Traditional 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

Looks like I’ve found the limitation for thirty meters of fletching thread, and it’s about nine arrows. So before I can finish all twenty-four, I’m going to need to re-stock on thread. But before that, I’ll be selling the first batch of six on eBay within the next few days. The only thing stopping me now, is postage and packaging details, which I’ll be researching within the next few days.
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The materials for my first eBay experiment have arrived. While these are the cheapest prices I’ve been able to find from a supplier, I still need to spend some time finding cheaper raw-material suppliers.

I’ve purchased enough materials to complete twenty-four arrows, I’ll be selling them off in batches of six, currently I’m thinking of putting starting bids on the batches at £15, and Buy It Now values of ~£25.
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