Year 19, Week 28, Day One (week 1028)

Year 19, Week 28, Day One (week 1028)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)

07-20-19 Saturday 82 degrees in the morning, 90 in the afternoon, 65% humidity. It is getting so hot that I might have to move up north where it is cooler...... (hotter up there) Radar showed dots and splotches of showers were coming in off the ocean with a slight north tilt to their path. It was mostly mixed clouds, high, low, and thunder heads here and there and a light breeze. It got up to 90 degrees and was about 62 humidity. I did get a little shower early morning while working. It was enough to wet the ground but not enough to penetrate a thin layer of sawdust I had left on the ground when I moved my equipment under cover when the first drops hit.


THURSDAY
We had a water break in Fort Lauderdale On Thursday which caused a boiled water order. Of course the way news is disseminated, very few people likely knew about it. I make the coffee in the mornings so Friday morning I brought one of my big stock-pots filled with water from outside the Fort Lauderdale water district and used that to make the coffee. I filled it near the top, put plastic wrap over the pot, then set the lid on and put a layer of plastic wrap over the lid. I did not notice any spillage in the truck. I also brought a very large mug with handle and used that to scoop water into the coffee pots.

THE TURNING CLUB

The demonstration was on resin casting and the turning of cast resin. He explained that local bottle brush trees get an infection and create a ball of wood, a burl, on their branches and they have interesting figure in side them. He has a bunch of them that are really too small to use, so he started casting them in resin to make them big enough for projects. 
He gets said that for what you pay at the hobby store for a tiny bottle of resin mix, you can get a gallon of the stuff at auto body shops, boat shops, and on line. He gets the resin in gallon jugs, one jug of resin, one jug of hardener, they are mixed equal parts by volume.
He will put his piece of wood in a tube. He found that the cardboard tubes have to be turned off and cardboard acts like sandpaper on the tools. His favorite form is using PVC pipe. To un-mold a couple light cuts with a chisel and it comes off easily after the resin cures. 
He likes to turn a piece of wood to fit into his chuck with a slight indentation for the PVC pipe to fit into. He will super glue it in place using the glue to seal the contact area. He then glues the piece of wood inside the tube, and if necessary, turning it as little as possible to fit, and then super glueing that in place so it does not rise up with the liquid gets beneath it.
He will pour the hardener and resin together and start mixing them thoroughly, and it will become slightly milky, then as you mix it farther, it will become clear. He will then add his color and “pearl” flakes, to it as desired. He will pass a torch over it to knock down any bubbles on the surface.
He will very slowly pour it into the mold on one side and let the liquid flow down below the piece so it flows up the other side, and doing it slowly to reduce the amount of bubbles that might form. When he gets it high enough, whatever resin is left will be poured into a container he has nearby. He layers the resins of other colors he has poured over time and that becomes another project later. He raps the project and will put it on something that vibrates. A lot of the bubbles will float to the surface where he can pop it with a quick blast of a torch or sometimes even blowing on it.
He has a pressure chamber he puts it into. He pumps the air in and that causes the remaining bubbles to become really small. The smaller they are, the better. He will use the resin he has set out in the “waste” container to make sure the resin under pressure sets properly. When the resin outside is set, he knows the stuff in the pressure chamber has set also. 
You have to be careful with this as it creates a lot of heat. Large pieces really get hot. He said that there have been times where his pressure chamber (which looks sort of like cast iron) got seriously hot because of large pieces he has had in there. 
Depending on how much color you add and what else you do can create interesting effects. 
I am sorry to say that while this was interesting, it won’t be something I will likely do in the near future. I am still learning to play with the wood itself, let alone get into other materials, though I would like to work with metal of various forms including spinning sheet metal.
Our gathering was a pretty good group. Likely the best we have had at this location, in spite that the room we normally use was taken up for a concert. Some of the new people are really growing in quality of their work. I brought basically unfinished pieces. I did add varnish to my tea pot but I was unable to complete the job as I could not find my can of liquid varnish and I ran out of the spray can varnish. 

