Percolator

Someone asked me about a percolator.  I know that some campers still use them, but that's about all I know about them anymore.

I recall having bought a Revere Ware percolator for my college apartment and thinking it was just the best.  I visited home some time later and saw that my own mom had bought this new-fangled contraption called a Mr. Coffee.  It was years before I got a Mr. Coffee of my own.

I wonder if percolator coffee would taste any good today?

Bass Pro polish & waterproofing

I want something on my boots that keep the leather from cracking.  I'm a bit dissatisfied with mink oil.  The stuff goes on great and gives the leather a nice look and feel (although a little greasy) but it seems to wash off with the morning dew.  When your boots dry out at day's end, they look as parched as they had been before you oiled them.  I'm ready for something new.

At Bass Pro, I saw some polish that also doubled as a water proofing.  My experiments with regular Kiwi shoe polish were actually more successful than with mink oil.  Polish seemed to stay put after a day in the field, but I wondered if it was simply the color that stuck and not the oil.  I was hopeful the Bass Pro would do something.

The Bass Pro stuff was a little stiff to put on.  You had to warm it and really rub it in.  That's not a problem if it stays with the leather at least through a dewy morning.  The results so far are very nice.  The boots look more like oiled leather than polished leather.

I'll try the boots this weekend and find out if the Bass Pro boot polish passes the morning dew test.

   Bass Pro polish/waterproofing/conditioner.

The look is more along the lines of a dark oil or tanning rather than polish, which is perfect for a field boot.  

Chromecast TV dongle

I used some credit card points to get a free Chromecast.  Chromecast is Google's TV interface.  It plugs into the HD port on a "smart" TV (that is, a TV that is capable of processing IP signals).  It also requires a power source.  Then you download the Chromecast app on your smartphone or iPad.

After that, you use your iPad or smartphone to requests to view YouTube or Netflix videos on your TV.  Your iPad or smartphone acts as a TV remote, in some sense.

We tried it last night and it worked exactly as advertised.  We watched some silly Welsh Springer videos and a few gundog training videos.

My goal is to see if we can get some of the shows that we watch, such as News Hour.  If I can get that small number of shows via Chromecast, I can then drop cable either altogether or to the minimum package.  I would either reduce total spending or use some of the savings to increase my Internet bandwidth.

SUV crate

Most SUVs have a sloped back to present a more streamlined profile.  However, this sloped back cuts interior space for your dog and gear.  Moreover, you want a setup with a front gate to prevent pup from bounding out when the rear hatch is opened.

Here is a contender from General Cage.  The price is around $200.  The crate is trapazoidal at about 32" at the bottom and maybe 24" at the top.  This permits you to have at least one rear seat up while also closing the tailgate of the car.

   The crate's 25" width means one crate per car.

Spring-loaded hardware makes assembly and gate use easy.  Gate opens with one hand.

You will probably replace this heavy, noisy metal pan with the lighter and more manageable ABS plastic pan.

A 55 lbs dog fits reasonably well, even when pouting.

There is room for gear on the side.

Reasonable headroom for a medium-sized dog and you can toss a towel or two on top.

Ultimate dog machine

I'm pretty happy with Muttmobile 2, but this tricked out Mercedes Benz Sprinter strikes me as being the ultimate dog toting machine.

What's in your kit?

Training dogs is accompanied by bramble scratches, bird pecks, and miscellaneous mishaps.  I've got several first-aid kits, small enough to carry, and larger for the car.  Just thinking through my own I have several kits, storebought and self-assembled.  Sure, they have things like forceps (as well as whistles & compasses) but I'll tell you what I use regularly:

Used on people

• sunscreen
• bug repellent
• hydrogen peroxide (also for dog)
• bactine/neosporine
• band-aids
• waterless hand wash
• benadryl cream 

For dog

• saline eye wash & artificial tears (soother)
• gauze wrap (wiping cuts and dog teeth)
• blunt nose scissors (cutting out burrs & mats)
• prilosec (used once in a while on long trips)
• steel-toothed comb (tailgate check)
• benedryl tabs with dosage per 50lb written on plastic containing bag.

Some of these items are not exactly first aid, and only my car kit has the steel-toothed comb, for example, but I found that by putting things like sunscreen in the first aid kit, I rummaged through the kit regularly.  As a result, I didn't treat the kit like an untouchable shrine and I learned what was in it, what was useful, and I was more likely to think to pull out an aspirin or a bandaid if someone needs it.

Don't forget to refamiliarize yourself with the basics of canine first aid.

Multitool for car or camp

This is a pretty cool multi tool.  Pliers, knife, flashlight, and fire-starting combo!    Made by Gerber, which, like Leatherman, makes good multi-tools.

