Today is a special day. I voted. I am now at home waiting for more news about the coming of the new child in the family. What excitement! Well, I am excited. Now we are betting on times and final weights. And those votes are being submitted on Messenger. I voted 3:10 and 5# 2oz.
The Labor Movement
Today is Election Day. I think this should be a national holiday, personally. I have taken the kids to the bus stop for school, and our oldest is in the delivery room with his wife right now having their first. Missus is having a nap at the moment, and I will wake her in fifteen minutes then go down and vote. Where things go from there is anyone’s guess! But here we are. Today. What a day!
Posted in Family Activities, Journal Entry, Politics, Special Update
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Christmas 1978
Grandpa was trying to get the Christmas lights to work, but the strand was not lighting up. He wiggled the bulbs and looked through glass trying to find one with a broken filament. My job was to carefully hold the spare bulbs and pick a color to replace the faulty bulb when grandpa found it. He finally pulled a bulb out of its base then asked me for one of the replacement bulbs I was holding in my tiny seven-year-old hands. I selected a color and handed it to him, then he carefully threaded the bare wires into the base and pushed it into the empty receptacle. The whole strand flashed then flickered then came to life! He set the strand aside then picked up another and replaced its plug in the outlet where the first strand had been plugged in. This one light up, except for one bulb. I really favored this type of strand where a single bulb could go out but it does not affect the rest of them. This strand was not just superior in this matter, but if you like them, it was the type that used the bulbs that were the same fit as the typical hallway nightlight. I was instructed to go ahead and change out the bulb that did not work, and reminded to never ever stick my finger into the empty socket. Then grandpa let me have the last two swallows of his tall beer can.
Grandpa gave the strands of lights over to my uncles to put up on the tree, then said he needed to go out and get something else. I don’t remember what, but he left alone.
The merriment at the house continued for a while as we decorated and got things ready for Christmas Day tomorrow. Then one of my uncles yelled out “Mom! Santa Clause is at the back door! I looked, and there he indeed was, a little disheveled, a little skinny, and a little loose fitting, but Santa was stood at the patio door with a big black bag over his shoulder, and his beard sagging down slightly. He was quickly invited in!
“Ho! Ho! Ho! I hear there have been some good kids here this year!” All agreed, which is rare in any family, but among the younger ones in this family, there was agreement. So Santa laughed and began handing out presents to everyone. He did not have many in his sack, just one for each of my two uncles and aunt, my mom, and myself. Mom got a small parcel that she opened only to find a note inside telling her that her gift was down the road in her apartment. I got a Star Bird electric spaceship, which made a climbing noise as it was pointed up, and a descending noise when pointed down, and came apart into something like four different smaller spaceships. The biggest laugh was my uncle Russ, who got the big plastic bag Santa was carrying our gifts in, and a dog poop scoop.
Santa left, and not long after, grandpa got back from his errand. It sure was exciting to tell him all about what had happened when he was gone, and how Santa had given Russ the poop-scoop. Santa surely was all knowing! He knew we had a dog-poop problem thanks to the Great Danes my grandparents kept in those days.
When the evening was over, mom and I went back to the apartment and were shocked to find a console stereo had been brought into the living room and fitted under the front window. Now she had a place to play her records and listen to her favorite music on HiFi on either the phonograph, the 8-Track, or AM/FM Stereo!
Santa did come back to my grandparent’s house that night and left gifts for everyone. I don’t remember what else I got, or anyone else. But I do remember how sad it was that Santa came while grandpa was away.
I used to think this was Christmas of 1979, but I have since realized that these events occurred in ’78. We drove to Colorado, and I was installed in school there by Thanksgiving of 1979. We celebrated Christmas of 1980 in the apartment in Westminster, then 1981 onwards in the house in Broomfield. I am quite sure of Christmas of 1977 being performed in a little apartment in Salt Lake City when I went to the school on Redwood Road. Those were the days mom had to leave me alone in the mornings with an alarm set to indicate to me when I was to leave for school each morning. I was six. The Seventies were amazing times.
