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Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - Valley of Fires Recreation Area, Carrizozo NM

Hickory walking stick, November 9, 2011
Hickory walking stick, November 9, 2011
Brass walking stick tip, November 9, 2011
Brass walking stick tip, November 9, 2011

Hickory walking stick

I've been on the lookout for the perfect stick to make a walking stick for a long long time and this wonderful old hickory flail handle caught my attention amongst the stuff I've been getting rid of.

So I brought it along on this winter's journey to see what I could make of it.

It's so old (maybe 150 years) and so beautifully made I could't bring myself to alter it in any way and I hope I don't bang it up too much on the trail. Last week I turned a brass tip to fit over and protect the hand whittled fitting at the end that was used to attach the flail head. Then a couple of days ago I braided the handle in vegetable tanned kangaroo. The hand strap is a repurposed cord I had lying about but I'm not really satisfied with it. It's a little too slender - I think I'll braid a thicker one, maybe of eight strands instead of four, and try that.

Prusik Knot

That's a Prusik Knot fastening the strap to the braided handle. The Prusik Knot holds firmly when under tension, but loosens easily when free of tension so the strap can be moved up and down the handle. I borrowed the idea from Kingfisher Woodworks hiking stick lanyard.

Night camp

Site 11 - Valley of Fires Recreation Area, Carrizozo NM

Sweet, Rich Hickory Milk

Hickory was another favorite. Rambling through the Southeast in the 1770s, the naturalist William Bartram observed Creek families storing a hundred bushels of hickory nuts at a time. "They pound them to pieces, and then cast them into boiling water, which, after passing through fine strainers, preserves the most oily part of the liquid" to make a thick milk, "as sweet as fresh cream, an ingredient in most of their cookery, especially hominy and corncakes." Years ago a friend and I were served hickory milk in rural Georgia by an eccentric backwoods artist named St. EOM who claimed Creek descent. Despite the unsanitary presentation, the milk was ambrosial - fragrantly nutty, delightfully heavy on the tongue, unlike anything I had encountered before.

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