When the sole of the Clarks oil tanned leather shoes I have been wearing for two years now split from one side to the other, I set about trying to find a new pair.  Imagine my chagrin when I discovered that they no longer make the style I like.  I called Clarks to see if there was any way I could order a pair out of old stock, but there were none to be found.  I explained my predicament, and they sent me the replacement pair of my choosing free of charge.  Hoorah for fine customer service, but these were not my old favorites.  I did some research, and I found Resole America.

According to www.resole.com, they are the exclusive factory authorized refurbishing center for Clarks.  Because the shoes were discontinued, they were unable to find a direct replacement sole.  What they did, however, was to shave down the old soles and glue on Vibram soles with a tasty tread pattern.  There is a visible seam, but those of you who know me know I don’t give a rusty rip as long as they perform.  I am looking forward to putting some miles on them.  A good pair of boots or shoes is expensive; a good pair that is well broken in is priceless.  The fine folks at Resole America were even good enough to kick me a discount for telling you about it. Other advertisers take note!

The Zippo lighter is such an iconic product that I hesitated to review it.  After all, who hasn’t owned or at least used a Zippo?  I recently added another one to my small collection, and I realized I was taking a vital piece of equipment for granted by not mentioning it on the site.

When I go into the woods, I carry at least two completely independent methods of making fire.  If the circumstances warrant, I’ll carry three.  One of those methods is always a Zippo lighter.  I’ll grab a cheapo disposable lighter as a backup, and I’ll add matches if I think the risk of a survival situation is particularly high.  The remoteness of the location, the nighttime temperatures, and the likelihood of a dunking or a soaking all factor into my decision.  As I learned years ago in Hunter Safety Course, the most common cause of death in hunting accidents is hypothermia.  Temperatures in the 40s and 50s can be cold enough to settle your hash if your clothing is wet and you have no heat source.

Even if you are not in a survival situation, a fire can do quite a bit to lift your spirits if you are facing the prospect of a unplanned night in the open.  As shown in the photo, the Zippo will maintain a flame without your having to hold down two safety catches and sign a waiver.  This makes it much easier to light tinder with freezing hands.  After just a short while lit, it serves as a mini hand warmer once you close it.  The Zippo folks tout it as windproof, but I would say extremely wind resistant is a more apt description.  You can blow it out, but it takes some effort.

Zippos are and always have been made in the U.S.A.  If you ever have a problem with a Zippo lighter, you can return it to their plant in Bradford, Pennsylvania, for repair.  Here is their guarantee taken directly from their website:  “Any Zippo pocket lighter, when returned to our factory, will be put in first-class mechanical condition free of charge, for we have yet to charge a cent for the repair of a Zippo pocket lighter, regardless of age or condition.  The finish, however, is not guaranteed.”  Folks, for any company to display that much confidence in their product speaks volumes.  

As noted, the guarantee covers only the functioning of the product and not the cosmetic finish.  I once picked up a Zippo in the middle of the road that looked as though it had been run over several times.  Recognizing the familiar shape, I pulled my truck to the side and went to get it.  I was looking forward to testing the famous Zippo guarantee, but I did not get the opportunity.  The darn thing lit on the first strike as soon as I had refilled it with fluid.  It’s not pretty, but I still use it.  Speaking of pretty, they come in every finish and design you could imagine.  My newest one is bright orange so I can find it if I drop it in the woods, a fate I suspect was the end of an olive drab one I owned years ago.  As an added bonus, the logo  encourages support for conservation of owls.  I am for it, I say.  I am for it.

For those who skipped English class the day they covered euphemisms, these drier sheets smell like dirt. Not just any dirt, mind you, but the nitrogen rich dirt in a container of nightcrawlers. Go into a hardwood bottom and kick up some rotting leaves, and you’ll get the idea. I use an unscented detergent with no UV brighteners in the wash, and then I dry everything with a scented sheet. One sheet in a load of clothes leaves a scent you can smell as soon as you open the door at the end of the cycle. If you store your clothes in an airtight container, they will keep the scent for months. I have a plastic container in my garage labeled “dirt box” into which I put all of my deer hunting clothes along with some scented wafers from the same product line. Incidentally, I wash my hands with scent-free soap before folding the clothes after I dry them. The Sporting Wife follows the same protocol when washing my deer hunting clothes, although it amuses her to no end to take so much trouble in making clean clothes smell like worm dirt.

