#outdoors
// 38 posts tagged
Jul 26 10:32 AM #205 3 min Ninety Degrees of Regret Before the Paddle Behaved
Flatwater CanoeingTraded a fly rod for a paddle, expecting a peaceful drift. Instead I spun a full circle and learned the beginner's correction stroke is genuinely, officially called the goon stroke.
Jul 25 7:14 PM #204 4 min A 1912 Knot That Keeps the Horizon Honest
Kite Aerial Photography with a Picavet RigThe camera never left the ground today. I spent the whole session on a step with a coat hanger and two eyelets, learning why a 1912 knot outperforms firmware at keeping a lens level.
Jul 22 7:52 PM #201 3 min Push the Vanishing Points Off the Page
Urban SketchingTwenty years designing actual buildings, and I could not make a fuel bowser sit on the ground. A weather hold, a re-inked pen, and the humbling art of drawing what's in front of you.
Jul 19 6:04 PM #198 3 min The Sky Was Reporting in Eighths the Whole Time
Cloud SpottingTwenty years reading cloud codes off flight briefings, and a lens-shaped cloud over the foothills stopped me cold. Turns out I could name the weather but not the sky it came from.
Jul 14 4:21 AM #194 3 min Four Centimetres of Line Between Straight and Sideways
Ripstop Sport Kite Building and Precision FlyingThe kite pulled left. I spent an hour blaming my hands, then the bridle, then physics — before measuring the two lines and finding four centimetres of pure self-inflicted humiliation.
Jul 13 5:19 PM #193 2 min The Second Arrow Went Where I Didn't Point
Barebow Recurve ArcheryThe arrow points a few degrees left of the target, then flies dead straight — and somehow, on the second try, my hands agreed to cooperate for once.
Jul 10 5:31 PM #190 3 min Two Millimetres of Bend Between Straight and Coming Home
Returning Boomerang Carving and TuningA boomerang that doesn't come back isn't broken — it flew straight, exactly what a hunter wanted 40,000 years ago and precisely what I don't. The fix lives in millimetres of bend.
Jul 9 7:42 PM #189 4 min The Nose Must Outweigh Everything the Wind Can Grab
Model RocketryA rocket flies straight for one reason: a pea of clay in the nose. Get it wrong and you've built a very expensive lawn dart. So I swung mine on a string, like 1960 told me to.
Jul 8 8:50 PM #188 3 min Eleven Dollars of Plastic That Obeys Only Its Own Spin
Disc GolfThe physio said keep walking, low-impact. So naturally I threw a borrowed disc into a spruce, read the four numbers on its rim like an approach plate, and bought three on the way out.
Jul 6 8:56 PM #186 3 min Half a Millimetre of Shale I Dare Not Cross
Fossil Hunting and PreparationAn ammonite fell out of a rock into my hands, and now I own a pneumatic jackhammer the size of a pen and a fossil that legally belongs to the Crown.
Jun 21 5:32 PM #170 4 min Eighteen Centimetres Down to Robertson Number Two
Magnetic Gradient SurveyingNanotesla-precision magnetic gradient survey for buried foundations. Found a Robertson #2 screwdriver from 1978. The method works perfectly.
Jun 20 4:04 AM #169 6 min Zero Point Three Two Until the Aluminum Said Otherwise
Ground Penetrating RadarThe radar said 0.32 metres. The aluminum plate I buried said 0.40. One of them was lying, and it wasn't the metal.
Jun 19 5:12 PM #168 5 min One Point Eight Metres Where the Ice Left Clay
Seismic Refraction MappingStruck a steel plate with a sledgehammer to find out what the Victorians buried under my garage. The answer is clay. Lots of clay.
Jun 18 6:11 PM #160 day 2 4 min Nine Days and I Can't Tell If It's Swelling
Bonsai Wire TrainingNine days since I wired the branch. Bark might be swelling around the copper. Or it isn't. Twenty minutes of staring hasn't helped.
Jun 9 6:56 PM #160 4 min Six Degrees Down and September Will Tell Me
Bonsai Wire TrainingAnnealed sixty centimetres of copper wire, bent one branch six degrees, and now I wait until September to find out if I guessed right.
Jun 4 8:01 AM #156 2 min Flash Yellow If You're Already Watching
Lichen MicroscopyFound a lichen while sorting dried mushrooms. Touched it with drain cleaner. It flashed yellow in half a second and I almost missed it.
May 29 7:52 PM #150 5 min Seven Days Before the Charcoal Tells Me What the Soil Exhaled
Atmospheric Radon MappingThe Geiger counter that couldn't find meteorites now measures invisible radon seeping from rocks. Eight buried canisters wait to tell me what the soil exhaled.
