Intellivision/Pitfall 1983 (#TBT)
Category: Personal
Baby Picture 1974 (#TBT)
Picking Pumpkins (and Apples)
Yesterday morning we visited Holmberg Orchards in Gales Ferry to pick apples for the week and pick up some fall decorations (pumpkins). It was a beautiful day and the orchard was crowded, but well worth the trip.
Apples, Apples and Woodcarving
We had a busy Saturday. Busy enough we had to split up into two groups.
My mom is visiting for the weekend – a nice way to start off the fall. She arrived on Thursday, and I took Friday off of work. We visited B.F. Clyde’s Cider Mill in North Stonington on Friday while the boys were at school and Susanna at work. It was interesting enough that she and Susanna decided to take Will back on Saturday while I was out with Ben.
Of course, the mill was empty on Friday, but the lines were out the door on Saturday. But they only press cider on weekends, so Will, Susanna and my mom got to see it in operation even if they couldn’t get into the store with the crowds.
That afternoon, Will decided he wanted to make apple crisp – his favorite dessert right now. My mom found a recipe and helped him make the apple crisp. It was even better than the apple crisp we had bought at the local orchard last month. I’m pretty sure Will will be making another batch (or two) now that he knows what to do (considering he ate half of the apple crisp last night after dinner).
Ben and I headed east for a different sort of adventure. I had signed him up for a woodcarving class for his birthday. It was an introduction to woodcarving at the Rhode Island Woodcarving Retreat (hosted by the Mystic Carvers).
It was an amazing experience. We arrived at 8AM and carved until after 3pm (with a few breaks). Ben didn’t get bored or frustrated, he just kept working. Even when I was getting tired, he kept going.
The group of novice carvers worked on a carving of a dog using a carving knife. It was a good pace for a start, and the project was complicated enough to challenge us without being too complicated to complete. Of course Ben was one of two people at the whole retreat under the age of 40, and I think the group thought it was nice to see someone young interested in the craft. And everyone was impressed that he was able to concentrate for over 6 hours on carving. I’m impressed that I was able to do the same (I wasn’t surprised about Ben – he has always been good at those types of projects – me not so much).
He was invited my many members of the Mystic Carving club to join the club. The club meets once a month and offers novice carving lessons at each club meeting. We will probably go to the next meeting (in two weeks) and see if Ben likes it. He loved the class, so I’m thinking we will have fun at the club.
I guess now Ben needs to get some carving knives. Luckily it is a hobby that doesn’t need a lot of tools/equipment to get started. Now I need to spend a day to let my right hand/arm rest from all the work yesterday.
Getting Started on the Next House Project
This weekend we “broke ground” on the next house project. The end goal of the project is to swap bedrooms with Will and renovate the guest room into a nursery. And since it is inside, it doesn’t actually involve breaking any ground.
The project is really a series of projects and juggling of rooms. It almost asks to be planned out using Microsoft Project. But I won’t. I’ll just think about it.
The first step was to convince Will to move rooms. He agreed in theory when we discussed it this summer, but didn’t seem too excited about it (until tonight). As part of the sell, I agreed to add a light switch to the room and some outlets (and a light to the closet). The goal for this weekend was for me to finish electrical work and for Susanna to clean out the bedroom closet. And we finished ahead of schedule. We finished by dinner last night. I can’t believe we lived in the room for so many years without a light switch and only one outlet. Sometimes I just need the right incentive to get moving on things.
Today we decided to rearrange our bedroom to the layout that Will wants. He wont’ move in this weekend, but he can see what it would look like. Now he can’t wait to move. We even convinced him to get rid of the couch he currently has in his room. He is getting our bed, and it is large enough for Targa to sleep in the bed with him. I thought it would be difficult to get him to move. It turns out that it will be difficult to get him to wait.
The next step will be to move us into the guest room and Will’s belongings into our room. We will get that done in two weeks. Susanna will move his belongings and I will build bookshelves for his bedroom (they will go in the closet). Once we move him in, the only remaining thing will be to look for a bigger desk for him (eventually).
Once his old room is empty Susanna will paint the room and I will build shelves for the closets. Our plan is to have all that finished by early November, and have our belongings moved into the new bedroom.
Once we finish the room swap, we will gut and refinish the nursery with a goal of being done around Christmas – in plenty of time for Isabella. Anyone interested in helping install drywall?
Why the room swap? Will currently has the largest room in the house – we had the chimney taken out of the room a while ago, so it is now a reasonably useful room. It is also located next to what will be the nursery, so it will be a lot easier if we are near the baby. I also think Will is ready for a room that is a little smaller than his current room. He doesn’t use most of the space in his room, and I think he will be much more comfortable in the new room. And, as of tonight, Will completely agrees.
Christmas with Uncle Tom – 1984 (#TBT)
I’m on a roll. Why not another picture…
This one from Christmas at my mom’s house on Kuhlman Ln, Webster Groves, Missouri. I still have the train set – Will and Ben dug it out this summer to play with. And the clock on the mantle is in my workshop.
Pictures from Sweden
Organizing the Dog Pen (or Reorganizing the Lumber Pile)
The last bay of the garage/carriage house is a large, unpaved area. For a long time it just served as an overflow storage area and nesting place for a large group of house sparrows. I had added a gate to the opening so it doubled as a dog pen (in the summer). In the back of the bay I stacked a nice pile of red oak, hickory and maple to air dry. The wood pile wound up being a nice place for Tucker to sit when he got bored staring out the gate and a real pain in the a$$ when I wanted to get a board that was at the bottom of the pile.
A friend of mine is cutting up a large maple tree into slabs and needs a place to air-dry the wood for a couple of months before turning it over to a kiln. We have lots of room, if I just reorganized our stuff a bit. And I just really needed an excuse to build a lumber rack.
