Remaining Focused

So today, finally, I shall be fetching in a variety of hardware bits and pieces. Some of them are for the archery target frames, some for the spine tester. The last real hurdle to get going is the spine tester...well, at least for arrows. We all have usable bows so the bowyer's clamp and bench can wait a little.

I got together a tutorial on the making of Asiatic composite bows...this is my long term goal in bowyering. I find these bows to be far handier in the forests and thick brush..although in an old growth forest with very little undergrowth, a longbow would not be a problem. For now though, the brush and undergrowth are quite thick...and I have sorted out the fact that if I am canoeing and need to use the bow, the composite is a far better choice, being smaller and yet still powerful.

So where do I, a Northern Ranger, get these items and skills? Why, from my travels of course. I have been East beyond the sea of Rhûn, and South to Far Harad and beyond, where the stars are strange. A Ranger learns a great deal. Sometimes safety comes from being able to blend in. In my ordinary, mundane existence, I have been around the world four times and to every major continent (and one sub-continent) save two...and one of those I have no desire to visit. So these are reflected in my Ranger background in the above stated way.

In any case, the drive to master the skills of bowyer, fletcher, and stringmaker are driven by both hobby and practical life needs. I appear to have a gift for them, or at least a knack. Only time will show the reality of course but it is possible, if not probable, that I may be able to sell the odd bow and sheaf of arrows now and then. It would be a pleasant pass time for me and is eminently doable from home. Being able to make crossbows would simply accent it nicely. Some folk cannot, for a variety of reasons, use standard bows...but they can use crossbows. It may not apply so well to the world of Middle Earth, but it works in the everyday, and therein is where I will use it. They'd be even easier to use in a canoe, come to think of it.

Remaining focused has allowed me to reach this point. Discouragement is not something I am prone too, thank goodness. There have been setbacks..there still are, in a variety of endeavors, yet I will continue on regardless. Until the flame of my spirit gutters at last and I rest from my labors.

So much to learn, so much to see, so little time.

Nai i-Valar tiralyë.

Eledhwen

Bowyering

It is a stormy day outside, with a Summer thunderstorm putting on a bit of a show. A good time to sit down and set pen to parchment, as it were.

I have been pursuing the skills of bowyer, fletcher, and string maker for a bit now...in fits and starts up to this point, but it hasn't gotten far from the priority list.

With the arrival of several awaited tools and some awesome blueprints for a medieval style crossbow, it has taken the high ground with a vengeance.

I have begun tillering the first of my hickory longbow staves. I shall be recording the event for the edification of my fellow Rangers throughout Endor. It is to be hoped that I shall come up fortunate in this first endeavor and produce a functioning bow in the 45# @ 28" draw range. If it does not look too horrendous when done I will add some horn nocks to the tips. I have linseed oil for the wood, hemp cord for the grip, and of course, arrow shafts and building supplies for the rest. I have not yet decided if I will attempt any decoration...I probably will as I am simply that way, but we will see.

Additionally, I have a complete set of blueprints, as I said before, for the making of a medieval style crossbow. I have a tutorial as well, and a source for the metal bits necessary for completion. I would forge them myself but my forge is still in storage and probably will be until I move out of here. Hence the leatherwork and bowyering; I can do them here.

Initially I will go for a good target crossbow, once I have the pieces here. If that comes out well enough I will do a second in the hunting range. While local Sheriffs won't allow me to hunt with one here, there are other areas and being able to make them properly also means another item for trade as well. Which of course means I will have to work on making bolts for said crossbows.

Today I received a new tillering cord..and promptly found the old one whose loss prompted ordering a new one. Naturally. I also received my cabinet scrapers and they have already proven useful. Horn nocks arrived too; horn is getting hard to find, at least the sort that is best for this, and is getting expensive too.

As soon as the spine tester is done I shall begin making arrows for my sons and fellow Rangers. I lack a proper grain scale but I have a good grams scale and I can do simple math. A grain scale, non-electronic, is on the list of things to procure, along with a bowyer's 'bench' equivalent. I may someday make a proper wooden bowyer's bench, but living in an apartment would make it rather more trouble than I want so for now a more vise-like and very portable tool that does the same is what is on the list. With that I can not only shape stocks and staves, but carve them right out of a billet of wood.

