The silly tree

The silly tree

I’ve always had stuffed animals. When I was a kid I had a lot of them but I gave away all except my favourite ones. Now I seem to have acquired quite the collection again. Some of them I bought; some came from friends, and others I inherited. Each one has a story but that’s for another day. Today I decided to use them to turn an old lamp into a silly tree. When I look over at them I can imagine each of them saying something.  No, I haven't been drinking and, yes, I know my head is a very strange place to be.

Teddy: Look Ma I'm a firefighter!
Cat: I know I can get to those birds

Teddy: Look Ma, no hands!
Cat: I'm a cat. Of course I'm going to push him off.

Panda: Why is there a hedgehog on my head and a cat paw in my face?
Hedgehog: I don't think I like it here. It's too far off the ground

Ostrich: Why me?
Cat: What white bear? I didn't push him off.
Brown Bear: Just a little bit higher...

Stork: Do you come here often?
Duck: No. Do you know who owns those ugly orange feet? 

Yellow-headed parrot: Whatcha doin? Whatcha doin? Can I help?
Blue-headed parrot: How come I have to sit behind him?

Cardinal: Don't look now but I think there's a bear below us.
Googly-eyed bird: Maybe if I try really hard I can fly down to the desk.

Success!

practice saw

I’m way behind in my goal of two posts a month. I have had a few ideas but mostly they were heading towards rants so I decided to keep them to myself. Today I’m feeling quite smug. That is in direct contrast to some of the time I’ve spent on the ukulele build lately. There are so many things to watch for all at the same time and in three dimensions. Suffice it to say, that it has brought the concept accuracy to a whole new level and I’m not there yet. So today I decided to try something entirely new in a situation where making a mess of it on the first try wouldn’t matter.

I’ve shied away from sharpening my own handsaws because I thought it was going to be too easy to screw up a perfectly good saw. I was prompted to give it a go the other day when I seemed to be struggling through a cut with my favourite dovetail saw. I picked up a different dovetail saw and made the cut smoothly and quickly. Wait, aren't you supposed to be able to go several years before you have to sharpen a good handsaw? Then I thought back and realized that several years was probably closer to 16 years. I’ve been using the saw extensively since I got it and not only in good quality hardwood. I’ve used it in softwood which sometimes has resin in it and even (shhhh) in plywood. That is anathema to some of my woodworking friends.

So the light went on: I have a dull saw. A couple of years ago I picked up a handsaw for nothing. It was sitting out near the sidewalk with a ‘free’ sign on it so I took it. I had it earmarked to practice on thinking that it would probably take quite a beating in the process of my learning to sharpen. It had a couple of kinks in it and, although I’ve tried to straighten it out, it will never be a first class saw again, so I wasn’t worried about ruining it. I was just dreading the time I thought it would take me to get it right.

Three of my favourite YouTube woodworkers have assured me that sharpening a handsaw isn’t hard. I’ve heard that one before about cutting dovetails and that skill eluded me for years. The first thing I needed in order to try sharpening the saw was a way to hold it while I worked. The simplest way to do that is to put a stick on each side of the blade with a small margin between the top of the stick and the top of the teeth. Then you clamp saw and sticks in the vise. Okay, I got that part. In accordance with one suggestion I stuck a popsicle stick on the end of the file so I could more easily tell when I was tilting the file. I also went over the teeth with a sharpie so I could see when I had taken material away from the teeth.

I thought it would be prudent to see how the saw was cutting before I started to sharpen it. The answer was ‘not well. Not much to ruin then, I told myself. I clamped the saw between the two sticks in the vise, put a strong light on it and donned my magnifying visor. I oriented the file to the saw plate and made the first cut. There was the rather satisfying sound and feel of metal coming off. Being careful not to change the angle of the file I moved onto the next tooth, and the next. Pretty soon I was in a rhythm.

setting up to sharpen

When I finished I touched the tips of the teeth. One person described that feeling as the points on ‘cat’s teeth.’ The saw felt a lot more like a cat's teeth than when I started. I ran my hand very gently down the tips and some still felt like they could use a bit more attention. I decided to go over the saw once more.

This time the teeth were nice and sharp so I took the saw out of the vise and went back to the piece of 1” ash on which I had previously tried the saw. This time the saw went through the wood quickly and easily, and it didn’t pull to one side. Sometimes if you don’t get your angles right you can end up with one side of the saw cutting more aggressively than the other.

