Distractions please

I looked at the calendar today and thought, ‘Gee I should do a blog post. It’s past the middle of March and I haven’t done one since February.’ Then I looked at the blog and discovered that I haven’t done one since January. I started a couple and decided not to go any farther with them. Part of the reason is that I’ve spent a lot of time thoroughly annoyed at the stupidity of our species, some members of which act like each one of them is the only one on the planet who matters and there is no such thing as responsibility to or for others. I see evidence of this all the way from protestors who have forgotten what they are protesting to Russia’s attack on Ukraine. As humans we keep thinking there has to be a better way and then we return to bashing each other over the head. If we are smart we do a less than stellar job in demonstrating smarts where they count. And that’s enough of that. I’m not going to help solve anything by ranting about it so I’ll take some of my own advice and choose to look up rather than looking down at my feet.

Friends gave us a bird-seed cake for Christmas and we hung it up in the tree outside the living room window. I had a blast watching the birds that came to get the seeds and watching the squirrels try to get it before the birds did. The squirrels were pretty clever and I’m not sure how much they got and how much the birds got. When there was nothing left, I decided to go and buy a bird feeder. Of course there are lots of disadvantages to feeding the birds, poop on the brand new deck, a build up of seed hulls that seems gargantuan compared to the critters who dumped them on the lawn, and the possibility of encouraging mice which we’ve tried so hard to eradicate. I have nothing against mice as long as they stay out of my house.

Despite these drawbacks I’m delighted with the feeder. We’ve seen redpoles, many, many, house finches, downy woodpeckers, mountain chickadees, and nuthatches. I thought house sparrows were the only small birds that hung around here during the winter. I have a pair of binoculars and my camera sitting by the front window and have gotten some more practice with the camera and the telephoto lens. This will come in handy when (if) we get to go on the Arctic cruise that we booked in 2019.

The birds manage to empty the feeder about once a week. We went through the first bag of seed and had to return to buy an even bigger one. We also bought a packet of seeds of native perennial wildflowers meant to attract birds. I still like the idea of planting zucchini in one of the planter boxes at the front and the wildflowers can have the second box. Some of the seeds need to lie dormant over a winter before they will sprout so we won’t know the true variety of the flowers until next summer.

We’ve been trying to get out for walks and today we saw a bluejay in the bush just as we were returning to the house. I often hear them but I don’t often see them. There were a couple of other sightings of note today. We found a tree with pussywillows on it and when I looked out the window earlier in the evening, there was a hare eating grass. The hares are around all winter but this guy was sprouting the beginning of his summer coat. His face was predominantly brown and there was a distinct brown cast to his hindquarters and his shoulders. It’s those little details that delight me and haul me out of my general grumpiness at the state of the world. So here are some photos of birds, hares, and pussywillows that may provide a small diversion for you as well. These days we need all the diversions we can get.

This time I stopped

For the last three years I’ve been studying lutherie in a town about an hour’s drive from home. Sometimes I go the back roads but most of the time I don’t get myself moving early enough and end up taking the busy highway. I know that I’m coming up on the turnoff when I see a row of trees with some broken-down buildings in the foreground. Almost every time I pass them I think, ‘I really should stop and take some pictures of those,’ and I drive on, not wanting to spend the time at that moment.

As I drove up this morning I looked at the buildings and thought the familiar thought. The sky was grey and the light was flat and, even though, I might have been a minute or two ahead of schedule, I decided not to stop.

On my way home this afternoon the sun was sinking but there was still plenty of light: the golden hour. If not now when? I had no cameral other than my phone with me, but the light was good and the sky had cleared since the morning so, instead of taking my usual turn onto the highway, I crossed the overpass and turned onto a gravel road that parallels the highway. After about five minutes I pulled up across the road from the buildings. There was no fence along the road but there was a ditch harbouring a foot or two of snow. I took a few shots from the road and then decided to venture into the snow in an effort to get closer. I sank to mid-calf. It was above freezing and I suspected that there might be water at the bottom of the depression. I didn’t fancy driving the hour home with wet feet so I contented myself with sticking to the edge of the gravel.

The light was going through some loose boards in one of the structures and illuminating the back wall in a warm amber colour. I thought of all the angles I might get if I went closer or if I had a zoom lens. What I had was my phone and the buildings lit by the setting sun. I spent only five or six minutes walking up and down the road taking photos, varying the angle of my shots. I even tried the zoom feature on my phone. My experience with using this particular phone’s zoom is that the photos turn out pretty grainy and unattractive but the phone was in my hand and I had nothing to lose.

