Timestepper

Backstrap Stew Ingredients: 2 Tablespoons olive oil (more as needed) 1 1/2 to 2 lbs Venison (the cut of your choice) 3/4 cup flour 1/2 teaspoon season salt 2 medium onions 3-4 large garlic cloves 14.5 oz can beef broth 8oz can tomato sauce 3 stalks celery 2 good sized potatoes 2 large carrots (or a handful of baby carrots) 3/4 tsp salt 1/2 tsp pepper 1/4 tsp Thyme 1/4 tsp Marjoram Preparation: Cut the veggies into 1" chunks. (Leaving the skin on the potatoes gives it more texture and a more rustic finish.) Put the flour and season salt into a plastic bag. Cut the venison into chunks and shake in the flour. Heat the olive oil in a dutch oven or large stock pot. Brown the meat and onion until the onion is soft and translucent. Mince the garlic and add with all of the rest of the ingredients. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for a couple of hours. Serves well with a good beer, rustic rolls and butter. And for dessert, my favorite Apple Pie recipe: Apple Pie Ingredients: 1 Gallon Apple cider 1 5th Cap'n Morgan spiced rum 1 pint Hot Damn! cinnamon schnapps 1 pint Apple Barrel apple schnapps 1 pinch nutmeg Preparation: Combine all liquid ingredients in a 2 gallon crock or stoneware jug, mix well, then add a pinch of nutmeg and cork loosely. May be consumed immediately or aged in a cool, dark place.

Yes, but if you're going to be there, we'll wait until you're not looking.

Always knew there was a reason I wear nothing but boots with my jeans on the outside - now I know for sure what it is! Hell, Dave, it coulda' been worse! (It coulda' been ME!)

Yes, Dubya, I believe we are the perfect instructors for this, if for no other reason than we already know exactly what not to do and how not to do it! Oh, and we gotta' be P.C. here, so we're no longer old farts - from here on out we will instead officially claim the title of chronologically enhanced bi-labial fricatives.

I've had the pleasure of meeting a couple of TGO members so far and looking forward to meeting more folks on the 29th & 30th of this month. Recognized a couple of other members at a gun show a while back, but they didn't know who I was and, given their conversation, I didn't bother to introduce myself.

Same thing I got for my birthday: A couple more months free rent as long as I promise to try and catch up on my honeydos.

Oh, thank GOD I'm not the only one! LMFAO If it's any consolation, Dave, I just spent the last six hours re-dyeing my bedroll cover/ground cloth with walnut hulls on an old wood stove in the backyard. Everything was going good until I saw, out of the corner of my eye, the stovepipe starting to fall over... yep, just kinda' automatically started to reach for it. Got lucky and caught the damper instead of the whole pipe, so all I burned was my thumb. And they let guys like us play in the woods unsupervised...

Me too! (And it generally only takes me one or two shots to hit 'em!) And another pic from a winter gathering - back before I moved to East Tennessee and got scalped.

I'll bring something to toss into the pot for breakfast/lunch/whatever, just not sure what it'll be, yet. Might be something as simple as hardtack or fresh picked blackberries or even dried fruit or heck, maybe I'll bring a dutch oven and make a special dessert for everyone. Just don't know yet. For the most part, though - and I'm not trying to be snotty or elitist or anything - I figure that since I'm going to be talking the talk, I might as well walk the walk while I'm at it. That is to say, that I'll be putting to practical use what basic foodstuffs I carry and/or gather or otherwise 'procure' on an actual primitive trek or 'scout.' Not to say that I'll automatically turn down a slice of wild bacon if someone should toss it to me, but I'm thinking that I'll keep my personal 'kitchen' pretty simple. Fellers (and 'fellerettes'), I can hardly wait to do this! Really looking to meeting up with everyone! ...TS...

Never really heard that either, but my wife uses it when we pick blackberries and never has a problem with ticks, although she'll always pick up two or three if we go down to the creek and she doesn't use it - doubt that a placebo effect would extend to bloodsucking critters, but I guess you never know.

Ask yourself how ''primitive'' it is - most slingshots I've seen were not ''primitive'' so much as exceedingly low-tech. And would parts have been available 200 years ago if it broke? Seriously, I promise not to care what you bring if you promise not to become offended if I don't go into great depth about it's various and sundry virtues and values. I mean, I've got a pretty good idea of what I'm going to talk about and demonstrate and slingshots won't be it. On the other hand, if someone else wants to do something with modern low-tech stuff - like slingshots - then they're free to have at it. And if you're any good with a genuine leather sling and want to show us how to use it, then by all means, we'll definitely talk about primitive weaponry. Good enough answer? Edited to add - On the other hand hand, this get-together isn't just about primitive technology or ''frontier'' skills, so by all means bring whatever you want to demonstrate and/or talk about.

I'M I'm gonna' chime in on the shooting question and mention that, while I'm a shooter myself, I've found that all too often, it becomes more about the shooting than the original intent of the get-together. Don't get me wrong - I've got no problem with folks who would rather just go out and do some shooting - but it becomes problematic when someone is trying to teach something and can't be heard over the sound of gunfire, or when people lose interest in what's going on because they're over-anxious to make some noise and put some lead downrange. And, then too, I'm pretty sure that if I were Spot's landlord, I'd probably be a lot more willing to put up with and even sanction this sort of thing if I didn't have to worry about a bunch of folks I don't know, shooting at God only knows what. Anyway, that's my and that and a five dollar bill will get you a small cup of coffee just about anywhere in the country. ...TS...

