Recent content by Colonel

We're on one acre on a dirt road in Florida, which makes it a pretty good size without being too much work. The mix changes from time to time, but right now we've got 7 ducks (plus however many of the eggs one is setting on hatch) and about a dozen chickens. The ducks are Anconas and the...

I've carried a pocket knife daily since I was about 12 years old. The current favorite is a well-worn Buck Stockman.

Your lattice work sounds like one of today's projects (at least I HOPE I get to it today between all that pesky "pay the bills" work). I'm building a trellis for pole beans using cattle panels that run the length of the raised bed garden. So far, it's coming along nicely, and last night I...

Living in the South has it's advantages - and disadvantages, so I try to make the best of the good stuff. No sir, I can't take credit for the books. They are by Carol Deppe - my "hands down" favorite author on garden topics. She is a plant geneticist by profession, and she really knows what...

Great article, sir! Thank you for posting it. I now have my tomatoes in the ground - they're about 4" tall at this point. Today's project includes planting the beans, okra, and green peppers. That will about do it for this season. Also coming along nicely are the eggplant, sweet potatoes, and...

Mike and Stearman, When I first saw the info about the Kawanishi H8K2 (code name - "Emily"), I thought, "No, it's got to be a mistake". I've looked and looked, and it appears that you are right! Congratulations on the sharp eyes and knowledge of the aircraft!! Now I'm really curious about the...

Thanks, Cricket. My favorite of the Life at Sea series is the first one where the guys are resting and writing letters under the shade of the boat.

Interesting, Tom. I'm not sure what could be happening. This has nothing to do with Facebook and I also use Firefox. Just below the image of the ship at the top, you should see the words: Home - Contact - Life at sea - Officers and Crew - Operations - Papers - Places - The Ship. Some of them...

One minor correction - I was misinterpreting a number on my original post. The final count (at this point anyway) is a total of 125 photos uploaded on the site. The software automatically creates several sizes of the each photo, and that's the number I was originally looking at. Again, thank...

Gentlemen, thank you for your kind remarks. I have just finished uploading the last of the photos. There are many, many more photos, but I tried to select the ones that I thought would be of most interest and eliminate the duplicates. For example, there are quite a few showing personnel...

As I went through my late father's collection of photos that he took during his time as an officer aboard the USS Cumberland Sound, I knew that I had to make those photos available to others. The USS Cumberland Sound wasn't a high profile ship during World War II. It was a seaplane tender - one...

Thanks, Eric. I checked their site, but it looks like they only deal in wholesale. That looks like it would be perfect though. I have found some sites that describe how to add the wax finish, so my plan at this point is to buy some raw canvas from Panther Primitives, dye it, then add the wax...

Thanks, that is exactly what I was hoping to find. What a fascinating catalog to look through - I just spent at least an hour going through their PDF version of the catalog, and will be spending more time when it's available. There is all sorts of very cool stuff in there. I'm sure that I'll be...

Thanks for the tip, Big Fella - I'll let you know what I find. My trip to the fabric store turned up nothing. They said to try someplace that sells sailing stuff, but I suspect that there is not a whole lot of cotton canvas in use now. I know it's still used for some sails, but only those weird...

Snow??? Wow! The high here today is 93, and the lowest temperature in the 5-day forecast is Friday night when it drops all the way down to 60. That's why the "no grow" season here is in the Summer, not the Winter. Not much grows in the hottest part of Summer here.