May 27 6:58 PM #147 2 min 216.430 MHz Once Per Second for Six More Weeks
Radio Telemetry Wildlife TrackingThe RDF receiver was still in the field case from the meteorite failure. Swept 216 MHz to test it. Someone's tagged a ptarmigan out there.
May 26 5:56 PM #146 3 min Five Species Before the Yard List Takes Over
BirdwatchingThe sextant's 4× monocular was for celestial navigation. Then a hawk flew through the viewfinder and I started a list.
May 25 8:00 AM #146 2 min Five Species Through a Monocular Aimed at Something Else
BirdwatchingSpent forty minutes watching the horizon through a sextant. A hawk circled into frame. Now I have a yard list of five species and a navigation problem I can't solve.
May 25 4:25 AM #145 4 min Forty-Seven Degrees Waiting for an Almanac I Don't Have
Celestial Navigation by SextantThe sextant says 47° 12.3'. The Sun says nothing helpful. The almanac I need to make sense of either one arrives in four days.
May 24 8:32 PM #144 3 min Ten Arc-Seconds If I Learn Which Line Aligns
Precision Surveying Theodolite OperationThe theodolite measures angles more precisely than I can measure anything. The limitation is me, not the 61-year-old Swiss brass.
May 23 5:51 PM #143 3 min About Three Twenty Metres and Exactly Nine Point Eight
Benchmark HuntingThe datasheet says the benchmark is at these exact coordinates. It also says those coordinates might be 400 metres away from the actual benchmark. Both statements are true.
May 22 8:12 PM #142 4 min Four Metres of Accuracy Around a Film Canister
GeocachingThe GPS insisted I was standing on top of it. I'd been staring at decorative boulders for twenty minutes.
May 16 8:37 PM #136 4 min Five Flies Lost Before the Loop Unrolled Right
Fly FishingYou cast the line, not the fly—the fly is just cargo. Took twenty casts into the willows to learn this, then lost the first successful cast to a trout.
May 14 5:19 PM #134 3 min Six Beacons Waiting for a Fall Zone I Can't Predict
Meteorite Recovery by Radio Direction FindingThe fireball report said northwest of Red Deer. Weather radar confirmed fragmentation. The witness plates work perfectly. They're just sitting in the garage because "northwest of Red Deer" covers four
May 13 6:09 PM #133 4 min Eight Metres of Uncertainty on Highway Twenty-Two
Mineral Specimen CollectingSix rocks came home. Without field notes linking specimen 2026-047 to coordinates ±8m, they're scientifically worthless. The notebook matters more than the hammer.
Apr 20 8:57 PM #106 4 min The Pin Sits Forward of Where the Wind Lands
Weather Vane WhittlingThe tail needs more area, the nose needs more weight. Carving a contradiction and hoping brass sorts it out.
Apr 19 5:46 PM #105 4 min The Grain Runs One Way and So Must the Knife
Spoon CarvingFrom 0.1mm kumiko tolerances to hacking at birch with a hatchet. The wood has opinions about where the spoon goes.
Apr 15 7:08 PM #100 4 min Arctan of My Latitude Times a Week Without Sun
Sundial MakingOrdered brass and a protractor before realizing I'd committed to a hobby that requires going outside and waiting for the sun.
Mar 24 5:10 PM #82 4 min Nine Rotations Before the Thread Trapped Itself
Fly TyingA mayfly hatched from my bonsai's drip tray. Now I'm learning to counterfeit insects.
Mar 21 8:59 PM #79 4 min Four Pull Tabs Before the Silver Appeared
Metal DetectingTarget ID 48. I will not dig any more pull tabs today. Dug a 48. It was a pull tab.
Mar 19 5:58 PM #77 4 min Three Instruments, Three Answers, One Atmosphere
Weather Station BuildingMy phone says 1018 hPa. The new barometer says 989. The airport says 1016. One atmosphere shouldn't need this many opinions.
Mar 10 8:28 PM #65 3 min Sixty Thousand Workers and No Org Chart
BeekeepingSixty thousand decision-makers, zero central authority. Still better organised than my last project team.
Mar 6 8:16 AM #67 3 min Three Fragments Where Eighty Years Should Be
Dendrochronology Core SamplingThe core is in three pieces. None of them are long enough to count.
Feb 28 8:04 PM #55 3 min The Gills Lied About Their Colour
Mushroom Foraging & Spore PrintingThe gills promised white. The paper said rust. Six hours of waiting to discover somebody was lying.
Jan 8 8:03 PM #7 4 min Teaching a Foam Wing to See What Radios Hear
Airborne RF Shadow CartographyA buried irrigation pipe showed up in my heatmap before I knew it existed. The foam wing sees what I can't.
Jan 7 7:27 PM #6 3 min Teaching a Foam Wing to Draw the Ground
Foam-Wing Orthomosaic MappingTeaching a computer to recognize a park from 200 slightly different angles—like raising a very slow bird.