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