A butterfly with hiccoughs

Here we are on the last day of 2020. Many people have looked back on the year with eloquence and humour and I don’t feel like trying for either one of those, so in my final 2020 post I’m going to hop around among my current thoughts. I don’t know who described thinking as a ‘butterfly with hiccoughs’ but I’ve always loved that image so here goes.

I’m ridiculously happy that I managed to complete two projects in two days. The current ukulele build has been underway for two years now and most things I undertake last for at least a week. I gave R an IOU for new scales on one of the many paring knives we have around here. They came from his parents’ place and have no markings whatsoever on the steel although they are great knives. I’ve done two in the past and decided it was time for a third one. Eventually I hope to do all of them but that means rounding them up and that's for another day.

I didn’t get the scales on in one day but while I was peening the brass rods I used to pin the scales on, I took a good look at the little ball peen hammer that was my dad’s. Ever since I can remember it has been wrapped with electrical tape near the head. To give you an idea of how long the tape has been on there, it is cloth tape, not the plastic sort we use now. I figured the tape was probably to hold the handle together because it was cracked. I decided I could make a new handle so I cut the tape off (the handle was cracked) and then cut the handle off just below the head. I had quite a time getting the remaining piece of wood out of the head. I drilled and whacked at it and completely destroyed the edge on one of my chisels. Luckily I know how to fix that. Eventually I got all the splintery bits out of the head. There was a metal wedge to hold the handle on and when I whacked the last bit out it went on the floor along with the wedge. I did a cursory look and didn’t find it so I decided to use a wooden wedge instead.


We had an ash tree cut down a few years ago and I found a relatively straight-grained piece of ash for a handle. It took me quite a while to shape the handle, fix it into the head and put a finish on it. By the end of the day I had a new handle on the old hammer. There’s a spot near the head where a small branch was growing and I know that will be a weak spot. Since the hammer is small and light and I’m likely to use it only on brass rod and other soft metals, I think it should stand up as long as I need it to and then some.

The second day-long project I finished was a bread saw. I’ve seen them but never owned one. Now that I’m occasionally making bread again, I thought it would be a fun project. I went online and found a place to buy the blades and I watched one of my favourite YouTubers make one using only hand tools. I wasn’t a purist on this project and used the bandsaw to roughly shape the handle. From there I used chisels and rasps and at the end of the day I had a kitchen tool finished with oil and wax and ready to cut bread. Now all I need to do is to bake bread so I can test it out.


I’m a great one for alternate uses of things. Because everything is on Zoom these days, SAWS was able to arrange a Zoom call with Anne of All Trades, a well-known YouTube woodworker. She commented that her grandfather taught her to use what she had to make what she needed. I thought of all the ways that Jake does that when he makes and repairs instruments. I’m pretty sure there’s another post there but I’ll put the brakes on that butterfly.


I needed to put new strings on one of my ukuleles. I haven’t done it that often and I feel like I have ten thumbs when I come to do it. Anyway, I got the strings on and then needed to cut off the excess. I have a number of cutting implements at my disposal but the one I settled on as being easiest to use was a pair of ordinary nail clippers. They are light and they fit into tight spaces so I could cut the strings close.

The second item I found an alternate use for is a little shaker for oil and vinegar dressing. I think R has used it in the past to mix flour and water for gravy but my use is in making hot chocolate. All the hot chocolate mixes contain milk which is difficult for anyone who is lactose intolerant. We treat our milk with drops to make it easier to digest. I’ve always thought that it was a nuisance to make hot chocolate out of cocoa powder - mix sugar and cocoa, add cold milk, mix it up until it’s not lumpy and then add hot water and milk. First I cut down the amount of sugar so the ratio of ingredients became 1:1:1 and then I used the shaker to combine the cold milk, sugar and cocoa. It worked like a charm and it’s really not that hard to do. An added bonus is we have a bit more control over the amount of sugar so our hot chocolate ends up being more like a dark chocolate and I can add a drop of peppermint if I want to be especially decadent.

As this year draws to a close, I've been rereading some of my journal entries. This exercise taught me that if I spent even 1/10 of the time tidying up my study and the shop that I spend thinking I ought to be doing so, both spaces would always be spotless. I'm an untidy creature at heart and I may as well get used to it. When it bugs me enough I'll do something about it. In the meantime I have better things to think about. Resolution? Drop those two 'should's' from my list.

New Year's Eve last year

Finally, I’m pleased that this is my 38 post of 2020. That is the highest number of posts I’ve ever made in a year and I’ve surpassed my goal of two posts a month. Before I get too carried away with patting myself on the back, I know that quantity and quality aren’t the same thing and that got me thinking about what quality is to me in terms of my blog. I guess it’s posting things that are interesting to some of you, most of the time. I realize that everything I write is filtered by the way I view the world and, because of that, there’s a danger to sound like a broken record. I try not to. As I’ve said in the past, I write primarily for myself and I’m pleased and humbled that others find common ground in what I say. I’m grateful that you read these posts and that they connect us to each other. I think 2020 has taught me to look more carefully at the little things that delight me, from hammer handles to chickadees outside the window. In 2021 I’m going to continue to look for what is delightful in the ordinary. I wish each of you pleasant surprises and moments of love and laughter in 2021 regardless of what else is in store for us. Happy New Year.