Outdoor Edge Wedge

Outdoor Edge is a Colorado based company that has carved out a niche for itself catering virtually exclusively to hunters. 

I got one of these great little knives, the Wedge about a dozen years ago. Very reasonable price at a House of Knives, and it has proven to be a terrific tool.

Made from 6M stainless steel (likely no one’s idea of an uber steel, but it has proven to be easy to sharpen and keep sharp, and has held up fine all these years), the blade is 6cm (2.375") long. The overall length is about 13cm (5").

Both the sheath and the teardrop shaped handle are made from Delrin.

While the sheath/scabbard isn’t the best thing ever, it certainly has proven to be perfectly serviceable. It’s always held the knife in place when I’ve had it hanging around my neck, and really, that is the most important thing. Pushing the little button that says, you guessed it, “push” releases the knife. Placing the knife in the open part of the sheath, and sliding it forward pushes the button back and once past, snaps back into place to secure the knife.

On the back there was a clip for mounting it on a belt or a pocket, but I knew I would always carry this around my neck, so I sawed and filed it off.

I do wish it came with a Kydex sheath, but if I feel that strongly about it, I can get off my butt and make one myself.

The jimping on the top of the handle provides a bit more control when gripping.

The blade is very thin, flat ground and razor sharp. I used it once to husk a few buckets of black walnuts, and even the brutal surface of the walnuts, couldn’t damage the blade. There was a lot of twisting involved to pry apart the husks, and the blade must have gotten into the rough, uneven surface on the shells of the walnuts as I twisted, but it survived that test just fine.

I’ve used this innumerable times for food prep, and I really like it for this purpose. Husking, peeling, chopping, scraping, processing meat and fish, etc., it handled all those sorts of tasks with ease. It handles many other little tasks around camp very nicely as well.

While there are a multitude of options as far as carrying it  goes, I’ve always chosen to carry it suspended around my neck.

Altogether, a terrific little knife for the money. While certainly not the be all and end all knife, it makes for an excellent secondary knife, or it can really shine in instances when a big knife isn’t the best tool for the task. 

An amusing post script to this is that while up in Kincardine about a decade ago, a dozen of us were playing frisbee in a friends backyard. Two frisbees were in play, and we kept playing right until about the last rays of light faded. All the jumping and running had worked the knife loose from inside my shirt. As I jumped up to grab one frisbee, another whizzed past me in the opposite direction. My knife floated up in the air as I jumped up and the frisbee hit it with full force, splitting the scabbard, causing the knife to go flying through the air. Added whole new meaning to the term “Ultimate Frisbee”. Time out was called, flashlights came out, and the knife was found in the unmown grass. After seeing that sharp, silver object go boomeranging through the air, we decided that maybe it was time for the frisbeeing to come to an end. The scabbard was kaput, so I just went out and bought a whole other knife. The other one resides in my kitchen in the knife block now.

S.o.t.D. – Chapterhouse/Delta Phase – Global Communication

Chapterhouse/Delta Phase – Global Communication

A reworking by the spectacular Global Communication of a Chapterhouse track (which GC were a part of). It’s a beautiful sunny day here, and this track suits it perfectly.

S.o.t.D. – Come Around – Daniel Besson

Come Around (Terry Lee Brown Jr.’s Instrumental Remix) – Daniel Besson

Smmoooovvve

S.o.t.D. – The Protagonist – Dead Can Dance

The Protagonist – Dead Can Dance

One of the better tracks on a compilation filled with great tracks, 1987’s 4AD compilation Lonely Is An Eyesore, which I got as a regular LP, the limited edition fancy package LP, VHS tape and later as a CD. Oh and I had the poster as well. I admit it. I was a very dedicated 4AD fan in the 80’s.

Damn you cat!

While spending an evening with friends, one of their little critters, Mimi did her usual patrol around the perimeter.

Very sweet cat, loves interacting with people. As much as she likes snuggling on someones lap and purring away contentedly, she also likes getting outside to prowl around her hunting grounds. They had tried to keep her indoors, but when she adopted them she had already been an outdoor cat for a year. Not much hope for keeping her inside at that point.

 On top of the neighbours shed.

After a while she came trotting back along the fence and oh look, she has something in her mouth.

Oh look, it’s a bird. Damn you cat!

She catches loads of mice, and kills them very quickly, which everyone is happy enough about. But she’ll also chase birds, and despite having a little jangly thing on her collar, manages to nab one occasionally. She seems to really enjoy batting them around like she’s playing badminton. The claws don’t seem to come out, and when we’ve rescued a bird, like now, there aren’t ever any bite wounds on it. Whether anything is damaged internally, don’t know, can’t tell. We suspect this one was just on the verge of flying, and that she actually grabbed it right out of a nest, or that had fallen to the ground in a fledgling attempt to fly.

She sat there for a while trying to figure out what had happened to her prey.

She looked mad and skulked off under the foliage. After a few minutes of sulking, she took off again in the direction she had come. Damn you cat!


Fortunately she returned empty mouthed. The bird we put up in the branches of a tree and hoped for the best. The next day it was gone, so here’s hoping it survived and flew off.


