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.


1487

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.

2722

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.

Year 19, Week 25, Day One (week 1025)

Year 19, Week 25, Day One (week 1025)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
06-29-19 Saturday

Early morning, spotty clouds and warm. Fast moving showers hit mid morning it took until early afternoon to fade out to nothing. Ending with varied patches of fast moving clouds and some sun. Mom does not have to water our plants. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Department of Tourism.

After breakfast, we stopped at home and then I went out yard sailing on my own. Weather Radar showed there was weather coming up from the south, so I decided to head south first, following my route backwards and then north. On heading south first, there is not as many areas over that distance that would have yard sale so I could get to the southern end quite fast. Down there I saw several signs but no yard sales at them. 
Near the top of the route heading north, I did find one yard sale. Soon after I arrived the husband said, “the radar shows rain coming and that lightning is part of it.”they were at the very beginning stages of scrambling to pack up, not yet gathering things, but looking at what had to be moved and trying to get sales before they got to work. 
I was about to leave, not finding anything really interesting, then I saw a insulated carafe exactly like several I have of, and use at work for my flavored coffee. I make the flavored coffee and fill the carafe first and the rest goes into my cup for the morning. My afternoon cup is the flavored coffee not drank the day before.
Several years ago, I had seen one of these carafes at a yard sale and decided not to get it, and wished I had gotten it at that time. You tend to remember your misses for a very long time. I grabbed the carafe and asked the price. I put the money in her hand as soon as she said the number. She was happy. One less thing to put away. I was happy, got what I needed.
I left there and saw a couple signs where I would have go off the direct route, and decided to skip them. They likely would already be packing up before I got there.

I thought I would see if Orchard supply had something I was after. It had closed. I never heard about it was closing. I had only been there twice. I kept forgetting about it being there since we had not gone for Chinese buffet in months (on the way). Orchard supply impressed me as a very big Ace Hardware. They had similar stuff there, but more of it. I just looked on Wikipedia and found out that the chain, owned by Lowes, was closed in November of 2018. I missed the advertisement.
As I started south, I hit the storms. After the shock wave it dropped to a Seattle drizzle did not stop during the morning.

After a pit stop at mom’s, I went to Ace and got some of those “staples” to hold wires in place along the wall at Mom’s neighbor’s house. I will use them to run the ethernet cord from the bedroom to the box. I will pull a bunch more cord into the bedroom when I start so I have enough to reach most places I might put the computer, then I will tack the cord in place along the molding. I got a packet of 50 and that MIGHT be enough. 

When I finally was ready to do something, I started carving the face on the little vase. I got a good start, but have some corrections to do, which will require me to go deeper in some places. It had been a long time since I carved a face and got a couple things wrong. It is looking good, though. 
It was kind of nice working with the sound of raindrops on the sheet metal of the awning roof. While there are things to correct, I did well on the face so far.

I will see what I do tomorrow.




Year 19, Week 25, Day Two (week 1025)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
06-30-19 Sunday

Some storms were moving close to us and there was a few little drips, but that was all it did. This weather report is Brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

I found a yard sale today on my run. I had been there a couple times. The last time I found a Garmon Tracker and it has the newest maps of all my units.  I mentioned to her that I had gotten a carafe yesterday and she said she had one and considered setting it out but didn’t. She went in and I got it for a few bucks. It looks different style of what I have maker as the ones I like, but I found that the lids are interchangeable. This one might have a hair more volume.  While she had some interesting stuff, I did not need anything she had otherwise.
I don’t like the carafes with moveable parts. I have a couple with levers or valves in the cap to allow you to pour or seal it. I learned that gunk gets inside the parts. It is nearly impossible to get all the stuff out so it builds up. The ones I like, the lids are simply insulated and you turn the cap a little to pour. With the one I got yesterday and the one got today are sitting there with chlorine water in them. 
I cannot remember where it is right now, but I had a carafe that I partially took it apart to clean it properly and could not get it aligned right to not leak. I could likely fix it now but back then I did not have time to work with it to get it right. That type has a design problem with a screw plug on the bottom. Turn the plug wrong and you mess up the pot. You are supposed to be able clean them completely but they don’t always go back together quite right.