Okay, time for the dovetail saw. The advantage of my dovetail saw was that I knew it had been sharpened well when I bought it. I figured if I followed the angles already on the teeth I should be okay. More sharpie, a couple of thinner sticks to account for the brass back on the saw and into the vise it went. After giving each tooth two strokes with the file, I checked with my fingers to see if it felt sharper. It did. When I tried it in the piece of ash, it cut twice as quickly as it had before I sharpened it.

When I’m learning something new I never expect to get it on the first try. When it happens I have my own little party. Before, when my saws became dull, I took them into a place that sharpens blades for power saws and they sent the handsaws to a guy in Edmonton to have them sharpened. The saws came back nice and sharp in about two weeks.

sharp dovetail saw

I know not every saw-sharpening will go smoothly and the two that I sharpened today were both rip saws, meant to cut with the grain of the wood. Crosscut saws, meant to cut across the grain of the wood, are more difficult to sharpen because they have a different tooth geometry. I’ll tackle a crosscut saw eventually, but for now, I think maybe I can keep the rip saws in my collection sharp and that’s good enough.

Lilred makes her debut

On Tuesday January 11, I finished my third ukulele. This is the one made from Manitoba maple and a cedar fence board I bought at Lowe’s. It was a bit of a pain to make. The Manitoba maple is punky beyond belief and there is quite a bit of superglue holding the wood together. Still, I’m very happy with the instrument. This little instrument is full of surprises. It’s a soprano, one size smaller than the other two ukuleles I’ve made. I thought it would be difficult to get my fingers squished onto the proper frets but it isn’t. I can stretch from the first to the seventh fret without difficulty and I don’t have trouble fitting my fingers onto the small frets near the sound hole. I thought it might have a quiet, subtle, voice but it’s a loud little sucker for its size. It’s easy and fun to play. There are a couple of ‘faces’ on the back of the instrument. It seems to be saying, ‘Hello, I may be small but don’t underestimate me. There’s more than enough spunk in this little package.’ Neither of my other instruments has a name but this one got the name Lilred early on in the process, mostly because of the rich red areas of the wood. Lilred continues to surprise me.

When I realized that the Calgary Retired Teachers’ Art Show was going to take place this year, I decided, just for a laugh, to list my first ukulele for sale. I didn’t expect that anyone would actually buy it and no one did. I also brought Lilred with me to show it to some friends who have been following the progress of the build on Facebook. When I walked in, on the day of the show, carrying a ukulele case, one of the organizers asked me if I would be willing to play a bit. I mumbled that I had just brought it to show friends. Then when a second person asked me I conceded that I might play if I didn’t disturb people and if I could do it in the background. I can play for hours on my own and the minute I know someone is listening I get fumble-fingered. Those years of teaching, those years of drama training, those years of singing? They have no transfer!

I found a corner close to my display table and started plunking away. The first person who spoke to me said that he had heard a sound and kept trying to answer his cell phone. He didn’t seem upset about it and I was glad of that. I played “Side by Side” while he wandered among the paintings. He came back and told me that song reminded him of looking out from his balcony in Victoria when he was in his teens. He said it brought back memories of the sea.

A while later I was part way through Stan Rogers’ ‘Northwest Passage’ when another person approached. She waited until I was finished and then told me of a book she had just finished. I think the title was Erebus. In the book there were references to Rogers’ song and it was in her head for the duration of the book. She said she went between thinking the book was wonderful and wondering how she could possibly keep reading it. In the end it was worth it. We chatted a bit before she thanked me and continued to move among the easels.

One of my favourites to play is ‘The Log Driver’s Waltz’ and I tend to settle into it when I can’t think of anything else to play. I was playing it when I noticed a woman coming down the row of paintings towards me. She was dancing to the music. Her eyes smiled over her mask. I smiled back as she danced down the next row of paintings.

Things were pretty slow when, around noon, I took my turn at the wrapping table. I took a moment to fetch Lilred and began to play. The guy who had first asked me to play was working on the cash. I played a song and gave him the ukulele to examine. He was amazed at the rich reds of the Manitoba maple and after I played a couple of other songs, he commented on how lovely the little instrument sounded.

One of the women working in the same area told me that her mother had a ukulele that would now have been over 100 years old. She said the only thing she wanted from the her mother’s estate was that ukulele but she didn’t know what happened to it. She said growing up she dismissed the little instrument as not being cool and hadn’t paid much attention to it. Then she realized how much she associated the instrument with her mother.

After my stint at the wrapping table, I returned to my corner and played a bit more. Many people smiled as they passed and some of them stopped to say thank you. Some said they appreciated the atmosphere the music created and that they found it calming. My playing is not sophisticated and I made lots of mistakes but music has the ability to reach through imperfect performances to spark memories and to elicit smiles. What a wonderful thing that is.

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.