Might as well, I reckon, just to make it official. Ya'll come - the more the merrier. Can't personally guarantee how informative it'll be, if only because I'm not one much on tootin' my own horn, but I'm sure good ol' WD-40 will cover what I forget and I think it's safe to say that it darn sure won't be boring. ...TS...

Had a guy, not long ago, accuse me of being ''down on me, because I'm black...'' I replied that, ''No, I'm 'down on you' because you're a jackass - skin color has absolutely nothing to do with it.'' Sometimes I really do not much care for 21st century America... Welcome to the U.S.S.A.

Anyone who has read my thread re the recent loss of a dear friend and kinsman, John Baird, knows that his best friend and fishing partner of forty-plus years - Bob Rebmann - and I were planning a float trip in John's honor. Well, we did it yesterday and although we didn't break any records for size, we still managed to catch some beautiful fish and have a great time. In fact, we've decided that we really need to do this at least once a year - for our own sake, if not for John's. Got a few pics to share and I'm hoping that Bob will send me more of the ones he took - if and when he does, I'll add them to the thread. ...TS... John Baird when he and I floated the Nolichuckey 3 years ago. John's best friend and fishing partner of forty-plus years, Bob Rebmann, 'borrowing' John's seat yesterday. First fish of the day - caught by yours truly. Bob with beautiful little smallmouth caught about half-way through our float trip. Stopped for lunch and a beer in John's honor at this pretty little spot. Bob Rebmann, doing what he does best. ...And proof of how well he does it. This was the last fish of an absolutely WONDERFUL float trip... :up:

Some people just need to have eggs thrown at them... brick shaped eggs... made of brick...

...I'm the one on top.

Awesome parents = awesome kid. Just stands to reason. He's your baby - grab him and hug him and hold him tight and cherish him. Then let him go be the MAN you raised him to be...

Well, John... In a little less than 12 hours, I'll be on the banks of the Nolichuckey with your best friend and fishing partner of forty years. We'll camp tonight and spend our evening telling stories and if Bob and I can keep our eyes dry long enough, we might even wet a line while we're planning tomorrow's float. I'm taking the anchor this time so that we can give the hole where you caught the big one the attention it deserves - should've done that when you and I floated, but hindsight is indeed 20-20 - Bob has never even seen the place, but we both already refer to it as "John's Hole." Tomorrow it'll be officially christened with a beer or two, and probably a tear or two as well... 'course it wouldn't hurt anything if we could catch a couple of nice bronzebacks in between the tears and beers. Bob knows how I feel about floating warm water with a bulky life jacket, so he's volunteered to let me use your old Mae West and I'll wear it proudly, if somewhat sadly. And we've both agreed that, while this is a memorial trip in your honor, we're not going to be saying "goodbye," but rather "Howdy old friend, we've missed you!" Well John, they're hollering at me on the radio to bring my load in, so I guess I'll fold this thing up and get back to being a truck driver for a few more hours. Can't wait until tonight when I will again... see you on the river.

Can't speak for anyone else, but for me it's because my older brother is a Taurus and he used to beat the crap outta' me on regular basis... Oh, wait - you're talking about guns, right? ... Uh, never mind...

Gettin' closer! Thought I'd bump this a little in hopes of getting a few more folks interested in coming out. I know that our own WD-40 will be there with plenty to teach and share and I'll be doing some "instructorizing" myself, primarily on what we're now calling "primitive survival skills" but was actually just day-to-day frontier living a couple hundred years ago. Aside from the basic and mundane stuff like flint & steel fire starting and the convenience of a tumpline supported bedroll for a person on foot, we'll take a look around and discuss a little on wild plant foods, campsite selection, basic shelter and maybe even build a simple but very effective drying/smoking rack for making jerky or roasting tuberous plants. Might be some other stuff we'll get into also, but mostly - in true "frontiersman" fashion - we'll just see what presents itself for learning. (And again, we'll also find the time to do some knife & tomahawk tossing for fun and profit and I'll be happy to not only give some instruction, but provide a knife or two for chunkin' - as long as you promise not to throw it in the creek!) So come on out - it'll be some shinin' times! P.S. I personally want to thank Spots in advance for noticing my old thread and getting the ball rolling on this, as well as volunteering to host this little get-together in what sounds like an increasingly ideal area. Thank you! ...TS...

I use my phone for talking on and taking pictures with - with a crappy GPS and darned good weather program thrown in so I don't feel quite so much like a dinosaur. It is not a smart phone and that probably makes me the technological equivalent of bronze or perhaps early iron age man. Having said all that, there are some good reasons for refusing to buckle to the pressure of acquiring a smart phone and auto-correct seems to be one of the best. Even the spell check on Fire Fox frustrates me at times because of its tendency to insist that the British spelling of a particular word is somehow more correct than the American spelling. I do not envy those with auto-correct and envy even less those with auto-correct who don't take the time to proof read before hitting 'Send' (or whatever it is that smart phone users hit besides their heads on the wall of frustration). You have my heartfelt condolences!

Best John Wayne movie was his last one - The Shootist - because he put everything he had into playing... John Wayne. LOVE that movie!

Problem with carrying the ingredients separately (which I also do, and precisely because of the versatility you mention) is that, sometimes, stuff gets wet no matter how much you try to avoid it and getting flour wet tends to more or less ruin it for just about anything but making paperweights. And you are also more or less correct on the original usage for hardtack.

I've had a Pietta 1858 Remington Buffalo w/12" bbl. for about 17 years now and it's my favorite handgun - modern or black powder - of all time. I absolutely LOVE this pistol! ('Course it doesn't hurt that it shoots well enough to have won several competitions for me, either!)