New Decorations

[William Reinicke]

Gave up a weekend of trigger pulling to pick up some birds from the taxi this weekend. Always a good day when hanging new birds in the duck room. Sorry for low light, it was 10 pm when I finally got home and hung them in the room.

I just need to get a stud pintail done preening chest feathers. I then hope to find my own larger drift wood that I can put the no bar mallard, hybrid and pintail on and then hang from the wall of all three. For now, these two will just sit on the safe.

 

[Don Mintz]

excellent taxidermy work. I guess I'm henpecked, but my wife doesn't allow my taxidermy work in the house other than my two bear rugs that hang on the wall. The rest spend their time in the garage just to die a slow dusty death.

 

[D. Hinton]

Don… I’m sorry . Very fortunate
My lady said add as many as I’d like . They’re pretty … although she did veto them in the dining room and bedroom

 

[Don Mintz]

Dax, I have one 6'x8' wall that I'm allowed to display my artwork and wood carvings. I call it the land of misfit toys since they are just carvings that never sold. I'm always being asked to make shelves, countertops, various decor around the house. Lots of my stuff just stays in the shop. I was carving a life size flying canvasback one time that I was pretty proud of, my wife's only comment was "where are you going to put that thing". My response was, "apparently in someone else's house".

 

[William Reinicke]

excellent taxidermy work. I guess I'm henpecked, but my wife doesn't allow my taxidermy work in the house other than my two bear rugs that hang on the wall. The rest spend their time in the garage just to die a slow dusty death.

Don, I have one office in the house. It is directly across from the shop in the basement, and its the room attached to the significant others storage hallway. Basically a corner of the house where no one ventures to except me. The rest of the house, I get to put a coffee maker in the kitchen and thats all the decorations i get a say in. I have made plenty of custom shelves and done wood walls and custom coat hangers, etc etc, but everything outdoor related, I have this one room to display all that stuff in. I can squeeze a lot more in the office and I intend on putting a lot more shelving up for decoys. I still have plenty of shelf space for additional calls that can be added to the collection. But it wouldnt take long to fill this little room and have house hold issue. We do have a spare "game room" that I could lobby to get as a "trophy room" maybe. It would take an act of god for her to give it up to me, but its just got a bunch of games in it that get used maybe once or twice a year during holidays when kiddos are at the house. She likes the room and how its been decorated though. Ill wait until I am maxed in the office and then start that process.

 

[William Reinicke]

Don… I’m sorry . Very fortunate
My lady said add as many as I’d like . They’re pretty … although she did veto them in the dining room and bedroom

They always say its fine to do this or that..... and then theres always that big bold "BUT" exception.

 

[Carl]

Sounds like we all live with the same wife.....

My daughter took a liking to my mounted ducks, its the only reason they are allowed in the house, in her room!

 

[D. Hinton]

William … I got it pretty easy with mine. Think I ought to go ahead and marry her

 

[William Reinicke]

Sounds like we all live with the same wife.....

My daughter took a liking to my mounted ducks, its the only reason they are allowed in the house, in her room!

Lol sounds like me when I was younger. When my parents got divorced, my pop put up all his fish mounts and his one bird mount in the living room. He then found a girlfriend. I came home from my moms house and all the mounts were on my bed in my room (I was like 6 years old) and the whole house was decorated with collector dolls. Even at 6 years old, I couldnt believe the house I had just walked into. Needless to say, I had one snow goose and 9-10 fish mounts in my room until I was a teenager. My dad finally got an office at his job and took all of it there. There are no longer any dolls in the house, but there are not any mounts either. I have no idea how that conversation ever went down, but I know neither won lol.

 

[William Reinicke]

William … I got it pretty easy with mine. Think I ought to go ahead and marry her

You know, mine is pretty easy too. She puts up with a lot and lets me hunt however much I want in the winter. Summer, she really doesnt say too much but there is kind of a mutual agreement I need to help out and be around a little more. But I still fish plenty and disappear in the shop plenty plus I still have to maintain my back stretching (aka golf a couple hours on the range at least once or twice a week). The golf is 100% for my back pain though, she has to understand that one...... lol.

Ive been with her for 10 years next May. I should of probably already married her a couple times already.

