Lost An Old Friend’s Mom Today

Posted on January 17, 2025 by Kelsey

Got a message from an old friend today. His mom passed. Such sad news. It’s a tough thing to go through. I have good memories of the lady. She was nice, and very likeable. I wish the whole family well.

It’s been a busy day. I took the kids to their bus, came home and did the dishes, then had a little time to relax. Soon I was up and cleaning up the cast iron shelf and all the iron on it. It was a bundle of work. After that, I got to work on the firewood pile. While out there I put the chainsaw to the willow tree and trimmed it down some along the bottom. I think it will have a nice little room under it next year so long as I keep the new starts from intruding.

Okay, it did not take long to write about the day, but it was a lot of work.

The bummer of the wood is that it is from the tree that was out back of the house. I can see why a woodpecker was going to town on it. There were a lot of worms up there. That tree was in pretty bad shape. I am keeping the wood outside on the tractor bucket. I don’t want to bring any of it inside till it is time to burn it. Don’t want the insect life crawling around the house.

I need to put some of the cast iron out in storage. The iron shelf is much cleaner and clearer now. It is nice. It sure makes me happy.

Anyway, it is time for bed.

Posted in A Death, Journal Entry, The Farm | Leave a comment

At Bedtime

Posted on January 16, 2025 by Kelsey

I got out and worked in the tractor today moving long narrow-ish logs from the back by the sawmill to the Service Yard ready for me to cut down to burning length. It went pretty good sorting the ones big enough to use from the smaller stuff that I think would work well to burn outside. I left those on the dirt pile so I can pull them away next, and burin them and cook outside. Anyway, I will fill up the little chainsaw tomorrow and cut the big ones down and stack them tomorrow and clear them out of the yard.

After some working outside, I took Missus up to sort out her 4H course schedule. While she was in, I called and found out that Dominos is not hiring here. So that’s off the table for a quick fix on money. So, I will try again elsewhere. Meanwhile, she got months’ worth of courses sorted out, especially where the book club goes.

After we returned home, we soon had visitors and got to entertain all of the grandkids and their parents at once! The only one missing was our oldest who is at work in the oilfields. That was a great time, as it always is! We really enjoyed the lot of them.

Tomorrow, as I said, I will be cutting some wood down, and I plan on working on the chandelier, and searching the job market and putting in applications. I would also like to see about putting in some ads for tractor work such as spring tilling when the ground is thawed. I also need to get a firewood sales rack put together. That could help a bit. Then there is photography.

So, there is where I am as of tonight at bedtime.

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I made it to 4AM

Posted on January 15, 2025 by Kelsey

Up at 4AM to hit the loo, and put some wood on the fire to keep the house warm. That old woodstove is the heart of the house, I swear. Everyone genuinely gathers around it. I have come to understand how the hearth truly once was the heart of the home, historically. Perhaps that is why the words hearth and heart are so close a match to one another. If our house was better arranged and appointed, there would be two two-seaters in front of it with space for the whole family to sit comfortably. But doing that would put a little settee right in front of the door to the kitchen and the front door of the house. Who wants to come in the main entry and be blocked out by a big chair with its back to you?

To be fair, it was an alarm that woke me up this morning. I have one that goes off when the temperature outside drops to 20F. Below that temperature the pipe to the kitchen sink will freeze. If that happens, well, it’s anybody’s guess when it thaws again. It usually has to get above 45F in the day for that to happen. In a typical winter setting that can be anywhere from three or four days to a few weeks till that happens. And it could come with devastating consequences. I one had to pay a plumber $219 to come out and install $6 worth of PEX piping and two couplers. It was embarrassing because that was after talking the price down with him. But, if I obey my temperature alarms and get up and put a very slight trickle of hot and cold water on at that sink, it will not freeze, and I can sleep soundly. The trick is to put it on before I go to sleep, but that alarm will still wake me, because who knows when that temperature will be reached, and who wants to risk it? There is no way to turn it off easily, and I wouldn’t because it would have to be manually put back on, and who knows if I would remember to before the next freeze? All chances I would not want to take. So, I wake up once in the night once in a while! Better than not being able to wash the dishes in the kitchen sink easily. Better than replacing pipes. All these things in consideration and easily avoided by having an alarm connected to the thermometer outside.

