903 and everyone was complaining that the rifle didn't shoot well, that it always jammed, and that it just wasn't a very good rifle. Then the guy with the knowledge got on line. Seems Winchester made their own special .22 caliber ammunition for the Model 1903 and manufactured it from 1903 to 1932 when they stopped making the rifle. They called it Winchester .22 Cal. Automatic. Not .22 Short, not .22 Long, not .22 Long Rifle, Winchester .22 Cal. Automatic! They have antique boxes of 'em for sale on the internet for $325 per box. Only two companies still make it and they are very pricey. You can get them at Old Western Scounger at $12.95 for a box of 50. That's $0.26 a shot! No wonder it never would shoot worth a darn!

Happy Thanksgiving

MDM: Master Bowyer Part 3

Well, other than a leather wrap on the handle, I have finished my selfbow. It ended up being a 60# draw weight at 28" of draw. I am very happy it didn't turn out to be a 30# bow! It doesn't take much extra scraping off the belly to end up will a 30#'er. That's why I worked so slowly.

I started sanding it with 80 grit sandpaper and progressed all the way to 400 grit. Then I used #5/0 steel wool and finally "boned" it with a small glass vial. It's as hard as polished bone dried in the Sahara for 40 years! I put six coats of boiled linseed oil on it and finished with two coats of paste wax.

Finally, I hand-made a Flemish bowstring with 14 strands of Brownell B50 bow string material. I served the ends and center with diamond-braided serving thread that was 0.022" diameter.

I shot the bow yesterday for the first time. It shoots well. Minimal hand shock (means I did a pretty good job on the tillering), fast and straight. Got to get used to shooting a bow with no sights on it. It's not that easy!

By the way. I'm taking donations of leather!


The unfinished bow during tiller using a long string.

I signed the bow on the belly of the lower limb. 60# at 28"!

The finished bow shown at full draw with its new Flemish string.

Finished bow at full brace.

MDM: Master Bowyer Part Deux

MDM's bow is coming along. Here it is at 18" draw and 50# pull. Only ten inches to go to get to a 28" draw @ 50#. Now all the belly fat is coming off with a sharp knife...very slowly. So far I got a pretty good symmetric curve going. Hope to keep it that way!

Luci the Wonder Dog

Luci is on top of the Cedar Springs Dam on the north side of Silverwood Lake in Hesperia, CA. We went there for a walk early Saturday morning. On the far side of the dam there are small cliffs that drop straight into the lake. Luci, who does not normally even like the water, jumped into ten feet deep water well below me and where I could not easily get to her. To my amazement she swam, like a dog, to the sandstone rocks and got out! She said she liked it and started to try it again until I convinced her otherwise.

Happy Halloween!

Very Scary!

Making Wine

We used to make wine in the basement of my grandpa Bartolini's house. A shipment of grapes would come in from California or Missouri and we would put them in a machine like a big sausage grinder and smash them. This hand-cranked grape smasher sat right on top of a 55 gallon barrel and the grape juice and pulp would fall in.
The picture above is of my father, left, and grandfather, right. I think they were sampling their work! That wine cellar was a scary place for a little kid when the adults weren't around!

Lions, Tigers, & Bears

Oh my!

We have an infrared camera set up at the drinker in Bousic canyon. Had a beautiful visitor the other night. Meow!

Of Bows and Arrows

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of a song?

Long, long afterward, in a oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

Oct. 16, 1845 -Longfellow

MDM: Master Bowyer

Weeks ago I started a new project: I am making an osage orange self bow. A friend gave me a quarter of an osage orange log from a farm 40 miles south of Kansas City Missouri. It had been seasoned for fifteen years and was ready to become a bow. Osage orange is arguably the best wood for making bows in the world. The native Americans prized it for bow making and would travel hundreds of miles to get it.
Many years ago my father gave me a flat bow that he had as a young man in the 1950's. I used to shoot it when Sharon and I first got married in 1983. Since then it has been kept in a closest with all of the other things I wish to keep from going missing! I am using this bow as a pattern. I figure that by the time I'm done it will be 67" long with a 50 or 55 lb. pull at 28". Only problem is I don't know if I can pull a 50# bow. Dad's is a 50# pull at 28" and it's hard enough!

I have used only three tools to work the bow: a knife, a wood rasp, and early on, my great- grandfather's draw knife he made in the blacksmith shop. My hands are dyed yellow and my left hand is numb (I'm not kidding!) from scraping layer upon layer from the back, belly, and sides of the bow. It is finally ready to be tillered.

What is tillering you ask? It is where the limbs of the bow are just thin enough to start bending when you push on them and you start to slowly scrape material off the belly of the bow to give the final bend or "bow" that you are looking for. In my case I hope to scrape off enough material so that when an arrow is drawn back 28" it will have taken about 50 pounds of pull to do it.
Below are some pictures of my new bow ready for tillering and Dad's old bow. Notice how "snakey" the osage bow is. It is very rare for an osage stave to have straight grain and is usually twisted and crooked.


Side of osage bow.



Osage bow on left and Dad's bow on right.



The belly of both bows.

Winter is Coming!

It was cold this morning. The heat was off in the house and all three dogs slept with me. Sharon is in San Diego this week attending a symposium. The dogs were cold! There curled up next to me under my wool army blanket and were warm. Nobody wanted to get out of bed to get ready for work so I was an hour late. Temperature ended up being only 39 F but it still felt cold. I hope it doesn't get to be like last year. The pictures above show what I mean. They were taken in the pit of the Cushenberry quarry last December.

Aunts, Uncles, and a Bass Fisherman

Mom & Dad on Harley

Dennis with a flathead!

