To help control expenses I’ve thought about how I could harvest food for free. Perhaps get a book of regional plants that are edible and take notes at the library. I though about hunting and fishing too. Hunting for animals is a bit over the top for me, but fishing might work. The supplies are relatively cheap and unlike shooting guns there’s plenty of places to take worms swimming without venturing out into the backwoods.

Trouble is that I could budget for a hook and some worms perhaps, but buying gear beyond that is a completely different matter. So on sunday when I was browsing for some fishing techniques I just decided that I’d need to find something at a yard sale, or perhaps some generous soul would have an extra to loan or give.

Fate Steps In

My sister needed to clean out her old house as it was the last day of her occupancy. As I was staying with her I’d think it rude to not assist. So off we went to the old house. She cleaned the kitchen a little, gathering last minute items and wiping down some surfaces. I was sent out to the shed to finish moving a couple already selected items to her car.

As I was moving these I found other things, which beyond the stuff my sister said she was keeping that I was free to take as I pleased the remainders. And what did I find? A fishing pole and tackle box!

The Haul

I’m now the proud owner of a short little travel fishing rod and reel combo. It’s probably a tad over four feet in length so it stores easily in the van under the bed. The box I left behind as it was just too darn large and it was cleaned out of its contents anyways, I just appreciated the humor of finding it too. It seems to work well enough and I found another reel too which I took just in case. Apparently this was gear that my nephew didn’t want anymore so it was free to become mine!

I also scored some more wood to finish off the interior of my van. I wanted to make a cabinet that could have a work surface above it so that I could sit and have a desk or someplace to make a sandwich. There was a four by five foot piece of the most beautiful plywood ever. Eight ply 3/4 inch premium grade sanded one side plywood with not a single knot in any of the layers. It’s super expensive stuff from my brother-in-law’s work that’s used in the die industry where blades are implanted into the surface of the wood and then pressed against paper or cardboard to make die cuts like for cereal boxes and the like. The die needs to have incredible dimensional stability and this wood provides it. The tolerance for the dies is in the thousandths of an inch and now my counter top will be the most precise ever installed in a van!

There was also a few other pieces of the same plywood plus a full 1×6, some smaller 2×4 and several pieces of trim. With what I’ve gotten I should be able to wing together a suitable cabinet and finish the prior work off too.

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