I feel a little rough right now. Nothing on the joints, but on the tummy, for having eaten corn chips last night at bedtime. Yes, I had chips y salsa. I was craving the stuff after having not had it for some six months now. A staple of my former pallet, chips and salsa was a defining part of me, and I could normally eat nearly a whole bag of chips at one sitting. I finished a bit more than half of one last night before I could not. So my capacity is still shrunk, but I needed this. I just needed it. I am satisfied now, and satiated for hopefully the next six months so I can continue on with losing weight. It has been good to lose some, and I do feel better for it. I wonder how much better I could feel if I lose more. I mean, I think I am a lot healthier now, but I could be doing better, I am sure! It is a worthy goal!

Perhaps I can get some more sleep now before waking up to take the kids to school. I need to get out in the slightly warmer weather today to cut and spilt some firewood. I assumed by the warmer forecast that the sun will be shining a bit today. And tomorrow. And the next day. Sunshine makes a big difference in warming a fellow while he works in the winter days. Anyway. I have a bit of wood out there still, but the temperatures are forecast to drop in the next week or so and look more like a normal winter around here, finally. It seems we are on shortened winters now. That is not all that bad for this place. I think we could use more snowfall for the sake of the water supply. I also think the summers are getting a bit on the hot side, and I will have to adapt to working outside in the heat. Maybe that is something the diet will help me accomplish! Does a thinner man work better in hot weather? Does he tolerate it better? I have no idea! I have always been suseptable to heat stroke.

Oh, one last thought. That woodshed I stopped working on really could use finishing. That thing would have been sure handy to put the firewood into! I do not like working with the tarps, and it is not even snowy out! It is much worse with snow on them.

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Chandelier Making

Posted on January 15, 2025 by Kelsey

Building the chandelier still and decided today that rather than notching the bottoms of the stars, I would notch the arms, so I did that. Now I can get longer screws and put them through with some glue and fasten the stars down to the arms and hold the candle cups to the stars. Once that is done, I need a longer and larger screw to hold the bottom of the candle in the spindle. Once that is on, the only thing left apart from oiling it down is to put the eyelet in the top and hang it up. I want it at least two feet from the ceiling. That should keep it safe from burning the ceiling.

So that’s the progress for today. I got the notching done in my free time and set up one star for attachment to the final product. That establishes how the other three will be done. I’ll get to those tomorrow. If I get to town, I can pick up a couple of screws to finish the work up. Then I will set it up, photograph it, and set up a product page for the shop, and put it ready to sell for probably $250. Then I will make another, and do it better, then replace the photos and put it up for sale. I have a few improvements to do on production and design. But I think it will come out pretty good. And that’s it. When I get the pictures, I’ll post it here, too.

I called about the job today, but the manager was not in, so I will call again tomorrow. Perhaps. Perhaps.

Off to bed for now. I’ll probably write some more when I wake up at 2AM. What a laugh!

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Coming of Age

Posted on January 14, 2025 by Kelsey

My first year of high school I remember the upperclassmen talking about one of the teachers that had retired at the end of the year before. I don’t remember a name, or even a gender, to be honest, to go with this tale, but I do remember them laughing about how said teacher would come to class drunk and sometimes sleep through it. I had teachers that would come back from their brakes smelling of cigarettes, and if you could hear them on breaks they would talk about the conversations they had in that sacred space called the teacher’s lounge, where none of us were ever allowed, in part because of the smoking, and in part because of these conversations. Or maybe it was because of the liquor stash. But I caught a couple of the guys who taught neighboring classed once talking about what a lot of dumb shits some of us were.

This was no secret though. They would tell us to our faces, too! Only difference was, they would be a little more tactful. Rather than saying “you are a dumb shit!” They might use something like, “you are never going to amount to anything when you grow up, are you?” Rather than, “you are so stupid!” it might be, “I had a pickle in my sandwich at lunch that was smarter than you.” They would happily say that we were going to end up living on the streets. Never would they hesitate to tell us that we were as dumb as a box of rocks. It somehow seemed less direct than “you are an idiot.” But I would get the sense that they were cleaning it up not just for any kind of liability’s sake, or to not end up on the bad end of an argument with a parent. They were cleaning it up from the generation before them that would tell them they were idiots, and perhaps the generation before that would put a ruler across their knuckles.

We sure didn’t get ceremonies and trophies for every little accomplishment. And I am not saying I am against that, either! Hey, kids should be celebrated! But some of us are floated up like on a balloon. Some of us are dragged up. Some of us were kicked up. I am from the generation that was kind of dragged with the occasional kick. Hell, I was spanked for bad behavior in elementary school once by the principal, a creaky old man who had seen his best days before the war. Seriously! He would have been born around 1900. If having your ass tanned is a ceremony, then that was one of my best.

