Dusty Devil Dale

One advantage is that without ss pins, the primer pockets are not getting abraded and loosened. I have always deprimed after wet tumbling for that concern. Steel on brass has to be removing a small amount of brass with each cycle.

Harbor Freight has a tumbler that is actually quite good and durable. The media compounds can be found online pretty easily. I have bought many products from Kingsley North. They have good quality, but they can be pretty proud of some of their products, so shop the Internet. Many good introductory kits are out there and most have at least a starter batch of the several media compounds. Be aware that rock tumbling might try a young kid's patience. It usually takes 5 or 6 weeks to fully tumble rocks to high polish. If you dislike their parents, give them an expresso and a puppy!

Get the phone to delete the photos. Just ask, "can I see the pics", then walk off and delete, delete, delete. Give him back the phone when he leaves soon afterwards. Worry about the creep interactions after the privacy invading photos are deleted from the phone AND its trashcan.

Many, many years ago, a group of 7 or 8 of us young adults would drive a couple weekends every month over to the central Ca coast to spearfish and SCUBA dive after then-abundant red abalone, pismo clams, rock scallops, crab, and various fish. We would camp on the beach at Cayucos, right in the middle of town. Beach camping was popular then, at least for the first couple years. We'd have a driftwood campfie, a quiet guitar jamb session, a lot of story telling--some of it true-- and a hearty cast iron cooked dinner. Sometimes a local or two would hear the music or smell the food and walk down and join us for the evening. Somewhere, I had acquired a big, heavy, oval +-10x25x5" covered cast iron caserole pan that we used for cooking. We would dig a sand pit, fill the bottom with hot charcoal, throw a little damp kelp over the coals, then put the covered pan on top, loaded near the top with all of the aforementioned goodies, plus a couple cans of either Campbells tomato soup or Campbells cream of mushroom soup and some water, Sherry and spices. Another layer of kelp and hot charcoal covered the top. It would just sit and roast for near an hour. In a separate Dutch oven, I would usually cook a 14x6" round loaf of sourdough bread. I had to prep the batter, etc in the morning and leave it in the van to rise throughout the day while we were diving. A couple of times, on warm days, I had yeasty dough all over the upholstery. You can envision the evening and meal. Those were some of the best of times. When the City of Cayucos finally prohibited beach camping, nobody told us. Just as we were opening up the Choppino and dumping out the bread one breezy Saturday evening, two uniformed city officers approached us. They were entirely decent with us, since we didn't look like deadbeats and the regulation was brand new. The aroma, plus our friendly invite overcame them and they sat down for a short time for a plate of choppino. They let us stay that night, provided we put out the fire, which we did. Again, Very Good Times back then, and great Dutch oven memories. Sorry for rambling. I got kinda carried away. The memories are as good as the food!

Repeated

We stopped the gift barrage years ago. Now we make a generous Toys for Tots donation. Those kids really do need some Christmas joy and somebody to care about them. To feel like Christmas, we listen to Christmas music, call friends and relatives, have a good meal, and put empty boxes under the tree for visuals. The cats love the boxes after they get unwrapped ----- and before sometimes when they do their own unwrapping. Peace on Earth and Joy to the World!

I didn't use several of my stacking pots for some time, and rust got into them, stored in the garage. In one big 18" pot, it had corroded pretty deeply. My wife suggested scrubbing it out with a coarse grade copper scrub pad. Wow! It came right back to a shiny iron surface very quickly with only water as cleaning agent. I re-seasoned by rubbing the inside down with cheap olive oil, then baking it to recreate the patina. Then I boiled water for a few minutes to pull off excess oil. That was all I had to do to get back to cooking. I've been trying to get up some interest in a Dutch oven pot-luck at our club. Seems like it would be fun.

Worth 1,000 words!

Yep! Except the gun won't get old and all wrinkly-flabby-saggy with this not-so-pretty-anymore picture stuck on it. I actually thought about investing in tattoo removal technology-- huge market upcoming!

There are a lot of good recipes books out there. Very little beats a cast iron cooked outdoor meal. I have about ten of different sizes that cook everything from sourdough bread to rib roast, to chile, to pineapple upside-down cakes. Great eating and a lot of it! Boy Scouts do a lot of cast iron cookery and there are a number of their very good cookbooks available online. Take a look at Troop 204 Cookbook.

Be real careful in your scrounging! Many people, including me, have used cast iron cookware in the past for lead melting/casting. The hot molten lead and lead oxides penetrate pores in the cast iron. I got curious once and filled a cast iron pot used for lead melting with water for a couple days, then tested the water for lead. The lead content was very high. So I torch cut the bottom out of the twp pots I had used with lead to prevent them someday being used again for food preparation. . During the Gold Rush, cast iron was also used for Mercury handling. So as above, be careful.

Here in Californasylum (at least the San Joaquin Valley area), the local Air Quality Control Board now prohibits putting wet food garbage into the garbage can. Instead we must put it in the garbage disposal/drain, drop it into the green-waste recycle container, or toss it in outdoor garden compost. That's hilarious, because they are trying to comply with the new Federal EPA methane standards at their regulated landfills. But the green-waste recycling locations are not EPA regulated, so methane produced there somehow doesn't matter. Previously, we were prohibited from disposing of garbage waste outdoors (as if they could enforce it) but now we are required to. The neighborhood coyotes and raccoons are rejoicing for the holidays. But they are not rejoicing because the planet is being saved.