Bananas don't travel well

Whether it's the TSA patdown or the constant vibration aboard an Embraer RJ 140,  bananas are not good travel companions.  By the time you reach your destination, that wooden green banana that you started the trip with is a liquified brown mess in your carryon satchel.  What's a traveler to do?  How about this banana coffin?  If it hadn't been invented already, I'd have invented it myself.

A banana saver might prevent the liquification of a banana while traveling.

Wax polish

A fine gunstock is like a good piece of furniture, except that you take this furniture out in the field and subject it to the elements.  Natural wax is the preferred protectant for the stock  and forarm because it lets the wood breath while it also protects against moisture.  From the look of the tin below, a good wax will be redolent of  tobacco, autumn leaves, and burnt gunpowder.

Toshiba FlashAir

Now this is cool.

Your 35mm camera takes much nicer pictures than your iPhone.  But the photos on the 35mm camera have to be uploaded to your website through your PC, unless you have a newer camera with WiFi connectivity.  Using the PC as an intermediary is ok for industrial-strength uploading, but can be problematical if you just want to post a quick photo from the field (or nearby McDonalds hotspot).

The Toshiba FlashAir is an SD card (chip for the 35mm camera) with built-in WiFi.  There are quite a few other alternatives out there as well.

• Eye-Fi Mobile X2.  This SD card creates its own WiFi so that you can transfer photos from the chip to the iPad (which does not have an SD slot).  If your iPad has 3G, you can then upload your photo right from the muddy field.
• Eye-Fi also has a 4GB SD WiFi card that supports the Raw format that a lot of professional photographers use.  

No need for the PC as an intermediary between camera and web.  Now you can take nicer photos and still share them while they are hot.

Biolite stove

Don't let the new-age ad put you off, this might be handy for backpacking campers or for when the power goes off.

Stake out

A stake can be useful during the warmer months.  I hesitate to pop Larsen into the station wagon right after a run.  I'd like to let him stay in a shady spot on some thick grass where some air can circulate.

The stake (or tie out) is handy for that.  You can pound in the stake with a small sledge (which I happen to have) and then just loop the British lead over the stake.  I've found that Larsen, like many spaniels, does not test the robustness of the stake even if he keens to get back onto the field.  In the one pictured below, I pound it in about to the wings.  Not much more.

I find that the straight stake and a small sledge is better than the screw-type tie out (also pictured below) due to the hard Georgia clay.  The benefit of the screw type (which I also have somewhere in the basement) is that you don't need to tote a sledge.

The one pictured below is about $5 at gundogsupply.

Just pound this in and loop the lead over the top.

This stake is handy where the soil is soft.  

A sunscreen over the dog crate is essential during the summer, and it is useful year round.  The screen keeps the dog cooler and it also blocks the action on the field and thereby reduces the plaintive whining of a dog that thinks the whole is stacked against him if some other dog is in the field.  

I've got sun screens from Gothic Arch Greenhouse in Mobile, AL, which provides greenhouses and accessories to the gardening set.  

The suncreen  is called "Aluminet" and it comes with many options.  

I have two of and each is 7' x 10'.  It seems standard width is 13', so I'm not sure why I didn't just go with the standard. (maybe it was cut for the binding, I don't remember).  You can get other standard and non-standard sizes.  Mine is 70% sun blocking, and that seems to work for me.  I also have the binding or taping with grommets.  

I got a couple of stuff sacks from Amazon.  At day's end, I fold and roll up the screens and stuff them into the stuff sacks.  You can get nylon stuff sacks from WalMart as well.  

My order for 2 of the 7x10 screens was $89 all in and they have held up for several years now despite looking very delicate.  

HP 12C - 31 Years

Iconicism is everywhere it seems, but if you've gone to business school in the last couple of decades, you'll be familiar with this tool of the MBA crowd, which truly deserves to be called iconic.  It's the HP 12C, Hewlett Packard's financial calculator that, among other things, uses Reverse Polish Notation for number entry.  (With RPN you enter A, B, + instead of A+B.)  Once you get used to RPN, all other pocket calculators seem faintly ridiculous.  Need to know how many days between September 13, 2012 and November 10, 2012 (the date of the WSSCA Hunt test)?  You've got 58 days to get your dog ready.

The HP 12C is virtually unchanged, at least on the outside, over the last 3 decades!  According to an AJC article pubished in 2004, the HP 12C is the oldest consumer electronics item still made.  Long ago, geekism might have been a slide rule hanging from your belt.  A pocket protector is still a good tell.  But modern geekism, thy name is HP 12C.

