A Nice Find

I was digging through one of my grandpa's old tool boxes the other day and stumbled upon this old hunting/fishing/garden knife of his that he used to carry around with quite often. He made the blade by grinding down and shaping a really old and rusty rasp that his dad used to sharpen their old farm axes and other misc implements with back when he was just a boy. 

He used an old shed antler he'd found for the handle and soldered it into place with some kind of old-fashioned tin roof repair alloy. My grandpa would always joke and say it was the best knife he'd ever made...because it was the only knife he'd ever made.

Overall it's a little over 9 inches total length with about a 4 1/2 inch blade and the tang runs the full length of the handle. It's a little slim for my big ol' fat meaty hands; but it's still an amazing little cutting tool and definitely a priceless reminder of one of the greatest men I ever knew.

I have frequently heard people scoff at the idea of there ever actually being a truly good "file knife" for one reason or another. I'm certainly no expert but I will have to say that this old knife served him very well for several decades and stood up to some pretty intense punishment while in my grandpa's employ.  He dressed dozens of deer with it, cut thousands of pounds of bait with it, used it along with a wooden mallet to split kindling, and even used it to dig up potatoes and turnips and weeds in his garden.  I'm pretty sure he used it as his dinner knife on numerous camping trips as well--which always grossed me out because I don't think he EVER washed it.  But he was a man's man baby and that shit didn't matter.

2015 Turkey Season Ended Without a Bang, But...

Here are some fair-to-middlun' quality pics from a recent turkey hunting excursion with my best friend and his daughter (seen here acting as my turkey decoy deployment specialist ;)) in my beloved home state. It was the last day of the 2015 TN spring turkey season and also the only day I was able to hunt this year on account of having had back surgery on April 3rd—which screwed me out of getting to make it into the woods for practically the entire season. The three of us hoofed it up to the top of Signal Knob after an unsuccessful early morning hunt but were greeted with an amazing panoramic view at the summit...which was accompanied by a lot of sucking wind. Our previous feelings of disappointment and frustration were all but ameliorated upon our first glance of the stunning vista which lay before us that more than made up for nobody getting a chance at a turkey. 

It may not be discernible in these pics but the visibility had to have been at least 50 miles across the West Highland Rim of Tennessee. l tell ya I haven't seen a view like that for some time.

The hill or "knob" (as they say in these parts) that we were on here in these photos was—I believe—used by the Union Army during the Civil War as an intelligence/signaling station because of its eminence over most of the surrounding countryside. From what I understand the station here on Signal Knob served as a relay station (using some kind of super bright ass lanterns to send messages) between the Union forces in the Franklin, TN area and their forces in the Murfreesboro area.