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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

Beware of Hypnotic Media

To live sanely in Los Angeles (or, I suppose, in any other large American city) you have to cultivate the art of staying awake. You must learn to resist (firmly but not tensely) the unceasing hypnotic suggestions of the radio, the billboards, the movies and the newspapers; those demon voices which are forever whispering in your ear what you should desire, what you should fear, what you should wear and eat and drink and enjoy, what you should think and do and be. They have planned a life for you — from the cradle to the grave and beyond — which it would be easy, fatally easy!, to accept. The least wandering of the attention, the least relaxation of your awareness, and already the eyelids begin to droop, the eyes grow vacant, the body starts to move in obedience to the hypnotist’s command. Wake up, wake up — before you sign that seven-year contract, buy that house you don’t really want, marry that girl you secretly despise. Don’t reach for the whiskey, that won’t help you. You’ve got to think, to discriminate, to exercise your own free will and judgment. And you must do this, I repeat, without tension, quite rationally and calmly. For if you give way to fury against the hypnotists, if you smash the radio and tear the newspapers to shreds, you will only rush to the other extreme and fossilize into defiant eccentricity.

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