Large Fierce Mammal

Canadian Tire recently began selling the Fasthawk tomahawk manufactured by SOG Specialty Knives and Tools. The local branch is a security client of ours and recently, whenever I was there, I could hear the damn thing calling my name.

Fortunately, Mrs. LFM and I maintain a toy budget made entirely out of Canadian Tire Money, and a couple weeks ago a little over $50.00 of that turned into a Fasthawk. Field testing is ongoing and a review is in the works, but today’s article is about the practical scabbard I’ve been developing for this tool.

The Fasthawk is delivered with a fairly stout snap-on blade cover made of a thick, woven synthetic that snaps on a three points. It has five strategically placed eyelets to facilitate attachment to packs and such, but I consider it more of a protective casing for times when the ‘hawk will ride inside a pack, or in a vehicle mounted tool kit. The belt loop on this item is vestigial at best, but if you read my 1 August 2011 article titled Getting My Gear Off My Belt, you’ll understand I wouldn’t want to hang it on my waist anyway.

Today I’m introducing you to the prototype minimalist carry system I’ve devised for the Fasthawk, and that I’ll be test driving over the next few weeks in field trials. The dye job in these pictures looks a bit rough because this is still a work in progress and a lot more finishing needs doing. I also need to complete the suspension system so stay tuned, but in the mean time, take a look.

The Fasthawk wearing its new pants in comparison with the issue head cover. The head is supported under the chin of the business end by an "L" shaped welt, as well as by the criss-cross strap that straddles the handle and anchors to a stud. The end of the retaining strap was left long for now while I establish how much grab handle I want. (Mrs. LFM photo)

The Fasthawk and scabbard showing some more detail. Draw is accomplished by releasing the strap from its stud, rocking the spike end free of the leather, and then pulling the head rearward to clear the frontal support. Click the picture to enbiggen. (Mrs. LFM photo)

The Winter King: Source http://browse.deviantart.com/?q=winter%20is%20coming&order=9&offset=48#/dqylud (Click to enlarge)

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 revolved around our mutual love for natural materials – leather, bone, wood, natural fibres, stone, metals. The things our ancestors obtained and used in times when everything one needed to survive was subject to three simple rules that today we would call “terms of use” – If you didn’t have it, it broke, or wore out, you could make new, repair the old, or do without. Back when the world moved on muscle, wind, current, and tide, the seasons declared priorities, and all Nature’s creatures knew that time, effort, and resources were precious things that could only be squandered at your peril. Times when, as my talented friend pointed out, people worked like hell motivated by the overriding imperative that Winter was coming!

December is the month of the modern year when people in my part of the word routinely get caught up in the whirlwind of consumer frenzy generically referred to as “Christmas”. Held up as a time of joy and celebration, communion with family and friends, the giving and receiving of gifts, consideration for the less fortunate, and for the observance of religious ritual, the modern festivals are at once all of these things and none of them. With all their sparkle, clamour, and exhaustive demands, they represent but a shadow of the primal motivation the approach of the Winter Solstice held for those of our ancestors who lived under the looming spectre of Winter, taking of necessity a more pragmatic outlook on the end of one year and the uncertain opening to another.

Within all that, we all must find our Truth, and while I will not disrespect yours, dear reader, by laying claim to exclusivity on the moral high ground, I will assert that pepper spraying other shoppers to gain advantage at a pre-Christmas department store sale, or engaging in fisticuffs over the last Cabbage Patch Kid doll as I once personally witnessed, does not represent any form of “celebration” Mrs. LFM and I want anything to do with.

If you follow us here, you will be familiar with our annual Dark Sentiments series that runs every October with one article relevant to that important time of year published on each of its 31 days. This year, for the first time ever, we will be launching a new series titled A Long Winter’s Night that will begin on the 21st day of December and conclude on the 31st. While its revelries and revelations may bring joy to some, those will be people who adhere to an unorthodox form of joy.

“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; otherwise, rethink your dedication to it.” ~ The Large Fierce Mammal’s Small But Weighty Book of Etiquette, Volume 1

Source: http://www.victorianalady.com/newvictorianlifestyle.html

When I go abroad in the land, it never takes long to encounter so many examples of the decline of good manners that it becomes taxing to divine which represents the most dire specimen on any given day. Many decry such backsliding as an ailment of youth, but nay to that say I, for I commonly observe such reprehensible displays committed by those of equal or greater antiquity to my own, and I can remain silent no longer.

Let this be a warning to all that Volume 1 of The Large Fierce Mammal’s Small But Weighty Book of Etiquette will soon be made available as an ebook from this very venue. It will present illustrative examples taken from the wild, educational anecdotes, guidance in avoidance of committing the provacative faux pas, as well as recommendations for dealing with it as recipient, and leave no stone unturned in its revelations of proper conduct spanning all areas of social intercourse.

