More man cave ...

Books and mags

ManCave

For lack of space I have designated a corner of a room to be my ManCave. This is where I sit "puffing like a maniac"(according to the S.O. :) ) . Pipes in current rotation handy(10 in the round stand, three in the window airing out, a few more on top of the stand just in case...
Books in the shelf closest, fly fishing, next antiquity, religion/philosophy. In the smoke table latest two years worth of fly fishing mags (FiN, FlyFishing&Tying, Trout&Salmon ...) , in the "Ploing" corner my guitars and darbukka.
On the archive (filled with adult oriented comic albums, and my vinyls), an old tube radio from the fifties with a warm humming sound and a yellow light.

Tobacco and more pipes (and reels and flies) in the cupboard four steps away.

Meer Colouring

One of the goals with a Meerschaum pipe is to colour it all the way down to a chocolate brown, since the Magnesium Silicate (Meerschaum) is porous and readily sucks up surrounding gases, fat, wax and whatever it gets in touch with.
This happens with age and regular smoking of the pipe, but it can be a loooong process. So I cut corners by keeping my meer in a can and fill that with the smoke from whatever pipe I am currently smoking.

I should add that I DO smoke the Meer also. It's just that it doesn't color much by smoking it. It has now turned a bone yellowish in less than a week!

What I do is I have this tin cylinder that I bought Ginger Snaps in for Xmas. It gives a snug fit to my Meer. I keep it in there between smokes and whenever I light up another pipe i just lift the lid a little and blow a huge cloud in there and then close it back on. No hassle, no tedious methods or anything, I just light up, see the tin and remember "Yep, the Meer" do the above, and sit back and enjoy my pipe while the Meer is silently turning browner

Sometimes I fill the tin with the first puffs and then do it again with the last few puffs. If I smoke the Meer I end each session by slipping the pipe - still lit - into the tin, puff vigorously into the tin and close the lid. I think the hot bowl absorbs even more than when it's cold. The hot Meer goes in bowl first, after it's cooled off I rinse it and return it stem first - to help a more even coloring, I noticed after a while that "bowl first" would give more colour to the side facing the stem...