iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 12h

I would rather have the scribbles than whatever kind of eldritch horror passes for chicken on this menu I saw Monday night!

An AI generated menu advertising some six-legged, six-breasted Island of Doctor Moreau horror called “whole roasted chicken.” It apparently comes with a slice of beanlike nutrient and a playdoh salad.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 15h

My Bride had a long day and needed a little pampering. Lucky for her I have a genetic predisposition to making crepes! And she had recently mentioned seafood crepes with longing, so…

Two crepes stuffed with a mixture of onions, mushrooms, surimi, garlic and a little jalapeno. And, naturellement, cheese.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Hit a Venezuelan food truck the other night. Decent food, but the menu… 😱

The menu says “Liam’s Chicken Specials” and it’s a special chicken, alright. Not sure whether I’m more concerned about the extra limbs articulated like a dog’s, or the extra breasts, some of which appear to be actual mammaries. Or the vulcanized puck of beans. Or… you know what? The whole thing is just deeply disturbing.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Running some balls today, what with Rendezvous coming up and muzzleloader season opening on Halloween. Today is my best chance to get this done. #mountainman #hunting #rondezvous

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I use stone flakes to dress and butcher deer about as often as I use a metal knife. Best damn thing in the world for the job.

Me, teaching staff and visitors to butcher a deer with stone flakes at a local museum last Thanksgiving.
Graphic media label because somebody has to Think of the Children.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The daily grind for me. Literally. Making a new hatchet to go with the adze.

Grinding a celt of Catoctin metabasalt or greenstone into a head for a hatchet using a quartzite stone and sand.

A greenstone-bladed adze. Visitors often ask me if it’s a tool for gardening, which just goes to show that most people don’t know their adze from a hoe in the ground.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

Vintage engraving of a sperm whale leaping out of the sea; in the background a three-masted whaler sails before the setting sun. The whale is joyfully exclaiming “And I shall do it again! Hyuk!” The attribution is “Moby Dick, probably.”

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

QRP with your skull art. I don’t have a lot of pictures of skull art, surprisingly. Here’s a Tshirt I block printed to wear when doing woodcarving demonstrations. For the unfamiliar, those are chip carving knives.

In a blue border, a Grateful Dead “Stealie” - a skull which normally has a lightning bolt with 13 points on it inside the skull. Here I have replaced the lightning bolt with a chip carved 6-point rosette. Beneath the skull, are two chip carving knives- a chip knife and a stab knife- crossed like the bones on a pirate flag.

This is the block from which it was printed so in this photo the image is reversed.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Just finished teaching my woodcarving class for the James River Woodcarvers at the localish Woodcraft store. Some folks finished the project, everyone made good progress. Even had a young lady who had never carved anything before but took to it like a duck to water. #carving #craft 🪆🗝️

From left to right, a 1 inch square project blank in basswood (linden, for the Britons in the crowd. Tilleul pour les français), followed by a partially finished carving, and two finished pieces in slightly different sizes. The project is a Jack o’Lantern in a witch hat on a plinth. The tiny one furthest right is an earring.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Well, yes. Dr. Henry Jones, Sr. was right again!

Dr. Henry Jones, Sr. tells a Nazi officer “It tells me that goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them!”

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Only 71° tonight, kids! You know what THAT means! TIME FOR BAKING!!! Supper tonight? Chaatdish!

A casserole covered with tater tots and cheese! What’s inside? Could be anything, but you KNOW it’s going to be delicious because it’s in the OG Corningware cornflower dish!

Surprise! It’s full of curries! Tim Waltz probably just had to grab a glass of milk and he doesn’t even know why!

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Sad. Well, anyway- here’s something nicer to think about. This could be The One! 🤞🏼

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Thanks to everyone observing the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation today. This is another piece of history that cannot be allowed to be forgotten.

