There are reasons why I keep important tools tethered to myself. While out for a hike this weekend, I looked down to make sure my footing was okay, and saw something poking out of the rocks, mud, twigs, leaves and water that caught my eye.
Only the top of the handle was visible. I suspect it may have been there for 20, 30 years. I tried to see if there was any way to open it, but the metal crumbled into dust.
I almost always have a folding saw similar to this on me in my wanders, and I would really hate to lose it. Not just for its monetary value, but also for its practical value. Tools like this I keep tethered to myself.
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Cool. A shoe-string relative was elk hunting in Idaho and got himself into a difficult spot high up on a cliff face. He sat there and tried to decide what to do...go up, or go down and noticed an old octagonal barreled lever-action rifle that was laying where he was sitting. How long had it been there? 100 years? He has it hanging over his fireplace now. I love finding stuff out and about.
ReplyDeleteThat has to be one of the top three reasons why I go hiking. The chance to find stuff. I suppose it’s that innate tracker/forager part of us, but my eyes are always on the lookout for interesting things on the forest floor. Feathers, skulls, flowers, fungi, stones, tracks, and whatever other miscellaneous treasure there is to be found.
ReplyDeleteI had to wonder, did the person who dropped this spend a lot of time trying to find it back? Did they shrug their shoulders, or were they really upset at the loss? Did it fall from a pack or pocket climbing over this fallen tree I’m standing in front of, or was it dropped further away and the creek carried it here? How many more decades would it have lain here if I hadn’t come along and looked down to make sure I didn’t twist my ankle?
I'll have to e-mail you a picture of a five-pronged trident that I found while canoeing on Newman Lake near the Idaho state line. I was in the shallows fascinated by the mass of frog eggs that were everywhere when I saw about six inches of metal with an eyeloop at the ending sticking out of the mud underwater. So, I pried at it with my paddle and it dislodged this ancient (in my mind, anyway) trident which was probably used for carp. I tell my wife that at night during electrical storms it glows with a blue aura. She just raises her eyebrow and gives me 'the look'.
ReplyDeleteDon't all wives give their husbands that look when they don't understand their genius?
ReplyDeleteAll I ever seem to find on canoe trips are those fucking fold up chairs - you know the ones that fit in a bag, you see people carrying them to fireworks and stuff - tossed into the bushes or into the lake by shitstains, because, you know, they broke. I almost think a Crap Tax needs to be charged on worthless, guaranteed to break products like that.