While I turn my attentions to assembling the promised tome, I will leave you today with a film clip that beautifully illustrates the spirit of this endeavour. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the theatre scene from the 1950 motion picture Cyrano de Bergerac starring José Ferrer in the title role.

I recently read an article titled Armed and female: States mark rise in women hunters. While it didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, the article still filled my heart with gladness for a number of reasons.

First off, I have never accepted what has come to be seen as “traditional” social structures that compartmentalize and define hunting as time out with the boys. Hunting is the acquisition of food at its most primal level, so what’s exclusively manly, and unwomanly about that? To quote the article, “Women are not just stuck in the kitchen these days, and hunting is no longer a gender-specific activity.”

Another observation I heartily endorse is, “The growing number of women heading single-parent households also has led to more moms wanting to provide their families fresh game — part of a trend that favors local and natural food — as well as instill in their children a taste for hunting.”

Trigger time with Mrs. LFM. Long ago I taught her to shoot, and now she shoots as well as, or better than, I do with rifle, shotgun, and pistol.

As a firearms and hunter safety instructor of many years experience, I was likewise not surprised to read that women are still topping men in the realm of marksmanship. From a teacher’s perspective, they tend to have a lot fewer bad habits that have to be unlearned first and, once they have decided to learn how to operate a firearm, they’re all in for doing it right. The best students I have ever had on the range were female, and I’m married to one of them.

Too often, a male will invite a female to the shooting range so he can hand her something that generates major recoil for the purpose of impressing her with how big and tough he must be to shoot such a beast without later spitting out all his fillings. Like many women, Mrs. LFM had fired guns before me, but had never been taught the fine points of marksmanship necessary to comfortably and confidently deliver accurate fire.

I am happy to report that she now shoots everything in our inventory as well as, or better than, I do, and has to her credit an incredible shot made while standing on an unstable surface (the mattress of our bed), firing out a window into a cross wind on a very breezy day, employing a scoped .22 calibre air rifle rated at 500 fps. The target was a red squirrel that had been caught for the third time in the act of chewing a hole through the side of our house in a foiled attempt to enter. The squirrel had run to a mature Pine Tree at the corner of our property where it stood silhouetted about ten feet up the trunk. Distance to target was 60 meters, and death came in the form of a perfect, instantly lethal, head shot.

Overnight tonight those of us who live with daylight saving time get to set our clocks back an hour which, when it happens to people who have to work the next morning, feels like a sixty minute freebee. Today I’m presenting a poem about a man who scored himself one hell of a lot more.

This  poem was inspired by Mrs. LFM while Dark Sentiments 2011 was in full swing, but was finished too late to appear there. Not because it was particularly hard to write – just that Mrs. LFM’s Angel of Death costume … what there is of it … so intrigued me that I really couldn’t do it justice right away. So now after a time, or quite a few times actually, here it is.

My Angelique

By LFM

An Angel came to see me
On an island in a lake.
She walked up to my campfire
While I sat there cooking steak.

The buckskins that she wore were black,
And so too was her hair.
In all of Nature’s beauty
I’d seen nothing to compare.

The Angel said her name was Death.
I answered with a smile.
She told me what she’d come for
And I bade her sit a while.

Neither she nor I
Were in a rush you understand.
She came for me, I’d gladly go,
But first I took her hand.

I looked into her eyes and spoke
Of what was on my mind.
I poured us each a glass of wine
And on the beach we dined.

My Angel’d come to reap my soul
Upon that autumn day,
But first we reaped each other
In a slightly different way.

In making Love there is no room
For futures or for pasts.
Love is made from here and now,
Each moment that it lasts.

That day turned into thousands more
I’ve shared with Angelique,
For so I came to call her
As one day became … a week.

I first tasted Death’s sweet kiss
Five centuries gone by,
And each night Death still comes for me,
But not so I can die.

31 October 2008 - Diana officially became Mrs. LFM.

It being the third anniversary of the LFM wedding, you’ll all understand, our hands are far too busy to type.

The inspiration of this poem came from a story I was once told by the Woman it happened to. Her name is not Stella.

Stella

By LFM

Stella was an ugly girl,
At least that’s how she felt.
Her mirror’s cruelty exposed
The cards that she’d been dealt.

Her parents were so beautiful
It made so little sense
Her mother’s beauteous womb would make
A troll and send it hence.

Day by day she forced herself
To stand before the glass,
And there she learned how much she loathed
Her face, her waist, her ass.

Her father’s ears, her mother’s lips
The eyes of a cadaver.
She feared she’d wed an ugly man
For no one else would have her.

And then one day her father
Found her crying in her room.
He went inside and stroked her hair,
And asked what caused her gloom.