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Last Week of October ’24
This week will be an exciting one for the kids, and for me. The girls are going Trick Or Treating on Thursday night, and I am bringing my grandson along with when we go. I am excited because I am not having joint pain, so I think I will endure it longer, and with a bigger smile than I have been able to before. Grandson is coming along because his parents plan to stay in with their new daughter that night. So, grandson will spend Thursday night at ours and as the kids here in Idaho have no school on Fridays, he will also spend his usual fortnightly Friday night over. The kids are all planning a movie night for Friday! I love seeing them all do happy stuff, so I am excited for them!
The weather has been getting cooler here on the farm in Idaho. We have been putting a fire in the stove in the mornings, and it is threatening to get cool enough to demand them in the evenings too just about every night. We are rearranging for winter. Missus has to get set up for the work she wants to do so she can do it in the places that are easiest to keep warm. She is especially excited to get back to her efforts on mastering the AVL Loom, or as I like to call it, the Big Loom. It takes up most of a room. To be fair, the footprint is like six feet by seven or something like that. Of course, you have to be able to walk around most of it to work it. It leaves a little room in the room it is in. But it sure ain’t the kind of thing I am worried about grabbing if Yellowstone blows. There is a fireplace in that same room, and it is adjacent to the room the woodstove is in, so keeping it warm is not at all a problem. But as things are tight in there, one has to prioritize what is in the space.
Meanwhile, I am going to try to fit a Roman workbench on the front porch. That is a space fairly easy to warm up in the evenings and it warms itself right up in the sunny daytime hours. I can do some work to improve that once I am in there. But I also need to be able to do some woodworking in there so I can make some looms for Missus to sell as a part of her business. We have worked out a prototype and she used the half-dozen I made her in her 4-H class, and said they worked great. I think I can do a fair bit of the work from a bench on the front porch. I just need a spot that is easy to keep warm and easy to clean. I’ll move the potter’s wheel off and put the bench in its place. I’d love to keep it up in my den, but there is that carpet up there. I don’t think the wood shavings would take to it well.
This KETO diet has definitely made some adjustments in how my body processes sugars. I had a bowl of fruit in heavy cream this morning, and it shot my blood sugars over 200, and boy, did I feel it! I did not add sugar to it or anything. It was just what the mixed berries had in it. Remember not to do that again! I will need to figure out how to offramp from this diet. I feel a little skinnier, but I definitely still have a ways to go. But wherever I arrive that I want to stop it, I don’t know how to without going all wrong. If a simple bowl of fruit and cream can do that, what would happen if I ever caved to the temptation for a Three Musketeers or something like that? And I cannot be eating virtually no carbs forever, can I? Well, maybe. A lot less, anyway. But there has to be SOME bread or crackers now and then. At the moment, I go goofy over two slices of multi-grain toast. And then there are the much more personal dietary issues. Whoa! Maybe the body just needs more time to adjust?
I have not yet finished my woodshed. The wood is still lay out, some of it fine on pallets, and some on the ground, which is not good. That’s one of the jobs I need to go get on and finish as soon as I can. As it is an unplanned building, I am going along with the thing forming in my head as I go. I know what I need to incorporate into it, such as wind braces. But each thing takes time. And there are joints to cut, and they have to be measured out right. This could be going better, and I suppose it would if I had made drawings. But on the other hand, I don’t know for sure what I need to draw. I am working it out better in the real world than I think I could do on paper. It’s a little slow, but the challenges and problems present themselves. So now I know what is reasonable and what is not. It’s a learning process. Next time I do something like this, I will know what to draw and how it should form. I won’t do like the coat rack I made that required a brace that I had not planned for, so it came out in the wrong proportions because I had to squeeze it into a small space.
Well, that’s a sufficient and sane update for the moment. Time to go get to some work.
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Woodwork and Too Bright Headlights
Yesterday I worked on that board out in the shop. You know, the 8-foot-long board two and an eighth inches thick that was cupped and bowed pretty badly. I think it stood off the bench about an inch when I lay it bow down. I split it in half and turned one side long way and faced it against itself again. Then I slammed it down to the bench and glued it together. Here, let me show you.
This was sitting on the bench with the ends at least an inch up in the air and that’s not even accounting for cupping. Reverse half on itself, and flatten them together for glue up, and this is what you get, still in the rough. I can plane it down by up to five-sixteenths of an inch still, so there is plenty of room to reach a good flat, smooth board.