I've been professionally hand engraving jewelry for nearly 30 years and it naturally carried over to engraving some guns brought to me, usually newer guns brought by new owners. With hesitation, I completed the work as people requested. But none of my own guns are engraved. Why? It is very difficult to design a piece of artwork that has what is called 'mystery of effect' that persists through time. Often a design looks very appealing early on, but as months go by, the newness and appeal wear off, unless there is some personal attachment to the design. It is really hard to embellish the looks of a finely made firearm beyond the appeal of its original fit and finish. (Upgrading the wood is usually an exception). The Brittish mastered the art of very fine gun engraving on fine guns by Purdy, Holland and Holland, and others, many decades ago. But those guns' value supports that quality of hand work. Few engravers will spend that kind of time for $1,500 on an $800 gun. Laser engraving is a much cheaper substitute and it has its legitimate place, but it usually looks like ---well-- laser engraving. As with music, computer perfection is not a substitute for artistic character. Engraving an owner's name is a sure way to reduce the value of any future sale, unless the owner is Ulyses S. Grant or George Custer. Phrases like "Don't Tread on Me" or "Semper fi" or "Give me liberty or give me death" are different. They have broader appeal, even with passage of time. My advice to anyone contemplating a gun engraving job is to PAUSE and LOOK first. Once it is done, it is permanent. You have to like it after looking at it thousands of times. It is very hard to do artwork that can satisfy that. Appeal isn't just about precision. It is much easier to reduce gun value by engraving than it is to increase value, regardless of the artwork's cost.

Unfortunately, the U.S. and State governments aren't the only ones monitoring us now. Keyboards are pretty public now.

For my home protection, I took the advice shared here in the Saloon a couple years ago. I picked up a couple more cats at the shelter and bought an extra laser pointer for my wife. Anyone breaching our front door is going to find a red dot on center mass, shortly followed by lots of claws. Go ahead-- Bring it!

I will pass on describing what I have or don't have available or where they may or may not be kept. This is the Internet, after all. The world can see what is written here.

It's all a part of the dumb-down trend. The day is fast coming when very few appliances or tools will work properly out of the box, and fixing them will require this month's new digital skills that you havent yet learned. Out-repair will cost more than buying a new one. You will only need to spend 100% of your time learning new software nuances, instead of quickly fixing stuff in your shop and going fishing. We are already to the point where finding a young man or woman who knows how to do something--anything beyond a phone or computer keyboard is a rarity. A big solar coronal mass ejection someday will wipe our civilization out-- literally.

News reports the Marine Corps is unable to procure woodland pattern camouflage uniforms due to a manufacturer supply problem projected to last until fall, 2024. That sure seems to me like a national security issue to be solved by a temporary Federal takeover of production lines, like they did for Covid masks, etc. It sure is hard to understand the decisions being made nowadays.

Now, Now, Now -- Be careful folks. You don't want to be the ones spreading "disinformation" according to the Biden WH. Remember, old Joey has been like a brother to "Benji" and always "has his back" LOL !

They can do North Korea the same day.

I agree with you. As a kid, I had several German Shepherds and they are very tightly bonded to their particular humans. They will sacrifice themselves to protect. But if too many people are involved in managing them, they can become confused. I am wondering how many different handlers Commander has and if he ever is taken for a walk by HIS people?

I carry epipens almost daily, due to severe bee sting allergy. They have a relatively short effective shelf life (12-18 months, minus prior store shelf life) if not properly refridgerated. So the replacement cost is there eventually whether or not you share your supply, which I have done a number of times. So a more salient question is whether or not you are worried about needing it yourself after giving it away and before replenishing. For me, that is a life or death decision and the $ cost question pales by comparison.

Shortly after after Iran has a functional nuke, Israel will be toast. I'm sure Israel leadership and military know and believe that. They've pleaded with the U.S. and U.N. to help them block any Iranian nuke development, but to no avail. The Chinese dominated UN will not take a police action against any "Axis of Evil" powers and the Biden Admin just financed the next phase of Iran's nuke development ( that is after Hillary sold them the Uranium). So don't be surprised if Israel turns some middle eastern centers into glass in the days ahead. And don't follow the rush to condemn them if they do, looking at their options, which are darned few now. It is literally eat or be eaten, and their allies turn out to be either inept or disingenuous.

I have no Cottonmouth experience, but I've encountered some really crabby Copperheads that were real quick to attack with little provocation. I have shot a few fair sized rattlesnakes (40+" class) w .22 long rifle snake shot. At close range < 8', It devastated them. Head was all but gone. But there's nothing like a .410 or bigger shotgun. Flat blade shovels are OK, but ONLY IF VERY SHARP (mine almost never are.) AND if you're agile enough to get back without falling over backwards when a snake comes directly after you, They can come at you way faster than you expect. You'll almost never kill them with a single shovel chop, so don't expect to. Best is not to mess with them, if they're not around a dwelling or campsite. With antivenom costing $3,000-$11,000 per vial, depending on your location, and total treatment costs exceeding $100,000, it is clearly a good practice to give them space when you can.

I'll NEVER tell !