One concern I had given the strength of the scent is that it might be too much. Empirical data suggests this is not the case, as I have had deer within seven yards of an open ladder stand for an extended period of time while using this product. I suppose the effect is no different than kicking the leaves out of one’s spot when hunting from the ground. I’m sure a deer could smell it, but it would be a familiar smell. Deer make scrapes, after all, and other animals burrow in denning and searching for food. If anything, the smell might arouse a deer’s natural curiosity. At any rate, I haven’t had any deer display a negative reaction to the scent wafers when I have placed them around my stand.

This is going to be a short review because it’s negative and there’s not much to say. I picked up these solid scent “leaves” for use on a recent deer hunting trip because the scent wafers I had been using for several seasons had finally lost their scent. It’s not that these don’t smell like dirt, they do, just not very much. There are four leaves in the package compared to three scent wafers in the product I normally use, but the scent of the other product is much stronger.

I drop the wafers into a plastic trash bag with my clothes after washing my duds in scent free laundry detergent and drying them with masking scent dryer sheets. I’ll provide more information about the detergent and dryer sheets I like in future reviews, but for the time being let me say that Fresh Earth cover scent wafers from Hunter’s Specialties are similarly priced and the scent is much stronger. When you open the container on the H.S. product, the smell is almost enough to knock you down. The degree of accuracy in reproducing the scent is also phenomenal. You’ve smelled this scent before if you’ve ever opened a container of nightcrawlers or kicked all the rotting leaves out of a spot to sit down when hunting from the ground. Yup, the H.S. wafers smell like straight-up dirt, and that’s a good thing. The Trophy Leaf has a similar smell, but it’s just not enough to scent my whole bag of clothes the way the other product does. The Trophy Leaf is not a bad product, but there are others that are better. You heard it here.

Let me begin by saying that after practicing basic gun safety, the most important thing one can do in the shooting sports is to protect one’s hearing. Eye protection is crucial as well, but with every unprotected shot the ears take a pounding. When I was younger and dumber than I am now, my friends and I used to go through a box or two of clay birds without ear protection of any kind. After the first few shots, you “get used to it,” i.e., you have enough short-term hearing loss that the gun’s report doesn’t bother you as much anymore. After all, you’re not going to be wearing earplugs when you’re hunting, right? What we didn’t realize then was that in addition to the temporary effects which were ameliorated after a day or so, we were also doing incremental damage to our hearing that might never reverse.

I have come full circle on this issue over the years, and I often wear foam earplugs when upland hunting. Yes, it is more difficult to hear if someone at a distance calls a bird that is flying my way, and it is also more difficult to hear the rustling of wings that is usually the hunter’s first clue that a bird is about to launch. That is, it is more difficult for the first few shots. If there is a lot of shooting on a given hunt, I notice that my hearing tends to be roughly equivalent to that of my friends after they’ve loosed a few rounds with no plugs. I dislike the “plugged up” feeling that comes from having the foam plugs inserted for any length of time, however, and I often try to minimize the unpleasant sensation and maintain some level of hearing protection by partially inserting the foam plugs. The results are less than satisfactory.

I have read about earplugs featuring a baffle design that purports to allow for normal conversation while blocking high impulse noises like gunfire. These are a simple mechanical design, not to be confused with much more expensive models that accomplish the same effect electronically. I have always been skeptical of the manufacturers’ claims, however, and I have never tried a pair until now. Shopping at a Mossy Oak Outlet store near my home, I saw the Radians product featured here for only $6.99. I figured that now was the time to give baffle plugs a try. If I liked them, then I’d have discovered a good product at a low price. If they were junk, I’d at least have the opportunity to tell all of y’all to save your money.

Inspecting the packaging on returning from the store, I discovered that the plugs have a noise reduction rating (NRR) of only six decibels, which is not very impressive. I read on, and discovered that the EPA noise reduction rating is only an effective measurement of a device’s attenuation of continuous noise, and did not therefore reflect how effective the plugs might be at muffling impulse noise like gunfire. I put the plugs in and wore them around the house for a while. The plastic is harder than that of the foam or silicone plugs to which I am accustomed, so I immediately didn’t like these as much from a comfort standpoint. I could still hear the television fairly well, though, and more importantly I could still hear the Sporting Wife asking me if I was trying to tell her something by wearing them. They also largely eliminated the claustrophobic feeling I get wearing a standard earplug.

At the range, I fired about a box through my 12 gauge, and the Radians earplugs really came into their own. The noise level when firing was comparable to full foam plugs, but in between shots I was able to clearly hear the Sporting Wife complaining about the hand thrower we were using. At one point, I wished I had brought the full foam plugs along for “comparison” purposes. Seriously, the Radians product worked as advertised. The plastic could be softer, but they were a good value for the money and a good introduction to sound baffle technology for me cialis super active online. Check ‘em out!