Things improved, even during the time I went to school. I saw the changes over the years I went. And now, I look in as a parent of two kids in school. They have serious attitudes against bullying now. I think when I was a kid, if a kid could not bear the bullying and intervened in their own life to stop it, then it was said of that kid that they could not hack it. It has a certain inevitability to it, like that was how Survival of the Fittest was interpreted back then. Many people still think of it that way, but they do a lot more to stop bullying, or to prevent it in the first place. I have got time for that. I was bullied quite a lot as a kid. There were people who made my elementary, middle, and high school life a pure and living Hell. I did not want to go. I hated being there. I feared some of these guys. And if I learned anything, for a brief while, it was how to hate. I grew out of that, and I honestly hold no ill will towards them. I don’t think much about them at all, except for something like this, an historical reflection. But I don’t have kids now who say of anything like this.

I did. I had one who went through a lot of bullying in school in England. It was both better there, and worse there. He had a teacher who quite literally hated him. We came across her in the grocery store one day, and he got all excited to see his teacher out in the real world. I watched him as he called her name, then looked at her and watched as she turned her nose up at him, turned herself and her daughter around, and huffed away. Never before or since have I seen a worse human being teaching children. That hurt him. At the time. After coming to the US, he got going in school and learned horse riding. Some time passed, and I asked him why I never hear about him being bullied anymore. His reply was, “When you learn to move a thousand-pound animal around, even the big kids at school don’t look so big anymore.” IT was one of the best moments in that I saw in his life. No more bullies! Well, non who could just get away with it, anyway.

Neither of the two kids still in school complain about the crap we put up with when I was a kid. Maybe the adults are the key! Maybe they are better at teaching them young not to be little jerks, and stopping them doing it when they are older. And maybe they are even better now at treating the kids with respect and not telling them their innermost feelings. Whatever the case, the ones of my generation who think that kids are being raised too soft would welcome back a world where people are deliberately rude to each other. I have got no truck with the world being a better place. Especially for the children.

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A Daily Check-In

Posted on January 14, 2025 by Kelsey

After finally getting someone who could help us sort out our financial side to the whole go to the hospital and think death is knocking at the door thing, today we are feeling a lot better about progress, and where we can get help that is actually helpful. We also got a report back saying things are looking on the up and up for Missus, and on top of all that, she seems to be feeling generally a bit better, though there are still problems that she has to overcome to feel 100%. It has been a struggle, that’s for sure. I can’t think of anything so scary or worse that didn’t result in someone ending up dead after. This has been harrowing.

We got some things sorted and then went to the store to buy a few things for the pantry, then came home and I soon went to pick up the girls from the bus stop. Home again, some chores done, and some firewood brought in, and I made them burgers for their tea. Missus got up from a short nap, and I made her the Chinese that we picked up at the store only a little while before. Tomorrow, I need to check in about a job I have applied for, I think, and maybe look up a few more to try out.

The heart of the problem for us seems to lay in marketing our businesses. We don’t know how to drive traffic through the door, as it is commonly said. We don’t know how to get interested people to come and see what is on sale, and what we have to offer. So that is something we either have to work out on our own, or I need to pay out to Zuckerberg for advertising, and trust in his algorithm that has already shown bias to me by preventing posts on my business page from being seen by even the people who subscribe to it. It all seems so out of human control and feels so wrong to me. For example, I don’t know if you have noticed it or not but spellcheck has gotten worse on the computer. Mine, at least. It seems that when I spell a word wrong by a letter, spellcheck offers almost every imaginable correction except for the right one. It used to always include the right word in the suggestions list. And to think; these people who write programs want us to ride in their cars driven by these machines. Not me. Not yet. So I don’t trust algorithms. I’d rather put up a sign.

I want to build a few prototypes and jigs for making production work out of what I prototype, so I can make something the moment it is ordered, or in batches. Then I want to put images of the prototype up on the website and offer it for sale. I’d be great with selling a couple of chandeliers and a few other objects per week, for example. I could probably live off that. I could at least pay my bills to some degree! Then I could branch out even more prototypes and more offerings. But again, I need to drive people to the website where things are for sale. Maybe that is where Etsy comes in? Maybe I risk too much in the way of idea theft there. Have you also noticed? Everything we make is being copied in China now. They scour the web and find things that they can make and sell, and they steal it, right down to the images sometimes, and then sell it from there. That is destroying the online small business culture in America right now, and none of our politicians are doing anything about it. The only thing we can really do is keep our stuff offline and only allow it to be seen by those who come to the shop. But as I said, we need traffic through the door. It is all very difficult.

