Witch hazel is something you may have seen in your mother’s medicine chest, but she probably didn’t tell you why she was using it. Consequently you may not have discovered the extract’s many magical properties. Fact is, witch hazel is good for a lot of things, some that you can talk about in mixed company…
Fitz Cahall of the most excellent Dirtbag Diaries, has a most excellent side project blog in connection with Steve Bohrer and Danny Maynor. Three dads working together to “keep the Stoke” through that long season we call parenthood. The Outdoor Parent is a different kind of blog…one that doesn’t tell you how to keep your…
Sespe Creek snakes through the heart of the Los Padres forest like a coronary artery. It starts below Oak Springs, south of Ventucopa and flows east until it smacks into the foot of the Hopper Mountain bioregion, finally emptying into the Santa Clara River after a 55 mile journey. Last weekend, while the rest of…
BMW Scissors GPS Drawing from Max Rider on Vimeo. Gotta say that running a sometimes-used section of rail line is a hella-high-risk way to draw a picture on a map. Via NaviGadget
Don’t try this at home kids! It appears that with spray of flammable liquid (starter fluid, carb cleaner, brake cleaner) you can reseat a bead and inflate an off-road tire that rolled off the rim in a matter of seconds. Of course, it helps if you know hhow much flammable liquid to put in the…
Sooner or later it could happen to you. Might be in the backwoods of the Sespe. Might happen between the aisles at Trader Joe’s. Either way, it’s a good idea to brush up on your Cougar avoidance techniques. A study from UC Davis examining 185 cougar attacks from 1890 on, seems to suggest that the…
SPOT Personal Satellite Tracker This morning I noticed this odd arrangment I’d made on my desk. One is designed to prevent you from dying alone in the desert. The other advocates it.
Here’s the thing about suburban frontiers…too close to the suburbs. There’s some good to that. You can live and work close to nature. Problem is too many people don’t clean up after themselves. Real Cheap Sports in Ventura is sponsoring a clean-up day at Lizard’s Mouth, as I mentioned earlier a great local spot for…
Last week, riding home from work, I used a little more rear brake than usual and it felt “crunchy.” The BMW R1200GS has integral brakes, meaning that when you engage the front brake you automatically engage the rear brake as well. I tend to be light on the brakes in general, using them mostly to…
A couple of months ago I decided to read the Bible differently than before. I’ve always tried to wrestle Knowledge or Truth from the Holy Scripture. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not so much. This time around I’m trying to read more as if I’m having a conversation with God. It’s a subtle difference. But an…
Maybe you’ve noticed. Maybe you haven’t. But I haven’t been posting much. Just firing up the browser and logging in seems like more work than I can bear. I’m exhausted. I suck. I’ve lost my bearings…sliding off the trail into a slippery slough of late bills and bad karma. Here it is, the opening season…
In this segment of British TV’s Fifth Gear, a Jeep Wrangler goes head-to-head with a Willys WWII model. Guess which Jeep wins? (Link c/o Mike’s Totally Free Jeep News Now) Don’t think it was a fair competition? How about a timed test through whoop-de-doos? Or a race up the sand dunes? I guess there is…
Where do you go after winning the Miss Outdoors beauty contest? If you’re Dakota Abbot, the 2008 winner of the Miss Outdoors crown, you go back to your first love – skinning muskrats. “The first cut is crucial – you have to pinch the fur at the hind legs and cut straight into that meaty…
I wanted to quickly prototype a new website with the purpose of getting information to the high school seniors at our church. So why not use Apple’s iWeb 09 and my Mobile Me account? There’s a lot to love about iWeb – just select a template and badda-bing, badda-boom you’re done. If you don’t like…
I’ve blogged about poison oak before but there is something I’d like to mention while it’s still fresh on my mind. So to speak. POISON OAK IS NOT HARMLESS DURING GREEN PHASE Some people are under the mistaken notion that you won’t get a rash from poison oak until the leaves have turned red. Let…
