• Dyson vacuum cleaner battery & charger holder

    Dyson battery & charger holder. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    This was going to be a simple painted box, but I liked the look of the finished wood, so I treated it with Danish oil instead.

  • Back in the workshop

    Back in the workshop. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    It must be summer. Unfortunately, it’s now too hot and buggy for hiking or sitting around outside. Time for some work around the house.

    This is the second time this month I’ve taken the car out of the garage so that I can get some work done. The first time I made three sets of kick space boards and mounts for the Utility room and a new section of baseboard for the kitchen.

    This time I’m making a battery and charger holder for our Dyson vacuum cleaner as part of a quick refurb of the furnace closet. I’ve also got one more kick space board and mount to make for the utility room.

  • That escalated quickly

    That escalated quickly. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    This started out as a three-hour job. I’ll be lucky if I finish it in under a week. It’s been made worse by the fact that I cannot fit big sheets of plasterboard (or wood) into our current vehicle. This means I have had to patch the wall with offcuts.

  • Finally Finished

    Finally finished. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    The second hall closet has been waiting a long time to be finished. I tend to get my work around the house done in the summer when it is too hot and buggy for me to be backpacking. Last summer (2024), we were in the UK, so this project, which I started in 2023, was not completed. It’s time to fix that.

    This year, I’m home and free to tackle projects. I’m getting started by clearing up some unfinished jobs. The outstanding work on the closet required plastering the wall insert I added because the doors and surround weren’t quite as wide as the original opening. Then the wall had to be painted to match.

    I took advantage of Ginger being away with Katie in Colombia for a week, leaving me free to make as much dust and mess as I needed while I finished this project off.

  • Table Rock Lake was the highest I’ve seen it

    Table Rock Lake was the highest I’ve seen it — At 928.5 ft. It was 18 ft higher than when I was last here in September 2024. Piney Creek Wilderness, June 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
  • Making a cup of tea

    Making a cup of tea. Piney Creek Wilderness, June 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
  • View from my hammock, Piney Creek Wilderness, June 2025

    View from my hammock. Piney Creek Wilderness, June 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
    View from my hammock. Piney Creek Wilderness, June 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
  • Camped by Table Rock Lake at Piney Creek Wilderness

    Camped by Table Rock Lake at Piney Creek Wilderness. The lake was a lot nearer to my campsite than usual. Piney Creek Wilderness, June 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
  • Camped by Table Rock Lake at Piney Creek Wilderness, June 2025

    Camped by Table Rock Lake at Piney Creek Wilderness. June 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
    Camped by Table Rock Lake at Piney Creek Wilderness. June 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
  • Piney Creek Wilderness, Table Rock Lake. Looking west towards Buck Hollow and Piney Creek

    Piney Creek Wilderness, Table Rock Lake. Looking west towards Buck Hollow and Piney Creek. Piney Creek Wilderness, June 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    I took a short hike further east along the lakeshore to find a spot where I could see out across the lake. Where I am camped the lake is up past the trees that line the shore, making taking pictures of the view impossible.

  • Packing for four days by the lake

    Packing for four days by the lake — Piney Creek Wilderness, June 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    I’m off to spend four days sitting watching the Lake at my favorite Piney Creek Wilderness camping spot. The lake is high (928.5 ft.), and the trail will be deep underwater. A lot of off-trail bushwhacking is going to be required to get to the campsite.

  • Sunday check, clean, and oil

    Sunday check, clean, and oil. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    My Sig P938 got very wet while backpacking in the rain at Hercules Glades a while back. Today, I decided to give it a good cleaning and thorough inspection.

    The screws on the handgrips were secured with blue Loctite, making them tough—but not impossible—to undo. I wanted to remove the grips to check if any water had seeped in behind them, and to inspect the mainspring without having to disassemble the entire fire control mechanism.

    I also removed the safety detent to check for rust. There was none. It’s a fiddly bugger to refit, with the strong spring twice launching it into space before I succeeded in refitting it.