Well, I may work on finishing my current prototype tomorrow. I would like to put together some sort of advertising. It would be great to find that careful balance. I see a QR code coming in our future. And some signs for the local shop bulletin boards.

But for now, I foresee bed, and a good night’s rest! I sure didn’t get that last night after I woke up at 2AM and could not get back to sleep.

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3AM Stuff

Posted on January 12, 2025 by Kelsey

When I say it is the middle of the night, I mean it is 3AM. It’s a fine time to type up a blog post. After all, who has got a mind at three in the morning? Me? Maybe. I spent yesterday with the kids helping Missus get some stuff organized so she can warp a couple of looms. That cleared a load of stuff out of the library and made the big loom accessible. It was good to just see her up and about and moving around. It was a real step in her healing progress. She did complain of pain, but obviously it was pain she could overcome to do that work, even though she was assigned to sit down while we did all the bringing to and taking from her, it really is progress, both in her, and in the house.

I am in the hunt for a job at the moment. We need to have an income to live on. It is time. But it is not going as I would like just yet. I am trying to find something that will at least balance my time off my feet, as I am not sure I have a full day of being up and about quite in me just yet. Driving is my best option at the moment. I also want time to be at home ant time in the shop. I think there is something there for me, if I can get building. At least, I want there to be.

We have got a couple of decent days in the coming week that would be easy to heat the shop. Perhaps I can get out then. I still need to put a tabletop on the Roman bench so I can work on the front porch. That space heats up nicely. The top would be an easy build. And it will be removable, so I can work at a more comfortable height when needed. I would put its legs into the dog holes on the Roman, then run them up to the top, and put then through there, then put some dog holes in the top itself, making it a work holding piece, too. It would cover about half the Roman, making it so I would sit across the Roman like I was sitting on a horse. Then I would have a push function on the top for planing and such.

But that’s not what I am wanting to work on just this week. I want to finish my chandelier. That is the one that is to be lit with candles. It is sort of primitive but would cast loads of light in a room during a power outage. I seem to have the candles around to do it. I have plans on how to finish the structure in my head. Just need to put tool to wood and get it done.

I have about a month’s worth of firewood on the pile right now, I think. Maybe three weeks. It always depends on how cold it is, doesn’t it? The way this winter has been going, maybe I could last till the end of next winter on what is left! But we are meant to see some highs in the teens a few days in the coming week, towards the end of the ten-day forecast. So maybe it will only last three weeks? I will pile on some more when I can this week. It’s such a weird winter. It snowed, yet there is no accumulation. That is so weird, and so dry to normal. Will Springtime in the Rockies hold something for us? Or are we genuinely going dry and turning to a desert here? It is not looking good for the agricultural situation here, if you ask me. But then, I have done nothing but pay attention to weather for the last 12 and 1/2 years here. It’s kind of been my thing in order to understand everything about the place that I can, as best I can.

For reasons of insanity, I need to get the door fixed on the mini-shed I built. It is too wide to close right now. All to do with the wood expanding in the winter weather. It is not off by much. But I can either hand plane the corner down that is stopping it closing or even hit it lightly with the chainsaw. Just need to knock down that one little bit to get it to shut again. Small detail, but should I be building anything to sell, that is a mistake I don’t want to make.

I am going to go back to sleep soon. I just made the mistake of putting on a video by Bloomberg which is discussing the coming tariffs. I don’t have any confidence in this scheme at all. It looks like the intent is total economic isolationism. If they are imposed, I think it will all but end international trade for this country. That is going to hurt us a lot more than it will bother anyone else. China will take over the rest of the world as they trade with every place we have left a vacuum. I seriously think that if everything is implemented on trade and immigration, we are going to see near feudalism coming. The interviewee on this program is Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize winner and he is not looking forward to what is coming. So, I don’t think my fears are misplaced. He has called US healthcare a nightmare. We have a much larger welfare state than we like to imagine. The retirement system is pretty good. But there are things where we should be doing more, that are obviously on hold for the next few years. Our problem in the US is that we don’t learn from other countries that do things right. He also is calling the US economy right now in very good shape. It has 1999 vibes right now. So, let’s see what comes of new policy. He sees us having stagflation coming with the new policies, and the books will be cooked to look better than it really is. He has said to bookmark this, and watch. I agree. The man once cooked a weather forecast.

