In My "Spare" Time: Year 18, Week 37 , Day One (week 975)

Year 18, Week 37 , Day One (week 975)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
09-16-18 Saturday

Sunny, mostly blue sky, 90 degrees, light breeze, good humidity. The constant dots of rain clouds that have pestered us the past month has finally stopped. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

A family member has been really sick and I have spent all my time with them, helping the care giver and spending time with the family member. Projects were put on hold, even writing notes was kept short. We are now past, that so I can look forward to possibly getting some projects done in the near future.
During this time, we had family come down for a visit and had a bbq. Of course, it was my job to clean up. Ugh!!

Yard sailing was shut down. Could not take the time to do that. I did go to a big yard sale a dealership organized. One woman had a box of yarn. I don’t need yarn. That was one time where I wished I could see in the future. If she was not going to sell it, and was going to toss it, I would have gotten it, but for no other reason. Another woman had what could have been 50 or 60 dowels of different sizes. I could have gotten that fairly cheep. The only reason I did not get it was I would have to carry two batches of them across the big parking lot and I have no place to store them. Otherwise I would have loved to have gotten them. The next day, I saw a use for a small dowel and did not have them at hand.
Once in a great while, while yard sailing, we see something we kick ourselves over. We either kick ourselves for not getting it, or kick ourselves for getting it. Also there are “what if”s where you really have no use for it but could see possibilities. I will wish I got those dowels but in a way, glad I did not get them. Several years ago, I saw a big roll of leather, taken from a couch. I have wondered if I could have used it if I had gotten it. I have seen one or two projects where it would have been nice. About 5 years ago, a woman had like 7 jars of buttons. That would have been a nice catch if I had gone for it. I bought a commercial style meat slicer. I realized that it was not something I even wanted to use as I did not want to have to clean it. I had a friend who was able to get that to someone he knew who could use it.
I am not sure I like that I picked up that lawnmower for mom’s neighbor. I am the one who mows the lawns. At this time, the lawn needs to be mowed every other week because it is growing really fast. At 90 degrees and high humidity, it is a real challenge to get it finished. I mowed yesterday and did not finish the back yard. I did get the area people get around, but did not have what it took to finish it.
Another problem of yard sailing is that stuff gets buried or put away and forgotten. Stuff collects really fast. All you know is that you have a pile of stuff and not sure what is there.

I have done some reading during this time, finishing 2 of 4 books I have wanted to read. I have done crochet. I started a zig zag scarf. My Zigs are a bit too long, but I will go with it anyway. I also started a zig zag dish cloth with really short Zags and made a bunch of other mistakes, including trying to correct other mistakes. Since this is going to be for Mom and she is really tough on them as she uses them in high chlorine water when doing dishes, It does not have to be pretty, just useful.
I will continue to do crochet but not as much as when I was helping with the sick relative. Where the time is applied now has changed.

Mom’s neighbor, in who’s garage my wood working equipment is stored, is nearing the end of his remodeling. All the stuff in his garage is packed against my wood working equipment because of work in the opposite side of the garage so there is no way to get to them. The lathe still needs a wheel repair anyway. It will only be partially useable during the repair period. I likely will need a real cleaning and lubing before I can use it anyway.

Without the lathe, I decided to try to make some drum sticks. I did dig out some black walnut. This is a hard wood. I learned quickly that it does not take to the knife well. I was more humiliating my knife than shaving down the corners of t he sticks. I dug out a plane and started knocking off the corners. It was doing the job but this was going to be a long project at that rate. I have not had a chance to do more with it that making it more like a misshapen octagon. I have a draw knife somewhere, but where it is, and whether I can get close to it is a problem. It would make the removal of the worst of the wood really quick. I likely will worry the wood away until I end up with results. I will have to do a search to see if I can find some tools to make this project faster. I need to hog a lot of wood, almost half the diameter of the sticks on one end, and even more on the other, before I can start thinking about fine tuning the shape.
If we ever get the awning up, which does not look like it will happen soon, one big project is to get all my hand tools together in one place and see exactly what I have.
I see videos of making lathes, and dowel jigs and all sorts of other interesting projects. My problem is locating my basic tools just to do that. They are not easy to grab. Much of it is buried.

Christmas is coming. I have a number of projects I want to do. Several need a lathe to rough out quickly. I want to make Christmas balls and then carve them. I still want to make the rocking horse ornaments. I have considered some other designs that require wood turning to rough them out. I might just dig into them and use the knife. It is already getting close to the time that I HAVE to get started. A lot of ideas that have caught my attention comes from crochet ornaments. The problem is that I have done many those designs before over the years.

I also need to get to thinking about my Christmas Cards. I would love to have them done at the beginning of December, (same with my ornaments by the way) so I can concentrate on other things. It is not fun to be finishing the cards the day they have to be given out, and also not nice to not be able to give them to some people when you last see them before Christmas because you don’t have the cards yet.

I will continue to worry out the drum sticks, while searching for missing tools. I will also start shaving wood for a few Christmas ornament experiments.
We will see what opportunities will provide.

1297