Meat Processing @ The DesRosiers

Adam demonstrates the proper use of a damascus chopper and quick clean meat processing all in one!

September Frolics

Golden sun, fish in the crick and our first anniversary...it's been a glorious September thus far. We've been slaying the coho salmon with bow and arrow to fill the smokehouse and just finished the last pressure cooker full last night. 175 cans of smoked salmon are lining the shelves of our pantry and we are now eyeing the lean firewood pile warily, seems it's a never ending chore.

Although it's duck season at last we've not been out blasting holes in the sky as much as we'd like...I think they sense the murder in our hearts. We've only brought one plump spruce hen home, these are well known for a very poorly honed sense of survival instinct.

Oh yes, the mushroom hunting has been fantastic! Our good friends Jim and Maria Rodebaugh were here for a week and we had a fine time harvesting puffballs, hedgehogs and chicken of the woods. We also logged off the most impressive stand of shaggy manes I've ever seen, they were almost too pretty to pick. However if you were to get a chance to try Jim's wild mushroom risotto do it!! We got in some salt and freshwater fishing while they were here too. Just so noone forgets, the girls carried away the record of most dice games won for the whole week and were very humble about it. Halfway through the week the boys hauled off to fetch us forth some venison since we'd been living off fish for awhile and red meat sounded awfully good. Us women folk stayed back at the shop to have the first ever all-ladies hammer-in. There were some finely turned towel and coat hooks coming off the anvil and quite a good time was had by all. Topped off with fresh backstrap and huckleberry pie when our conquering heroes returned. Suffering in the wilderness once again.

We have been working on a few blades in all this. Adam has been twisting every bar of damascus in sight and turning out some real eye candy in preparation for our time in Brazil with Rodrigo S'freddo. I have been working on some 10 inch blades, a bit bigger than I usually create but I'm preparing for my cut and bend test which is my first step towards becoming a journeyman smith. I find the combination of housewife/bladesmith to alloy perfectly...just the other day I tossed a crusted old baking pan out on the porch declaring it hopeless, not worth my time to scrub, let the ravens have it etc. etc. I took myself off to the shop to drown my guilt in the comforting roar of a *KMG when lo and behold I found myself looking around for a shallow metal container to hold the sand for my *blue-backing procedure...proof that God governs in the affairs of men...that's what I say.



* KMG Knife Maker's Grinder, a 2x72 inch belt grinder that allows you to make mistakes at top speed removing perfect plungelines, pleasing profiles and knuckles efficiently and indiscriminately.

*Blue-backing is an extra step to the tempering process. The cutting edge of a hardened and fully tempered blade is protected from heat by damp sand while you apply a torch to the spine. This further softens the blade making it springy and tough while the edge retains the hardness necessary to hack through a great deal of stuff and (as my brother Mark would say) still shave a camel's behind without waking him up...

It's the most wonderul time of the year...

Endless Autumn

Through bewildered meadow-grass

I follow my feet on unmarked paths,

Vibrantly colored alder trees

Eye me shamelessly

Impatient with the plainness of green

They've chased away our timid summer,

Now they flaunt their victory flags

Of orange, and gold, and umber

The grass, long past conspired with the woods

Stiffly insolent in the breeze,

Cream, and honey, and chocolate burdock

As boldly as you please!

A chill rain scolds them both

Speckling the high tide for good measure,

But I can see them shining aloft

Gay and laughing for pleasure

Soaking wet with the merry throng

I'll join the revolution of time,

Who wouldn't trade the faded Summer

For an endless Fall this fine?

Escape From BLADE Mountain!

Ahh...back to the swamp...we'd no more than dumped our Atlanta bags on the floor before we tossed the camping gear together and headed straight up the mountains behind our house for a little R&R. Adam also had a birthday present waiting for him in the mail when we got home that begged for a maiden voyage into the bush. Here's a picture of the precioussss...it's a three barrelled german made gun called a Drilling. This particular one is a Merkel 96K, 12 ga/12ga over 30.06 with a swing mount scope...a gun for all seasons!

I had loaned out my personal chopper so Adam grabbed an unfinished one off his workbench for me. He sharpened it up and whipped a cord handle on it and we were off. It was a bit of a brush crash to climb to the foot of the mountain... then things started looking up... We camped about 50 yds. from the summit the first night. We were up above the tree-line and the crevasses were still brimming with snow. It's remarkable how heavy a pack can feel after a winter of relative inactivity in the shop. It was often steep enough that you couldn't sit to rest either on the snow or grass without sliding down. We wheezed our way onto a little outcropping and called it home for the night. We were eating our top ramen dinner when we heard a SSSHOOOOOOOSHHHH sound and a huge boulder came sliding down through the snow about fifty yards away. The next morning I realized I'd forgotten any tea or cocoa so Adam brewed me up some mountain fare from spruce-tips and flowers blossoms. Then we went up and over to see what we could see!

