Not too unusual, but really cool.
I came upon this old cover that had a feed trough and a well. There were remnants of an old house here and there too. I spoke to the old rancher and he said he was surprised that it was still there. He had found it when he was a kid back in the '50s. He believed that it was from the original homestead from many years before then.



I asked him about the old trough that had collapsed and he said that it has been that way since he was there as a kid. He let me have the wood, I promised him I would make something cool from it.


After months of gluing together more cracks and splits than I could have ever guessed, the old trough gets another life, hopefully another 100 years.


I used almost every piece. All that remained of the scraps could fit in a shoe box. The old rancher was elated when I showed it to him.

That’s a really cool and nice looking table, well played.

Very nice!

That is some seriously cool woodworking man.

found this while digging in trenton, tx to extend a gas main. wasnt sure if it was part of a working gun at one point or a old toy gun or something. either way thought it was pretty cool considering it was found about 30" deep also found this in burkburnett, tx

I did find a dead guy on the side of the road on my way to check traps one morning at first light. I thought he was possibly drunk so I backed up and got out of the truck and kicked him lightly on the elbow but he was stiff. 4 bullet holes in the stomach with his sweatshirt pulled up to reveal them and one dead center in his throat. He had a bad night.

Well that'll put a kink in your day for sure!


Very cool table Simple Searcher!

ttt

Heart pine. Made 15 years ago. Need to sand and refinish the top.

Haven't been on THF in a long while 1st place I came was this thread, glad to see it is still alive!

Welcome back sir

Winner

bump

That's a great find George!

Father found a Marijuana grow once while bow hunting. Many moons ago but he got help the DEA pull them. Pretty cool story.

I’ve seen a few things in the years I’ve been hunting. One time I heard a ffffff sound getting louder and louder. The sound wind makes through the trees. But it wasn’t windy. It turned out to be what I have thought all these years to be a golden eagle, but it could have just as well been a red-tailed hawk zeroing in on my hand because I had just removed my nomex glove to eat lunch under a juniper. We were both just as surprised that day many years ago.

I haven’t really seen or heard anything that rises to some of these stories which is why I never added anything to this thread. Today just changed that.

By sheer chance I came upon a Texas legend; famous or infamous is your decision. THF, please meet Mr. Barker, the man I just happened to meet way in the backwoods of the SHNF while I was eating my lunch. Mind you, this is pretty deep and no one else within miles of us as far as I knew. Then up drives this silver haired gentleman who rolls down his window to ask me how I was doing; did I see anything? What was I shooting, etc.

I’ve met a few eccentrics in my life. They always have a really tall tale or two about their exploits. Sometimes they seem to stammer on a thought from the years that time made cloudy – but not Mr. Barker. He seemed to remember things and retold me, a complete and total stranger, with clarity sharp as a tack. So yeah, let me take you through a couple of these.

#1 – I built a jet pack that was better than anything else out there. He asked me if I ever watched the movie “Thunderball”. Well, who hasn’t? And aside of the Bond girls, the one other thing of note is the jet pack flown by stuntman Bill Suitor. Yep – Mr. Barker hired the legendary Mr. Suitor to fly his jet pack.
#2 – He told me of Karate fights that turned into hammer fights. Yes, we’re talking real hammers bashing heads over the jetpack. And a missing finger too.
#3 – He told me of how he was kidnapped (yes, over the jetpack), handcuffed, and stuffed into a coffin for 8 days until he divulged the location of the now missing jet pack. Holes were drilled into the coffin to let water in to drown him. On the last day he broke the handcuffs and escaped. He showed me the scar he got on his right wrist from the handcuff.
#4 – He told me how he was arrested and charged for murder. How the (then) Harris County DA Tommy Thomas couldn’t find a charge and had to let him go.
#5 – How he got into a verbal argument with the (I don’t remember the name) Judge and was thrown into jail for contempt, until the judge accepted defeat and let him out after 6 months in the county jail.

There were a few others, but these were the top 5 where the BS flag is higher than the garrison Flag at Ft. Rucker. All these were in a timespan of an hour, again, to a complete stranger. Any one of these whoppers stand on their own. Except for one thing that I learned when I got home and googled his name. They are apparently true.

But that’s not the end of my story. Let me continue. Mr. Brad Barker came to the forest today to find a plant. You know, those plants that have the nice purple berries this time of year. He goal was going to continue down the dirt road but I warned him about getting stuck. The maps don’t mean crap – there were deadfalls that weren’t cleared and I asked him to be careful. Twice I asked him to honk his horn of he got stuck. He told me he’d be careful and off he went, as I did too for the afternoon hunt.
I wasn’t far from my truck. And I didn’t notice him come back through either, even though I wasn’t really paying much attention to the dirt road. I decided to knock off a little early and went back to my truck to call it a day.
Only one set of tire tracks.
So, I put away my tree climber and set off down the road still hunting as I went. His truck was a half mile down the road. Stuck. And Brad was nowhere around.

I thought darn it, that 75 year old man is walking out of here alone. So, I hit the road expecting to see him somewhere down the 2 mile stretch of dirt to the paved road. When I got there, I turned right to come home and thinking maybe I’ll see him in the next mile. Nope; no where to be seen. I guess he got picked up or he found a leaving hunter that gave him a ride.

Another two miles I see a gray haired man walking down the side of the road. You guessed it, Brad Barker was hoofing it out with only 10 more miles to walk. I fully believe that ornery old man would make it on sheer determination, but I stopped and picked him up and took him to a relative’s house.
And that’s when it got fun. When I got home, even before I took my shower, I had to google this man’s name. What I read wasn’t things of fiction. All the things he said apparently are true. There was even a movie made after him. A book was written about this jet pack and the misery that surrounds it.

My takeaways from meeting Brad Barker.
He aint no liar. And he didn’t stretch the truth. I think he might have even held back.
His handshake is like gripping a chunk of iron. Even in his 70’s, it’s a good idea to smile around him.
He’s as sharp as it comes and he has a commanding disposition. One of my favorite quotes from my reading tonight from “Cracked”, “Brad Barker, whose personality by all accounts could be best described as "Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, only moreso."
His jet pack did fly. Once.
He specifically told me he hated the name “Pretty Bird” that the jet pack was named.

Here’s some links around the story of Pretty Bird. I’ll leave these to you to read.
https://www.cracked.com/blog/the-incredible-stupid-gruesome-story-first-jet-pack/
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/jetpack-murder
https://knowledgenuts.com/2014/03/16/the-murderous-mystery-of-the-disappearing-jet-pack/

that's wild

Great story decook. Thanks for posting it.

Heck of story decook. That was fun to read

Someone else’s deer (neigbor). Hunting a pasture solo during the rut, stalking/rattling. Walked down fence line. Saw blood, followed tracks and trail. Deer was gut shot and I guess they knew it. Tracks said they never crossed the fence to look for him and nobody called or texted. He went a long way.