It didn’t take long for my hands to get cold so I pocketed the phone, hopped into the car, turned around and headed for the highway. I was treated to a lovely sunset. The photos won’t win any awards but I smiled all the way home having finally taken the time to stop and look at the scene through the lens. I want to go back to that spot, perhaps in spring when the fields are newly seeded, or perhaps in the fall when the crops are ripe. Maybe next time I’ll have a better camera with me and I’ll be able to get in closer. In the meantime, it was time well spent and I might even use one of these photos for the wallpaper on my phone.

The reno: penultimate installment

Here we are more than half way through January and I’d better get the lead out if I’m going to reach the goal of 2 posts per month. There are two significant milestones this month and each deserves its own post, mostly because I anticipate more photos than I usually include.

I’d like to report that the renovation is finally done, but it’s not quite. Granted all that remains after last week is to get the correct cabinet hardware installed on two of the kitchen cupboards, and to get the door painted. We thought the hardware had arrived but when our trusty project manager went to pick it up it had disappeared into the ether, so we are still waiting. The door will have to wait until spring when temperatures will be reliably above +5 for a few days. If the paint goes on and the temperature drops, it won’t stick and it won’t be under warranty. Everything is functional and, overall, we are delighted with the decisions we made and the quality of work that made the designs a reality. Here's what it looks like now.

The drinks station where the old kitchen sink used to be

Looking from the dining room into the kitchen

Kitchen peninsula. We are getting new stools.

Looking toward the shop from the kitchen

Living room with new wider doors

Odie's corner of the dining room.

Upstairs bathroom

Merry Christmas (2021)

It’s a perfect day. It is Christmas Eve but days like this happen every once in a while for no apparent reason. In some ways today is nothing special. We are hanging out with Odie who happens to be semi-quiet at the moment. The temperature is going between -19 and -20 C, and the sky is a brilliant blue. It’s actually pleasant in the sun.

    We had a dump of snow last night and when we went out to shovel this morning Richard got warm enough to take off his parka. The snow was powdery so it wasn’t terribly heavy work although my Fitbit did tell me I got 23 minutes of cardio out of the activity. We don’t often shovel snow together, but today, as I was walking down the hall I saw Richard putting his keys in his pocket. I asked him if he was going to shovel the snow. He was and I was just on my way to the back door for my coat and boots. We decided to do it together. It goes much faster that way. We did the front walk, then the deck. I don’t know why I want to shovel the deck. Maybe it’s because I love to see the warm rich colours of the wood as I look out the window. Maybe it’s because I imagine taking a chair and a cup of tea to sip in the snowy landscape. I haven’t actually gotten the chair or the tea but if the deck is clear the possibility is there.

    I have wonderfully warm clothes. I wore the down ‘duvet’ that is slime green and that I got years ago for half price at MEC. I hate the colour, although I have friends who love it and I’ve had compliments on it while I’ve been shopping. There’s no accounting for taste, mine or anyone else’s. I wore the sealskin mitts that I bought from a hunter in Pond Inlet, and I topped the outfit off with a toque I crocheted just the other day. The pattern said you could finish it in an hour. Um, not in my universe! I pulled the thing down at least 6 times but ended up with a result I’m happy with. Oh, and I wore my new boots. They are actually a Christmas present but Richard wanted me to try them on to make sure they fit and once I knew what they were, I saw no point in having him wrap them up and put them under the tree even though he offered.
    

    They are Wind River X-ice and the only boots that CBC Marketplace found to really be anti-slip. (This is not a commercial.) I won’t say I can’t slip in them but if I don’t push off too hard with my toe they are amazingly steady on ice. I’m still careful crossing slippery streets but it’s nice not to have to do the ‘senior shuffle’ quite so much.

