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comanche

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Everything posted by comanche

  1. comanche
    She's a jolly good dog. After seeing her I've been spurred to put a bit of work into "M". Even with him laying under a seat the other afternoon a roe buck came so close I thought it was going to climb the ladder. It ended up having a staring match with the dog then joined the two does with him and carried -on feeding about forty yards away quite oblivious. I was pleased but think I'll have to make the dog a little winter suit if he's going to be laying around in this weather.
  2. comanche
    My second attempt ended in failure. I tried a squirrel skin but there was a patch that to my mind hadn't taken the tan properly and was a bit stiff to soften-up so I left it soaking in a bucket of water with a veiw to applying some more brain solution. Unfortunatly I left the bucket on the ground under the rain-butt and the skin disappeared. I have strong suspicions that an small, elderly black lurcher may have been involved Undeterred, I'm a month into messing about with oak-tanning a couple of A4 size bits of skin( one hair -on ,the other hair-off) with the idea of making a
  3. comanche
    Make's you wonder how the native Americans discovered it in the first place ? Only a guess but maybe someone was carrying the brains back to camp for food wrapped in a pelt or was maybe drying some on a piece of skin and noticed how it affected the texture of the material. I presume it wasn't just American natives that used brain tanning;its just that their culture is probably better documented than ,say,Celts or Ancient Britons . They also used bark from oak and shumach(we call em stag's horn trees over here) trees.
  4. comanche
    Its not of any quality but I wanted to keep it for other reasons.Though I decided I wanted to keep it after I skinned it or I would've done a neater job with the disrobing
  5. comanche
    Make's you wonder how the native Americans discovered it in the first place ? I wonder that about many things . Who thought of milking a cow and drinking it? A calf ?
  6. comanche
    I didn't want to use salt ,borax or alum as I wanted to be a bit primitive . There are loads of Youtube and internet instructions but they seemed to differ a lot and some claiming to be "authentic native methods " seemed to end up including power-tools and acids. In the end I followed a description by Reginald Laubin who in his day was a preserver and first hand observer of many Native American skills and customs. I didn't salt or dry the skin,just spent blxxdy ages scraping it; then smothered it with warm,mushy brains,rolled it up for a for a few days,then gave it a good s
  7. comanche
    A couple of spots might need re-braining but if I knew it was going to come out like this I would've skinned it a bit more neatly.
  8. comanche
    Ah, the neglected waxed-jacket hint of stale vomit thing. Sometimes just keeping them somewhere warm for a while improves things. Try upholstery or carpet cleaner on the lining.Bin bag and a half a tub of Shake and Vac overnight. Repeat with the other half of the tub.
  9. comanche
    Most people use a set of fishing scales
  10. comanche
    I was about to post some pictures of an old air rifle I was given yesterday and noticed there is a dedicated Tatty Old Air Rifle section! I think it's a generic rifle made by the Midland Gun Co but it's badged as a T Wild. I was going to just repair the splits in the stock but it came apart far easier than any rifle I've stripped before so kept digging deeper. I may be wrong but I guess it has to be 70 or years old. I was impressed by the built-in spring-guides. The one inside the piston also doubles as the trigger tang.A very neat piece of simple but effective engineering
  11. comanche
    I know a farmer,otherwise hard-headed ,who kept a huge sow that he said had just become"part of the place". All his othe r pigs met the usual end but this one lived the life of Riley long after it was any use for breeding. I think I'm not alone in thinking that piglets are really cute and endearing but there comes a time when they start getting cheeky . Then they get mischievous and a bit troublesome . Then they get big and clever and a bit risky for kids to be around. Then comes the point when they fight you for the food bucket and start really trashing things and they ain't so end
  12. comanche
    These two started as nervous squealing idiots and I just could'nt warm to them but they've turned into the most amenable pigs we've had to date. It won't save them in six weeks time though .
  13. comanche
    i know insects have to be controlled , and as you say its your job, but just as thought , i they not doing any damage to building and not attacking people why kill them .? when i had wasp nest in my garden shed , they needed sorting out as the prats were having go at me when i went in my shed , which is fair enough . if a pest is carrying disease and danger to people like rats etc fair enough .! but got the feeling the Hornet is not .? Wasps and hornets are greatly underestimated as carriers of bacteria that contaminates human food. Everyone knows that flies spread bacteria b
  14. comanche
    I still get it wrong... Though I've become pretty good at dealing with customers who say they definatly have a mouse-nest because they can hear them gnawing at a particular place in the wall or the ceiling . I ask them "Does it sound like this,"and start making funny clicking noises down the phone. If they say "Yes",I tell em to look out of the window and see if they can spot a line of Jaspers going back and forth. It saves me oiking out the mouse-bait when I'm in full-on wasp busting mode. Though one day I'm sure a potential customer is going to call me a weird nutter and sla
  15. comanche
    I do wonder how well Asian hornets will do in this country.For instance whether our summers will be long enough for them to consistently nest with success. I agree with Phil regarding our native hornets;it's usually possible to get in with the lance and retire without doing anything more than confuse the poor things. The worse scenarios are when the nest has already been disturbed . The hornets seem to post guards who stand duty for hours waiting for the next interloper. Strangely nests in houses seem to be calmer than those in more natural surroundings. I had a call
  16. comanche
    I think hornets are my favourite insect. Away from the nest they are so benign. They also seem to display a high degree of intelligence for an insect and are very aware of being watched.. Wind em up at the nest though and they can do a good impersonation of a squadron of Stukas! .
