Not Quite Back From the Dead...

But I'm getting there, albeit slowly. Every summer, it seems, I go through a period where I just sort of abandon the 'ol blog and let it swing in the wind for a few weeks.

This has been one of those periods, a combination of the boys and wife being out of school for the summer, a long list of around-the-yard-and-house projects (the "Stick-It-To-Big-Agri-Business Revolutionary Garden" is now up and running! In about six weeks look for the inevitable "Crawling-Back-To-Big-Agri-Business-After-The-Bugs-Ate-My-Revolutionary-Garden" sequel...) several trips, general summer malaise brought on by heat, the desire to read a few books and a natural regression toward my personal sloth-mean.

Plus, I'll be damned if I've really had anything to say the past few weeks, and if there's one thing that defines a useless and boring read, it's throwing up a blog post just for the purpose of throwing up a blog post.

So now, of course, I'm going to throw up a blog post just for the sake of throwing up a blog post. I am nothing if not consistent. I actually do have many fine blog topics lined up for your reading pleasure and/or ridicule. This just 'aint one of them.

One of the projects I've been working on the past several weeks is this...

It's a well-used 16-foot Carolina Skiff J16. This came about following an incident during the late duck season in which I very nearly drowned in about two feet of water and ice while busting through thick reeds with way too much decoy weight on my back. First I had a "You're shittin' me? I'm gonna die like this?" moment. I didn't. At least I'm pretty sure I'm alive. Then I had the obligatory "I'm too old for this shit" moment.

It was obvious I needed a boat. The places I normally hunted were simply getting too thick to reach by foot. Not only that, I've really been wanting a boat to take the boys and wife (who's a fishing fiend) out on local lakes. So I started cruising Craigslist and when I found the right boat at the right price, I bought it.

I'm hoping it will be perfect for my needs. Well, let me back up: first, I hope it floats. Once that's been established, then I'm hoping it will be perfect for my needs. I'm not a recreational boater and I'm not interested in that "my outboard is bigger than your outboard" status symbol bass boat crap. I just wanted a good, stable, basic boat, and I think I got it.


When I'm finished it's hopefully going to be my family fishing and fun, cast-n-blast rig. Right now, however, it's sort of in pieces. I took out all the seats and decks, yanked off the motor (a 25-horse Mariner tiller-steer), scrubbed it down inside and out, bedlinered the interior (it looks sorta blue, but it's actually gray), flipped it over and then coated the bottom and sides of the hull in an ultra-tough epoxy paint that the airboat guys cover their hulls with. It didn't have a rear deck when I bought it, so I'm planning on making one from plywood and fiberglass, and if I really go wild I might make a poling platform just so I can say I've got the only redneck flats boat in northwest Oklahoma.

Now I'm debating whether to go ahead and paint the whole thing camo, or just use grass and burlap to cover it during waterfowl season. At any rate, Tess is pleased she won't have to walk so far and stand up to her boobies in ice-cold water and I'm pleased that in the future if I do manage to drown myself while waterfowling, I'll at least have the dignity to drown at a respectable depth.