First coat of poly on the uke

   

 
 Another reason today is perfect is that I’m done making Christmas presents and have been for about a week. This has never happened before and I found myself a bit at loose ends because I had time to spare. I’ve been able to concentrate on getting ‘Lilred’ my current ukulele ready for finish. Every time I thought I was ready to go and get the finish, I found another flaw that I needed to take care of. This could go on forever, of course, so today I finally dunked the cotton pad into the polyurethane and wiped on the first coat. Because we’re not going anywhere for Christmas I’ll be able to babysit the finish which takes about 3 hours to dry between coats. I should be able to get another coat on shortly and then keep building up coats over the next few days. I haven’t worked enough with this finish to know exactly how to handle it to get the best results so it will be kind of fun figuring it out. The nice thing is that it’s a thin finish and I can always sand it down and start again if I need to. I don’t think it will come to that.


    Tonight we will head off to the Christmas Eve service, masked and triple-vaccinated. I’ve only missed one Christmas Eve service in this church since I was about 14. In 2019 we had the privilege of visiting family in Vancouver and attended a late service there. Last year we had shower curtains up to make individual booths for the singers and there were no people other than those involved in the service in the sanctuary. This year we have a cap on numbers. People signed up ahead of time and vaccine status will be checked at the door.

    Two years ago we had barely heard of Covid 19 and last year there were no vaccines by this time. This year we thought we might be getting out of the woods when Delta and then Omicron descended. We had just started to invite people, one or two at a time, to see our newly renovated house. That’s on hold again. With all the changes I’m becoming a bit more used to plans being cancelled and I think I’m calmer when things don’t work out the way I want them to. There are still days when I’m just plain mad at all the upheaval in the world in general and my world in particular but then I have days like today when I’m both happy and content.

    I have a house that is now a delight to live in. We have heat and running water, sunshine, snow, and sparrows in bushes loudly expressing their opinions. Odie looks at me, blinks his eyes, makes purring noises, and laughs whenever we do. Most importantly, though, I have kind and generous people in my life. Although we won’t be gathering in person again this year, it doesn’t matter so much. Christmas Day will be slow and casual and there are many ways I can contact those who enrich my life. I may not be able to hug them but I hope that will come. So Merry Christmas. I hope 2022 will bring good things to each of you each day and if, like me, you have days when you’re just plain cross at the whole world, may the memories of perfect days when there is really nothing special going on, lighten your mood if only for an instant.

Ukulele #3 update

  

'Lilred' the current uke under construction

     A photo turned up in my ‘memories’ on my phone the other day. It was a year ago and the photo was of Richard’s ukulele. I'm about at the same point on my current build, maybe a bit farther along. Time for the bridge. On the other two ukuleles Jake has made the bridges for me. A bridge comes out of a small piece of wood and the idea of getting a piece that size near a router bit or even a drill press makes me quite nervous.
    It’s not that I’m against power tools or woodworking machines but I am very nervous around them. They get things done much much faster than I can with hand tools but things can also go wrong much much faster. I always feel I lack control around them, even the ones I use fairly often like the band saw and the spindle sander. But it’s not even that that makes me hesitant to flip the switch on the machines. It’s the maintenance.
    I may be sounding like a broken record here. If my car doesn’t work I can take it to a mechanic. If my bandsaw isn’t in top condition, which at the moment neither of the two I own is, it’s up to me or me and Richard-the-Long-Suffering to figure out what the problem is and to fix it. I find the prospect overwhelming and tend to throw up my hands and walk away allowing the machine to collect dust, or I keep using it in less than optimal condition until it completely balks. Richard is good at troubleshooting. Even if he doesn’t use the machines, he can see how they are put together and figure out how they ought to operate. Working on shop machinery is not his idea of a good time so I hesitate to ask him for help.
    But back to the bridge. I’ve been thinking hard about whether I could learn now to make a bridge using only hand tools, not because I’m a purist but because I’m a chicken. I could learn to use the router table using guide blocks so that the operation would be as safe as possible but I wouldn’t enjoy it. I’m in the truly wonderful position of not having to do any kind of woodwork in order to put food on the table so enjoying the process is my first priority.
    I’ve been experimenting with various tools for the past month or so and, over the course of nine practice bridges, I developed a method of working that left me confident enough to actually cut into the piece of wood designated as the bridge for the current ukulele. As I was cleaning up the walls of the small mortise that holds the piece of bone I pressed a bit too hard and split the whole block of wood lengthwise. I got out the glue. (No I'm not going to point out the split in the photo.)
    I’ve seen tests on YouTube and read articles that say that modern wood glues, when properly applied and cured, are stronger than the wood they bond and certainly when joints I’ve made have broken it’s the surrounding wood that has failed and not the glue joint.
    I glued and clamped, applying sawdust to the wet glue as a filler and to hide the join. I did this several times and then picked up the work where I left off. In an ideal world the bridge of the uke needs to be of one piece of wood because it takes the most strain and is essential to the proper intonation of the instrument. Since I didn’t have another piece of rosewood and I wanted the bridge done, I took a chance.
    When Jake checked it, he thought I would need to build another one because the repair wouldn’t be strong enough. He asked my permission to try to break it. Might as well find out now rather than get it on the instrument and have it fail at that point. He wasn’t able to break it so we decided it was probably strong enough to withstand the stresses of the strings as the instrument is played. I still have some work left to do on it before it will be ready to install and I’ll see how it holds up as I work it. Jake has some more rosewood that I can use if I need to, or choose to, make another bridge. Regardless of whether I make another bridge for this instrument or not, I intend to keep building instruments and I will be quite content to build my bridges using hand tools.
    Jake can build a bridge in about half an hour. It takes me probably three to five hours to build one but I listen to my audio books, take my time and am perfectly content. Because the band saw is not cutting accurately enough when I’m ripping stock, I’ve even taken to ripping the blanks for the bridges with a hand saw. It’s a challenge and the more I do it, the more accurate I’ll get. I understand hand tools. The tool has a sharp edge that you push or pull through the wood. Period. If I keep my tools sharp and keep working to develop my skills I will have a system that I can manage comfortably.
    I’m not ruling out a time when I’ll choose to have the machines do the work, and I’m not going to sell off the ones I have in the shop. For now I’m content to poke away at my woodworking tasks sharpening as I go. As I putter, I tip my hat to my grandfather and great uncle who were trained on hand tools even as they embraced the speed and accuracy of machines.

