Smokes on the first of July 2008

Where was the lawn moved to, and are you just left with a dirt field? :)

I couldn't help myself... It's a curse.

The lawn gnomes must have decided to leave this neighbourhood, pack the lawn and go south.

Too many students and hedgehogs around here. Or they might just be pissed off that I never handed them any pipe tobacco :)

"...Too many students and hedgehogs around here. Or they might just be pissed off that I never handed them any pipe tobacco :)" The students or the hedgehogs? I'd personally go with the pissed-off hedgehogs, who are more likely to be vindictive when their clay pipes and teacups are empty.

In some strange connection, I thought of "Wind in the Willows" (Kenneth Grahame) and his anthropomorphic creatures. A book that I must re-read this week. But, Grahame also wrote an essay 'On Smoking', in which he noted

"For, although with most of us who are labourers in the vineyard, toilers and swinkers, the morning pipe is smoked in hurry and fear and a sense of alarums and excursions and fleeting trains, yet with all this there are certain halcyon periods sure to arrive -- Sundays, holidays, and the like -- the whole joy and peace of which are summed up in that one
beatific pipe after breakfast, smoked in a careless majesty like that of the gods ``when they lie beside their nectar, and the clouds are lightly curled.'' Then only can we be said really to smoke.....". Morning pipe it is, then.

Feeling particularly excitable this morning, I chose Irish Flake in the Reynolds Rouser (for the taste buds are aroused when the pipe is smoked) with MH Colombian in the travel mug, while SWSL swerved through the traffic. And, it is good.

tales, words of wisdom, or otherwise pertinent quotes. I am, however, enjoying some Haunted Bookshop in a Butz-Choquin Mirage.
Best wishes to my fellow brothers of the briar on this fine first day of July.

and, I started the day on the treadmill for my two mile walk. Yes, I do smoke my first pipe of the day on my treadmill walk. It may sound counter-productive, but I do not enhale. The two miles takes me 30 minutes. I barely break a sweat by the end. For this walk, I enjoyed C&D Two Friends Heritage in my L'anatra 2005 P&T Pipe of the Year Canadian. Now I am at my insurance agency desk writing motorcycle insurance and puffing Captain Bob's in my Savinelli 7-1/4" canadian. I'm careful not to walk head first into any walls in fear the stem would exit the rear of my neck!

I can't avoid this any longer ... its time to cut the hedges. Ugh. I hate this. Maybe the pipe will help.

Edit: its too hot to work in the direct sunlight ... this chore is hereby pushed off till about 4:30ish when the sun goes over to the far side of the house. Either way, I'll get it done today *rats*. But the up side is that I'm heading out on the patio with a good book instead of cutting hedges now! Pipe / tobacco combo: Group 5 Dunhill Amber Root Straight Billiard / McClelland #22. Get the impression I'm in the mood for some #22 today?!

Sounds like something to outsource to the garden gnomes, You probably have burley codger gnomes, so a pack of 5 bros on the doorstep before you go to sleep should do it.

Don't give 'em any Half and Half, they will moVe your lawn ;)

What the hell are you smoking today, pass some on.

For me tonight's first bowl is some Butera Kingfisher, full bent billiard and I am sure that there will be more later. I have smoked about half this tin and it suits me very well. The krumble kake is easy to pack, usually easy to light but not always. Has a decent kick from the burley, less from the perique and keeps my interest the entire smoke. Heck, might just refill this pipe again.

I kept coming up with reasons to wait just a little bit longer ... it was 6:00 by the time I got out there ... I got half the yard trimmed (not raked and neat yet) before the bugs came out in droves. I don't mean a few folks ... they came out so bad I just said "the hell with it" ... will continue this tomorrow morning! Not afternoon ... not midday ... MORNING! I hate cutting hedges.

I've got a couple of things to get done still but once done I'm heading downstairs with a good book and taking out the next pipe in the rotation: Group 4 Dunhill DR** Straight Billiard - filling it with Solani Aged Burley Flake I think.

Mr. Grahame's literary acumen is hereby duely noted. My previously documented maliaise with regard to briar and tobacco, seem to have subsided after a few days of going smokeless. I dipped snuff in a hospital today (most of the day to be honest). If they only knew they'd be apalled. Enjoying the first smoke of the day with a casual late evening bowl of somewhat crisp, but still exceptional, Old Joe Krantz from a 7769 Kaywoodie. I've said it many times before and will probably say it many, many times in the future but allow me to take this opportunity to once again repeat the mantra. OJK is, bar none, the cat's ass, dogs bullocks, bee's knee's the absolute fecal matter gentlemen. If you fancy yourself a codger burley man, OJK is definitely the top of the food chain. This coming from the guy who invented the term codger burley! Quite simply, there is no finer Codger Burley in the world today PERIOD. This stuff is the Ivan Drago of Codger Burlies. Mr. Runowski, You Sir, are a god walking amongst meer mortals!

SG FVF in a Stanwell 243. It is a cool 83 F here thanks to a much needed afternoon rain shower.

A very nive all day smoke
Glas of milk to sip