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An Unexpected Journey: A Newbie's Walk In Wet Shaving

All great comments. I guess I don't use any quality colognes or EdP's. The mammoth painting works, but if a super excellent bay rum scented cologne found its way into my shaving den I'd probably use that a lot.
 
Most bay rums are super excellent lol. I'll also toss my 2 cents in, for what it's worth. It should be considered that you can go "nose-blind" to a lot of fragrances, regardless of quality, especially when you spray them on your neck where you smell them all the time. At that point you can either barely smell it or not smell it at all, but it is projecting and lasting just as much as it was before. I've had this happen plenty of times, even with many high end colognes that I know for a fact have beastly performance. It is possible that the guy in your office thinks he is applying the appropriate amount because he can barely smell it after 10 minutes or so.

I learned this the hard way when I over applied some Ferragamo F Black. I was in an office for most of the day after that, and every time anyone got within 5 feet of me they started coughing. They were all too nice to say anything, but it was pretty obvious and I actually wished one of them had just told me that I needed to back off on the cologne lol.
 
They were all too nice to say anything, but it was pretty obvious and I actually wished one of them had just told me that I needed to back off on the cologne lol.

That's interesting and I hadn't thought of that. I know when I worked on the farm as a youngster you eventually don't smell the Eau de Barn. My mom would make me get undressed in the garage after doing morning chores but I honestly couldn't smell it. I think you are right on this.
 
I had a great weekend. The list of projects is hunting me like the Wring Wraiths! In the morning I converted an old dresser into shelving storage in the girls' playroom. After that I took a half log and hewed it into a bench with my small broad hatchet. I really wished I'd had my large broad axe sharpened, but the little one worked and boy are my 18th century muscles lacking.

In the afternoon I got out to the cabin and figured out stairs to the loft and then cut brush on the north side of the cabin to open things up. The pines in that area had dead branches from the ground on up past 7 feet. I trimmed the trees and now the sun gets in there and the wind blows through so this should help with clearing out the bugs in the summer months as well as increase the depth of the view north from the cabin. Picked off a couple Wraiths chasing me with that list! I sure love working in the woods and using the axes!
 
Shaving is pretty much a par everyday with the new system I've settled on. I'll tell you though, if I could shave every other day I'd be one happy guy. I get the smoothest and longest lasting shaves that way, but I just can't stand the way things feel on the off day. I might just try a one pass shave as an off day shave to see how that works. Somehow I think this wet shaving thing is just one cruel trick that has you opening new doors for the rest of your life chasing the key maker.

Image result for matrix keymaker


Took a half a day to watch my girls so we took a hike out in the woods. It was fun to teach them to identify different trees and things out there. It was also nice for me to take inventory on the different resources out there like wood burls, milk weeds for cordage, birch bark for tinder, and generally survey what was out there. Stopped by the cabin for a break and then looped back to the house. There's so much to teach them and they are eager to learn. We started naming some future trails that will need to be cut. Coming back kind of depresses me. I really belong out there in the woods working away and work is just a way to pay the bills and have health insurance. I sure was born a few centuries too late!
 
I sure hope you're rubbing elk musk or something on your chest when you're doing these treks so as you're not disrupting the balance of nature.
 
I sure hope you're rubbing elk musk or something on your chest when you're doing these treks so as you're not disrupting the balance of nature.

I'm like the wind when in the woods. I'm one with all of it :LOL: No need for elk musk, they know I"m king of the forest.

The average life expectancy during this era was 37

I was thinking I read it was more in the late 40's early 50's here in America, but I could be wrong.

What strikes me in reading diaries and 1st hand accounts of how people lived back then was that everything they did was to further their homestead /family. Dad worked on the mill while junior was out plowing. Junior helped Dad cut oak trees and hew them for timbers for the new bridge. Today we work for someone else so that we can get a paycheck & health insurance. When I work hard for a day on my land, my family reaps the benefits instead of some executive or company when we work for someone else. It's the American spirit of the harder you work the more you have when you work your land, build from it, and grow your food from it. Guys back then knew how to do multiple things, had multiple skills, as they carved out a piece of the American dream. Today, that dream has changed considerably. We just want a fat mortgage, keep up with the neighbors, have a couple of nice vehicles, and go on a super nice vacation. No thanks, I step out of that where and when I can. I get more satisfaction out of an hour at the anvil or and hour out with the axe then I do working a week at the day job.
 
