Winter is Coming – And a New Dark Sentiment

| December 6, 2011

About 15 years ago, long before I ever heard of Game of Thrones and the Stark family motto, I was working late into the night alongside a leathercrafter of great skill who was kindly assisting me with a project that exceeded my own abilities and equipment to complete single handed. As we worked, our conversation […]

The Large Fierce Mammal’s Small But Weighty Book of Etiquette

| November 27, 2011

“In considering how much you should care about the reaction of another to your own behaviour, it is always best to assume that they are armed, lethally skilled, and prepared to kill you at the slightest provocation. If the desired outcome of your course of action outweighs that risk, then you must proceed without delay; […]

Dark Sentiments 2011 – Day 22: An Insidious Curse

| October 22, 2011

Today’s Dark Sentiment is about a very real curse that stalks our girl children, our wives, our mothers – in fact every woman. It entwines them in its evil tendrils and draws its nourishment from them by draining their sense of self-worth, forcing them to suppress their intellectual and creative spirit, and filling their hearts […]

Dark Sentiments 2011 – Day 21: The Intention to Live

| October 21, 2011

There were supposed to be two zombie inspired articles here this year, but thanks to the late breaking news of Lindsay Lohan’s zombification, we all got stuck with one extra. Tonight though, the coast is clear (I know because I’m almost literally sitting on it) and we can proceed with the way things were supposed […]

Medicine Man

| October 2, 2011

In the world of Man we have seen grocery stores expand their services to incorporate pharmacies while pharmacies have opened extensively stocked grocery departments so that, store name notwithstanding, the distinction between the two is becoming blurred. Most so called “department stores” have gone that way too in the inexorable quest to be all things […]

The Greatest Thing You’ll Ever Learn…

Guest Post by Mrs. LFM

| August 10, 2011

… Is just to love and be loved in return… ~Eden Ahbez, Nature Boy Most of my writing is motivated by spite. Something annoys me and rather than ranting someone’s ear off about it, I’ll either take it to my diary, Facebook or a blog post. I don’t often write when I’m blissfully happy… I […]

Musings of an Apprentice Mower

| June 16, 2011

“A goodly man the mower is, With sinews tough as twisted rods, A form of manly grace is his, A head as trenchant as a god’s “A man of thought; the harvest o’er, Its heats and triumphs left behind, He rests, and gives himself once more To pleasures of the heart and mind.” ~ from […]

The Hero

| May 19, 2011

This morning with our coffee, Mrs. LFM and I snuggled in bed and finished watching the last half of the season finale of the excellent police drama series Blue Bloods. At the end, Tom Selleck, in the character of New York City Police Commissioner Frank Reagan, recites a quote from Raymond Chandler at the graveside […]

To the Point

| May 16, 2011

“If your anger goes forth, withhold your sword; If your sword goes forth, withhold your anger.” ~ Swordsman’s axiom ~ “Better to do a little well, than a great deal badly.” ~ Socrates ~ In my studies of the Blade Arts I once encountered a Swordsman of the old school. A fencer of international status, […]

Spring

| March 6, 2011

Oddly enough, this poem was born from an intention to write something with a pretty beginning that set the reader up for a funny punch line involving the way Spring unveils just how much frozen dog shit has been slumbering under the snow and ice in our yard, and that blessed day when Nature does […]