My brother and I went out to Harbor Freight. He bought had a welder for a job and it would not work. He ended up taking the project home, doing the welding there and bringing it back to the job. He traded the broken welder for a better, but cheaper one. He will see if it does what is advertised. I must have been really sick today as I walked out without buying anything at all. I might need to see a doctor about this......
We then went to Home depot and got some LP gas for the BBQ.  I now have two good cans plus what is on the unit itself. It is nice to have extra cans

I did a little carving before my brother came. First I lost the knots that gave me the idea of doing the face in the first place while correcting errors I did on the eyes, then I went a little too deep and created a hole just above the eye. It was thin there.  I got a pretty good face so far. I can see that I will need to use color to make the face stand out on the wood. Otherwise, it looks pretty good. 

After my brother left, I moved the woodworking equipment into the corner of the awning for Thursday’s BBQ. I gave the area a rough sweeping. It should be better but I was running out of energy. There are some stuff on the work bench that will need to be taken care of but there is plenty of time for that too.
I have to clean the case of the BBQ during the week when I drop by, then the BBQ will be ready for use. 

We think the very last of the mangos have fallen from the tree. It is now done for the year. They were good. I have a little frozen at work and some frozen at home. Mom may give me the last ones when she cleans them. They have to ripen a little bit. She lets them sit out in the sun and after a few days they are ready to eat.

Thursday will be getting the place ready for the BBQ. Friday will be cleaning up. Saturday and Sunday are expected to be no different than any other week. 

I will see what I do next weekend.

1448

the face carved

the face carved

face on of face carved

the pitchers. the caps just sitting on them as I was about to fill them with coffee.

I got this picture on line. it shows the type of torches the yard sale had last week.

Year 19, Week 24, Day One (week 1024)

Year 19, Week 24, Day One (week 1024)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
06-22-19 Saturday
It was up into the 90s and clear today. Humidity was somewhat high, but not too bad. It was a good weather to end the day in the air conditioning. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

THURSDAY

The turning club was good. The demonstration was on dust safety, mostly, with other safety concerns also. He covered the effectiveness of different dust masks, ear plugs, face shields or goggles. The cheap dust masks are next to useless as the smallest dust is what does the most damage. He showed breathers with the filter behind the back. And other kinds of masks and filters. The ones that are for chemicals are the best ones. 
He uses a face shield when roughing out the work where bark and debris is flying everywhere.  The face shield prevents you from getting hit by large debris.  When he has the piece mostly finished, he wears goggles. He showed a pair of goggles that he wore when working with super glue on a piece. He had not waited long enough after applying super glue to a piece to keep some bark from a natural edge piece he was working with, and when he turned the lathe on, some drops flew and hit him in his face. He wished he wore a face shield then, but you could see drops on the lenses where they saved his eyes. That is why he always wears goggles. I have had pairs of glasses with dots of super glue or varnish on them.
We had new a young member who had been in a demonstration class in school, where they made pens,  and then went to one of our workshops and made a vase and joined up. We have demonstrations at various parks during gatherings such as orchid shows or art fairs and have gained members from those events too. Many of our members are involved in outreach in the community and schools. You never know when you will touch a heart. 
We had about 25 people at the meeting this time, and they said that they had removed those members who had not paid their membership from the listings by the beginning of June and we now have 75 members. That is pretty good. 

At work they cut down a tree on Monday. I was going to take just one piece of wood, and then told them put it all in my truck. At the turning club, one of the wood experts examined the wood had no idea what kind of wood it was. It does not look like anybody got any pieces of the wood, though a couple people pointed to one stick and said that would make a nice natural edged goblet. I am not sure which one that was. I decided to unload the wood from my truck for now and will turn some into mulch (by turning it). I will decide what to do with the wood as time goes on. It was suggested to cut the bigger pieces into smaller ones and put pieces into the garbage each week. 
There is no rush to do anything with them. They are there and I can decide what to do over time.
This might not be the best way but what I did while transporting them, since I did not tie them down, was, when I first started out, began moving slowly, then hit the brakes hard to force the pieces up against the cab side of the truck bed. I had most of the ends in line with the truck. I did that a couple times so that if there was a panic stop, the wood would not move too much. It is the flying piece of wood that is really dangerous. I then started gently after that. For the most part, they stayed put. 