Richard's ukulele under construction a year ago

A curmudgeonly yarn

    Okay, we have cell phones with processors more powerful than the computers that put the Apollo astronauts on the moon. We can call and text each other from almost anywhere on the planet. A cell phone means that we are never without a camera. So many innovations to make our lives more convenient. Why then is it that no one seems to have figured out a good way to package yarn so that you can retrieve the correct end easily?

    I have wondered this for many years and now I’m just old and crusty enough to complain about it. I’ve recently gone back to crocheting. I did a lot of it in my early 20’s when I spent hours upon hours in the relative darkness backstage listening to string quartets. There are worse ways to spend time but I found the time passed more enjoyably if my hands were busy. I crocheted afghans and scarves mostly. Then I lost interest and gave away all the crochet hooks.

    In retirement a friend took up crocheting and I was reminded of how I really did like it so, I bought a bunch of new crochet hooks and yarn. This time I crocheted slippers, messenger bags and toques using various weights of yarn and different patterns. It was fun and I gave away a lot of what I made. Then I put the yarn and hooks in a box and stuffed them away in the cupboard until a few months ago.

    There was a call from our church for prayer shawls. I’ve made them before, both knitted and crocheted. I had the hooks and the yarn so why not. I dug the stuff out again. Much of the yarn I had I rerolled into balls instead of working it from the skeins. My method of working is pretty simple: toss the ball or skein I’m working from into a shoe box. Put the shoebox on the floor beside my chair and have at it. When the skein gets down close to the end I often roll it into a ball because it is easier to keep together that way.

    Makers of the skeins chirpily tell you that to start a project you reach inside the skein and pull on the interior end. That way your yarn will come out smoothly and it won’t flip the skein around as you’re working with it. It’s a great theory. The problem is when I reach in, all I feel is a jumble of yarn. So I try it from the opposite opening in the skein. Still nothing. I stick fingers from both sides into the skein and root around some more.

    Eventually I get frustrated, grasp what I hope will be a clump near the end and pull. The yarn comes out politely for about a foot and then gets caught. Too late to back out now so I give it a good yank. Nothing. I yank it again and out comes what I can only describe as the yarn equivalent of a hairball. Now I have two blobs of muddled up yarn: the shell of the original skein and the guts that came from the inside. Not an end in sight.

 
    I start gently picking away at the guts, tossing them lightly and trying to get my fingers into the spaces to untangle the mess. No perceptible progress and if I start passing the blob over and under strands of yarn I’ll never get it untangled. I put it down and look at the husk of the skein. As I turn it over I see an end! This is where I’ll have to start. I grab the end and start to wind it into a ball. Eventually that part of the skein has become a ball and as I change from the husk to the guts. the yarn seems to be unravelling smoothly. Keep winding!
  