“I’m ugly!” Stella cried
As tear stained face met father’s chest,
And as he held her there his ears
Heard every hurt confessed.

And when her words subsided
So that only sobs remained,
Her father spoke some words to her
That Stella’s heart retained.

“Do you think I’m ugly?”
Was the first thing that she heard,
But though she stopped her sobbing
Stella didn’t speak a word.

Her father smiled and took her face,
He wiped away a tear,
And looking in her eyes he asked,
“Is Mother ugly dear?”

“No,” she whispered in reply,
“You’re both so very fair!”
Asked he, “So would I give my Wife
“An ugly child to bear?”

She looked into her father’s eyes
And knew the truth at last.
From that point on, her future
Would be nothing like her past.

Stella changed her mind that day,
And took a different view.
No longer would she meekly take
What others thought her due.

The day her father spoke the words
He spoke to sooth her sadness,
He never knew the part they played
In saving her from madness.

For Stella was a studious girl,
And brilliant without peer.
With talents lost forever
But for father’s loving ear.

Stella found her power though,
And pretty soon it led
To a brilliant girl who’d come to turn
Each and every head.

The chrysalis was opened to
A Woman self-possessed.
A Woman who would never give
Herself to second best.

The Chair

By LFM

Malcolm found a shop one day
He’d never seen before.
It sold antiques and bric-a-brac,
And dusty tomes of lore.

He went inside to look about
And as he made his rounds
He found a chair marked, “Cursed Antique”
“Reduced to 20 pounds.”

Superbly carved from pitch black wood,
It looked as though each part
Was from a trophy hunt in Hell
And crafted into art.

Thirteen forked tails wove its back,
Its four legs sat on hooves.
Its leather seat was darkly stained
And crusting filled its grooves.

Malcolm knew he had to have
This chair, accurs’d or not.
He called out to the shop keep and
He bought it on the spot.

And so it passed, the chair became
Ensconced at Malcolm’s table.
He liked its curs-ed state so much
He even framed the label.

A dozen months plus one he ate
His meals upon that seat,
And over time he sat there more and more,
Not just to eat.

I know you all are thinking that
This thing will not end well.
That Malcolm bought a chair that soon
Will send him straight to Hell.

You picture he’ll keep sitting there
Until one day the chair
Releases Hell upon his soul
And rends him thumb from hair.

To that I’d say please calm yourself,
It didn’t end that way.
Malcolm met his end, it’s true,
At breakfast one fine day.

T’is true he sat upon that chair,
And that is where he died,
T’was nothing supernatural,
It’s just – the seller lied.

No matter what the label said,
The curse was never real.
The shop keep had it there so long
He’d take most any deal.

Malcolm bought the chair and never
Knew the shop keep lied.
He never knew its glue was weak
And sparingly applied.

And so one day while Malcolm dined
Before he went to Mass,
The glue on one back leg gave out
And speared him up the ass.

For my own part, I regard stories that involve people making a pact with the Devil, or an ever burning Hell pit of damnation, as suitable fodder for entertainment, but nothing else.

As a case in point, in the course of my research for Dark Sentiments 2011, I found the original, accept no substitutes, Dante’s Inferno Hell Test, the intro to which reads:

Welcome to the Dante’s Inferno Hell Test, the original and the best. This test, sponsored by the 4degreez.com community (the fine people who brought you the famous Personality Disorder Test), is based on the description of Hell found in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Answer the questions below as honestly as you can and discover your fate. Based on your answers, your purity will be judged and you will be banished to the appropriate level of hell. Abandon all hope.

The sponsoring site is described on its home page as, “… an interactive community for teenagers and twenty-somethings,” but I don’t think that’s accurate because it all worked fine for me. As far as the Hell Test goes, you have to have bought into the whole Christian belief system to make this work, which I pretended to do for the sake of tom foolery and finding out what results I got. As it turns out, I scored this: (more…)

Robert

By LFM

Robert was a different boy,
He wasn’t understood.
His parents tried to help him out
But never really could.

He read a lot and got good grades,
But liked to be alone,
And unlike other teenaged boys
He rarely used the phone.

He really had no friends but he’d
Been never known to fight,
He always did his homework,
Then took long dark walks at night.

Robert never dated,
To his parents’ great dismay,
And many sleepless nights they had
For fear that he was gay.

The more they tried to know their son
The more of him they missed.
They overlooked his bullied days,
Likewise, his vengeance list.

But Robert was a thinker and
He always thought things through.
He liked to weigh his options
To be sure what he should do.

Just because he made a list
Of people he’d like dead
Didn’t mean he couldn’t take
Another path instead.

And that’s exactly how it went
When Robert thought it out,
So when he made his final choice
There was no room for doubt.

His mother learned his mind one day
When calling him from bed –
He’d set aside his vengeance list
And killed himself instead.