I had picked up boards cut from a single oak tree in Ledyard a couple of years ago, and they have been drying in the pile since then. All the other lumber was older and dry. So I could build a proper lumber rack and not worry about keeping the stickers between the rows of boards. Saturday night I headed to the home center and picked up a bunch of construction lumber to build a storage rack.
Sunday I emptied the barn and started building the rack. Of course, I found one of the posts for the barn had rotted, so I had a little project detour to replace that. But it wouldn’t be a good project without a few detours. I had the rack mostly finished by that afternoon.
Yesterday I added the second row of shelving and stacked the remaining lumber from the pile on the shelf. The boys helped me clean and organize the rest of the space. The next step will be to double up some of the 2x4s on the supports and add an additional shelf or two to help keep the lumber organized.
Today the boys helped carry up a few boards that didn’t fit on the lumber rack under the workshop and were just stacked down there. Okay, I have two lumber racks. I have a problem. I know. I have too much lumber. Of course, if you have a good deal… I’m always looking for more. I wouldn’t want to run out in the middle of a project.
But of course I have plans for the lumber. Though I’m sure I’ll never get around to it all:
- Hickory: I have a bunch of heavy 8/4 boards that would make a nice workbench even though hickory is a pain to work with and the beams are heavy and a pain to move around. And I already have a functioning antique workbench. But it seems that making a workbench is sort of rite of passage.
- Red Oak: I have a matched set of boards from a single tree. I was going to make bedroom furniture from it until Susanna said she likes cherry better than oak. So it will be used to make the boys furniture (and I already made night stands for them from some of it). I also have some random non-matched boards floating around. Red oak is way too common here and is usually used just for firewood (it is like it grows on trees almost).
- Cherry: I have a bunch of cherry that Susanna and I picked up on a road trip to Western Massachusetts a couple of years ago. The cherry is for furniture for us and the house. Anyway, cherry is nicer to work with than oak.
- Maple: I have maybe 8 boards left that a friend had gotten cheap on Craigslist before he decided that he had too many hobbies to continue making furniture. It is pretty nice spalted maple. I think the boys are going to claim a couple of boards to make Japanese toolboxes this month.
- White Oak: A bunch of 8/4 and thicker boards. Okay, I don’t really know what I’m going to do with it. But white oak is strong and rot resistant, so it may go to outdoor projects.
- Sapele: A few remaining boards from a stack that had gone to smaller projects and trim on the sailboat.
- Cedar: A bunch of smaller boards that I really have no idea what to do with.
- Some random other species: Mahogany (though the plank I have isn’t really mine, I just store it and look at it), Yellowheart, Fir, and I’m sure a few more. The boys keep taking the smaller pieces of wood and re-purposing them into swords and leaving the swords outside until they are no longer usable and become firewood and they need to make new swords.
Building a bat house…
I had been talking to Will about projects he would find fun to do in the workshop. He said that he thought building a bat house would be fun. Today he had is friend, Morgan, over and the two of them built bat houses (one for her house, and one for here).
The project was quick and made from 3/4 plywood (and MDO) scraps I had lying around. The real pain will be hanging it way above the chicken coop after it has been painted. We had initially planned on going sailing today, but the weather didn’t support it.
A Weekend On The Water With William
Will came over on Saturday morning to spend the weekend sailing and camping in Long Island Sound. We decided that there was room for Targa to join us, so it was the two of us plus one dog for a trip across the sound. Susanna got to enjoy peace and quiet. Well as much peace and quiet as one can have with Tucker and a bunch of chickens and ducks.
We headed out around noon to catch the ebb tide out of the Niantic river. We had debated going across the sound to Gardiners Bay, but decided that was too long of a trip and too much heading into the wind. We opted to catch a left and head east to Fishers Island sound and find refuge in East Harbor (Fishers Island, NY) for the night.
The wind didn’t pick up until late afternoon, so after heading downriver we motor-sailed east. Will took the helm and I went below to make lunch. Then crunch. We grounded off of Two Trees Island. Nice thing about a shallow draft boat is that isn’t too big of a deal. Except that I got wet. I jumped off and after a few moments, pushed the boat off the gravel. Then the boat drifted towards deep water before I could jump back on. So there I was hanging off the bow of the boat, not quite able to get myself lifted into the boat. Luckily, Will was good in an emergency. He killed the outboard and got the ladder out for me to ungracefully clamber back onboard.
Of course, Will noted that Two Trees Island is a dumb name. There are no trees at all on the island.
The rest of the day went better. The wind picked up and we were able to sail most of the way to East Harbor. It even got to the point as we passed Chocomount Cove that we decided to take the jib down before the wind picked up too much.
We took Targa ashore (the joy of cruising with a dog), and ate a camping dinner of freeze-dried meals. After dinner we took Targa ashore again, and Will decided to spend time swimming at the beach. We got to enjoy an evening of fireworks. First from the submarine base, then from what looked like was Stonington. A cool breeze kept the boat comfortable that night.
The next morning I woke to a foggy stillness. There was no wind, not even a slight breeze. And the fog thickened as the morning stretched on. We ate a breakfast of oatmeal and coffee. I’m sure Will found some cookies and chips to supplement his meal.
We started up the motor and meandered along the Fishers Island coast in the morning fog. We kept close to shore, and luckily the fog started lifting before we entered Long Island Sound, and was completely gone before we had to pass the Thames River mouth.
We made it back to the mooring by noon, with only a short hiccup. The outboard stopped and wouldn’t restart immediately just off of Millstone nuclear power plant. We took the opportunity to drop the anchor and eat lunch. After a few more tries, I got the motor running and we were on our way. We enjoyed the end of the trip with a short swim in the Niantic River at our mooring before heading home.