 Too good to be true. There’s a clump. I tuck the ball into my armpit so it won’t go rolling across the floor as I try to deal with the clump. It’s not a very big one and after a bit of teasing apart with my fingers it droops into a single strand. I keep rolling. There are a few more clumps but nothing that tempts me to just cut it out and knot the pieces back together. That really is a last resort.

    Now after all that fuss I can finally start to crochet the project. I’d like to report that this tussle with the yarn is an anomaly, but it happens more often than not. Sometimes I think any sane person would just rewind the yarn into a ball starting from the outside but somehow, that would be giving up and as I approach each new skein of yarn I hope this will be the one that will present the magical end to my probing fingers.

    In the meantime, I put the ball into the shoe box so it won’t run all over the floor, make a loop, take up my hook and begin to crochet. Surely the actual project will be easier than trying to find the end of the yarn.

Sparrows

Sparrows. My grandfather hated them. He even went so far as to change the words in his copy of the old blue United Church hymnbook. The hymn reads “God sees the little sparrow fall, it meets his tender view.” Pa crossed out ‘sparrow’ and changed it to bluebird.

No shortage of sparrows

I’m not crazy about sparrows either. I know they’re an introduced species and they are ubiquitous, spring, summer, fall, and winter. They don’t have gorgeous plumage although I do admit that there are many shades of grey and brown on their back feathers. Then there is the challenge of trying to tell sparrows apart. My Birds of Western Canada lists 20 different species of sparrow. So far, I’ve identified only 4, house sparrow, chipping sparrow, clay-coloured sparrow, and song sparrow. They are all little brown birds and unless I get a good look at the facial features through a pair of binoculars they are all pretty much the same.

When I see red-breasted nuthatches on the tree outside the living room window I get excited and grin like an idiot. The downy woodpeckers that visit occasionally get the same reaction, and the merlin that paid a visit once had me practically jumping up and down. Sparrows? Not so much.

I haven’t made bird watching a priority in that I don’t get up early in the morning to go to places where there is a greater variety of species. I do watch birds and watch for birds. When we’re out for our walks around the neighbourhood I keep a mental list of the ones we see, sparrows, magpies, pigeons, crows, northern flickers, and the occasional gull. Once in a while we’ll see a hawk, a downy, or a hairy woodpecker. I’m able to recognize the disappearing butt of a flicker by the white patch on its rump.

There is a thick hedge just across the street from us and I think it must be the equivalent of the sparrows’ pub. During the daylight hours there is usually a racket of cheeps and squeaks emanating from the bushes. We pick on the sparrows by sneaking up to the hedge and then saying, ‘woof!’ The sparrows quiet for a few seconds until we are past the hedge and then resume their conversations, complaining I imagine, about the two stupid humans who find the silly trick amusing. Lately, even though we don’t woof at them every time we pass, they seem to quiet as we approach the hedge. The brains of birds are mysterious places.

During the pandemic I’ve spent more time that I ever though I would watching the sparrows. They are constant. They show up around 8 in the morning, noon, and again around 2 in the afternoon. I have a pair of binoculars sitting by the living room window and today I watched 3 of them taking dust baths in the dirt at the base of a lilac bush. They also seem to appreciate the birdbath I made last year and 7 of them have tried to inhabit it at the same time. Some sparrows are better at sharing the space than others and there was one bossy little one who, with an open beak, fended off attempts of others to join him in his bath. The others retreated to a nearby bush until he flew off and then 3 of them got into the bath.

Dust bath depressions

Sparrows also provide lots of practice for me and my long lens. I need only raise the camera to practice capturing sparrows eating, sparrows preening, sparrows bathing, sparrows flying. They are little, quick, and challenging. Although I haven’t spent a lot of time sitting on the step with my camera, I know that they are always there to help me develop my photographic skills so that when a nuthatch, chickadee, or downy woodpecker decides to pay a visit to the yard I’ll have a better chance of a decent photo.

Now I just need to take those few steps out the door. The bird book, the binoculars, and the camera are waiting by the window. I love birds and love to watch them. If sparrows are the only birds whose availability I can depend on, maybe they aren’t so bad after all.