In My "Spare" Time: Year 18, Week 07, Day One (week 947)

Year 18, Week 07, Day One (week 947)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
03-03-18 Saturday

58 degrees early morning 78 degrees late afternoon. Good breeze taking away any heat that developed. Some clouds but mostly blue sky. I don’t remember a cloud blocking the sun. This weather report is brought to you by the city of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

I had a good yard sale drive today. I skipped a bunch, but hit 8 yard sales. I loitered at a couple so it ended up taking a whole lot longer than normal. I picked up three cook books that looked interesting. One is Caribbean cooking. This was a thin picture book. Another is Balkans cooking. that is a thick book with recipes from the western part of the old soviet union. Balkans, the book says, is “mountains” in Turkish. The last book is a reprint of a revolutionary period cook book. I've read the introduction but have not looked into the rest of the book.
I found a bible that is a translation of a people in the Syria region. Mom was comparing some passages with the King James version. Of course the “thees” and “thous” were gone. They were extremely simular but some words here and there in the translation show where the wording put forward a completely different impression. “Giving love OF unto one another” and “Giving love TO one another” have different effects. The differences were small. I have heard other translations where you have to look carefully to see that they are the same passage. Because of this, most scholars study the bible in the original languages since often, one word might take a whole sentence in English to say the same thing.
I picked up a cast iron pan, square with spouts on each corner, and a few other things.

Mom and I went to a condo yard sale together right after breakfast and I picked up a digital camera cheap. It works nice takes good enough pictures. It is an 8 megapixel Olympus. I generally have my camera set on a low resolution so they E-mail easily. I will look for instructions on line. It took some time to figure out that there were separate buttons to review the images, rather than on the main control. This comes with two batteries and a charger you plug the batteries into. I figured out that the camera does not charge when plugged into the computer. The only reason I got it was as a spare camera. I am good at breaking cameras.

I keep seeing wonderful things at the yard sales, but I don’t have room for any of them... What I need is a couple dozen homes to decorate...... and lots of money.....

I will see what I do tomorrow.

Year 18, Week 07, Day Two (week 947)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
03-04-18 Sunday

58 degrees mid morning 78 degrees late afternoon. (One friend who lives inland said it was 54 degrees at six) Good breeze taking away any heat that developed. Some clouds but mostly blue sky. I don’t remember a cloud blocking the sun. I woke up early this morning (four) and had to turn my heaters on. It was 58 outside I was talking to a friend who lives farther west (just a few miles) and he said it was 54 at six am. For us, that is cold.
This weather report is brought to you by the city of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

I returned to carving on the "dog" which originally was supposed to be a rocking horse As I neared to carve on the legs, I realized I had no idea how a laying dog looks like. I was questioning how the legs were positioned or how the parts were angled. I googled ‘laying dog’ pictures and found that my image of how a dog’s limbs go when resting was utterly wrong. I forgot that dogs and cats actually walk on their toes. The joint above the paws is actually the ankle bone, not the knee. The thigh bone is extremely short and is almost entirely encased within the body. Horses also are designed that way, though their toes are fused into a hoof. Remembering this, allowed me to start removing wood properly to make it a laying dog.
A bit later, I twisted the blade broke a front leg off and had to glue it. that ended my carving. Even with that, it was a good day.

One rule of carving is don’t twist, especially if you are working around a thin piece of wood.. Usually a twist is done because a piece of shaving won’t come out or you have a large shaving that you are trying to loosen. In every case one gets a break from twisting, it seemed like a good move at that moment. Knives and chisels are supposed to slice through the wood. A chisel can be used to pry up wood if you have a stopping cut across the grain or are deep against a solid piece of attached wood. It is better to cut from one direction, then remove it from the other direction.

I have not done it, but one should try what is called chip carving. Chip carving is where you cut what are generally triangle chips to create a picture or pattern. It is a good exercise, even if done poorly, on how to remove wood cleanly without tearing and breakage. Chip carving is usually done with specialized knives, one has a curved downward tip for the actual cutting, and another is for plunge cuts for an additional pattern effect. If you practice chip carving, your regular carvings will be faster and easier. Of course I have not practiced my recommendations.......

I will see what I do next week.
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