Right. Off to bed.

Posted in Candle Making, Journal Entry, Weather, Woodshop | Leave a comment

A Title to End All Titles

Posted on January 8, 2025 by Kelsey

It is frustrating that I went to college for the better part of four years in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree in Photojournalism in the end, but because of not being able to finish due to what? Financial difficulties! I was not certified at any level along the way. There is no value to the years I spent because I don’t have any kind of degree, even an associate. So, all those liberal arts courses, the studies in World History, Western Civilization, Politics, Philosophy, Oceanography, all mean nothing. They are just a pile of classes I once took. But they don’t amount to a hill of beans when looking for a job. “Her eI sit all broken hearted! Paid my penny and only farted!” What does living in the UK for eight years add up to in job experience that would get me hired for anything in Preston, Idaho? There is a lot of manufacturing and production. I am no good at that as despite having overcome a great deal of joint pain that I have had all my life, I still have only a certain tolerance for standing and walking and moving about. Whatever talent I have is on the verge of being lost to looking for some menial job while I pay bills. And believe you me, the powers that be, the oligarchy, they don’t give a toss. Best I have got is to work what I can at something that is a bit forgiving, then do what I can in my wood shop with talent. I want work/life balance. I want time with my wonderful family. That is irreplicable! I never worked out what my total time spent in college was, but it adds up to around three and a half years on heavy scheduling. So, the coursework completed, credits taken, may be over four.

The first year I had to get special permission to take my classes. Eighteen units was full-time, and more than that was considered more than full-time. I took twenty-six credits that first semester, and I think only one class less than that the next. But that was me, then. Trying to catch up for a late start into higher education.

So, here I am, fifty-three, and looking for work in a mountain valley. I have a place to live, and hobbies, and people to involve my life in. My age is against me. The fact I spent the last twenty years raising kids is against me. Incompletion in college is against me. And a few other things, too.

I put in an application to drive the school bus for the local district that my kids attend. I would have thought that was a good fit, giving me a chance to maybe take the kids with me on the route, then to and from school as a part of that. I liked the idea of working morning and afternoon, then having the middle of the day free to build up my own business. I liked the idea of having my evenings with my kids. But the job requires a class B license with a passenger endorsement, and getting that, apparently requires about $1,500. I don’t yet know if that is training or licensing, but I think so far that the license is only about $30. So maybe that is training that the district is not willing to cover. They are likely looking for retired truck drivers. But for me, it works out to basically a no. Though I would benefit from getting the license and feeling more confident about hauling my logs and tractor around. Then I could be more confident in hiring out for tractor jobs around town, and getting some day work that way. It is hard to get it locally, because I live where having a tractor is all but mandatory, and everyone help each other. It’s the folks up in town that need the help, and I could provide best for.

So, now I am considering pizza. Yup, back at that again. Generally quick money from tips, decent money from tips and wages, and of course, hard on a car and hard on an insurance policy. Not ideal. But I may have to take the chance on doing that. I would like about 30 hours a week, and still able to be there for the kids. But I would lose evenings without a doubt. The best money comes in the evenings. Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays are good. That’s if nothing much has changed in the business. Maybe we will see, unless some other opportunity presents itself. But I will need to drop in an application soon. Money is not an unlimited resource.

Next trick is to build up a business of my own. If I can get that going, then the following action is to reduce to just the business. My business. So, it works, or it doesn’t. But I have got to try. One life to live, and all that.

Even now I am sat here in the morning, typing. I am sore. I know why. I had burgers last night, and they had bready buns. Bread is poison to my joints. It doesn’t seem to take much to get me feeling off, tired, and like it is hard to move about. Between the effects of bread and milk, I have worked out a lot of what has been wrong with me all my life. Keep those out, and I can do a pretty healthy run through the days of my life. Better mobility, less frequent trips to the loo. I have got this. But last night I had two burgers, and the bread on those has knocked me low this morning. At least I know why!

Pacific Palisades is on fire right now in California. My beautiful home state is on fire yet again. It is how it is going to go forever more. Soon enough we will get another complaint that if only the people of California would just go rake leaves, the fires would not happen. I have heard it before. It was just about the stupidest thing I have ever heard, and it is so hard to believe what it pays to be the idiot that says such nonsensical BS! You got time to go catch a bus out to the sticks and rake leaves in an uneven landscape, to put them… where? And do it while not accidentally starting a fire among you and your crews? Yeah, good times! Not at all realistic. But it pays something like $400,000 a year to stand there like an idiot and suggest that like someone should be taking it seriously.