SATURDAY 

Because of the spacing of the radar dots I decided not to even bother doing yard sailing. You can see if the dots will miss you and by how much or how long, even when they are changing shape as they move. I figured not many people would chance dragging their stuff out when it could well get wet several times during the day.. 
I went out back and made two bowls out of a piece of wood I had split. I took a short break between them. I have a large “industrial” dust pan and between the two bowls, I filled it three times. The second one seemed to have more sawdust in it as it was the one that took loads. I am not sure why as they were the pieces of wood and the end resulting bowls were same size.
I had sharpened my tools recently and the wood came off in spaghetti most of the time, which happens when you have fresh, wet, wood and very sharp tools. I have a “bull nosed” scraper I’ve had for a few years and never used. I finally took it out of the original package and sharpened it a few weeks ago as no tools from the store is really sharp. One thing is they use a six foot diameter grind stone compared to our six or eight inch diameter stones. That extra curve improves the cutting of the tool. Until this year, I NEVER EVER had a sharp turning  tool. I still cannot explain what I am doing but it seems to be working. I am doing it by feel and intuition. I do still make mistakes but then correct them moments later.
While using the scraper, I was amazed that it was cutting as other tools did. It was sending out strings of sawdust everywhere. Just having that effect made the turning I did today a true joy. I almost giggled at it, but it was not quite that exciting so “almost” counts most.
I did pretty good on standing and turning. Several times I would turn away from the lathe and my legs let me know they did not like standing, but that faded after a few steps. I would sit for about five minutes and then be able to move around and return to turning again. 

I did get a little shower during the first bowl. I felt a few drops and pulled my lathe under cover, then went inside for a drink and a bit of relaxation. The shower was just enough to wet the ground but not enough to penetrate a thin layer of sawdust, that when I swept that up, it was dry under the pile. I have seen yard sales close up because of just that much watering.





Year 19, Week 28, Day Two (week 1028)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-21-19 Sunday

77 degrees early morning, 90ish in the afternoon. Mostly blue skies.

I did my yard sale drive I saw some signs but no sales, well there was one with some furniture out front but I did not stop. The guy was not outside so he might not have been ready yet.  None of them pieces were something I needed. Would not fit my decor (early American yard sale and side of the road) even if they were in my price range.

I went out back and decided to make brand new feet for the four footed cane. I had lost one last night. I had a spare but was dissatisfied with this batch. I drilled the holes too deep for the size of wood they were and the actual depth that the cane feet penetrated. 
This time I measured how far the feet could actually go into the hole, then went just a little bit deeper. I also started with more wood around them  than I did before. 
Last time I had drilled 4 holes across the four inch wide wood, this time I did only three holes across the wood. I took extra time to measure and mark and MAKE SURE I HAD THE RIGHT MARKS before I was to drill. I made several mistakes and caught them. The extra wood made the pieces much bigger which meant there was more wood to remove, but it also made them easier for me to get the outside surface centered on the hole (it is known as cheating). I used one of my bowl gouges to slip inside the hole. I used that to rotate them against the disk sander. There is always more than one way to do anything, and in this case, the disk sander was far easier to do this project than the lathe was.
The drilled hole is slightly smaller in diameter than the pipe of the foot, so I have to dremmel them out a little.  After I made them and had them on the cane, I decided to taper them so they don’t look so blocky.  It is a bit tougher to do this after enlarging the hole as my rod does not fit quite as well. After tapering them, they still do not look like a commercial foot and they are still very bulky, but tapering helped the look some. Even so, they are still big. 
The first wood feet I had made were well worn down quite a bit. One was as much as a quarter inch shorter than other two (I had lost one which was why I needed to make more). I never marked which foot each went to, which would have helped knowing how they wear. I figure if I don’t lose any of these, they will wear down for a very long time before they have to be replaced. That is why I drilled the holes just inside rather than the deep ones from before. There is over an inch of wood to wear down.  These feet make the cane an inch and three quarters taller than it was with the commercial feet, and that is kind of nice but not really noticeable in practice. 

Mom gave me some eggs that were stuck to the carton. I had seen on line where they microwave eggs in the shell. I poked a hole in the shell on top, put that half of the carton in the microwave and started it cooking. I heard a double boom, and immediately turned off the microwave. Two eggs were gone and there was not two eggs worth of mess in the microwave. I had a nice mess to clean up. I instantly figured out some of the things I did wrong. One is that you must not only puncture the shell, you must also puncture the membrane and I think, the yoke. THEN, it might have worked. Oh well. There are times when you remember why your attempt fails AFTER you failed. This is how you learn to fail differentlyeach time.

I will see what I do next week. 