 

[Don Mintz]

I'm about to hit 45 years of marriage, I think I've just figured out that a lot of things just aren't worth the fight. Our last house had plenty of mounts in it and in the main room no less, I'm not sure what went wrong at the new house. I guess I should be thankful she likes the bear rugs. This house at least I get to use the guest room for drying decoys and other painting projects. Trying to keep anything clean in the shop for airbrushing is a chore.

 

[William Reinicke]

I'm about to hit 45 years of marriage, I think I've just figured out that a lot of things just aren't worth the fight. Our last house had plenty of mounts in it and in the main room no less, I'm not sure what went wrong at the new house. I guess I should be thankful she likes the bear rugs. This house at least I get to use the guest room for drying decoys and other painting projects. Trying to keep anything clean in the shop for airbrushing is a chore.

Trying to keep a shop clean is just a chore period. I will spend 3 hours cleaning and making the shop perfect, takes me about half a day and its a disaster again. I really need to put a good deep clean on the shop soon.

Sounds like you need one more room for your art Don. Maybe the next house can have 2 spare bedrooms. One for her, and one for you. She has no say for your room. Thats how I would play that card lol.

 

[Don Mintz]

This house does have two extra rooms. Our master bedroom is huge. the two guest rooms modest in size. I even mentioned today that I'm thinking about getting rid of the guest bed and she said what happens when we have company, you mean that one day a year that someone stays here. Sure I want to leave a room for 364 days a year with no purpose. Another day, another battle. She did tell me I could share the craft room today to do all my hand painting.

When it comes to keeping the shop clean, it's just not possible with so many things I'm doing all the time. It's like clean one area so I can do something else. It's wood working, box making, fishing landing net building, painting steel, painting decoys, painting other wildlife, carving wood, carving foam, carving cork, molding various things, pouring molds. I really need to narrow down my interests, but it's my airbrush that pays the bills, making waterfowl and wildlife sculptures is my passion. I just can't choose one thing, thus the mess. I have hundreds of painted pieces of steel, lots in the shop on any space that is flat, on the bed in the guest room, on the table in the craft room, on the dining room table, on the counter top in the kitchen. I'm wanting to get that other guest room and make it somewhat of a studio, however I couldn't use it to carve or airbrush, it would only be good for hand painting.

 

[William Reinicke]

This house does have two extra rooms. Our master bedroom is huge. the two guest rooms modest in size. I even mentioned today that I'm thinking about getting rid of the guest bed and she said what happens when we have company, you mean that one day a year that someone stays here. Sure I want to leave a room for 364 days a year with no purpose. Another day, another battle. She did tell me I could share the craft room today to do all my hand painting.

When it comes to keeping the shop clean, it's just not possible with so many things I'm doing all the time. It's like clean one area so I can do something else. It's wood working, box making, fishing landing net building, painting steel, painting decoys, painting other wildlife, carving wood, carving foam, carving cork, molding various things, pouring molds. I really need to narrow down my interests, but it's my airbrush that pays the bills, making waterfowl and wildlife sculptures is my passion. I just can't choose one thing, thus the mess. I have hundreds of painted pieces of steel, lots in the shop on any space that is flat, on the bed in the guest room, on the table in the craft room, on the dining room table, on the counter top in the kitchen. I'm wanting to get that other guest room and make it somewhat of a studio, however I couldn't use it to carve or airbrush, it would only be good for hand painting.

This sounds like my shop. I made a HUUGGEEE work bench last summer. Its like every part corner has its "task". One corner is silicone mold making, one corner is pouring onyx molds, one corner is painting/flocking, another corners is foam casting. Then I have two other work benches along the walls and one is for airbrushing and another has all the power tools. At no point is it not a mess it seems. If anyone walked into my shop, they would look at my decoys and think witchcraft was involved and not believe that kind of work could come from such a mess. Its my chaos though, and I get around in there just fine. I would be embarrassed if anyone else went down in the shop though.

And I get what you mean. I have a whole corner of the shop for soft plastic making for bass fishing. I have a sneaky feeling lure airbrushing might be in the near future, but trying to hold off on that one as long as possible. Last thing I ever need in life is another hobby. But I know when I am on my death bed, I will likely think there wasnt much more I wanted to or could do in life and thats exactly how I want to feel when it comes time to lay my head to rest.