I hate seeing California burn. It is such a beautiful place. I remember being there when Baldwin Hills burned, and a load of houses were lost. That is scary stuff. I drove through Santa Barbara burned in ’90, and some 300 houses were lost then. Paradise was an omen of things to come. The frequency of fires is getting faster, and then there are earthquakes to boot. On top of all that, there was that tropical storm that just about made it ashore as a hurricane a couple of years back. Mudslides and riots are also a thing there, and if you have ever been on any Los Angeles freeway, at all, then you know about what an unnatural disaster that is. But as for me, I am taken by that shoreline. Put my just about anywhere on it, and I am a happy fellow!

Today I need to get the firewood going. We are nearly out, and hey! Look at that! It is January 8th! Over two months of winter left! Just about how long we have been burning already. Then there will be the time required for Spring warmup. Will that come early, and summer be over hot again? Or will it be one of those wet springs where we get a huge pile of snow? I don’t know how I feel about predictions right now. Take it and see.

Posted in Journal Entry, Politics, Weather, Woodshop | Leave a comment

Merry Times!

Posted on January 8, 2025 by Kelsey

We attended the virtual meeting with the doc in Salt Lake and got a good report from her about Missus’ progress and healing. She has a little way to go, but it should be manageable, and the doctor anticipates good results. Without going into full details, it was a good report overall, and had promise for her future. So, however bad it was, things should be on the up and up, now. So, I am excited! Damn Excited! That was a scary episode!

Driving a school bus does in fact require a commercial driver’s license. Shows how much I know where I thought that because the school bus is on two axles, it would qualify under a class C. It doesn’t. At 26,001 and above it qualifies for a class B, and with more than 16 people on board including the driver, it qualifies for a P endorsement. The cost, according to the kids’ bus driver to get that license is $1,500. Don’t sound like the school would cover that. I cannot. But I will look through the manual and see if that is the cost of driving education or the price of the licensing fee. I will read the manual through and get to where I can pass the test either way, as it won’t hurt me to know since I have a trailer and a tractor that is heavy to ride on it. I’d rather have the additional skill.

So it is back to the job hunt again, looking for something that will produce a valid work/life balance and enough money to eat on. I need to have some time off my feet if I am going full time. So that’s where driving is appealing to me. Well, and other reasons, too. I love the office with a panoramic view of the city, reclining bucket seats, and my own sound system. I just don’t care for the wear and tear on my own vehicle. And that’s what puts me off it, especially for now. I’d end up having to get a new, or much newer car. I don’t want the expense. I don’t want the commitment.

Bedtime is in twelve minutes, and it is 21.3°F out right now. I am going to get the fire in the stove going then go to bed and dream of what to do with Greenland. After all, I can’t think of anything yet.

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A Decent Day

Posted on January 7, 2025 by Kelsey

Time for bed. I am happy with how the day went. Missus is feeling a bit better and was able to do some work on some of her looms. I went out to the shop and did some cleaning up and I also fixed the Roman workbench. That took turning a leg with a tenon, putting a cut down it with the grain, then hammering it in followed by wedging it. It was a good time! I really enjoyed it. I sanded the leg, but that did not take much work. It was pretty good off the skew. The tenon was too large by the time I had cut the scrap off the end. So that took a little work with a spokeshave. But it came out pretty good. It went right in with a few blows from the hammer. I didn’t use a mallet. You know, a person gets out of the shop for a bit and the obvious slips out of his mind.

I spoke to the girls’ bus driver very briefly today. He said he would talk to the boss tomorrow when he is back in work. That was so nice of him to say. I would be quite happy with that. I am not sure when they are hiring, so that will be important to find out.

It is going to get below 20F tonight and all the way down to 8F tomorrow night. The winter cold is finally coming! I opened Facebook today for a moment. It showed me a memory on my timeline in the form of a picture of January 5th, 2017. There was well more than a foot of snow on the house, I think. We are clear outside today. Nothing significant to show. It has been too warm for the snow that has fallen to stay. Amazing.

So, that’s the significant stuff for today. I have to get to sleep now. The End.

Posted in Journal Entry, Regular Update, Weather | Leave a comment