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the tea pot with a little bit of varnish on it. 

my face vase

my diet bowl. whatever stays in it you get to eat.

drum sticks

basic wood I started the first bowl

partially turned bowl

sawdust with a tiny bit of rain on it

sawdust after the first was swept up

botom second bowl starting to turn.

top side of the bowl about to start

top side of the two bowls

bottom side of the two bowls.

Year 19, Week 27, Day One (week 1027)

Year 19, Week 27, Day One (week 1027)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-13-19 Saturday

The weather was not too bad. It started at about 83 degrees and got up to 90 with 65% humidity. We had high feathers and pebbles with some lower puffs slowly moving across the sky in the morning. Later in the day there were showers over Fort Lauderdale, to the south of us coming off the ocean but missed us. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

After breakfast we stopped at a couple yard sales, one was where the people had not set it out yet. They had the time set for nine. We did not wait.  After we got back, I stopped at Publix (grocery store) and then the dollar store, then did the north part of the yard sale route. 
At one yard sale I picked up a little something that might end up being sent to a friend later. At another I picked up two small bowls with three small pestles. I have one mortar (the bowl)  that was missing a pestle. The larger of the three will work for my existing mortar. I have a larger set also but this one was just a bowl until now.
I visited two or three other yard sales but they did not have anything I wanted.

When I got home, I grabbed a bunch of stuff and went out back. 
A couple weeks ago, I had picked up a pair of new carafes for my flavored coffee. One of my existing carafes has a cracking surface. I decided to see what could be done to clean it up, or at least keep it from coming apart.  
I dribbled superglue on the handle over the cracking surface. A later after the glue had plenty of time to set, I saw that I did not like the results so I sanded the glue off. I sanded off the cracked surface on the handle, then on the really bad spots and I ended up sanding half the vase. 
It needs more sanding of the surface to make it more even. Then I need to sand with finer and finer sandpapers. I am thinking of having to give the surface a varnish finish to seal the plastic or somehow lightly melt the plastic surface (too easy to over do that). At the moment, the plastic is not in great condition.

I sharpened a couple tools and then finished the drum sticks I started last week. They are not perfect but they are done. I have a few mistakes but those mistakes don’t effect their usefulness besides the fact that they are not quite the same diameter. Usually I use the heavier one in my right hand. 
Several weeks ago, I had started a bowl and stopped because of the humidity. I mounted it on the lathe today. I nearly had it finished on the rough turning, everything was going just right. I just needed to finish leveling the bottom and then touch up the sides. Oops. I went through the bottom. 
I now have a bowl for when you are on a diet..... whatever stays in the bowl is you can eat. You will lose weight fast. I was going to start another attempt, but decided I did not have time. There was going to be some setup before I could even turn. 

While I was working out there, I was reminded that I am not in as good of condition as I could be and am showing some signs of getting old. Different parts of my legs took turns in reminding me that they exist.

Even with a big mistake, it was still nice to accomplish something.



Year 19, Week 27, Day two (week 1027)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-14-19 Sunday

Nice breeze 84 degrees early morning 90 in the afternoon with 62% humidity. The day was clear all day long. This weather report is brought to you by The Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism. 

I found two yard sales today. One had a leather-stamping set in a tackle box. The guy said his father was working leather. The box had a whole bunch of the stamps and tools of many of the designs. There was also a little bit of leather in there. I really did not need the kit but I got it anyway. After making the payment I found I was out of money so I dashed down to the bank then drove near mom’s . 
I saw I was not going to make the light and there was a couple cars ahead of me which would have forced me to sit and wait so I turned on a side street and found a yard sale. After looking at all sorts of art supplies, I picked up some felt. I don’t need yarn. 
Then, continued on my yard sale run. On the way back to moms after a long stop, I stopped by the yard sale again and ended up with a box of yarn, a bunch of cross stitch books, a box of cross stitch kits, and some of those plastic cross stitch sheets. I got all of that for $10.
I did not need any of this, not in any way. When I went there the first time, she was asking $5 a bag on the yarn. The second time I found that they were closing up and said they were going to donate that stuff so I got it cheap. 
She had done cross stitching and other crafts as she was a stay-at-home mom, and had to give it up because of arthritis. She said she never could get the hang of crochet. When I came back the second time, I showed her the pictures of the teddy bear dresses I had on the camera and she loved them.
I slightly sorted the yarn, photographed it and then stacked it back in the box in some form of order. Later I will have to sort it better and put it with yarns of similar colors. 
What I really should do is take out ALL my yarn and sort them in more detail. My red box has light red, brown, red, dark red, variegated red, pink and a few colors that by a slight bit of imagination could be called red. The same with green, blue, yellow, white, etc. 
I said I did not need any of my purchases. I was not planning on getting involved in cross stitching, and I already have a lifetime supply of yarn. This batch does not help. Once in a while, you get something simply because it will be “gotten rid of” if it is not sold. 