The view was inexplainable as the top of an Alaskan mountain should be. Massive rocky peaks and snowy slides share the altitude with alpine meadows of moss and wildflowers. It was really the perfect time of year to be up there. Enough snow to melt for water but warm enough for all the fairy sized shrubs and petite flowers to be in bloom. We picked enough fiddlehead ferns on the way up to sautee for dinner. Game was plentiful and Adam was in heaven breaking in his drilling. "I don't mean to brag, but I make a mean weed-rat stew..." Cheers to the second honeymoon!

The puppies were glad to be a family again and with all that moss it was basically a whole mountain of dog-beds. It was hot and sunny and no wind to speak of. We dumped our packs on the summit and spent the day hiking the far ridges and exploring rock crevasses that hold tasty critters.

We also heaved a few boulders off the edge ourselves to watch them slide and spin through the snow far below. There was a sunburn to be had and we got it...here Adam fetches me some snow while I relax, he spoils me until I'm just rotten.



I brought along this little .22 that my grandpa gave me when I was tiny. Remington 'improved model 6' it's only 34" long. A great little rolling block, single shot, it breaks down with one thumbscrew to about 20" I hadn't shot it much in recent years and was stoked to find it's still a tack driver. We wiled away an evening decapitating lupine flowers outside our tent...alaskan 'groundskeeping' at it's finest. That little rifle is all the more precious to me since Grandpa went to be with the Lord recently, he would be proud to know it's still traveling mountains. We camped out the second night on the crest of the mountain overlooking Excursion Inlet. Here Adam prepares to hurl a thunderbolt at the city and borough of Haines for having the nerve to collect property taxes from us without providing any services.It's hard to get to sleep because there's so much more daylight with nothing to throw a shadow on you, expecially this close to the summer solstice it never really got dark at all. We woke up the third day to find ourselves in the clouds. Our world suddenly seemed very small and steep on both sides. The wind picked up a bit and we decided to break camp and get down off the summit and into the timber in case the weather turned bad. It started to rain a tad and we made ourselves a camp down there in the trees and had a wood fire for a change. There was still patches of snow nearby so we weren't short of water.The next morning it started really pouring down rain on us. We went home another way, got to thinking about hot cocoa and crashed down a loooooong steep slope cross-hatched with windfalls and brush. I was taking this picture to try to capture the incline and caught Adam just as he slipped and swung around dangling from this tree. Didn't realize I'd married such a tree hugger!All in all it was a great way to decompress from the BLADE show excitement...we may make it a tradition.

BLADE Show 2010

The past few weeks have been crazy, in a good way! The final days and hours before BLADE is always hectic and exciting. Almost like the week before Christmas...workbenches that are normally kept in decent order are bestrewn with filing jigs, worn-out pieces of sandpaper and the sad remains of guard-stock that never quite fit right. Over in the heat controlled handle material box completed knives begin to pile up absorbing coat after coat of finishing oil. Once the sand in the hourglass has just about run out it's time to start building sheaths. These always seem to take longer than they should with some turning out just as you'd hoped... and some not so much. The final shaping of the leather on the grinder sends floating pink shreds everywhere making it look as if we'd been plucking muppets in our spare time and leaving us shaking it out of our hair and explaining to disbelieving friends 'uh, that's not really MY dandruff'... It's rare it seems I'm out of the shop before 8 pm to even start dinner... conversations center on plunglines, damascus etchant and 'let's hope it rains since we don't have time to haul water'.

Adam trims a moose antler down to size for a handle...

The finished product!

My first fighter from anvil...

...To grinder...

...To BLADE show

Finally we'd finished all the knives we were going to get done. The night before we left we had a 'private viewing' for our friends and neighbors...

...had to have something to show for all the turned down invitations to adventures we'd been dishing out the past month! It was a fun time, lot's of ice tea and chocolates were consumed. Someone even came up with the idea to all pick a favorite and runner up and have a best of show award. After they all went home we packed our knives straight into the hardcase. The next day was gorgeously sunny for our boat trip into town.

It's always exciting to think about plunging into extreme civilization like Seattle and Atlanta for a few days. We were pretty wide eyed staring at all the people and very much looking forward to go 'out' to eat. We walked over to a quaint little pub and seeing the sign proclaiming 'Alehouse' I got excited "It comes in houses?! I'm gettin' one"

When the car came to pick us up and take us to our hotel we laughed out loud to see the man holding a sign that said 'Adam Bell'. My maiden name is Bell. I'd made the reservations months ago and the name change process (now that we're married) has been glacially slow since we live out of town. When Adam called for the car he gave him his first name. Anyhow, I'm sure my Dad would enjoy the sight of that..."right this way Mr. Bell"


We arrived Thursday evening, dropped our luggage in the room, each poked a favorite knife in our belt/pocket and set out into hot, muggy, Atlanta air. The first friend we found was Jim Rodebaugh, we got a privileged view of the thirteen or so beauties he had hammered out for the show. My favorite was the Exhibition Hunter which was later bought by Buddy Thomasen.

