mis·cel·la·ny

Last Saturday, after a hardy breakfast at a local mom'n'pop, I helped my friend Ryan move some of his dad's stuff onto a Uhaul and go through a barn/garage on the property for anything that might have some value beyond just being heaped into a lot auction. His dad passed away last summer. We loaded taxidermied animal after taxidermied animal onto the trailer. Most of which I couldn't name, but a warthog, wildebeest, deer and coyote were among them, as well as possibly an oryx skull. There were a number of large horned and antlered dead things from Africa and other parts unknown.

After we loaded the trailer and took a lunch break, we dove into the barn headfirst. Pulling out rusty item after rusty item. There were plenty of gems in there, too. Like a pair of vintage glass minnow traps, a gun sighting rig with a recoil slide, some cool old crates, saws, monkey wrenches, awls, hatchets, hammers, block planes, etc. Anything you'd think would be on a farm, we pulled out of there. Ryan let me keep a few items to tinker with.

The block planes above shouldn't even need to be cleaned up. They're in brilliant shape. I'm pretty excited about them. Over the past couple of lunch hours, I've managed to bring the L&G M'F'G Co. Cold Handle carbon steel skillet back from the dead. All I need to do now is season it real well and then it'll make a great car-camping frying pan.

On the way back into town, we dropped a new puppy off on our friends Jeff and Cecelia's front porch. Cecelia has a twisted sense of humor and we figured it would scare the crap out of her but also make her laugh. Plus, Ryan didn't care to hang onto it.