Yesterday, I saw that I had lost one of the feet on my four footed cane. They were the wooden ones I had made many months ago. Today I made eight more, broke two, one broke on the cane. Because I made extras I was able to get another foot on the cane with very little trouble. The last one I did not use will be to measure the wear on them. On the three feet that were left on the cane from before, there was a definite wear of the feet. I did not mark which foot was each, but one was nearly a quarter of an inch shorter. 
Last time I used one inch wide yellow pine wood (a two inch board that I cut down). This time I used a 2 inch thick piece of yellow pine wood this time so they are taller, but I had drilled the holes kind of deep so there is not as much wood between the ground and the hole as they will wear out. 
I made these first with the portable drill press to drill all the wood at the right depth so they are all the same depth, then used the disk sander with a rod in the hole of the wood to round them off. I drilled four pieces of wood in each line of the block and should have only done three so I could and adjust the diameter there so the hole would be centered. I ended up with several off center, leaving just a little bit of wood on one side. The two that broke was where I was much too close to the edge with the hole. 

I cut a blank for making a bowl, but because brother and I cannot talk while I am turning (too noisy) and it was hot, I decided to just sit back and talk with him in the awning with a light breeze taking away some of the 90 degree temps. 

I have a turning club meeting this week. I will see what I accomplish next week.


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showing the two bowls with the three pestles, my diet bowl and the two drum sticks. 

my diet bowl. whatever food stays in it you can eat. 

It is sitting on a hot pad just to show the hole better

the un rounded feet

the yarn somewhat separated and laid out.

things for children projects.

cross stitch kits

Year 19, Week 26, Day One (week 1026)

July 4th

Year 19, Week 26, Day One (week 1026)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-04-19 Thursday

INDEPENDENCE DAY

It started out at 80 this morning and got up to 89, at least officially in the afternoon. The 70% humidity was felt by all. I was outside most of the day. Partly cloudy, most of it was high plates and feathers, but some lower. A nice breeze picked up just before people started showing up at about two and that helped keep the area under the awning cool enough. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

We got most of the stuff out to the BBQ area quickly with few wasted trips. Each time I do this, I get more done with less trips. I had come by and put some of the stuff out ahead of time, like tables, chairs, the BBQ, etc. the stuff that could be out over night or several nights under the awning. Most of the other stuff I had packed in flat boxes so I could carry more stuff in one trip.  The stuff for the coolers were packed later in the day and brought out. One cooler has wheels while the other one was on a hand cart.
I had kept a bunch of the bottles of water in the fridge over night,, then put a layer of un-cooled water bottles on the bottom of the cooler, then several layers of ice cold water bottles on top of them, then I took out the ice from the freezer and set that on top. During the day, others put some beer in, most of which was used in cooking, and also added some juice packs. When I took the bottles out at the end of the day, they were still cool, even on the bottom level. Even being in the cooler all day, mostly in the sun I still have some of the ice from our Christmas BBQ. That ice went back in the freezer. 

It was about two when everybody showed up. My nephew cooked up all the brats, about 2/3s of the dogs, and all but one pack of four of the  hamburgers. He also cooked some flank steaks and some chicken mainly for himself. We concentrated on mostly ate meat using just a few sides. We all ate our fill and still had some to take home. 

I held the new baby for about half an hour. Mom and her mom took pictures. I hope I did not break their cameras. 
That reminds me where they showed a picture of a really old man with a newborn baby on his lap. The picture said, “I found a picture of you from 60 years ago. Who is that baby on your lap.....

Just after my brother left with the kids, my other nephew arrived. His brother gave him something to eat from the leftovers he was taking home. 
There were some keyboards (electric piano) in the mom’s neighbor’s house from the previous owner. They were too good to toss but we could not figure out how to get them to work.  We went over and loaded my nephew’s car up with the keyboards and the stand (That stand would have made a good lathe bed, as sturdy as it was). He will try to figure out what works and what he needs to get it to work. I told him that if he cannot use them, maybe he can sell them. He has access to a lot of the sound stuff that could make them work and knows where to find stuff he does not have. He also has outlets that might be able to use the keyboards. If we could have gotten one to work, we would have kept it. 

