Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - Valley of Fires Recreation Area, Carrizozo NM
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Hickory walking stick, 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
- This is a quiet, well maintained BLM campground with paved sites, some with electric & water
- There is good biking on the park roads
- Good Verizon cell phone service
- Good Verizon EVDO service
- Find other references to Valley of Fires
- List the nights I've camped here
- Go to Valley of Fires website
- Get a BLM map
- Check the weather
When Hope Dies
When you give up on hope, something even better happens than it not killing you, which is that in some sense it does kill you. You die. And there's a wonderful thing about being dead, which is that they—those in power—cannot really touch you anymore. Not through promises, not through threats, not through violence itself. Once you're dead in this way, you can still sing, you can still dance, you can still make love, you can still fight like hell—you can still live because you are still alive, more alive in fact than ever before. You come to realize that when hope died, the you who died with the hope was not you, but was the you who depended on those who exploit you, the you who believed that those who exploit you will somehow stop on their own, the you who believed in the mythologies propagated by those who exploit you in order to facilitate that exploitation. The socially constructed you died. The civilized you died. The manufactured, fabricated, stamped, molded you died. The victim died.
And who is left when that you dies? You are left. Animal you. Naked you. Vulnerable (and invulnerable) you. Mortal you. Survivor you. The you who thinks not what the culture taught you to think but what you think. The you who feels not what the culture taught you to feel but what you feel. The you who is not who the culture taught you to be but who you are. The you who can say yes, the you who can say no.