Category Archives: Uncategorized

Back in the day, my late friend Jamie used to tell a whopper of a fish story. He told an elaborate tale about catching trout with his bare hands. No fishing pole, bare hands only. The story and the location and techniques employed stayed consistent with each telling, and Jamie always told it so wellContinue reading “We Don’t Need No Stinking Fishing Pole”

We kids from the villages along the Penokee Range mining district attended the two grades per room Iron Belt Elementary School. Being the pre-digital era, that old school was equipped with a period appropriate audio-visual room. A presentation in that audio-visual room was a really big event. Anticipation would build as the shades were drawnContinue reading “Bad Fish Too”

Late last fall and early winter three things happened that made me rethink things. Rethink things to the point that it may ruin my junkman cred. The first was that Stormie the Trail Dog chased off after a sound in the night. Instinct prompted my grabbing the pistol, just in case it was a blackContinue reading “Dabbling in Consumerism”

Honestly, who really thinks about a dresser? When purchasing a bedroom set it is the size of the bed and comfort of the mattress that are of great importance. The dresser is simply a big box that holds copious amounts of clothes, most of which we never wear. The dresser does a good job holdingContinue reading “The End of an Era”

Most folks I’ve talked to were rather happy to see 2023 end. It’s not that it was necessarily a horrible year filled with wholesale war and disease and civil disorder and apocalyptic horsemen and mayhem. And while the weather wasn’t exactly ideal, it wasn’t really that horrible either. It seems that 2023 was simply “oneContinue reading “The Promise of New”

“A cool van”, said the text message with accompanying photos sent by my brother-in-law. The start of this late in life off the grid odyssey began with the end of a marriage, a temporary retreat in a travel trailer to some wooded acreage while things were figured out, then spending 17 months in said travelContinue reading “Brown Betty”

Along with turning thirty came the realization that the dream of living in a quaint surfside shack on the California coast and riding the waves had gone unfulfilled. Not a single finger was lifted in those first 30 years to make that surf life happen, so it was surely a fantasy. But I wanted toContinue reading “Surfing Wisconsin”

The genesis for this blog was to answer the recurring questions asked about stepping back from our modern lifestyle and getting lost in the forest. Folks often asked, am I living in a Unabomber shack? (Hardly, I think it to be quite luxurious). Is life difficult and had I become a hermit? (No and no).Continue reading “Reality Check”

The first time I met Sheena did not end well. Half Golden Retriever, half Irish Setter, Sheena was a gorgeous dog with a fiery red-orange coat and magnificent, elegant feathering. Her chest was deep and her build slender and athletic. Her movement was graceful and fluid, she simply glided along with paws barely touching theContinue reading “Sheena, Chico, and Cholo”

“Daylight in the swamp!”, Grandpa T would bark out at 4:30 am on the opening morning at deer camp. That old wakeup call from his lumber camp days was a stark message to those of us spending our first season out at camp that it was time to trade the toasty warmth of a sleepingContinue reading “Endings and Beginnings”