 

[Don Mintz]

william, you will likely find that guys like us have a lot of different interests and are rarely satisfied unless we can improve on something or get creative. Everything I do usually rolls right back down hill to airbrushing. I've been airbrushing since 1981 and production airbrushing since 1992. That doesn't mean that I haven't dipped my foot in all kinds of things along the way. Some things are short lived like making laminated bent wood landing nets for fly fishing, I only made about 10, mostly because I wanted one, but the forms and clamps, are still in a corner of the shop taking up space. I finally shoved most of the woodworking tools out of the way when I built the airbrush booth. I spent a couple of years as a jewelry designer for a gold smith, that meant carving tiny things in wax for wedding bands, I did get rid of all of that equipment. I used to do ceramics, had a kiln, wired the shop to 220 for that, but got rid of all that stuff, now I wished I had all those ceramic drying racks for the steel I airbrush. That's kind of my packrat mentality, you just never know when you are going to need some of that junk, I mean precious stuff down the road. I'm getting to an age where I'm probably not going to do much more new stuff, my last stand will likely be decoy related and that has kind of been the thread through this whole adventure of self employment for the past 21 years. The steel painting I feel will only last another 5 or 6 years, my steel guy looks at me like "I wonder how long he's going to live", I've assured him that my son is every bit as good as I am and that would be the first place to look for my replacement. I have no desire to retire, sitting around doing nothing is the worst, but fly fishing is an acceptable way to relax. The trouble I have now with fly fishing is when I'm on the river I've always got something rolling around in my head back in the shop I want to work on, now that's the OCP in me, obsessive compulsive productive.

 

[Ed L.]

Nice decorations! I'm allowed one deer mount and one guitar in the living room. Not complaining though as she allows all the wildlife pictures and memorabilia I want in the living room (within reason). The rest of the house is hers...lol

 

[William Reinicke]

william, you will likely find that guys like us have a lot of different interests and are rarely satisfied unless we can improve on something or get creative.

This is an A personality. People who are compulsive A personality, usually flock together. This has been proven over and over again in many studies. My first house with all my roommates, we were all very A personality. What group of partying kids has a running bet to see who the first would be to make over 100k in a year.... me and my friends. Always striving for better and never settling. Its like the story of my life it seems.

Everything I do usually rolls right back down hill to airbrushing. I've been airbrushing since 1981 and production airbrushing since 1992. That doesn't mean that I haven't dipped my foot in all kinds of things along the way. Some things are short lived like making laminated bent wood landing nets for fly fishing, I only made about 10, mostly because I wanted one, but the forms and clamps, are still in a corner of the shop taking up space. I finally shoved most of the woodworking tools out of the way when I built the airbrush booth.

I just feel like tools and stuff built for the shop never gets thrown away. I think every man in america has a tool in their shop/garage they used once but will never get rid of it. Ive said it so many times, my house is immaculate. Cozy and clean, but my shop and my office are a disaster. The shop explained above. The office is kind of a revolving door. It has my fishing gear stored in there for the winter, has my golf stuff in the corner, duck calls displayed everywhere but its my duck room. It is 100% designed around being waterfowl related. Im seriously hoping I can get my boat shed built next summer and that will free up a lot of the stored things in the office, but its a mess because it contains all my hobbies in that one little room. Theres really nothing to say about the shop space except its an embarrassing disaster that I work in very efficiently.

I spent a couple of years as a jewelry designer for a gold smith, that meant carving tiny things in wax for wedding bands, I did get rid of all of that equipment. I used to do ceramics, had a kiln, wired the shop to 220 for that, but got rid of all that stuff, now I wished I had all those ceramic drying racks for the steel I airbrush. That's kind of my packrat mentality, you just never know when you are going to need some of that junk, I mean precious stuff down the road.