It's been a while since I've posted anything here. I'll have to get some pictures up of what I've been doing lately. Log hewing, got my shave horse bench built, lots of axes hung and put into use.

Lately I've really been enjoying the shower shaves. My dang beard growth is a whole lot less with me working from home for some reason. I wonder if office stress makes it grow more? Something does by going to work all day because I'm still getting up at my usual time I'm just starting work early so I can have a couple of hours in the afternoon to work on projects with my hobbies. I've really been enjoying Williams mug soap lately. My MW soaps were getting kinda lowish so I decided to dig into the den and find some soaps that haven't got much attention lately. I didn't like the Williams mug soap outside the shower, but the moist shower environment is perfect for me to use it.

On the personal side of things, we had to put down the family dog today. She's had what we believe to be dog dementia. I'd catch her in the middle of the night just staring at a light socket or a wall. The straw that broke the camel's back was that she's been growling and biting at our girls. They literally walk into the room and she growls at them. Friends of ours have a boy that comes over and he'd do nothing but walk her and play with her in the woods - she loved that boy. He came over a few weeks ago and tried to pet her and she snarled and tried to bite him. We were just afraid she'd bite some child in the face or something so it was time. She was 14 years old and head a list of other health issues. I'd dug a grave for her out in the woods a few weekends ago knowing the appointment was coming up. She was a rescue dog and I'd trained with her a lot. She was very pack oriented and almost like a wolf in that aspect. Here's a picture of us today before I got her in the SUV and took her to the vets.
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On another note, a year ago today I made it home from the hospital after a hip replacement. Dang I'm glad that's 12 months behind me. I don't miss all of that pain and everything.
 
Mike! Good to see ya man! Hope you’re ridin high in all this virus mess! Sorry to hear about the faithful friend.
 
A cutie, looks like the Rottie Lab mix we had - Shana. Best dog we ever had and had to put her down at 14 as well.......
 
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She was a cutie. We had a mix that looked just like her. He passed in the middle of the night at age 16. Not a lick of gray and never acted old.

Stay safe out there.
 
Mike so sorry for your loss. We had a dog that started behaving similarly. Apparently our pup had cancer and it had speed to the brain and was causing issues. It was hard. Dogs are family! Praying for your family!
 
A cutie, looks like the Rottie Lab mix we had - Shana. Best dog we ever had and had to put her down at 14 as well.......

She was a Rottie / Sheba Inu mix. We got her as a rescue and she was very badly abused. She was very afraid of anything like a shovel or long stick, but we got her trained up and better. She was a good dog except in the end, but we think there was something going on in her brain that caused the personality difference like @Cvargo said about his dog.
 
Sorry to hear about the pup Mike. We had to do the same with one of ours several years back. He was doing the same thing but would also go out the dog door to the back yard and forget how to come back in. with us living in tucson that might have killed him in the summer from the heat and dehydration. It was his time, i think he was about 16.
 
Thanks everyone for the sympathy. Pets do become a bigger part of your life than you realize.

Here's the bottom bench section of my shave horse I'm building. Keep in mind, this is a simple working device and is not meant to be aesthetically pleasing. What I'm trying to replicate would be something simple built back in the 18th century by a homesteader. Everything you see was free. The sawn barn board was in a cabinet maker's junk pile on the curb because it had a crown and was not straight. I just flipped it over crown up so that when you sit on it the flex puts the crown down to level. The legs are from saplings I cut clearing the old stage coach route on my property. Just a simple wedged leg design. The legs were made with my small broad hatchet and my small draw knife. I like the look of the tool marks so there was no sanding. I also left the saw marks on the board for character. It really has that look of something made by someone back in the day. The lever device called a "Dumbhead" will go through the inclined base and bench. A foot pedal allows you to apply pressure to the piece so that you can use a draw knife or spoke shave to make things like hammer and axe handle or even spindles to chairs. It makes your life much easier.

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Very sorry for your loss Mike. I know how hard it is to let go of our friends like that. You gave her a good life and evidently a better one than she had. An interesting mix of dog, but I bet she had some good traits and qualities. Thinking of you and yours Mike.
 
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