All of the other boards designated for the kitchen island top are a lot closer to perfect than this one was. This one was difficult to glue up because the clamps I have are weak, and I am not very experienced at hand jointing. I may invest in a little epoxy to do the middle of the glue joint. There is a length where the gap in it reached nearly a thirty-second of an inch wide. Not good, but I think it can be worked around with the modern techniques.
The whole goal of this project is to replace a solid core door that is being used as a countertop with a solid piece of wood made from a tree that I picked up at the dump. I have four pieces a little more than a foot wide each, and just over two inches thick, so the resultant board should be robust, especially as I don’t feel like planing it all the way down to a thin little piece of wood. Going forward, any damages the top takes should be able to be planed or sanded out and refinished. I suspect I may be able to glue two one-foot-wide boards to the two sides of this one, and have a full, nice countertop. But if there is any part that is unsatisfactory, I can replace it in whole or in part with the spare. It’s really a ‘we will see’ kind of thing. I have looked all the boards over, but I may have missed something, and I am ready to adapt as things progress.
My daughter drove to the school bus stop this morning as part of her logged practice required. We got to an intersection on the way where she was required to make a left turn, which she did alright. She lacked confidence, and who wouldn’t when there is a car behind, one coming the other way, and one waiting at the stop sign to the right? That last one was a rather expensive looking SUV with incredibly bright lights, daylight white LED’s. They followed us through as we made our turn. That’s when my daughter got a learning opportunity in patience. There is enough undulation in the road surface after that for a moment we could see our headlights illuminating the road, but when the car behind us came over too, our light all but vanished in the flood of their lights. It was only in the shadow of our car that we could see any of the coloring of our own lights.
I certainly understand driver safety and how nice it must be to see like they can. What I don’t understand is how we have come to the point where drivers are allowed to flood the road in front of them with so much light that anyone in another vehicle cannot safely see? How are people so selfish that they only care about their own safety, and don’t give a toss about others? Light like that would be valuable over 120 miles per hour, but at normal surface road driving speeds, it is not only completely unnecessary, but vision can be supplemented with technology that senses objects around such as that in the Tesla Model 3. When I got to ride in one of those, the in-dash screen was able to show a woman pushing a stroller in the crosswalk as she passed in front of the vehicle in front of us. Certainly, such tech can be adapted to highlight potential risks and alert the driver in a heads-up display or something. But rather, we live in the world where we would rather cause anger and anxiety to other drivers as we blind them while they drive.
The other driver did not take long to cut around and pass us, even though my inexperienced child was driving too close to the center of the road to properly allow someone to pass. Oh, she was there, but she left it narrow. By the time we had gone the last mile to the bus stop, the other driver had gone by fast enough to have been two miles ahead of us, driving at the posted limits. Whatever the other driver’s emergency, I wish them well.
I spoke briefly to two of my old friends going back to late elementary school days yesterday. It is none of your business what either of them had to say, but I will allow you to know that it was good, and I am glad to talk to them, always!
Enough for now. I will enjoy a little rest up while it warms up a little before I go out and get to work getting us ready for the last Farmers Market for this year.
Posted in Family Activities, Regular Update, Woodshop
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Wiffle Waffle
In the cool dark hours of morning, when I took the girls to the stop for their school bus, three does came across the property across the street from the bus stop and dashed down the embankment after checking for the road to be clear of coming cars. One of the little girls who jumped out of another car for the bus yelled to mine, “Did you see the deer?” I shared her enthusiasm for being able to be for a moment, close to natural things.
Now I am home, a couple more logs to refresh the fire, and despite the crackle of the stove as the heat transfers through it, and the sound of the fan generating electricity from the heat of the stove and turning seemingly on its own, I do not feel the enthusiasm of nature as I listed to the cracking sound of a mouse chewing on something behind one of the heater vents in the dining room. I don’t know how he got in there, but he’s not the first. This has happened before. They have some way under the house where they can get into the vents system. We don’t use the vents as we heat entirely without the furnace. But it is something that I should still look into before we ever sell the house. Meanwhile, I could do with going down to get a little poison to do the mice in around here. We have been getting more than our fair share as the seasons change. It’s what you get in a house that has seen more than a century of life.