The older of my grand nephews spent most of his time playing online games and watching games played by experts. I am not exactly sure what the younger one did. I know he was here and there all day long. I think he was mostly bored.

My brother and nephew have a squirrel-cage style fan they use on the job like when they are working on the roof. It is really powerful. They brought that out as a way to air-out the dining area. That reminded me that I am interested in a couple pedestal fans for under the awning. We used some under the awning for years but the humidity caused rust and the rot of the plastic did them in. Those fans worked well on the worst days of humidity. I would have them blowing on me while carving or while wood turning out in the sun and it made things a bit more bearable. 

Near the end of the day my feet were hurting so I took off my work boots and put on shoes, but found that I have a spot on my right foot where a blister is wanting to develop just under the edge of the callous on the ball of the foot behind the big toe. 

All the key stuff was put away but the tables and the grill still out, that I will put away tomorrow and also have to straighten up the work area so I can return to my projects. Some of that was put up during the week and may take a couple days to put away..


July 5th
Year 19, Week 26, Day Two (week 1026)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-05-19 Friday

84 degrees in the early morning, 92 late afternoon. The humidity was 80%. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.



Today I woke at 5:30, but got to mom’s at around nine. I went outside intending to start cleaning up the outside, but mom asked me to help her clean her carpet. She had a carpet cleaner and had me do the cleaning while she sprayed soap and picked up lint bits. She said that this is hard on her shoulder and stomach. It was a lot of work but we got it done. I took down the tables outside, moved the equipment back to where they needed to be. Later I disassembled the BBQ and scrubbed it down and cleaned the parts, some in the dish washer and some by hand. Most of it got partially cleaned before I put it in the dishwasher. 
I also went through the supplies and put them away, table covers, plates cups, seasonings, tools. Later I swept and mopped the kitchen floor.
I would do a little bit of work, and then rested. Then do more, then rested At noon, mom and I had lunch together I had some hot dogs and mom had a brat. Not too long after that I took a short nap.  
Cleaning up was a lot of work but it is all done. I decided not to do any wood working. 

I will see what I do tomorrow.
Roger.

July 6th 
Year 19, Week 26, Day three (week 1026)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-06-19 Saturday

82 degrees early morning, 84 afternoon with 74% humidity. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

There was an explosion in my county. It appears to be a gas explosion at a pizza shop. It was in national news. A friend asked if I was all right. It was about 20 miles away and in an area I don’t frequent.

After breakfast, I did a quick drive along my yard sale route, but because of a shower during breakfast and more looking to come during the morning, there were no yard sales. It was a nice drive and I needed something at the grocery store anyway. 

I went out back and split some wood and started rounding the pieces to make drum sticks. I used two hatchets and a hammer to do the splitting of the wood from the tree I picked up the other day. I used the thick hatchet to start driving the wood apart and the thin one (made from diamond plate with a pipe welded to it) to cut some wood sticking them together and to do splitting farther down the crack.
Wood is strongest when the shape follows the grain. Wood grain can be thought of as a bunch of straws glued together. When you split the straws down their length, they remain the strongest. They will flex but not break. If you cut through the straws so they are stacked rather than down their length, they can be separated easier. 
I mounted the two selected sticks on the lathe and made them round. By then I was covered with sawdust. It was only like 87 degrees out but high humidity (it says it was officially about 82%) caused everything to stick to me and I was wet with sweat. I decided to take a moment break, and as I was about to go into the house I saw threatening clouds to the south (the cells were heading north, while coming off the ocean) and the radar said it was close. I glanced outside and it was already raining. I dashed out, pulled the lathe cover and covered it up, picked up a few things but left the sawdust alone. It was just a minute but the lathe was nice and wet. I will deal with the sawdust tomorrow. 
These sticks are at least twice as big as I need to be for the drum sticks I was making. Fresh wet wood is not the best thing to work with on something like this, but I felt I needed to do this with this tree. By splitting the wood, I get nice straight grain. 

Mom went to a funeral of a relative of a friend. I decided to have lunch early so I finely diced a BBQ burger and dog and fried them together a bit, added water, seasonings, some frozen veggies and a “little bit” of noodles. Actually I added far more noodles than I intended so when I was eating, there was no broth left. It was no longer a soup but it turned out really good in spite of it. 

