Large Fierce Mammal

While tweaks will be ongoing – a work of art is, after all, never finished but abandoned – the updated, tarted up, and ever so meaty Large Fierce Mammal website is once again completely open for business.

I may write the content around here, but all credit goes to Mrs. LFM, my incredible Mate and Webmistress, for whipping all that code into the eye candy you’re looking at now.

Give us a taste.

I have a subscription to the Zenhabits newsletter, regularly enjoy returning to their excellent website, and highly recommend it. Today I discovered a guest post titled “A Beginner’s Guide to Trail Running” accompanied by the beautiful photograph at left and written by Matthew Frazier of No Meat Athlete. According to the note about the author at the end of the article, Mr. Frazier is training for his first “50-mile ultramarathon”. I wish him well, but having read the article and reflecting on this practice of “trail running” as he describes it, I think it’s more likely he’ll be eaten by coyotes or a mountain lion, stung to death by wasps, or maimed by somebody’s dog before he achieves his goal. Don’t overthink this. Every part of this trail running article strikes a chord in me because I get exactly the same thrill and soul nurturing effect Mr. Frazier describes from being in the wild myself – all except for the running part.

People get into trouble in the wild because the gobsmacking grandeur of it outhollers the distant echo of what was known and lived by our wilder ancestors, now grown faint and perverted through a combination of disuse, marketing, and wishful thinking in place of reality. Actually in reality, creatures in the wild that aren’t hummingbirds don’t dash madly from place to place, and for those that do as part of their normal behaviour, the practice has developed for sound reasons of survival and only seems mad. For most animals, if they run it’s either after or away from something. To catch or avoid becoming prey. Running uses up valuable energy reserves, attracts unwanted attention, and is employed as a means to an end, not an end in itself. (more…)

If you come here often, it won’t have been lost on you that I’m undergoing a major site revision. Some services, like downloads, won’t be readily available until that’s finished so please be patient while the beatiful, talented, and fragrant Mrs. LFM works her magic.

This article is dedicated to Eric Noeldechen whose Facebook photo album documenting his recent Wood Badge training, and the resulting correspondence, inspired me to resurrect it. And no, this is not a portrait of Eric.

Back in the early 1980’s I embarked on what would be six glorious years as a Leader of Boy Scouts. I was building my business at the same time so that, and other family commitments, eventually took priority but, over the years since, I have continued to contribute my skills and knowledge to help out those Scout and Guide Leaders who ask for them.

My tenure in the Scouting Movement overlapped the 75th anniversary of its founding in 1907 by Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, and in the process I also served a spell as publicity chairman for the Lunenburg District Commission writing a popular weekly newspaper column for several years covering Scouting interests and activities called The Spirit Lives On. The article that follows was originally published in the 6 October 1982 editions of the Bridgewater Bulletin and Lunenburg’s Progress Enterprise, and later appeared in The Leader magazine. It was the reason I got offered the publicity post. (more…)

Hot on the heels of my last article I submit this brilliant piece of work from Blur Studio, illustrating both Gentlemanly and “gentlemanly” conduct. Take copious notes then meet me at the Pub at zero two hundred sharp for discussion. I’ll gut the bastard that says an educational film can’t be entertaining!

Yesterday Mrs. LFM and I were entering our automobile in the parking lot of the Bridgewater Canadian Tire. No sooner had I opened her door for her and ensured that she was safely ensconced within than I encountered a man with whom I have some small acquaintance who said as he approached, “You’re going to have to stop that!”

Inquiring as to his meaning, his reply was, “Opening the door for her. You’re making the rest of us look bad!”

I do wish I could report otherwise, but he spoke these words in the company of his own feminine companion to whose presence he paid no attention and who, I noticed, was walking a few confused steps behind him leaving her vulnerable to the depredations of the coyotes that, as everyone knows, are perpetually on the lookout for stragglers.

I assured him that I was capable of Gentlemanly behaviour that would be even less to his liking, joined my esteemed and most beloved Lady, and continued with life free from further impediment, secure in the knowledge that for “the rest” to look bad requires no assistance from me. (more…)

I was recently rifling through the my archives and happened upon some cartoons I doodled back in the early 1980’s; around the time Mrs. LFM would have been … oh I don’t know … probably two. Now, all these years later, they made the mature Mrs. LFM laugh, so she scanned them for me and I’m posting them here to see what else happens. Clicking on each cartoon will expand it to full size.

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The generally held definition of a “survival knife” is a knife that is carried for the express purpose of facilitating the longevity of its owner in a situation wherein the shit has hit the fan. Internet forums on the subject abound with recommendations and equipment reviews, and I have my own opinions on the subject. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that in its truest definition, the “perfect survival knife” is the knife you actually have in your possession, and are able to employ successfully, at the moment of your most dire need.

Case in point – the beautifully crafted Opinel knife. Opinel knives like the one pictured here are made in France to an ancient design. The handle is simple slotted wood without special liner or other embellishment. The locking mechanism is a very basic twist collar that does not self-activate like the folding knives most of us are used to, leaving it up to the user to decide when or if the blade needs to be locked open. Opinels have a reputation for swelling shut in damp conditions. They are criticized by some as structurally weak. I personally find them attractive, elegant, and effective in their intended realm of use, but they are certainly not the picture of the “perfect survival knife” as it floats in the mind of many a modern bushman … and yet I personally know of a group of men who are alive today because the Opinel carried by one of their number was there to be called upon to serve in the role of survival knife du jour. Only that knife in the hour of need and no other. (more…)

I recently contributed to a thread on BladeForums.com on the subject of corkscrews on modern knives and that started me thinking. This post is the result.

I personally subscribe to the practice of never being without such an implement whenever there is a risk of wine being encountered which, one lives in hope, is perpetually. Mine travels with me in the form of my ever present Swiss Army Knife which is exactly like the one in the picture except my SAK has sexy black handle scales. How I do sigh for the days when a pocket knife was accepted as normal equipment for people boarding planes at airports, and a twelve year old deploying such a dreadful thing at school for such a mundane task as opening a package at lunch wasn’t cause for a lockdown, activation of the local police tactical team, and lifelong corrective therapy for the offending sociopath who clearly can no longer be trusted. (more…)

Mrs. LFM and I enjoy combining our love of each other, dogs, and the outdoors as often as possible. This is a brief pictorial record of our Easter Sunday 2010 expedition to a place called “The Bluff” on Nova Scotia topographical maps.

The Bluff is located north of New Germany, Lunenburg County, near the borderline with Annapolis County and is one of our favourite destinations for a day hike. It is also where I was headed when the events described in my earlier article titled Moments of Magick occurred. With a summit 135 meters above sea level, The Bluff was once a glacier scoured granite hill before quarrying of stone to stabilize the rail bed during construction by generations past of the railway line running north out of New Germany created the surreal landscape of sheer cliffs and massive rock falls that we know today. The picture at right shows members of the now disbanded Whynacht Security & Survival/Lunenburg-Mahone Bay Police Expeditionary Force negotiating their way through one of the speed bumps this part of Nova Scotia has to offer. Clicking on the picture will expand it for better viewing. (more…)