Pat, Dennis, and Pricilla

Dennis and Sport

Conservationists Restore West Mojave Guzzlers

(A repaired guzzler minus the Merlex)

Halloran Springs, CA -- The Halloran Springs area 12 miles northeast of Baker, CA provided camping facilities for an important work group during the weekend of September 25-27. Cliff McDonald of Needles, California, and 20 of his volunteers staged their operations at Halloran Springs while they made day trips to repair five wildlife water guzzlers in the area.

What is a wildlife water guzzler, you ask? Guzzlers come in many shapes and sizes and are made of different materials depending on the wildlife population they are intended to serve. The ones in this area consist of a concrete slab that collects rainwater and funnels it into an underground tank. The tank is covered and has a sloped opening that allows animals and other creatures to walk in and out to reach the water. Guzzlers are vital to desert wildlife like deer, bobcat, coyote, cougar, quail, bighorn sheep, and desert tortoise. Most of the local guzzlers were built decades ago and over time they develop cracks and collect debris, which makes them less effective.

Cliff’s volunteers come prepared with trucks full of equipment to make the appropriate repairs. The work first involves prepping the pad. Chippers are used to clean off the old sealant and then QUIKRETE concrete bonding adhesive is applied to the cracks. Two coats of Merlex are then applied over 24 hours to seal the pad so the water runs down into the underground water tank. The tank is also cleaned out and tortoise nets are installed so the tortoises can get out of the tank.

The group assembled at Halloran Springs consisted of volunteers from the High Desert Chapter #759 of Quail Unlimited, the Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep and just plain old hunters and volunteers. Some drove as many as 800 miles to be there. Coming from Victorville I only had to drive 240 miles round trip. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday we divided into work groups and headed out to the guzzlers. We even had along a cooking crew who whipped up such delicacies as eggs and elk sausage, peach and cherry cobblers, a Louisiana shrimp and sausage feed, and my own Witches Brew (kind of a cross between chili and Stroganoff). Those of us fortunate enough to be at Halloran Springs during that time enjoyed exchanging sleepy pre-dawn greetings and friendly waves as our caravans rolled back into camp at the end of the day.

I slept on the pinnacle of a hill two hundred yards above the camp on a cot. The half moon and stars were so bright it made it hard to sleep. So did Buddy (Gary Thomas' 8-month old pointer) when he came to visit me in the middle of the night. Thought he was a coyote! I ended up scaring him more than he did me and he sat there and went woof! woof! woof! who are you? You could see the Milky Way, passing satelites, Orion's Belt, and on and on. It was 105 degrees F in the day and 60 degrees F by 3 a.m. Made for good sleeping weather! The only thing bad about the trip was the old early morning dash to find a rock that wouldn't take the hide off your backside!

Sunset Beach

This is what Jaimie got to do every night at UCSB!

MDM's New Condo

I just bought a new summer home in the mountains! It'll be perfect for entertaining guests. Sharon's going to take the upstairs and I'll take the downstairs.

It even has running water!

Hanging Out Above It All

I had my plane out this weekend just flying around the desert and thought I'd fly over the plant. Sharon took this picture out the window. They let me hang out high in the mountains where the quarries are. Or should I say "ore".

Mojave Aster

Mojave Aster against the Plant.

Arctic Spring

Sharon's rested and ready to go.

Clean, cold, mountain spring water!

MDM's tired!

Rattlesnake Spring

Anybody for a dip in the pool?

Bighorn Sheep

We have Bighorn sheep here at the plant. Sometimes you can't keep them out of the road. Sometimes they just stare at you!

Captain Liz Zard

Does this tail make me look fat?

The Guys

Did I ever mention that we have wild (feral) burros? Here is a picture of "The Guys" that hang out at the plant.

MDM Has His Own Gold Mine

Here is a picture of the entrance to MDM's gold mine. It was mined in the early 20th century for many years and yielded thousands of dollars of gold. In the early 1930's bootleggers set up a still in the mine but the revenuers found out about it. They showed up one night and busted up all the oak barrels and crocks not to mention the still. It's still all there! Some of the barrel hoops and pieces of crock can be seen outside the entrance.

Jaimie Starts School at Chapman College

Jaimie had her orientation yesterday into Chapman College in Orange, CA. She lives in a nice apartment in a good neighborhood in Fullerton just a few minutes away from the college.

After the all-day orientation she met all her new (much older) friends at the beach for a beer party.

Jaimie is going for her doctorate degree in physical therapy.

Carrying Water To Bighorn Sheep

We recently carried 3,000 gallons of water to a guzzler (watering hole) that supports bighorn sheep north of Baker, CA.

The temperature was 112 F. Sharon almost melted but she did better than Old Cigar. He did find a pretty good way to cool off!

Camping at Wild Rose Spring

Sharon and I recently spent a evening camping at 6,300 feet in a canyon called Wild Rose that overlooks Lucerne Valley and Apple Valley, CA. There's a spring there that puts out the best water around.

I cooked a beef stew in one of my Dutch ovens over wood coals. Sharon was starving and ate stew, corn-on-cobb roasted in the husk and a big pepper that mostly roasted on the coals. It was a little gritty.

Slept out under the starts with no ambient light to spoil the view. Even saw a couple satellites whiz by.

Next morning we had eggs and potatos with onions and a ripe mango for desert.

Lots of humming birds and Steller's Jays but no mountain lions or bears. I was very bummed about this.

Had to 4-wheel to get there and Sharon was not happy about it.

My Little Buddy at Bousic Spring

Hello all,

Meet my little buddy who hangs around the drinker at the miner's shack in Bousic canyon.