  • Camped on ‘Ant Hill’

    Camped on ‘Ant Hill’. Hercules Glades Wilderness, May 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    Another day, another campsite… I’ve camped on ‘Ant Hill‘ before, but this time, I had to shift to a nearby location to avoid a dicey-looking dead tree.

  • Concrete Spring box in ‘Twin Falls Hollow’

    Concrete Spring box in ‘Twin Falls Hollow’. Hercules Glades Wilderness, May 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    I was glad to see that the twin falls were running when I arrived and took advantage of them for an au naturel shower. The plunge pool was also quite full, but I decided that a shower was enough!

    Getting down to the creek wasn’t easy, so after my shower, rather than struggling to climb back up, I decided to hike downstream along the creek. On my way, I passed the old concrete spring box, which you can see to the right in the picture. There used to be a pipe feeding water from the spring to the spring box. It’s still there—just broken and no longer connected.

  • Scenic overlook, southwest of Lower Pilot Knob. Hercules Glades Wilderness

    Scenic overlook, southwest of Lower Pilot Knob. Hercules Glades Wilderness, May 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    In order to take this picture, I had to clamber on top of this rock.

    Colorful — even the rocks are wearing Hunter Orange. Hercules Glades Wilderness, May 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
  • Wear and tear

    Wear and tear — That’s what over 100 days of backpacking will do. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
    April 2022 — just for comparison. Sig Sauer P938 & Alien Gear Shape Shift Holster. Copyright © 2022 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    I’ve now spent over one hundred days backpacking with the Sig and the Alien Gear holster, and both are showing some slight wear from accompanying me on my trips. Considering how often my pack, and consequently my holster and gun get dumped down on stony and rocky surfaces, I’d say they are holding up pretty well.

    The plastic holster shows numerous scratches and scuff marks, and the finish on the edges of the Sig’s slide and safety switch has worn off. Additionally, the Allen screws on the grip appear to be scratched as well. This wear and tear is not surprising, as these parts are exposed to stones and rocks on the ground whenever I set my pack down.

    The odd mark on the muzzle end of the slide is just water left over from Thursday, when I hiked for over an hour in fairly heavy rain. It wiped off, no problem. I stripped down the holster—which is just a matter of untwisting the locking toggles and sliding it apart—and dried it. In future, I’ll have to remember to check for residual water in the holster after it has been raining.

    Drying out — I ended up hiking for an hour in fairly heavy rain the other day. I stripped down my holster (undid the two locking toggles) to dry the inside. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
  • Heating water to make breakfast

    Heating water to make breakfast. Hercules Glades Wilderness, May 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
    Ashes. Hercules Glades Wilderness, May 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    I finally got around to using my Firebox Nano wood stove—it’s been ages since I last used it.

    As expected, it worked well and left only some ashes for me to disperse.

    Below is a picture of my cooking setup, all packed away. The Ziploc bag contains a couple of fire starters—just because I’m sometimes lazy when it comes to lighting the stove—They’re stored inside my Fancee Feest alcohol stove for those times when I don’t feel like starting a fire, which, to be honest, is more often than not nowadays.

    Cooking gear packed away. Hercules Glades Wilderness, May 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
  • Camped above ‘Deep Hollow’

    Camped above ‘Deep Hollow’, May 2025. Hercules Glades Wilderness. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
    Camped above ‘Deep Hollow’ May 2025. Hercules Glades Wilderness. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    It’s the last few days of the Spring Turkey Firearms season. Hence, all the hunter orange. Either everyone had already got their quotas, or they’d given up. I heard no shots inside the wilderness, but I did hear some turkeys on my final day 🙂

  • Bathing Pool in ‘Deep Hollow’

    Bathing Pool in ‘Deep Hollow’. Hercules Glades Wilderness, May 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    It was too cold and too shallow for me to try out on this trip.

  • When did I grow old?

    When did I grow old? Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    It feels like I blinked, and suddenly I’ve aged — I was writing in my journal when I noticed how old my hands looked. I don’t feel older, but I now have my grandparents’ hands: the loose flesh, thin skin, age spots, and prominent veins.

    It’s a tad unnerving to be confronted by one’s advancing decrepitude.

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