Also in the future are composite horse-bows. I have already built a home steam box for this purpose so when I get to the point where making one of these seems possible, I will be ready to go. I do tend to look ahead a bit..or dream ahead, more like. ;)

The Summer season of rearing young is nearing its end and the Autumn season of the Hunt will soon begin. Oromë grant me some success in my endeavors in this regard.

All projects, including the pack I mentioned before, will be recorded in process for the edification (or derision) of my fellow Rangers. ;)

Nai i-Valar tiralyë

Eledhwen

Grand Moot & Archery

I wish I were in a position to organize and execute a kind of 'Grand Moot' for Rangers. Sure, I chat with fellow Rangers via the Aether and via messages written on Waystation Boards, but it would be nice to actually meet some of my kith in person on a time.

Imagination always colors things in rosy light, yet still I should think the nights around the fires would be full of stories and exchanges of knowledge and Wisdom. Competitions for those who enjoy them, project work and learning for any who care to partake. It would be nice, aye it would.

On a far more realistic note, it would be insanely expensive these days I suspect, not to mention difficult to set up. Sites are not easily found these days, certainly not ones of reasonable cost.

Yet...it would be amazing if one happened sometime. I suspect, however, that local moots are the best that can be managed.

******

I am eying my son's quiver. He likes a belt quiver so I am modifying it. It is leather, the real thing, but rather simple and cheap otherwise. I am augmenting it with a leather extension on the top (it was made for a child's arrows), a system of rings and straps so it can be worn at the waist and carried on the back as desired, a soft leather bag insert to protect and quiet the arrows, and a bit of decoration of the Elven sort. Out of this will come a new belt quiver for myself, although I like wearing mine near horizontally across the small of my back with the points at the draw end; for hunting don't you see? The sheath is flipped off the tip, the arrow draw straight out and down onto the bow, a minimum of movement to spook prey. It too will have a soft leather bag to protect and quieten arrows...and a strap system to allow it to be carried on the back for travel.

I am making arrows. At the moment more hunting arrows for myself. As soon as the spine tester is sorted out I shall be making some for my sons and lass. A family of Rangers, as it were. :)

The bows too, are beginning to be shaped. There is a lot to do on this rainy day.

Eledhwen

Pack Project

I have found a canvas backpack, the sort made by Panther Primitives. It is insanely long in torso length; much too long for me, it comes to the middle of my ass with the top at the nape of my neck. So what's a gal to do?

Easy. I shall remove the shoulder straps, split the four seams several inches down and fold in the resulting flaps, restitching them into their shorter configuration and reinforcing the pack body in one go. I will add leather reinforcement for the strap anchor points. I will add in breast and waist bands and make the shoulder straps adjustable by adding buckles. I shall add in d-rings and lashing points, leather of course, and completely encase the bottom section in leather.

The straps are currently webbing but I will probably make them of leather instead. I will dye the canvas with my walnut powder so it will be a brown instead of canvas white. I will take care to ensure it will work with my bedroll and quiver, and be able to accept other things as needed.

I may design a new quiver and some pouches specifically for this pack...but of course, useful without it too.

Assuming I can solve the problem my displaced left clavicle presents, this might very well be the Ranger knapsack I have been after having for a long while.

I shall record the entire process and when done, add it to the MERF how-to section. As always, these things are more of a 'How I Did It' than actual 'How To Do It'. They are only one way; the way I have come up with. There are many other ways to tackle the same problem.

Huzzah for new projects! ;)

Eledhwen

Staying the Course

Increasingly these days I am seized by a wanderlust. I used to be the sort who would look at a path, or a hill, or even just the horizon, and wonder what was just beyond it, or around the corner. During my years in the Corps I got to wander in places I never would have otherwise..and it was good. Later, I married and have had children...and as is common in such cases, became anchored by it. Now my youngest is only two years from (legal) adulthood and the wanderlust is growing stronger. I often think that had I not married and had a family I would even now be wandering the hills and vales of the land, living free and independent. Of course, these days everything is owned so being able to do that in most places is exceptionally difficult, what with nosy folk and overweening government telling everyone what to do and how to do it.

Mind you, I have a care for folk, so am no neo-conservative or republican mantra singer...nor am I liberal or neo-progressive; I am a free person, by the Gods, and I make up my own mind about each thing as I go along, sometimes this way, sometimes that, mostly in my own direction.

I wish to be free again. I have not felt so in a long while, I have realized. Everything has changed and I guess I have not changed with it as much as other folk. I'm out of sync and out of time. Guess I wouldn't change that, for all that it can be a problem from time to time. I do not mean free from family, no, I mean free from interference. That, of course, will never happen.