I am free to work in the shop today. I have a long board out there that I have cut in half and jointed to match for glue up. It had a massive amount of cup and bow in it and would be impossible to use as it was. So, I am reversing it on itself to let it keep itself straight. If the other boards are straight enough to use in the glue up, I will put the split board down the middle of the tabletop and use it as a decorative feature. When the top is finished, it is meant to go on the kitchen island.
I want to get the glue done and get the posts into the shop for the woodshed. I keep complaining that I need to get that done, but I get distracted from outside work nearly every day for at least some of the time, then when I am free to go I am tired from the errands that distracted me, or just don’t feel up to it, or even distracted by something else. I need to get that building up in the air and some siding on it and purlins for the roof at least! I also need ot start telling myself I am closer to finishing the next step than I think I am. I could skip the glue up for now and get right to work on the posts and beams, but there is the pressure of needing warm enough temperatures in the shop for the glue to set. Decisions, decisions!
I am writing now while it is still chilly out. It will warm up soon and I will need to get up and get to work. I better figure out what to eat first. My stomach has given me a certain amount of hell since starting my diet. But in two months of it, I have had to tighten my belt nearly an inch and a half. That’s the most progress I have ever made. What’s more, I doubt I will easily get back into the same old habits as I seem to have trouble with foods from the old ways now. I started out the new diet with great troubles. I have sort of settled down a bit of not just gotten used to it. One’s body is not quite the same when it seems to begin to digest itself.
Missus is teaching a 4H class this evening, and we have our last Farmer’s market tomorrow evening. That’s enough business to keep us busy! I might see if I can film some of her products tomorrow in the booth to put to a sort of commercial that I can upload to our YouTube channel and then embed in our websites. Time for breakfast for now!
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Pain, Dr. Who, and War
I must have eaten something last night, perhaps the bread, or something else, or a combination of things. But what stands out was the two slices of toast I ate. I know I ate a couple of other things, but that was the one that stood out, even though I had some the other day. I had some carrots too. They are a root vegetable. They are not on my diet. I also drank a bit of milk, and by a bit, I mean quite a bit. I had one of the big mugs full.
The point is, today I felt like I did two months ago, and for so much of my life. I have had a good break from the pain, and now to have it come back on in its full force. It has come with great contrast, and I know better how much pain I have had to put up with in my old normal.
The pain has subsided a bit now. But I am feeling quite weak. The pain was pretty bad. But I remember it being just that when I was fully in this agony before I started the diet. The message here is, I don’t want to go back! To go from pain free to suddenly back in the thick of it, and to feel that contrast, it was pretty bad. I was hurting a lot more than I realized when I was going through it as a matter of course and a regular part of my life.
So, it was a brave venture, and I do need to figure out which it was that caused it. The cooked carrots were not a regular part of my diet before. Bread and milk were. I suspect it was them, or one of them. I am still inclined to think it was to do with the bread. I need to have a break for now and come back to this document when I am feeling better and try at the milk again. I expect zero effects. But honestly, I am not sure as I was never that big on bread before. Still, there is bread in all its other forms.
Missus is playing Dr. Who, and the episode where Rose and the Doctor meet Captain Jack Harkness in WWII is on. There is the child with the gas mask fused to his face, looking for his mother, calling over and again “are you my mummy?” Aliens and robots can come and go, and they can forever go on travelling around the universe all they want in this program, but this one episode hits too close to the reality of actual events as they depict the Blitz in 1941, especially as an actual doctor says, “before this war I was a father and a grandfather, and now I am neither, but I am still a doctor.” Americans act like they singularly beat back the Germans in the war, but it took winter in Russia, and the Brits in Europe to put a stop to them once and for all. We were involved, but so were the French in our Revolution. Britain went through absolute Hell. Children were shipped en mass from London, away from their families to the relative safety of the north, to never see their families again. Old me prepared in “Dad’s Army,” ready to hide while German troops were to pass, then emerge and sabotage after dark with instructions to keep going till they were dead. As much as we in America justify the nuclear bombing of Japan because we knew they would fight till the end, the Germans faced the same prospect against Britain. Where could it have gone?
