I tried to post this last night, because I was just in the mood, but Eponym was having some problems and I couldn't access anything.  Why?  Because it seems that Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson have provided a soundtrack for much of my life, and this one has been running through my mind a lot lately.

---

As far as my eyes can see
There are shadows approaching me
And to those I left behind
I wanted you to know
You've always shared my deepest thoughts
You follow where I go

And oh when I'm old and wise
Bitter words mean little to me
Autumn winds will blow right through me
And someday in the mist of time
When they asked me if I knew you
I'd smile and say you were a friend of mine
And the sadness would be lifted from my eyes
Oh when I'm old and wise

As far as my eyes can see
There are shadows surrounding me
And to those I leave behind
I want you all to know
You've always shared my darkest hours
I'll miss you when I go

And oh, when I'm old and wise
Heavy words that tossed and blew me
Like autumn winds will blow right through me
And someday in the mist of time
When they ask you if you knew me
Remember that you were a friend of mine
As the final curtain falls before my eyes
Oh when I'm old and wise

As far as my eyes can see...

(cue wistful alto sax solo)

I got a search hit today for "killing first deer smoking first pipe."  I was planning on writing a different story, but I guess I can write one just for this hit.

I have never been one to be thrilled just to hunt.  I once amused my dad greatly by killing and gutting a deer and then going to sleep in the truck until he showed up a few hours later.  To me it has always been just a way to put meat on the table.  I haven't hunted regularly in a long time, but I've hunted enough to how to do it, and to know that I can do it, if I need to.

You can refer back to this post to see a picture of the old hunting place.  The spot was the yellow dot close to the top of the picture.  It was right on the fence line, high in a straight hickory tree.  We had put an old wooden ladder against the tree to get up into it, and a platform of plywood nailed across a couple of convenient limbs.  My dad had found an old seat cushion on the side of the road that I sat on so it was fairly comfortable.  My dad worked for the highway department, and he was always finding stuff on the side of the road that had been lost or discarded.  He found a Schrade Old Timer that I still use as a hunting knife, and a stainless steel bucket that he used as his milk bucket to milk our cows.

The rifle I was carrying was a bolt action Winchester Model 43 in .218 Bee.  Let me be clear:  this is not a deer gun--technically.  It's a varmint cartridge.  However, this particular rifle had already been used to kill dozens of deer before I ever got my hands on it.

There's not a whole lot to tell.  It was a cold morning near the beginning of the season when a 4-point buck came walking through the trees.  As soon as he stepped into a clear spot, I shot him.  He flinched, ran and jumped the fence, and disappeared into the brush.  So I figured I had missed him.  Later when my dad caught up with me he asked if that was me he had heard shoot earlier, so I told him the tale and said that I must have missed.  He said something like, "No.  I've seen you shoot.  You didn't miss."  That was one of the best things he ever said to me.  He snooped around out in the brush for a few minutes and found it collapsed about 50 yards into the other property.  Honestly, he was more excited about it than I was.  He still has the antlers from that buck hung on his dining room wall with lots of other more impressive antlers.  I was fourteen years old at the time, so it would have been 1978.

The first pipe was a Dr. Grabow, purchased at a Walgreens that was down the sidewalk in the strip mall where I went to tech school in the early 90s (roughly at Gardina and Fredricksburg in San Antonio).  Smoking a pipe was something that I had always thought was cool, in a geeky sort of way, and I and my tech school buddies went down to this Walgreens at least once a night to get stoked on Mountain Dew and sugary junk food to keep us awake during class.  That shelf of Dr. Grabows kept calling to me, until finally one night I bought a plain straight apple shape, a pouch of Borkum Riff or Captain Black (I don't remember which, but it was "whiskey" flavored) and a disposable lighter.  Considering how I began, it's a wonder that I stuck with it.

Inside either the pipe package or the tobacco pouch, I don't remember which, was an ad for some place called Blue Ridge Pipe Smoking Company or something like that.  I think it was one of the many fronts for Serna Industries, which is the ultimate parent of Dr. Grabow (or it was, back then).  The pipes they sold were a little higher up the ladder than your typical Dr. G, and I eventually ordered several cheap pipes from them, which of course I still have.  I also ordered my first pipe tool from them, which is stainless steel with rosewood bolsters.  I misplaced it some time ago, but I'm sure it's around here somewhere.  At first I didn't have a tamping tool, so I used a spent .410 shell, which worked quite well.

I went through all kinds of different drug store tobaccos, and some stuff from the Blue Ridge place as well.  They sold five different aromatics and one English.  The two aromatics I remember sort of liking were called Cherry Cobbler and Black Ambrosia.  The former was cherry flavored, of course, and the latter was flavored with black walnut.  The English was called Kings English and had plenty of Latakia, which I didn't like back then.  I sent it to my old pen pal in Missouri and he loved it.  I liked the Black Ambrosia so much back then that I ordered a big 8-ounce tin of it.  I also smoked plenty of Lane's 1-Q back then, which is a sweet, mild vanilla Cavendish.  Lots of tobacconists buy it in bulk and resell it under some other name.  I bought it from a place called the Tobacco Bowl, which was in Central Park Mall back then, and the old guy there called it Gentleman's Delight.

