Time to organize the old man cave

I’m a lousy housekeeper, I’ll admit that right up front. Now that the long, intense cold snap we’ve had in Big Lake (we’re always 10-15 degrees colder than the rest of the world east and south of us) has eased off, I can think about doing more outdoor things. But I’ve still got a lot of work ahead of me in order to finish what I had started over the last couple of weeks.

When we first moved into our home back in the early 1990s, my wife said I could claim the basement as my primary domain, or “man cave.” I have a friend who refers to my basement as a “treasure trove,” but that just goes to prove one man’s junk ...

I set up my gun room and reloading area in a small den-like room along with my books on the built-in shelves. In another small area, I set up my office space, where I am writing this column. My outdoor clothes are scattered in three places in the basement and other outdoor items I use irregularly are piled, along with other miscellaneous stuff, in the spare bedroom. You have to turn sideways to even walk through that room and the bed is covered 3 feet deep in important “stuff.”

My book collection has expanded greatly since we moved in and, while the vast majority of books are stacked on the built-in bookshelves, dozens more live on most any flat surface available in the basement. You will also find smaller stacks in the living room upstairs and on the nightstand on my side of the bed. There’s even a small pile beginning to appear on the stairs to the basement, just below the small landing. All the bookshelves in the basement, both built-in and added over time, are already full. Believe it or not, I’ve even actually read some of them.

I’m a hoarder/piler. There, I said it. I guess I can now begin my recovery.

At one time, I had all my outdoor clothes organized and sorted by green camouflage vs. brown camouflage, neatly folded and stored. My winter camouflage gear was in a third large duffle. Now stuff lives in piles in those three locations previously mentioned. It takes a little longer now, but I can still find any clothing item I’m looking for, but there’s one knife I packed last hunting season that is still eluding me.

My reloading bench was also, at one time, neatly organized with more than adequate space to reload any reasonable quantity of cartridges. Over time, I started piling stuff on the bench until “I could get to it.” It didn’t take too long before the entire horizontal surface was at least two items deep and reloading anything became a fond dream.

I’ve mentioned before about volunteering at the Upper Susitna Shooters’ Association during the summer as a range safety officer (RSO). Obviously, I took advantage of my time there to do some shooting. Over the three or four years I’ve been doing the RSO thing, I’ve fired a fair number of shots. Some were rimfire cartridges that are not reloadable. Most have been centerfire rounds that are reloadable. The empty cartridge boxes were part of the accumulating pile on the reloading bench.

I will also admit that, back during the 2008 presidential campaign, I bought some extra powder and primers, just in case things went as some feared (they still could, if you’ve been paying attention to happenings in D.C.). That’s actually when my unplanned covering of the reloading bench began in earnest. I had a pretty good supply of reloaded ammunition, so I wasn’t overly concerned about running out of shootables for a while.

Well, time has a funny way of passing by and I began running low on certain calibers of ammo. I also have a good friend for whom I have done some reloading over the years and he asked if I could reload his small supply of empty cases — that was a year and a half ago! I noticed his stack of cases on the bench awhile ago and thought maybe I’d better get him caught up. That’s when this whole monster of a process began. The weather was too cold to do much outside, so why not get things organized in the basement? Besides, I needed to sort through and reorganize my own stocks of ammunition and get the empties reloaded as well.

Boy did I bite off a big project! First, I wanted to get my bullet inventory organized so I would know what I might need to buy to do the reloading. Then I started on getting my own reloaded ammo organized by caliber and sorted to know how much of each caliber needed replenishing. Just those two operations took several days and filled more GI ammo cans than I should probably admit to — and I’m still not quite done. I have enough space on the reloading bench now to keep my commitment to my friend, however.

I haven’t touched a single book and have done nothing meaningful in the way of organizing the clothes (I have run a couple of laundry loads just to clean up stuff I should have washed after the hunting seasons ended). To be honest, I’m not sure where I can put any of this stuff and still be able to do any reloading.

My treasure trove, as my friend calls it, is a semi-disorganized mess. However, now that I’ve begun the process, I’m committed to restoring my basement to its former well-organized state — or at least to having better organized piles scattered around the premises.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. You can leave him a message by emailing sports@frontiersman.com.