You can see it here
htt://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread/php?t=749050

After that we walked over to see our good friend Jason Knight who had his array of cutlery spread out in J. Paranee's room. Adam's pal Jimmy Chin was also there carrying a lovely damascus kiridashi. Here he is at the show explaining his Taiwanese Chieftan's garb to an enthralled Billy Rigill and Mike DuBois.

...I'm caught mid-pose with the boar tusk hat...

The morning of the show dawned pretty early for us Alaskan's...it was 2 am AK time when we pried ourselves out of bed to try to get there early enough to get some of the more beautiful pieces of ivory tusks (for knife handles) before it was all gone. And then set up our table. Here's a picture of it the second day...there's a few knives missing and that's a good thing!

Rodrigo S'Freddo, Jimmy Chin and Adam plot our bladesmithing trip to Brazil in Feb.

Thinking we would be hurrying back to hang our gillnet and prepare the boat for opening day of fishing season (June 20) I hadn't cut us any slack in travel plans. We checked out of the hotel Sunday morning before the show opened, tucked our bags under the knife table all day and then left straight from there to the airport. It was a whirlwind tour! Sold some knives, spent more on handle material than we made of course, another one of those circle of life things. As always it was great to see old friends and make new ones... to meet knife people from around the world and be inspired by other's talent and creativity...we very much enjoyed our time far, far away but by the end of the week Shrek and Fiona were very glad to get back to their swamp!

X-treme Boat Makeover

Well, spring is here, and in our part of Alaska, that means time to get the ol' fishing boat fixed up and ready for another season of chasing fish around which we trade for money to fix our boat...some people refer to this as 'The Circle Of Life'. We left early on a beautiful, brisk morning, the dock looking fresh and clean under a new coat of snow. The sun came out in force and by the time we'd been underway a few hours everything had melted off and it was T-shirt weather on the back deck. Ahh yessss...the back deck. This was the main reason we were making the 8 hour run to the big city, to tear out and rebuild the back deck, haul the whole works out of water and bottom paint 'er. It's much easier to get a job done quickly when you have access to a hardware store and plenty of ice cream. Besides, we hadn't had fresh groceries since the first week of February...over two months...as I said ICE CREAM!!! We arrived in civilization with our two dogs, boatful of tools and a rubbermaid full of freezer stuff from the house. When we leave we have to clean out everything because there will be no power until we get back and crank over 'Genny' again. The Southeast Alaska Folkfest was in full swing when we rolled into town...muskeg-grown bands from all over the state were there to jam until the wee hours of the morning. We got cleaned up and went out on the town, while visions of steak dinners danced in our heads. Just outside the restaurant we ran into a friend who was looking for a gillnetter about like ours...one thing led to another and pretty soon we realized we were selling our boat and may not be fishing this season after all! This would be the first time in many years, for both of us, not to be on the water for the summer...but we prayed about it and went ahead with the process. This however didn't let us out of the intended boat-work nosirrreee! The good ship Brunette was hauled out of the water on what is called a travel-lift, it lifts the boat in big straps and then drives you through the boatyard to your rented spot. You're then blocked up and unstrapped and there you sit. She was looking pretty unloved and quite the 'bearded lady' when we started the project...after the seaweed and barnacles which had collected on her over the winter were pressure washed off the work began. We cut the old deck out with a sawzall, the fiberglass and plywood filling the back of our little toyota truck. Then came the rebuild. Here Adam cuts the crown on the deck beams he's fashioning from treated 2x8's while my standard poodle Shadowynn, (yes, she fetches ducks) oversees. These were placed on top of a rim he left of the old structure so we could raise the deck a few inches...more freeboard is always good.
First off Adam fiberglassed over the old scuppers and any little patches that needed some TLC. Next up came a new blue dress for the old girl and a touch-up on the here-to-for unreadable name... this coat of copper bottom paint will inhibit growth of the barnacles, mussels and seaweed that would like to build apartment complexes and impede the speed...can't have that.

Here we are kneeling on the new back deck structure and getting ready apply the highly toxic dooky-shmutz. This the only picture we really have of our back deck project, taken by my Mom...no time for fooling around, when fiberglass resin kicks off it really goes and you'd better not have your mat in a wrinkle or you'll be grinding it off and starting over again. Gotta love grinding fiberglass.

And here she is all prettied up and ready to fish again...tis the season!

Speaking of pretty boats here's the one I grew up on...the Lindy, named after Charles Lindbergh because she was launched the year after he made his transatlantic flight 1927. My Dad has owned her for the last 30 years or so, nothing like an old wood halibut schooner for beautiful lines.