I smoked everything in that one Dr. Grabow pipe for several months, before I got around to ordering more pipes from Blue Ridge.  I would never do such a thing now:  putting all kinds of different flavors and blends into one pipe.  I even smoked some non-tobacco "herbal alternative" stuff--not the kind of stuff you'd get high on, just "alternative" because it didn't contain any tobacco and therefore no nicotine.  It was okay, and very different.  The main problem with it was that it was way too dry and could almost have been used as tinder.

In 1994 I got internet access and before too long I found alt.smokers.pipes on usenet, which proved to be an invaluable source of information for someone like me who lived out in the sticks and didn't have any other way to get decent pipe smoking information.

Anyhow, I still have that first pipe, but it now only sits in a place of honor on one of my pipe racks.  It really isn't fit for smoking anything anymore.

One thing I've been doing is surveying the property and deciding how to run some fence, after these many years.  First is a fence just around the house, to keep our dogs in and others out.  After that, I plan on fencing the whole 5 acres.

I've been spending a lot of time poking through the brush and taking bearings with my compass so I can get an idea of how many trees I'm going to have to cut down or skirt to run the fence.  My place is a long rectangle about 800 feet long.  The long sides are going to be the trick, because the brush is so dense that I can't see from one end to the other, and I don't feel like cutting down an enormous amount of trees.  I like trees, and prefer to leave as many of them in the ground and growing as possible.

Every time I need a couple of posts, I buy more than I need, so I have a small collection of treated posts scattered around.  Most of them were used to anchor wire antennas, but since I bought a commercial upright (a GAP Titan DX, for those who are interested in such things) I quit using wires.

So I have eleven 8-foot landscape timbers and two 8-foot 4x4s doing nothing essential, and I decided to go ahead and make a start today by putting in a corner brace.  I put in the three posts and decided that's enough for the day.  I generally just do a little at a time with something like this, and I don't have any wire or fencing yet, anyway.

The fencing will be standard 4-foot range fence and metal t-posts interspersed with landscape timber posts as often as necessary.  When I get around to the big perimeter fence, it will be the same.  Then I'll finally be able to get a few goats.  The house fence might be reinforced with an electric wire to make sure the dogs don't try to dig their way out.

Digging post holes is pretty easy in the sandhills.  The only real problem is when the dirt gets too dry and the holes just cave in as you dig them.  Right now it's just wet enough that the sides don't fall in and digging 3-foot holes was pretty easy.

I do feel better, having performed a little physical exertion today.

I'll have to see if my dad still has his old fence stretcher, and I think I know someone who has a t-post driver.  I've driven them with a sledge hammer, but it's a lot easier and safer with a driver.

There's a Tractor Supply Company in Floresville?  When did that happen?

The Free Wayne Webring is now up to 30 members, with one more in the wings until the code gets installed.

This past week also saw the activation of the ring's first international member:  Truth Versus Evil in Scotland.

The site generating the most average daily hits to the ring was The War On Guns.  The site receiving the most average daily hits from the ring was End the War On Freedom.

Just placed an order for another "sampler pack" from C&D.  I ordered:

#063 Bayou Night
#067 Bayou Morning
#107 Haunted Bookshop
#451 Gray Ghost
#967 Exclusive
#531 Yale Mixture
#522G Perique
#301 Berries & Cream

Mostly just the usual favorites.  I still have a quantity of straight Perique left from my last order, put together with the new batch will give me quite a good supply for experimenting.  The Gray Ghost will be immediately mixed with Perique to create my own "Don't Tread On Me."  The rest of the Perique will go to experimenting mixing it Yale Mixture.  My goal will be to add just a small amount of Perique so that it doesn't overwhelm the Latakia and both are still distinctive.  Sounds like a difficult but fun project.  I have been doing some preliminary tests in this vein, but my supply of Yale is older and a little dry, actually it could use some rehydrating.  And I haven't been measuring the Perique, just sprinkling it on to give it a little kick.

I hate the name "berries & cream" but I've had a hankering to try another decent aromatic that isn't just some gunky drug store crud.  I still have one pipe that has languished unused for a long time because it was dedicated to the last aromatic I ever smoked:  Green River Vanilla (also from C&D), which is just a mild vanilla Cavendish.

Berries & Cream is a mix of unsweetened Cavendish and Green River Vanilla, flavored with blackberry brandy.  Sounds pretty good.  I tried one before that was the same except flavored with apricot brandy and it was okay, but I'm not a big fan of apricots.  I think I'll like this one a lot better.