SATURDAY

It was a nice clear day, so I decided to go yard sailing. The first three yard sales had nothing I absolutely had to have. One had the old style torches that dad used when I was a little kid. These used white gas and had the can below and the torch itself above it. I considered them for half a second and glanced away. While it would be cool to have, I don’t need them and would never use them. I remember dad fighting with them some times to get them going. That yard sale was really big. I have no idea how I walked away without anything. 
I was about to head north and saw a yard sale sign aiming a bit south of where I normally go so I decided to check it. Big mistake. At one yard sale I got some plastic storage drawer units. I paid more than they were worth but I felt good about the price and she was really thankful. There were wheels in one of the drawers and they fit the two drawer units and the big units.  There was two stacking drawers, a there medium drawer unit, and a big three drawer unit. The big unit is not put to use yet, but the others have been. 
At another yard sale I found a real percolator. This one sits on the stove to make coffee. Nothing automatic.  I checked and it held the normal twelve cup easily. I had wanted a good percolator for if there is a very long power out like a hurricane. This one is stainless body steel and  has a hinged lid. The basket and stand are aluminum. It can hold more than the 12 cups but I know how to make for 12 cups so that is what I will do. 

I had some celery that had to be used as they were beyond limp and was a bit woody, so I had started the last of my mixed grain and some of the lentil soup cooking in the crock pot. I have accumulated some 19 different grains and I mix them together and use them like I would rice. I don’t do it for any other reason other than I can. I had fried the celery with onion, then added chicken and fried them together, added them to the grain and let them cook together. 
I showed mom what I found at the yard sales. She tasted my concoction and said I added too much pepper (when I fried the chicken). She had me add some noodles to take up the seasoning. I also added some frozen veggies to it. It turned out to be really good and mom had several servings.

I unloaded the wood from the truck. I dropped them down onto a hand cart and rolled it to the back of the house. The biggest piece was the toughest but I was just able to handle it. Mostly dropping it on the handcart with some tugging into position, then tipping the handcart to dump the piece.  That was the piece I first told the guy that I wanted from the pile, before I told him to put all of them in.
Because this is fresh, wet wood, what I really need to do is take the wood and rough out pieces, like an inch thick. Then let them dry for a few months, before I remount them complete the turning to finish. Usually an inch or so is about right to allow enough wood in a bowl shape for the wood to warp out of shape, then remount it to turn it round. 
I could just do production turning a whole bunch of pieces. I am hoping to do some turning tomorrow. I will have to see how things go. 

I added more super glue to the handle of the tea pot. I want to make sure it is as strong as possible. I have some sanding to do on it but I wanted to make sure it is least likely to break. 

The fourth is on a Thursday this year. I will be off Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. If it was on a Wednesday, I would take the year off......

I will see what I do tomorrow.


Year 19, Week 24, Day two (week 1024)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
06-23-19 Sunday

It was hot and humid out. It got up to 93 with about 70% humidity. The sky was mostly blue with little wisps once in a while. Clouds built up, shrunk and built up again over the Everglades. The shield clouds of thunder boomers, which are mostly heading north, has blocked the sun near the end of the day. While I am more used to the heat than most people, I am not ready for the humidity. I have to work on that, mainly by forcing myself to stay out there. 

I grabbed one of my “logs” from this small tree. Total height was at about the building roof line. It was cut because it was getting too big and was next to the building.
The piece of log I selected (first large piece I grabbed) had rot in the center, just a soft and wet sawdust-like pulp. I split it using a couple axes and a hammer, I need to see about getting or making a fro, not that I would use it much. I flattened one piece quite a bit then cut it for turning using the bandsaw, first cutting it to length, then knocking off the corners. I first mounted it between centers and rough flattened the bowl face and then made a tenon. I flipped it around and rough rounded the bowl into shape and put a tenon on the bottom. I flipped it around again and just begun the hollowing process when the bowl came off the chuck. The heat and humidity was such that the sawdust was sticking to me everywhere so I decided it was a nice time to stop. I should do more next weekend. I just wanted to start something.