  17. comanche
    I've come across a few calcified rabbit foetuses and always assumed they are similar to the petrified babies that are found in some unfortunate women. In these cases a baby has for some reason died in the woman's body,sometimes having developed outside the womb, and has failed to be expelled. This can lead to dangerous infections but sometimes the mother's defence mechanisms isolate the foreign body by encapsulating it in calcium. As doe rabbits often self-absorb unborn young up three-quarters of the way through gestation rather than abort by early expulsion the mechanics mi
  18. comanche
    Good on you both. I once gave a ferret to lad and offered him a dozen old nylon nest free to get him started. He refused them saying they were crap and he only wanted spun ones. Its good to see someone helping another person out and the recipient being polite and appreciative about it .
  19. comanche
    No.You really do have to be self-employed plumber to fish those places . . Are you thinking of Timsbury? I've fished there. A course fish ticket was thrice what you would pay at a normal fishery but when I first went the place exuded exclusiveness with a lovely atmosphere and some great fish .It was the sort of place you would go as a special treat or for a birthday present. Sadly the last couple of visits weren't so good and I vowed not to return . The fish are still there but the atmosphere had gone down-market. I watched a bailiff chucking out bread and trawling swims
  20. comanche
    On Christmas Eve I was lucky to be invited by a friend to go with him on a trip to a chalk stream famous for its trout and salmon. Obviously due to the trout closed season and the fact neither of us are millionaire oil shieks or plumbers we were not to be in pursuit of such noble Game. My friend had high hopes of contacting some of the big roach the river holds and I quite fancied catching a grayling . As it was my mate failed to find his roach . He was plagued by nuisance trout though that found his mashed-bread groundbait irresistable. Following his instructions I'd tackl
  21. comanche
    £8 or £9 sounds expensive. We were paying not much more than £6 a bag from the local farm supplier and the horse feed shop used by the girls at the stables was pretty much the same even though they ordered it in specially for us. And we were only buying a bag or two at a time
  22. comanche
    One chap I know has charges that start at £65 a mole even for local jobs . If he gets two the customer pays £130. After I'd choked I asked if he was busy. His answer was"No but at my prices I don't need to be." Clearly a chap with a hard head for business.And a better house and car than me! Hearing this spurred me to ease my prices up a little with a clear concience.If someone baulks I have no problem suggesting they phone round for other quotes knowing that its likely they'll come across Mr£65. Actually ,assuming he factors each job at three visits his pricing is probably quite
  23. comanche
    As long as she is trying to retrieve them let her fumble them a bit. A young dog has to work out the best way of getting a good grip on a wriggling rabbit. Don't snatch the rabbit from her when she comes ;pause for her to hold it a few seconds then take it and give lots of praise. Practice retrieving with heavy dummies and dead rabbits so she can get weight distribution worked out . And whatever you do don't let her work with other dogs which may rush-in and steal her rabbit while she is fumbling to get a soft-mouthed grip . A sensitive dog can have its confidence knocked and enthu
  24. comanche
    Look at it from the seller's point of view. The few quid I might make from flogging a ferret isn't worth the bother or risk of taking a stranger onto my ferreting permission . Anyway its a bit late in the season to be looking for proven workers as having cared for their working stock through the unproductive summer months their owners will be looking forward to putting them to work themselves now winter is here. Requests for ready-made ferrets,dogs ,horses or whatever,tend to indicate that the buyer isn't prepared to put the work-in with a young animal and wants a short-cut to
  25. comanche
    The 71lb carp in question is now the biggest rod-caught carp to date and that makes it a record . Perhaps one with out much merit but still a record. As someone pointed-out ,carp are a non-native species hence all are decendants of foreign imports .Recent trends have seen this taken this further with the rearing of fast-growing ,ever-hungry fish from commercial strains developed for the table being released at "specimen" weights and due to their genetic programming to live-to-eat they end-up being caught so many times they literally are on first name terms with their captors. The ob
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