Hunting antler sheds, morels, wild plants and checking out this years pinyon crop.

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Well now I'm very jealous. I have work today :(

what's a pinyon ?

Curious Aardvark wrote on Mar 31^st, 2020 at 11:01am:

what's a pinyon ?

A conifer that produces fairly large (approx 1/4" x 1/2") delicious seeds.
Forgot to mention our top priority of these hikes. Sling catch and follow the flu flu :)

That's exactly what I need... a day in the woods. 

Rat Man wrote on Mar 31^st, 2020 at 11:19pm:

That's exactly what I need... a day in the woods.

:thumb:

Sounds like fun,  i wish i wasnt that busy with work to enjoy sone woods time.

Great pictures!  The landscape looks pretty awesome.

vetryan15 wrote on Apr 1^st, 2020 at 9:31am:

Sounds like fun,  i wish i wasnt that busy with work to enjoy sone woods time.

Try to sneak a few hours in every week. Good for your body, mind and soul ;)

joe_meadmaker wrote on Apr 1^st, 2020 at 11:53am:

Great pictures!  The landscape looks pretty awesome.

It is awesome! Love the old village sites scattered throuout the forest. Those people knew the right way of living and had their pick of the best real estate. Like finding handling and sometimes using the tools they left behind. Here is an axe I found and used to clear some shrub oak for a campsite.

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walter wrote on Apr 1^st, 2020 at 8:30pm:

vetryan15 wrote on Apr 1st, 2020 at 9:31am: Sounds like fun,  i wish i wasnt that busy with work to enjoy sone woods time. Try to sneak a few hours in every week. Good for your body, mind and soul ;)

I go out almost everyday to the woods, unfortunately its to cut firewood.  But i do enjoy it and only sometimes do i see it as a chore, and workout.

Thats an awesome axe stone,  i am looking at doing a 2nd attempt at flintknapping soon.

I spent a few days going around the obscure places of a state park. turns out there's a ghost town there I was unaware of.

What a great thread. Did you have any luck on the mushrooms? Looks like you got your bow there and I’m assuming a sling? Recipe for a perfect day.

Haven't seen any mushrooms  >:(
Have seen plenty of elk; no antlers and even though we have had plenty of rain, the pinyon crop is going to be small But! The weather is beautiful, we are getting some good exercise, my slinging is once again improving (switched style to the Bambula) and loving making and roving with my own bows :)

nothing much better than a day in the woods slinging stones and shooting sticks, we just got our first rains in the area and the fungi is starting to come up.

i think i need to make another self bow, i have attempted 5 that made it to brace and of those 3 made it to shooting although none are perfect.

Ah, that elusive perfect bow. I am making this one wider and long. It MIGHT come in @ 45 lbs @ 28" and stay there - if I don't mess up again :'(

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I’d love to build something that gets above 45pound at 28” and is shorter than 60” nock to nock.
I always make my longer bows too weak and my shorter bows don’t make the 28” draw

Also want to make a 13” riser for some old takedown limbs I have

With you being in Arizona I would look into a hickory/sinew short bow. Bet you could make a rocket launcher out there with the relative humidity you have.

I live in one of the valleys in the pic. We are surrounded by hundreds of miles of mtns, mesas, cliffs, valleys, creeks and rivers. Sometimes it does my heart good to climb up high and take a birds eye look at the surrounding forest.

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That is amazing!!!

Nice looking spot

Been spending as much time hiking as I can. We have some great areas near me. Everything is starting to leaf out and bloom. I also found some great fossils I've been IDing.

I used to live in Tucson. Arizona is a beautiful state. I really loved going up to the mountains especially. It’s like a different world up there.

Morphy wrote on May 20^th, 2020 at 7:57am:

I used to live in Tucson. Arizona is a beautiful state. I really loved going up to the mountains especially. It’s like a different world up there.

Lived there in my early twenties
Mt Lemmon every weekend :)

walter wrote on May 20^th, 2020 at 5:26pm:

Morphy wrote on May 20th, 2020 at 7:57am: I used to live in Tucson. Arizona is a beautiful state. I really loved going up to the mountains especially. It’s like a different world up there. Lived there in my early twenties Mt Lemmon every weekend :)

You got it man.  :D

Walter, that's absolutely beautiful.  You are blessed.

Glad you like the pic
It is very hard to make a living here, but we love these forested mtns so chose to get by on bare necessities so we could walk out the door into the forest every day.

Great pictures.  BTW, that 3/4 groove ax is really old.  Just at a guess, 9000+ years.

My thought when I saw the cliff picture was, "I'll bet you could throw a rock a mile from there..." 

Been meaning to give the axe head to a local museum. Have found a ton of potsherds and points over the years.

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@ Bill Skinner


Nine thousand sounds about right. I had figured somewhere between 7000 and 11000 for the axe.

Wow, that impressive able to find stuff that old.

Full groove are the oldest, followed by the 3/4 groove, followed by the 1/2 groove followed by the celt.  And that's not set in stone.  (Hee hee, see what I did there?   ;D) As far as actual dates, that would be quite difficult to determine for an out of context tool.  There's quite a bit of overlap, generally in the area of 1000 to 1500 years.  And the various patterns were used for 2-5 thousand years before a change would start.
You'd have to find something organic in the same layer to test to narrow it down.