I know cats have a brain the size of a walnut and they’re just fulfilling their biological imperative, but damn you cat, leave the birds alone. Arguing that she should be kept inside is great and all, but the way she howls when she hasn’t been let out in a day seems to indicate that’s not so feasible. I had a cat that was an indoor cat when I was younger, and it worked cause he’d never been let outside. The Rubicon has already been crossed when it’s already lived outside full time for a year.

Grapevine Beetle

Originally I thought this might be a cicada. I’d lent my insect identification book out to a friend, so I couldn’t really check to be sure. However a reader was kind enough to identify it for me. (Thanks Kontarena!) Turns out that it’s a Pelidnota Punctata, better known as a Grapevine Beetle. Which, considering there is a grapevine just a few meters away from where this photo was taken, makes total sense.

Lilies

I’m really digging the heck out of lilies. And I could be entirely wrong, but it just seems like there are way more of them around this year. Or it seems like they have been popping up for a very long time, two months now. It probably is just my imagination, but I’m noticing lots of them this year, loads of different colours. Can’t help but walk past them and snap some photos.

Of course, half the time I seem to take the pictures between 10:00 and 16:00, probably not the best time to take them.

S.o.t.D. – Of These, Hope – Peter Gabriel

Of These, Hope – Peter Gabriel

From the soundtrack to Passion: The Last Temptation of Christ. Best track on a really grandiose album. Never saw the movie (sorry, biopics about haysoos don’t interest me that much) so I don’t know where in the movie this appears. Even without knowing the context of it, it’s a soaring piece of music, and I love it on its own merits.

Maxpedition 4x10

While I have some misgivings about the owner of this company, their products are well thought out and rock solid.

Got this Maxpedition 10x4 pouch a few years ago and it has proven to be a useful way to carry a mini kit. As much as water is a heavy pain in the ass to carry around, there is just no getting around it. Water is one of, if not the most essential things I need. I was looking for a way to carry both a 1 liter bottle, a cup that it could nestle in, the means to purify the water, and a way to boil water. Some other things in addition to that would be a bonus.

The pouch consists of a main compartment with a zippered top, a small pouch on the front with PALS webbing on the front, PALS on both sides and on the back also. The sides also feature D-rings to clip a strap into, and the back featured an H&K snap hook (which I saw no need for and removed).

Paracord fobs were immediately installed.

While this is what most people would attach to a pack or rig, it could conceivably also be attached by the sides if one was so inclined.

Drain hole on the bottom.

Top of the lid has a Velcro area for cool guy patches.

The pouch on the front is 6" x 3" x 1.5" and has a strip of 1" elastic along the back to help hold stuff in place.

The main pouch, which is...10" x 4", is padded and lined with 420D packcloth. Does a nice job of insulating the bottle - either keeping it hot or cold. Also serves as a barrier when the bottle is filled with boiling hot water.

The bottle is the Guyot Designs Standard stainless steel bottle with a HumanGear capCAP. Heavy, but the nice thing about it is that in a pinch you can boil water inside it. If someone could just come out with a titanium Nalgene bottle.

A shoulder strap that I have that I really like is the Kifaru one, but it has side release clips rather than a hook. No problem, just thread the female repair buckles through the loop that holds the D-ring.

I know a shoulder strap isn’t anything that ooh wow, but this one is pretty sweet. Kinda like everything Kifaru does.

Here it is attached to the side of a Kifaru Scout. The front pouch contains a SteriPen, as well as a Gram Weenie stove, a fuel bottle, wind screen and primer tray.

Another thing I carried in the 4x10 is a SteriPen pre-filter. The SP purifies but doesn’t filter. Any floaty bits, sediment etc. would end up in the bottle without it. This works very well. Quick and effective. It comes in two parts, the larger part that fits on the bottle and then the smaller cartridge that screws into that. In order to carry it all in the 4x10, I carried the large part in the main compartment atop the bottle, and the smaller cartridge in the front pocket with the SP and the stove set up.

With the bottle and all the other things in the main compartment, it interferes a bit with the lid zipping closed. Doable, but it does make it a bit of an issue.


I’ve also found that the pre-filter fits better on the threads of the plastic Nalgene than it does on the threads of the metal Nalgene. It does, but somehow it doesn’t screw on quite as well.

The primer tray and wind screen wrap nicely around the fuel bottle and the Gram Weenie stove fits on top of the fuel bottle spout.

Very light, very compact, very efficient.

The SteriPen in action.


I got this from Fenix Tactical and I have to say they were great to deal with. I ordered it and had it sent to my work. Shortly before ordering it, a gym and a mid level marketing company moved in on either side of where we were. All sorts of unknown people coming and going. One day I had to go take care of something at another site and my coworker was sick. After several weeks of waiting I contacted them to inquire where my package was. Fenix Tactical claimed that they had indeed sent it. I explained that I had never received it. I suspect that on the day the site was unattended the package was delivered, left at the front door, and some shitstain swiped it. They promptly sent another one, this time with a signature required. That to me is really fantastic, above and beyond customer service. They didn’t know me from Adam, I could have been a swindling lowlife, trying to score a free one, but they believed me and got it out to me. Thank you. I’ve bought several flashlights from them as well, and the service was always excellent. They deserve your business, especially if you’re in Canada.