Reading this made me smile. I dont have much of a relationship with my father but growing up he made jewelry. Was highly successful until family (family can absolutely destroy a business) took over the accounting side and ran the business to the ground without him knowing it. With that said, I remember as a young child (probably 3-4 years old) running around in the tumbler room and running my hands through the media and gold pieces just falling through my fingers. My mother use to do all the wax "christmas trees" and my dad would take those and make molds of silver and gold. I see a lot of myself in my dad and grandfather. My dad is now making custom knives, and they are done well. My grandfather was a mean mean old dude. But he was an artist through and through. He could carve anything. There is a 8 foot by 6 foot wooden police badge that sits in our city courthouse that he carved back in the 70's, still hanging there. My dad remembers spending 4-5 hours bailing buckets of snow during a storm, and my grandfather packed it and carved an ice sculpture of a cowboy sitting on a log smoking a cigarette. I still have the newspaper somewhere of his feat, but my father and uncle swear his name still for all the snow they shoveled and hauled that morning. I know I get that "tinkering" behavior from them.

I'm getting to an age where I'm probably not going to do much more new stuff, my last stand will likely be decoy related and that has kind of been the thread through this whole adventure of self employment for the past 21 years. The steel painting I feel will only last another 5 or 6 years, my steel guy looks at me like "I wonder how long he's going to live", I've assured him that my son is every bit as good as I am and that would be the first place to look for my replacement. I have no desire to retire, sitting around doing nothing is the worst, but fly fishing is an acceptable way to relax. The trouble I have now with fly fishing is when I'm on the river I've always got something rolling around in my head back in the shop I want to work on, now that's the OCP in me, obsessive compulsive productive.

Its time for Caleb to venture back to airbrushing with you. That duo needs to come back. Don, you know what you love. Some love the outdoors and some love their work. I will give up shop time any day of the week to shoot ducks, but its hard to give up shop time to go sunburn and catch bass. The few times I fished last year, I thought more about the next process in decoy making than trying to figure out how to make a bass bite that day. Thats when I realized, maybe a summer off from fishing was better for me last year. I know one spring will come along, and I will have itch to fish in a bad way, and I may only make 4 decoys all summer. I go through weird phases like that, but this decoy making has got me by the balls all of a sudden.

 

[William Reinicke]

Nice decorations! I'm allowed one deer mount and one guitar in the living room. Not complaining though as she allows all the wildlife pictures and memorabilia I want in the living room (within reason). The rest of the house is hers...lol

Lol yet another case of the "man decorative limitations in a home" syndrome. In all fairness to our lovely wives/significant others, our homes could be a disaster fast if they let us do whatever we wanted with them.

 

[JasonM]

Nice collection. If I killed that mallard here I'd call it a black mallard.

Also the biggest thing that stuck out to me is that mini swan on the shelf. That thing is awesome!

 

[William Reinicke]

Nice collection. If I killed that mallard here I'd call it a black mallard.

So I have killed quite a few no bar mallard at this point. Quite a few years ago I killed 3 studs. I mean they were PERFECT! Then I killed my first hybrid. Everyone said it would be a once in a lifetime bird. We have successfully harvested 3 now and should have 5. I just didnt want a regular mallard and always said if I shoot another no bar mallard, its going next to the hybrid and a stud pintail. On one hunt, I killed both these and I waited years to see another no bar mallard. These arent good ones by any means, but not sure when I will get into some more.

I always chalked them up to be farm/wild mallard cross. Basically some wild birds got caught up with some farm birds and this was the offspring. There is some belief these might be some pen raised birds coming west from the east coast. Thats a big issue and a complete failure for that mallard population on the east coast. I have killed redhead bands from New Jersey, and I have killed a brant in the central flyway and my buddy in texas has a russian snow goose band. So anything is possible I suppose. We also have mexican ducks. And we get stud mexican ducks. The taxidermist thinks its a mallard/mexican cross but I am pretty sure I have killed quite a few and they get green mohawk on the head from the eye ball up and then a brown face. Still the yellow bill and the rest of the body is like a dull mallard. They are quite ugly actually. Either way, wasnt going to wait a few more years to maybe find another no bar mallard to go on the wall. See if I can dig up pics of those studs I killed like 4 or 5 years ago now. No black ducks or mottled ducks here where I hunt. I have never harvested either in my long career as a waterfowler. I hope one day to change that.

I added some pics of the 3 no bar mallard I killed back in 2017 (was able to find the time stamp photos). I also posted the old girl (GOD I MISS THIS DOG) with a good looking mexican. Also, I am pretty sure the bird on top of the other mallard with the half green head is a Mexican/Mallard cross.

Also the biggest thing that stuck out to me is that mini swan on the shelf. That thing is awesome!

Its badass! I LOVE IT!