I spend a lot of time running about the woods and hills, camera in my quiver, hunting up 'Middle Earth' scenes. Naturally, the world is Middle Earth...but most of it here these days is far from what I would like to see in Middle Earth. We are not in harmony with our world. We ought to be. In time we will be...we shall have no choice...the only question is what sort of world will it be by then? Poisoned, blasted, Angband and Anfauglith and Mordor all brought to fruition at last? By our own hands (although a case could be made for the Shadow moving us, this time in dispersed form, rather than cohesive).

I'm a Druid, well, a neo-Druid as it were, more akin to Radagast than anything else in Middle Earth I suppose...and I guess I'd be counted amongst the Green folk if they had a rather less wacko set of things in their agenda. I deal in reality, not utopia. Humanity is not essentially good..nor essentially evil...we are neutral by nature, our choices determining which way we go. If there is a lot of evil in the world, it is the work of those who have chosen that path, or who by inaction have allowed that path to take precedence. We're all a bit dirty I guess.

I note that in the books it was the Goblins and Orcs who were fascinated with machinery and explosions. What does that say about us? ;) Yes, a commentary on the industrialization of England it was, and now on the world at large, but the question stands. How many even think about it?

This is the Age of Men...and the Fourth Age is ending, I think. I have no idea what lies ahead; my sight is curiously veiled beyond a certain point.

So what is one to do? Well, this Ranger lives as simply as she can, learning hand crafts and doing for herself as much as modern life allows. Increasing it all the time as things go along. I hunt, spend a lot of time in the forest and about the land. I listen, and observe. Spend a lot of time in thought. I think for myself and rely not upon the words of others, being suspicious of the Shadow and its various routes into one's thoughts and heart.

I can do nothing but see to myself and my own...and hope any example I set will inspire others to take their own path to simplicity. The pursuit of wealth wearies me..it is a false path, a trap for those with less than their overlords have. The truly valuable things lie within each of us, in my opinion.

I do what I can. It is little enough.

Eledhwen

My stuff

This design is mine. I created it myself from scratch. It is the symbol of my own group, the Northern Rangers. I found out this morning that someone nabbed it and has been using it as their group badge for some Steam connected group. There is nothing I can do about it of course. However, I can, and I will, make the statement that the design is my own...not that of another person. I would not have minded but apparently the person using it has claimed creation of it.

The dangers of the Aether.

I am in the design process of making a painted silk flag of this design that we might fly it at events of every sort. I may add some Sindarin or Quenya script to it, I have not yet decided. The basic design, however, I shall keep. It is my own and I will be damned if I will set it aside.

Honorless orcs aside, I have been busy.

Once I have figured out where I put the tillering cord...and why it isn't with the other things...I will begin bowyering in earnest. :) Two hickory staves to work with. Hopefully I will get fortunate and make decent bows the first time out. Probably not, but we shall try in any event.

I have arrows to make for myself and my sons, who are both keen to be Rangers as well. Warms the heart, does that. To that end, I shall make Jim Hill's spine tester so I can get the shafts as closely matched to the bows as possible. Both of my sons also want to hunt..and that requires being able to draw a 45# bow as well as passing all required hunting courses. Once they do those things I will give them a proper horn.

Garment making is ongoing; I am working more with browns and greens these days, leaving the black out of the equation. Black is too easily spotted in the forest except at night. I will work in some nice golden yellows and crimsons for the Autumn, and of course dark grey features for the cloaks. I am still working at making my own boots but for the moment I have the 'Maiden' style of boot from SCA Boots and they are *very* nice. More than acceptable to my mind. I can pull them up over the knee to cover the lower thigh, or cuff them down beneath the knee for a more traditional look. I wish to make these in brown hence the patterning and experimentation.

Also working on leather projects; mostly to do with shooting gloves and arm guards, but also a bit of jerkin design and quiver making. String making is also under way; jute and linen cord for making bowstrings. :)

Hunting season begins soon. I personally believe a Ranger ought to have some skill at hunting, but that is a personal thing.

For now I am using my hunter's knife when I go into the forests..I cannot carry a sword else I would spend some time trying that out. Viggo Mortenson slept with his and kept it with him always when filming Lord of the Rings. Knowing and being comfortable with one's gear is a necessity...but here swords are forbidden so I cannot go this route. For me, knife and hawk.

Lots of work to do all around.

Eledhwen