Car & crate fans

I've got a couple of crate fans, and each has a purpose.  First up is a simple crate fan powered by 2 D batteries.  This fan is useful for the show ring when power outlets are at a premium.  It goes through a pair of batteries per day.

I also have the Breeze car fan that draws power from the cigarette lighter of the car.  This fan is relatively quiet and because it is a 10-inch fan, it moves a lot of air.  However, it puts a draw on the car battery, which is not really made for sustained operation.  Moreover, with modern cars, you can inadvertently have all sorts of accessories (such as the your headlights) on if you don't realize it.  I've experienced the frustration of being unable to start the car at the end of a long day in the field due to this fan.

This brings me to fan #3, the Ryobi.  Ryobi makes a wide range of power tools that use an 18 v NiCad battery.  The battery lasts about a long day in the field and it is rechargeable.  I'll head over to Home Depot on Saturday and pick up a Ryobi fan and battery and try it out on Sunday.

Cheap and very portable, but goes through batteries.

Good for a long road trip in hot weather, but draws car current when in the field.

Up-front battery cost is expensive, but the battery is rechargeable

Caution: Grab this upside down

A dummy launcher took a bite out of Cathy's hand on Sunday.  Yow.  The kickback of the launcher pushed the locking mechanism into the web of her hand and skinned and bruised her.  

It turns out that you don't hold the launcher like you would any other firearm.  Your lead hand is positioned upside down!  With your thumb pointed toward you.

According to the instructions:

Firmly grasp the launcher in one hand with the thumb latch oriented toward the shoulder of the holding arm. The heel of the holding hand should be facing the thumb latch and the fingers should be wrapped firmly around the grip. (The thumb will be closest to the Pull Knob.)

Bend the elbow slightly and position the launcher about waist high and one foot from your body. Aim at about 45 degrees from horizontal off to your side toward the target area. 

Did you get that?  You don't hold a shotgun, pistol, rifle, or tennis racket in this manner.  You grab it as you would grab a broom with your lead hand, and then point the broom toward the sky.  Design fail!

The little finger, not the thumb, should face the action.

London Trading Company

The LTC sells clothes and gear to the horsey set in Atlanta. The store is redolent of leather and waxed cotton.

We stopped by to look at field boots. They certainly had some fine boots to choose from, as well as beautiful country clothes. Christmas is coming, so now's the time to think about your lists.

The LTC is at 30 East Andrews Street in Atlanta.

Buckhead casual.

These are boots for the field?

A chukar in a game bag.

Some sort of wild cat lunges at a pheasant.

Larsen's mug

No, not a paean to the mutt's mug, I'm talking about a coffee mug. Training friend Cathy V. gave this to us on Sunday after the Hunt Test. It is a coffee mug with Larsen's likeness on the side. Cathy's general kindness and her understanding of dogs are treasures, as is this coffee mug.

Training pistol

You don't want to use substandard firearms, even when they are nothing more than starter pistols.

I went to Gundog Supply Company and was ready to throw down $189.95 for the Alfa .22, which seemed to be the top-of-the-line. I talked to one of the guys at GDS, who concluded that the Viper ($89.95) was enough for an occasional trainer like me. The Viper shoots .22 crimps (or shorts), which are a little shorter than a normal .22 blank. Viper recommends against using so-called acorn blanks, which are shorter still, and which can be difficult to extract after firing.

I use the gun in water training and in hunt tests. We shoot the blank gun instead of the shotgun for all of the dogs at a HT. It gets a pretty good workout on those days. Otherwise, in general training, there are maybe 2 shots per dog on a Sunday training day.

The Viper has enough heft that it does not seem likely to fall apart in your hand the way some of the really cheap guns do.

The Viper is a solid starter pistol sold by GunDogSupply.

The Viper shoots .22 crimps, also sold by GunDogSupply.

Garden mister has a new app

Temperatures at the Wisconsin Hunt Test hit the mid-90's, which was more than uncomfortable, it was potentially dangerous to the dogs.

Judges and handlers kept an eye on the dogs in the field, breaking off a turn after a dog had completed a hard run. The handler was instructed to cool his or her dog down and return later for a second run.

We went through a lot of ice and water, of course. One thoughtful handler pulled out a garden mister of the sort used to spray plants with water-based fertilizers or insecticides. Filled with plain water, the mister was used to wet down the hot dogs. The mister works better than a garden hose, which even if had been available in the field, usually results in a dog that squirms away, with water running off the coat like the back of a duck.

If you decide you'd like one, buy a new one. Don't recycle one that's had its share of Roundup or Miracle Gro. This compact version works fine, as does the version with the flexible tube and wand, which helps you get to the dog's undercarriage.