Neanderpundit

Well, new to me, anyway- is DennisRanch.

Not in any way a polished professional blog, which is, frankly, refreshing. Some rudimentary E commerce- which is amusing as well. The saddle section doesn’t show what it needs to, I understand good leatherwork and his is obviously good, but the pictures don’t show it off to the best advantage.

When I was a lot younger i did some harness repair. It’s a tough thing to learn, at first- steel or wood mostly have repeatable properties but the properties of leather change from piece to piece, and sometimes even within the layers of a piece.

Somewhere, around here, I still have my skiving knife, along with a stitching clamp that attaches to a sawhorse. I made both pieces, the skiving knife out of a saw, the stitching clamp out of a pair of white oak planks I salvaged from boat ribs. I could fix pretty much any kind of trace or tug, used repair clips and splices or handsewed in repairs. Knowing what kind of taper to use on the skive, based on the material you had at hand, and knowing what side of the leather to use, and what kind of splice to put in (so it didn’t chafe against the horse), all part of the deal.

I was never a saddlemaker, and I salute and admire their art, and art it is. A man can ride a well made saddle on a healthy horse every day for years, and never know it. A badly made and proportioned saddle hurts the horse or rider or both. Hell, one in a hundred thousand people understand that you have to ride in Wrangler jeans, unless you want thick callouses on the inside of your thighs!

Anyway, Go read DennisRanch. Seems to be the honest thoughts of an honest man. So far, I like it just fine.

UPDATE: Man, I’m screwing the pooch on these links, lately. Fixed.

Feline engineering.

This time I’ll test the link before posting.

There, that’s better.

Hat tip Pasdcal. Who wouldn’t have wanted credit for the other one I linked to anyway. Sorry for the confusion.

There’s a red tailed hawk that lives in my backyard. It’s a big bastard, with a five foot plus wingspan- At least I think it’s a redtail, though the underside of the wingtips are blacker than I remember.

Maybe it’s just because it’s so close when I see it. It takes off from a tree about ten feet off the ground, and wheels into the sky. It’s very impressive.

What’s more impressive is it’s respect for my peas. I planted them some time ago, and they started to come up just a few days back. And of course, peas being peas, the prerequisite rabbits showed up about eleven minutes later.

mr Hawk, disgusted by this theivery, swooped down and grabbed Mr Rabbit, and took him out to dinner. Damned hard to be quick enough to get pictures, but if I catch him feeding again, I will try to get a picture.

We also have a pair of horned owls, close at hand. So damned pretty, they are, and huge. The pair here are easily five footers. The call is haunting and pleasant.

Saturday evening, the rain pattering out my window, laying in bed still in a painkiller haze, listening to the owls hoot outside, ogwife snuggled up next to me, I never felt better in my life, man and boy.

Then, apparently, I managed to contract a case of the galloping trots from my hospital stay (or from the doctor’s assistant). Blood tests today ruled out anemia or any other issues, but it don’t make it any more fun. Anyway, I’m just glad I’m on the mend. The knee feels two thousand percent better. haven’t even had to take an aspirin for three days.