I will see what I do tomorrow.

July 7th
Year 19, Week 26, Day Four (week 1026)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-07-19 Sunday

80 degrees early morning 89 late afternoon with 87% humidity. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.



I took the rounded sticks from yesterday, and brought them  close to drum stick shape and size. I have to remove more wood but a number of things were giving me fits. I think I have to sharpen my tools again. The wood flexes and the tools were being pulled below the wood and there was a lot of vibration. They are close, though.

Some of this can be solved with sharpening of the tools, and some could be solved if I broke down and made a steady rest. A steady rest is usually, but not always, wheels that ride on the work to keep it steady. It usually has a frame that fits on the lathe and has two or three wheels that are slid to rest on the work. When working with a piece that is long, thin and flexible, the steady rest will support the work at midway or closer to the end you are working on, preventing the work from flexing. There are many designs and I just need to choose one and start building one. My biggest problem is that I am more interested in making projects rather than tools. 

I decided to find out how this wood carves so I cut a piece off and just started working on it with the knife. I had no plan, just wanted to test how it carved. I got a good start of a man kneeling. It is green wood and when dry, will carve differently, but it is not the worst wood I have carved. I developed a blister on my middle finger on the middle joint from the knife. It later popped while I was still carving. I does not hurt at all. That will become a callous later. When you do some extensive carving, you develop hard skin where the most rubbing happens (guitarists cherish the ones they develop on their fingers). When you stop for a long period of time, they disappear and you have to start over developing them. Since I am not doing a lot of carving, I really don’t have any right now.. 

I found one yard sale today. The girls were selling a bunch of toys they out grew. I picked up a porcelain doll made in England. She is really cute and I like her outfit. A couple weeks ago I had shared a video on Facebook from a crochet site where it showed several dolls in many different crochet clothing. The dolls had nice faces and the clothing looked great. I won’t get into that but it would be an interesting project. My doll was really more than I should have paid, (I looked on line and that is about what she is going for on line) but she stood out compared to the others both in face and in outfit.
I also got a stainless steel kitchen set for children. It was too good to pass up. If I don’t pass them on to the children when they are of age, I might use them in crafting.  The largest pan was about 4 inches in diameter and I was thinking that if I go on a diet, these pans might end up being too big still......

  I eat pieces of banana when I get leg cramps after a hard day. Tonight I made some banana based chocolate ice cream using a mix of mostly mint chocolate with some milk chocolate as part of it. I pour it into a small lined sheet pan (fits into my toaster oven) and freeze them. I then cut the sheet into bite sized square pieces. 
Tip, If you heat the chocolate in the microwave (which works good), and then add frozen banana, most of the chocolate will blend, but some will stick to food processor bowl like concrete. It would be better to use fresh bananas for chocolate ice cream. The very first batch of chocolate ice cream was made where I put refrigerator cold semisweet baking chocolate into the food processor and ran it until I basically had sand sized particles. I then added the frozen bananas. It was good. I like the particles in there, it adds an additional flavor spike when the bits come away from the banana base within your mouth and starts “melting.”
I had bought some bananas today, thinking I needed more. It turned out that I did not need them. I found a baggy of McDonalds grape jam in my fridge. We got it at work when they gave us breakfast a while back. I don’t know how many there were but there could have been as many as 40 of them. I took the fresh bananas, added the jelly in the food processor and made grape flavored banana ice cream. All are in the freezer but will take all night to become fully frozen, I assume. The grape might be over sweet, but it will not bad no matter how it comes out. 
My intention is only have a piece or two of banana a night, especially after doing a lot of work while on my legs. I am sort of wondering how the jam ice cream will freeze, if it will. I am not sure if jam freezes. It is mostly sugar if I remember right. Will see. I could have it in a container as soft ice cream, but I think it will freeze completely. (The jam ended up being a soft ice cream rather than a popsicle or ice cream bar, and tasted really good. It would be better with less jam, and likely with a different flavor).

I will see what I do next weekend.

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a partially rounded stick and one about to start. this wood was split from the log for strength

attempting to carve the new wood

another view of the little man I was carving

the two close to done drum sticks with a commercial drum stick.

the porcelain doll

another view of the doll

the stainless steel kitchen set for the kids. these could actually be used but better for the kids. they cannot break them.