I decided to make chocolate ice cream. My semi-sweet chocolate morsels were in the fridge so they were cold and hard. I put them in the food processor and left it on until they were mostly like a powder. If I had warmed them, they might have liquified and blended with my base. Maybe next time. It took a while to get it to a sand consistency. 
There are people who have a lactose intolerance. Making ice cream using bananas as the base is a good way to get around that. It is best when slightly soft. The recipe I first saw served it right out of the food processor using frozen bananas as a soft ice cream. It said if you wanted it more stiff, put it in the freezer for a bit. I will taste it after blending, but always freezes it and eat it that way.
I then added some white and brown sugar, not too much, but I figured it would be enough to make a difference. In the previous banana based ice-creams I have made I sometimes felt it needed a little more sweetness. I have made this with strawberries, mixed fruit (blueberry-black berry based), mangos, just to name a few. 
I then added my bananas. They were frozen and I softened them by letting their baggy sit in hot water for a little bit. They blend better when softened.  
I originally intended to only make half a batch, but then decided to make a full batch and use everything up. After everything was blended nicely, I checked the flavor. The chocolate was a tiny bit grainy. I knew I should have but did not do anything to melt or liquify the chocolate. I laid out a sheet pan with plastic lining it and poured the mixture into it and it went into the freezer for a couple hours. 
When it had set up, I cut up the slab into bite-sized chunks. I could pig out on this. It turned out better than I expected. Yes, it would be much better if the chocolate was liquified and well blended, but I am not complaining. You get the rich, dark-chocolate flavor from the semi sweet morsels, and yet it is sweet enough to make it feel like ice cream. This is the best I have made. 
My previous attempts with fruit added their own water, which causes ice crystals to form more noticeably. The banana does not have a whole lot of liquid. One store I go to puts out past-due fruits and veggies into ninety eight cent packages. In their bananas, you get a good bunch of bananas in the package. I found that even the over-ripe bananas (parts becoming mushy) make good ice cream. 
I have some mint-chocolate from Christmas that I found and gathered in one package when I last cleaned the fridge. I intend to make the next batch of banana based ice-cream using that. I know now that it will work though I do intend to soften it enough to blend completely with the banana. 
I have always ate bananas to prevent or cure cramps. It works pretty good and tastes good. By making ice cream with it, it is more fun to eat. 

Mom’s neighbor was tired of the low bandwidth of the WIFI when using his bedroom computer so I grabbed some ethernet cord I recently picked up at a yard sale and ran it wildly from the cable box to his computer. It goes under the door, behind his dresser over another door to his computer. He had tried to drill a hole through the wall near the end of his bedroom into the closet of the office and ran into the block wall. I tried to help and used a “really long” concrete drill bit and made it through the cbs block but did not have the length to go through some other hard substance, and even then, the hole was way too small for the tip of the WIFI wire. I would have to drill the hole even bigger. I now have a hole to fill. 
I re-booted his computer, then unplugged the WIFI-based USB unit. He was giddy because he was getting on line through the hard wire now. There is a big difference. There has been a few times where I heard a glitch, like click in the radio station we were listening to on line, but it did not cause the computer to search for the signal again like it used to on the WIFI.
I have many options to take care of the wild running cord. One is to tack it to the walls with wire hooks of some type. I could also run the cord through a whole the wing wall at the door then into the wing wall in the closet to reduce how much is seen. I could also borrow or buy the right size and length concrete drill bit to go all the way through the wall at the hole we already started. He is in no hurry right this second. For now I just shoved the excess cord into the closet for this moment so it is not an eye sore. Hopefully the cord will solve the problem he have had.

Next week, I have to prepare the awning area for the Forth’s BBQ. It is on a Thursday so I need to make sure everything is ready to bring out in just a few trips and start cooking. I have a few other projects to work on.

I will see what happens next weekend.

2633

the "logs" I got from the tree.

the drawer units I got. I added the wheels already. the small units are in use right now.

the real percolator coffee pot I picked up

the split log

the rough bowl blank when I mounted it on the lathe.

the top of the bowl when I stopped

the bottom of the bowl when I stopped

I found t his picture on line. this is the kind of torch I saw at the yard sale