Selfie in my orange shirt, painted with a traditional Métis floral beadwork design in black. The orange shirt was chosen as the symbol for the day because of the experience of Phyllis Jack Webstad; on her first day at a residential school, her own clothing was taken from her, including an orange shirt her grandmother had bought for her. None of her clothes were ever returned to her, and the orange shirt in particular became a symbol of the program to force Indigenous children to assimilate into the culture of their colonizers. The children were forbidden to practice their traditional religion and customs, punished for speaking their native languages, forced to adopt the clothing and hairstyles of the colonizers.

And this isn’t some horror from ancient history; Webstad, a Northern Secwépemc author and activist, was sent to that school in 1973, when she was just six years old. I was two at the time. It wasn’t until 1978 that President Carter signed a law giving American Indigenous families the right to refuse to have their children taken to boarding schools, but not before more than 3000 children died in them, of the tens of thousands who were enrolled. As of 2023, four were still in operation in the US, though under different rules.

The last federally-funded boarding school in Canada closed in 1997, after an estimated 150,000 children had been forced to endure them, and over 6000 died in those places. Away from their homes, their peoples, and the lands that knew them. We wear orange today to remember and honour the thousands of children taken to those schools in Canada (and now the US) who never returned to their homes.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

🎵 When the last rose of summer pricks my finger, And the hot sun chills me to the bone, When I can't hear the song for the singer, And I can't tell my pillow from a stone, I will walk alone by the black muddy river, And sing me a song of my own.🎵

The last of the Apothecary roses is blooming away here in Tidewater Virginia.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a curry leaf plant must be in need of a kheema mattar. Fortunately, Amama and Auntie made sure I was able to remedy that deficiency. This is the dish with which I ensorcelled my Bride. First date pro tip, kids - prove you can cook!

A skillet full of kheema mattar- a minced meat and pea curry.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

What’s a poster you had in your room growing up?

A poster of the cover of Beatles’ Serjeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Our late pup Butterscotch knew when my diabetic MiL needed her 10AM snack, when she needed to stop writing and eat lunch, when her blood sugar was low, and when she needed to go to bed and get up. We didn’t teach her these things on purpose, she worked them out on her own.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Got to spend the day at the State Fair of Virginia demonstrating wood carving with my Bride and a couple of friends from the carving club! The opportunity to spend a whole day not just doing something I love but *interpreting* it, too is just wonderful!

Me, discussing woodcarving with a couple of fairgoers. Zooming in will reveal a few of my pieces.

My Bride, rocking the Kevlar glove as she goes to town on a chunk of northern cottonwood bark.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

When I was a cashier at the Grand Union grocery store in the mid-80s, I had to wear a tie and their cheap-ass polyester blazer. After two years they fired me for refusing to cut my hair. My hair at the time:

Me in 1988. It was the prom. I’m in a tailcoat with gold lamé cummerbund and bow tie and my hair in a big natural.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Fry bread tacos may be nature’s perfect food.

My Bride is a rich woman- she’s rolling in dough.

A family affair- Lara rolled it, I fried it, and the Kid made it into a taco.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Just opened this one tonight! 🤞🏼

A jug of milk with a sell by date of 12 October.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

It’s becoming a tradition to vote on our anniversary!

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Pro tip, kids: any piece of mail that shows up with this pronouncement on the envelope is a scam- usually an extended warranty offer of some kind. Straight in the bin!

Dire looking pronouncement in red capital letters: IMMEDIATE RESPONSE TO THIS NOTICE REQUESTED
This is followed by a statement that says “WARNING: $2,000 Fine, or 5 years Imprisonment or both for any person who interferes or obstructs with delivery of this letter or otherwise violates - 18 United States Code 1702 et seq.”

That section of US Code says “Whoever takes any letter, postal card, or package out of any post office or any authorized depository for mail matter, or from any letter or mail carrier, or which has been in any post office or authorized depository, or in the custody of any letter or mail carrier, before it has been delivered to the person to whom it was directed, with design to obstruct the correspondence, or to pry into the business or secrets of another, or opens, secretes, embezzles, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.” The law was passed before junk mail became a thing.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

We just got home from traveling! Spent a few days in the southern Outer Banks seeing some museums and an aquarium and playing on the beach and eating all the food! Best part of getting home is getting back in my own kitchen… poached eggs and pita for breakfast! 🤤

Happy couple on a stormy pier. If that ain’t a metaphor…
There are always going to be storms. You can’t stop them, but you don’t have to let them stop you from being happy.

