Greetings and welcome to the real fluff, the hardcore fluff, the fluffy stuff that's built Tonka Tough™. But you've had enough of my guff.
Rough, buff, snuff, scruff …
It's been a busy week. Mrs the Werelynx's brother and his sons are in town visiting. And if you have had any experience dealing with active 9 year-old boys, you'll have some idea of what being the favorite uncle of two of them entails.
Their English has noticeably improved since their last visit. Last time we relied quite a bit on my French— and, considering what level my French is at these days, well— comedy ensued. Actually, my French is probably better than it ever has been. It's just that 9 weeks of 6th grade US French education and about a total of three weeks spent in France mostly decades ago— plus listening to the occasional Gauvain Sers song …
… means that I'm grateful the little lads are learning English.
Linguistically, they're in an interesting situation. They live and go to school in a primarily French speaking part of Belgium, they speak Polish with their Polish mother, but speak French with their Czech father— who was concerned about muddying the waters with a third language. I had a friend from Laos in high school who grew up speaking something like 7 languages and I met a student from Ghana earning her doctorate in Switzerland who grew up with a similar amount of languages— but, whatever. Mrs the Werelynx and I had things a little simpler. I did my best to just speak English with our sons while she spoke Czech. Together we mostly spoke Czech.
Running around with our visitors on Wednesday, taking in #1 Son's hockey ball game (they lost 5-4)
Now, this fluffy little diary of fluff is going to get solid for a minute. As promised in the title, solidly fluffy. For the last several weeks, I've been making promises in the comments. I'm sure all the community by now is tired of the speculation and debate over what my little hexamine cooker looks like.
Three pieces of galvanized steel, designed, cut and slotted together by little ol’ me into a tiny portable stove.
See? I even signed it!
I'm not an engineer or much of a craftsman when working with metal. It may not be as fancy and fold-able as most of these things are, but it served us well on a couple of camping trips.
Of course, the fuel used in this little stove is the most interesting part.
A hexamine tablet. Also pictured are the traditional aluminum camp cooking and serving pots and lid favored by Czech Scouts and Tramps for nearly a century. My own personal set! — embarrassingly clean.
In the bag I was keeping the cooker, were two packs of hexamine tablets. I noticed something interesting about the packaging.
An older, unopened packet of tablets. A design from the pre-revolution communist days.
The text reads: For cooking soups, teas and similar, use a whole tablet, for warming foods a half tablet will suffice.
More modern packaging in a box. Still called "Hexa”, but this is also labelled a solid fire starter.
I just found it interesting how the older package showed its intended use specifically in outdoor cooking while the newer package only mentions its possible use in these little "pocket cookers” (heh, you're not getting my inflexible box of galvanized steel to fit in your pocket) as the last item on a list of uses in tiny print on one side of the box under charcoal grills, fireplaces and campfires. Paper and kindling, kids. Paper and kindling.
What's that you say? The fluff was entirely too solid this week? I did manage to get a nice, dark picture of something decidedly fluffy last weekend.
A visitor to our yard with enviable ear tufts.
Thanks for stopping by.
This is an open thread.