The sight in the episode of the child in a gas mask, looking for his mother is terrifying because it is in part heartbreaking. There is no count of the number of such children who must have looked and done much the same during that awful war. No doubt someday we will venture down that path again. But we must try so hard to never. To be a pacifist is too passive. We must be in active opposition.
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Just a Bit of an Update
The weather is changed now, all of a sudden. Wednesday was the last good day we had of summerlike temperatures, then it started to rain Wednesday night, and it was windy and crap all of Thursday. It rained plenty, then Friday came along, and it was just cool. Today there was snow on the mountaintops, and the sunset was all the more spectacular for it. It is especially tolerable because there is still a lot of color other than white! When that time comes, things will be different!
We got the kids sorted on their Covid update today, and Missus taught a 4H class on polymer clay to some of the local young’un’s. It’s really cool that she has been able to do that, and I love that she is getting involved and doing such a thing as a volunteer.
After dropping Missus and our oldest off to do the class, youngest and I went to the store and bought some groceries and went home, put a winter soup on, and cleaned up in the house some. The soup had beef, carrots, potatoes, and onions. It was pretty basic. Missus volunteered two of her Oxo cubes from the UK to our soup. Well, put that in with the beef stock we used for the base, and the beef I seared and put in, and the outcome was amazingly beefy flavored. As in, it was one of the most amazing beef flavored anything I have had in a long time. I really enjoyed it! And when I came back down from playing a couple of rounds of a 3D headset game, I had some when I put the soup away from the crockpot into the fridge. Holy cow! It tasted even better! Pity all steaks can’t taste that good. Add a little salt, and really bring out the flavor to perfection!
I did the dishwashing twice today. That stemmed from the conversation I had at the Health Department with the lady who works the front desk. She asked how my diet was coming along. I had told her about it when I was in to schedule the jabs for today. I told her that I was not sure how I was ever going to give it up because of how my joint pain has gone since I went on it. I said to her that one of the troubles with a lifetime of feeling such pain is that I have not got the habit of planning a full day. I know that I can work from when I get up to ten or eleven, and I have to plan around that. Well, these days I can go all day, and I am not in the mental habit of planning that much to do in a day. So there is that change.
There is a physical aspect too, of course. I am not fit enough to keep up. But I am working on it.
I don’t yet know what I cut from my diet exactly that relieved me of the lifelong joint pain. I’d love to! It might be nice to not add it back again when I stop doing Keto.
It’s Saturday tomorrow. I will be helping Missus sort a couple of things out then getting to work on some of my projects. Don’t ask just which one yet. I will probably have to clear my workbench first though. I doubt there is going to be much more working outside this year, though only the weather can tell!
Posted in Special Update, Weather
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XX. As it fell upon a day
As it fell upon a day,
In the merry month of May,
Sitting in a pleasant shade
Which a grove of myrtles made,
Beasts did leap, and birds did sing,
Trees did grow, and plants did spring;
Every thing did banish moan,
Save the nightingale alone.
She (poor bird) as all forlorn,
Leaned her breast up-till a thorn,
And there sung the dolefull’st ditty,
That to hear it was great pity.
“Fie, fie, fie,” now would she cry;
“Tereu, tereu,” by and by;
That to hear her so complain,
Scarce I could from tears refrain,
For her griefs so lively shown,
Made me think upon mine own.
Ah (thought I) thou mourn’st in vain,
None takes pity on thy pain:
Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee;
Ruthless bears, they will not cheer thee.
King Pandion, he is dead,
All thy friends are lapped in lead.
All thy fellow birds do sing,
Careless of thy sorrowing.
Whilst as fickle Fortune smiled,
Thou and I were both beguiled.
Every one that flatters thee
Is no friend in misery.
Words are easy, like the wind;
Faithful friends are hard to find.
Every man will be thy friend
Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend;
But if store of crowns be scant,
No man will supply thy want.
If that one be prodigal,
Bountiful they will him call,
And with suchlike flattering,
“Pity but he were a king.”
If he be addict to vice,
Quickly him they will entice.
If to women he be bent,
They have at commandment;
But if Fortune once do frown,
Then farewell his great renown:
They that fawned on him before
Use his company no more.