Masked couple in front of a mural at the NC State Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores. It just so happened that the mural featured our critters.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

QR codes talking about some of the trades practiced by enslaved and free Blacks in New Bern.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

We were at breakfast and looking for something to see on the way home. Found out they were dedicating a new piece of public art in New Bern to honour the enslaved crafts- and tradespeople who built the city, so of course we had to go! We missed the speeches and the drizzle took care of the crowd.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I’m not one of these Beach Life guys- the mountains are my natural habitat. But every now and then I must go down to the sea again.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Finna get thrown out of North Carolina…

A man appears to be getting ready to pour some sugar into a side of grits.

NB: I would not actually do this. Grits are savoury. Cornmeal mush is sweet.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I’m told that, as a man of a certain age, I’m supposed to spend a certain amount of time thinking about Rome. Well, alright…

A sandy beach in the Carolinas. Next to a pair of well worn sandals, shells spell out LXXXVI XLVII

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

They’re really just trying to put his fucking name on everything, aren’t they?

Cousin Eddy pumping out and saying “Merry Christmas, The Donald J Trump Shitter was full!”

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Thanks! It was kind of a pain- I don’t really use any power tools- but a good excuse to practice my engraving. I love the little stick Jesus- the original one looks really cool. historicjamestowne.org/wp-content/u...

The original jet crucifix- one of several that were found on Jamestown Island, site of the first permanent English settlement in North America.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The latest round of Jay Is Driven To Make Stuff… a replica of a jet crucifix excavated on Jamestown Island. I’m not particularly Catholic anymore but I love all the Catholic stuff that keeps turning up in this colony that required everyone to swear the oaths of abjuration and supremacy.

Crucifix carved in micarta. I tried to cut one out of actual jet, but I was using a hand saw and it kept crumbling. Pain in my ass. If anyone has any suggestions I’m all ears.

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

If you see this, post your 🖤&🤍 art! Every time I mail in my registration for Rendezvous. I decorate the envelope. Been doing this for almost a quarter of a century. Wish I’d gotten more photos over the years.

Two mountain men in a stand of pine trees, crouching behind a giant octopus. One looks like Bearclaw Chris Lapp from the Jeremiah Johnson movie, the other is me. Bearclaw says “Don’t worry none of, Pilgrim. Elk don’t know how many legs an octopus has.”

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Put a straw hat on the part of you which cringes.

A rakish fellow in a wide-brimmed straw hat.

A Facebook post featuring an account from a 1917 Norfolk newspaper.

The year is 1917. The place, Norfolk, Virginia- a seething, lawless town...
"On Sept. 14, a distinguished citizen of Norfolk is assaulted on Granby Street. He was taking an early evening stroll with a young woman when three ruffians approached from the rear, knocked his straw hat from his head and stomped on it repeatedly before strolling away. Several witnesses screamed, a young girl laughed at the victim, and the woman walking with the man called him a coward for not defending himself. Apparently, the three assailants stomped the straw hat prematurely, as it is widely known that no gentleman is supposed to wear such headgear after Sept. 15. It is not uncommon to witness groups of young children stomping straw hats after this date.”

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Jay o’ Lantern 🎃 @templinjay.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Processing beeswax. Buddy of mine managed to get hold of most of a 5 gallon bucket of caps. Too much trouble for someone doing it commercially, but with an old crockpot and a pair of dollar store pantyhose, it’s no match for me! 🤣

Wads of beeswax- the caps that are scraped off by beekeepers when harvesting honey from their hives. It’s too dirty and fiddly to make processing it commercially viable, so a lot of beekeepers just toss it. But it’s worth it to me to run a batch every few years for personal use.

1 pound of beeswax. Disposable lunch meat tub is just the right size

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