Archery

Well this New Year has brought some changes for me. The first being that I have resigned from all official posts with The Druid Network. This was simply the right choice for me at the time, with my personal life changing, along with work obligations. That said, I’m still a part of the community, and intend to be actively involved in the community, more information here, when it’s ready to go live ;)

I also intend to take more time out for my geekness. So I’ll probably start pitching in the occasional patch to various FOSS projects that I’m interested in. This year is shaping up to be one filled with Inspiration, I’ve also decided to collect up my poetry into a few tomes, with the hope of producing a book… Preferrably before I’m seventy. I’ll also be producing a limited number of Longbows this year (Spring and Summer) for purely practise purposes, they will be up for sale (probably on eBay) and will most likely also include some original artwork on the stave.

Last year was a big learning year for me with regards to projects. We saw the closure of two of my web projects, namely Druid.tv, and DruidWiki.org. Both big lessons in big ideas collapsing under lack of demand, lack of content, and lack of community support. I will — however — be retaining the domains for a while longer until they disappear from various search engines, at least. To avoid confusion.

Next up, Mrs. yibble and I are travelling to New York tomorrow, to partake in some shopping and tourism. We’re only there for four days, so probably won’t have much time to meet up with folks during the day, but the evenings could be cool? Expect many photographs hitting my Flickr Page.

Anyhoo, the year is young… Plenty to come :D

No rant here, it’s not that type of whittlin’ I’m on about. With Spring taking hold, it’s almost the bow-making season. Well, for me it is, I find a bow best made with plenty of space, and at least with a little warmth in the hands. I’ve got one definate commission to get to work on, and two tentatives. I’ll post more details, and photographs as and when.

For today, I’ve been out and about in the local area little with the camera catching some early spring moments. What do you think?

technorati tags: stratford, bow, longbow, bowyery, archery, spring

This age old bugbear of a topic has come up again recently. I can only give my opinion accurately, well it is my blog after all. There seem to be a few camps on this:

• The Hardcore Vegans/Vegetarians, you know, so hardcore they won’t even go through a place that has the word ‘ham’ in it.
• Then you have the Vegans/Vegetarians who feel that it can’t be done honourably, but they don’t feel the need to berate you for it.
• The Vegans/Vegetarians that have more balls than many Omnivores and state that they would hunt if life depended on it.
• The Omnivores that couldn’t hunt, but are OK to purchase it, be it a super-market or an Organic/Local outlet.
• Then we seem to have the folks that believe it’s possible to hunt in a sacred, and honourable way, with ritual etc.
• Then, I think, there’s me.

I think it’s possible to hunt with honour, and in a sacred manner, aware of the process from cradle to grave and rebirth and beyond. To acknowledge each crossing between places. But to emphasise this into a social-ritualistic event would be the path to the uncouth bastardisation that modern fox-hunting became.

The need and urge to kill for sustenance and tools, and kit, and charms and whatever you make from the resources you have acquired, is a base instinct. A very defining instinct intrinsically coded into all of us. For me, it’s at the very root of my druidry, it’s a god in itself, the place between living and dieing, the union and kinship of tribe, the basis of all core social activity such as trade, story-telling, singing, dancing, and music (and much more beside).

technorati tags: hunting, honour, omnivore, vegan, vegetarian

First things first. Archery practise was good again on Tuesday. It seems there’s something very wrong with where I’m holding the stave in relation to my drawing hand. Plenty more practise should hopefully yield shoots that fall where my sight is at. It’s just a case of breaking a shallow habit.

Next up… I’ve got my iPod Nano! I’m very pleased with this little baby. As I ordered it from the Apple Shop, I also had a bit of engraving done to the back of it, “Athazagoraphobic… and proud.”

Next up. I like this picture by Kim Taylor, found on her site. I was searching for a Hawk the Slayer reference, to prove the fact that Madonna’s new song has NOT got a sample from Abba’s Gimme Gimme Gimme, but is in fact a sample from the Hawk the Slayer theme :) I’m still looking for evidence on that claim.

Flock! I’ve been playing around with a new Social Web Browser development release called Flock. It’s early days yet, and I’m not using it as my main browser for secure transactions, but its features are impressive, and worth tinkering with.

technorati tags: ipod, hawk, apple, archery, flock

On Saturday, a mate and I went down to Chiltern Archery to pick up some parts for his compound bow, and to pick up a modern recurve starter kit for me. Following on the advise I received, to practise one year on a recurve, perfecting my style, before moving onto the Longbow.

My first friendly competition was today, shooting Worcester targets from twenty yards (or so), eleven rounds of five arrows, with only five practise arrows and a new bow with unadjusted sight. I got one-hundred and thirty-two, which I’m pleased with for starters.

technorati tags: archery, bow, longbow, worcester