How much time do I have for hobbies? not much. However maybe I can
get in so many days a year at it. Why do I choose these hobbies?
- Camping
- Well there is nothing more satisfying than taking a few days to relax in God's Country. A
key component of this for me is to become as removed from anything man made as possible. However
this would mean camping out like Survorman Les Stroud I
will most likely not be doing this kind of camping. However, I may try to stay as close to this
as possible. Ultralight camping is my goal. backpacking.net/makegear
is a site I will be using to make camping gear that weighs only about 25lbs lightest and 35lbs to 45lbs to
start. I will pack this on my motorbike and head for the woods. I will be dehydrating my own food
for camping, I estimate that 5 to 10lbs of dried food can support all nutritional needs for 3 to 6 days.
depending on wether or not I intend to forage, fish, hunt, or trap for some of the food.
- Hiking
- Hiking is part of camping/caving. Its a big part of looking for caves. Cavers call
this Ridge Walking. I am very good in the woods with topographical maps. But the key for
this for me from now on is ultralight hiking. This means backpacking light, and using
light layered clothing.
- Caving
- Caving is somthing I have not enjoyed in quite a while. I love mapping caves. My future
right now in caving will be in locating and reporting caves to the AACS(Arkansas Associations
for Cave Studies. I will probably only be entering entrances and looking around or mapping a
few hundred feet into them. Bear Maze
is a cave that I have mapped, it had over 1 mile of passage.
- Shooting
- I intend to collect a few guns and rifles. Currently I have a 25 cal. Titan, 7 shot. Its
a decent small self defence weapon. Its rounds fire at 800 to 1000 feet per second. Its accuracy is like
most small guns. I can hit a 8 inch circle at 10 paces easily, at 20 paces its spreads to about 4 feet.
I also have a .32 cal muzzle loading squirrel rifle. Its good for 50 yards in a circle the size of a soft ball.
After firing this 5 times it must be cleaned.
- Hunting
- I will only be hunting small game like rabits or squirrel and maybe deer on occasion with a cross bow or muzzle loader.
- Fishing
- I like pan fishing, Blue Gill, Brim, Small bass. Usually always with live bait.
- Gardening
- I have rent a lot for my home which is 40' by 110' and 16x80 is taken up by my home.
Not much space for a garden, but I now have two 4x8 planters. I am going to try
all the standard garden veggies. 6 kinds of Peppers, 4 kinds of tomatoes, 3 kinds of beats,
radishies, carrots, Corn, Potatoes, Squash and Cucumbers. 10 kinds of hearbs, and Onions.
- Cooking
- Hopefully I'll post some of my favorite recipe's here.
- Ham Radio
- I am now a Technician class Ham operator. I hope to use 2 meter with
repeater and get 200 mile radius. I want to use small low power radio's built in tuna cans
for sending/receiving morse code world wide when I'm camping. I also want to buy
a radio that will do everything but this is more expensive.