He that is thy friend indeed,
He will help thee in thy need;
If thou sorrow, he will weep;
If thou wake, he cannot sleep;
Thus of every grief in heart
He with thee doth bear a part.
These are certain signs to know
Faithful friend from flattering foe.
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Candles, Lavender, and a Woodshed
The sun is setting on a Sunday evening here on the farm, and everyone is cozy and relaxing. It was hot today, the temperature getting up to 89.8 degrees, and even now, with direct sunlight gone, it is still 80°F. It was cool for long enough this morning to get some things done for the farm though!
We put in the Lavender plants that arrived on Thursday. The girls and I set up the row on Friday with two stretches of landscape fabric, and an overlapped gap between them. So, not really a gap, but more of a seam, but without any kind of joining. Well, whatever! The point is, we were then able to lay over the one piece of fabric and put the plants in today, then close up the gap again, so the plants are all surrounded close up and completely with the fabric.
We made a mistake and put some mulch around the plants. It’s not a lot, but I will have to clean it off soon. Then I will need to get some sort of pea gravel or something to work instead. Apparently, Lavender is not meant to have any water retaining material around it. It prefers the dry climate.
I am nervous about planting these so late in the year, but they apparently grow like this just fine. Imagine, we can get to -10°F or even less! At least they have some time to do their root work between now and genuine winter! But the forecast for tomorrow is only 72°F! And that’s the high!
We’d like to try the Christmas Tree candles at the Farmer’s Market in the middle of next week. I need to remember to put the wax melter on tonight before bed. It will probably take till midday or later tomorrow to fully melt all the wax that is in it. Then I start pouring little trees with little wicks in the top and put on little warning labels on the bottom. They are cute little trees. I think I have only one mold though, so I may need to order a couple of more to get some serious progress done on this project. I will if they sell well at the Market!
Well, that only makes some sense. There are two Market days left this year. It might be best if I have them ordered sooner and can produce some candles for the Market coming up. Best just get the melter going and keep pouring till it is empty! I don’t know if they will sell, but I cannot see why they won’t! I just had a look on Etsy for some more molds, and the kind I have is not there. But there is a different candle mold, but I am not too pleased with it. It is a little shorter than I think I would like. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I should just order it and a pinecone mold that I found on there. Okay, I checked Amazon, and of course I can get another mold like the one I already have and two of the pinecone molds delivered by Tuesday for about half the price of what I was expecting to pay on Etsy. As much as I like to support the small seller, I have to honestly justify with myself that I have no idea who is actually selling, and if they are not just reselling Temu. And the pinecone mold was also available there.
And maybe what I need to do is turn some bases for the candles? I could use can lids for the separator to help prevent a fire from forming on the wood. Maybe that is something I should try out at home first. Well, there’s some ideas, anyway. That’s the way it goes around here. Think something up, think up ways to do it, then think up the potential exposure to liability, and cancel the whole project.
Going back to the topic of Temu. I noticed that my spell check does not recognize the name and think I have misspelled something. Well, as far as I am concerned, the whole company should be deleted. They are undermining everyone who is even trying to run a small business. Missus sees it in particular on her online browsing. She has identified where items get sold by Temu that are copies of things she has seen from original makers. There are posts in creator groups saying “This is what I made! Show me yours!” Then they can copy the designs people post. The whole online space is unsafe for makers. Try to parse that out from the sellers who really are just reselling Temu products they have ordered and brought to markets. That should be worthy of getting people thrown out of maker themed markets and anyone claiming to be American Made. If a seller is willing to disclose that they are reselling Chinese crap, then fair enough, as long as it is clear and upfront. It should be posted on a webpage or market stall in large, clearly readable and prominent letters. Let them wear it with the pride it deserves.
Rant over for now.
The sin is down now. I have to go out and shut off the waterspout at the frost-free hydrant. I don’t want the hose to blow overnight. I left it on thinking I was going to water the new plants, but when I saw how little they actually like water, I thought better of it.
The week starts tomorrow. Kids to school! I need to get to work on the second woodshed bent. I would like to see it stood this week. I didn’t last week. I might not this week. There is a lot to do if I am going to properly brace it. I would like to get this project done so I can get on to other important things!
Posted in Candle Making, The Farm, Unfiled Customer Complaints
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