My Grandfather's Legacy...

  There is a grandmother clock that stands in my living room.  It's a simple clock as clocks in the "grand" category go, and I think that is one of the things that endears me so much to it.  It was built by my grandfather for his wife in 1972, the second of four clocks he built.  

 My grandfather had a woodworking shop in his basement.   He had all the major power tools that made up a woodworking shop, as well as the unpowered tools of the trade.  It was a hobby that kept him busy after he retired.  

  He was more then happy to show my brother how to use them.  I remember because I watched.  Back then, it was something a boys learned in high school.  "Shop" was where you learned how to handle tools and make things.  Basics in carpentry.  Back then I was in home economics, sewing and cooking.  Not that I minded learning those two skills, but I always wanted to take shop.  Back then, it wasn't something girls did.

  I can remember playing around in my Dad's shop in the cellar.  The only power tool I used back then was the drill, and that was mounted in a bracket on the top of the work bench.  Mostly I used a hand saw or drill.  I remember making a plane out of wood scraps.  It would have flown like a brick, but it had wings and a propeller that spun.  I was pretty proud of it at the time.

  In junior high I wanted a book shelf for my room.  We'd looked high and low, but I never found anything I wanted.  So I designed one and my grandfather built it for me.  I also designed a shelf to hold all my painting and drawing supplies, although I can't remember if my grandfather or my father built that one.  

  I'd always wanted to learn how to use those tools myself.  So in the last few years, when I had some credit time built up at work, I've asked the guys in the shop to help me learn.  It started with a simple project.  The wood bench had rotted out and I wanted to replace all the slats.  Dave helped me rout the wood and drill the hole in the precut boards.  Then I varnished them.  Simple.

  From there I thought of a few more things to build, things we've needed, a cabinet for DVDs, book shelves, the cover for a putty colored metal file cabinet to make it match the desk it sits next to, a box from Sandy's log.  The problem over the years has been that I tend to think of projects that are insanely beyond my skill level.

  When we moved into the house the windows had been trimmed with 8 foot cedar boards, 2.5 inches wide, stained, painted peach and then painted white by the previous owners.  We took those boards down 6 years ago and put them in the garage thinking we might use them for something one day.  Then about a year ago, we received some nice pine boards a friend had used for shelves.  That got us thinking.  We needed more space for our DVDs.  I could make two cabinets that fit under the windows in the dinning room.  We could use both the pine and the cedar to do it.

  Remember the comment about projects insanely beyond my skill level...  Yeah, I'd done it again.

  I started the cabinets the week after Thanksgiving, only working on them after I'd put in my time for the day.  We're allowed to use the tools in the shop at work as long as it doesn't impact the real work being done down there.  All the cedar needed to be stripped and sanded, as did most of the pine.  That took a week.  Joining the cedar to make the doors and cutting and assembling the the shelves took another, especially since I kept thinking of details to make them nicer, like the blind rout on the top, or the inset for the back board.  In the end, I finished the final sanding and putting on the handles the last afternoon before vacation, using all my accumulated credit time and some vacation time to get them done.  I still had to stain them, and that I did in our garage the week before Christmas.  

  The cabinets turned out fantastic.  They fit where they are supposed to fit and they even match some of the other wood in that part of the house.  More importantly, they are what we wanted.  A narrow cabinet, custom built for the space.  We've always had trouble finding furniture to fit where we wanted it to go or how we wanted it to look.  Being able to custom make a piece is nice to be able to do, and I'm glad work allows me to use their tools on my time.  

  I've always had a desire to make things.  It is my craft, be it crocheting, or painting, sewing or stained glass, even photography fulfills the urge to "make".  I get a deep satisfaction from creating things.  I liked to watch my grandfather in his shop, although it didn't happen often.  These days, when New Yankee Workshop is on, I love watching Norm Abrams build things.  A part of me loves to know how things work and fit together and wood working always fascinated me.  

  I still have the bookshelf shelf Grandpa built for me.  The clock chimes the hour and the half hour in the living room.  Reminders of my grandfather.  These days when I think about something to make from the wood we have lying around, I think about my grandfather and his tools in the cellar.  I think I inherited the woodworking gene from him.  While it's only a small part of my desire to build things, I think that it has always been there.  I think it always will.   Work has given me the tools to explore that legacy.  And to that end, I think Grandpa would be very proud.

  

When something in the pantry stares back at you...

  I opened the pantry yesterday morning to check and see if there was anything else we needed before we went shopping and found myself staring at a small beady pair of eyes.  

  There was a lizard in the pantry.

  We have no idea how long he'd been in there, but Nyala was chasing something in there the other day.  We figured, in hindsight, that it was the lizard.  That dude either made it from the porch, which was a hell of a run with two cats in the house, or from the garage, an equally perilous, but much shorter dash.

  My first try to catch him was unsuccessful as he darted in behind the spaghetti sauce and the mushrooms, so we left him to explore the pantry while we went shopping.  Most everything in there is in ziplocks and we didn't figure he could do much harm.  Besides the girls would keep him cornered.

  When we got back from shopping, Edward opened the pantry to the same pair of eyes, from the same place on the shelf as I discovered him.  Again he disappeared behind the condiments.

  As Edward started putting things away he jumped down a shelf.  I grabbed a tupperware container thinking I could perhaps get it to drop into that.  As I moved the container in he bolted forward and I snatched at him, first missing, then snagging his tail.  One quick move more and I had him in the tupperware, still holding his tail and covering the rest of the top with my other hand.  "Got him!  Um, a little help here.  Could you get the door?"

  I set him down outside the front door and he scurried away, looking back and looking confused.  It isn't the first time I've caught a lizard, but it was the first one I've ever seen in the pantry.  Maybe he'll tell his friends that we're a lizard friendly house.  Mostly.  I don't think he ever saw the girls.  Either way, I hope he tells his buddies that, friendly or not, it's not cool to hang out in the big guy's house, cause getting caught doesn't usually have such a happy ending.

Milestone

  I've had my Rav4 for more then 9 years.  I love it.  And if I can, I'd like to drive it for another 9 years. Maybe even longer.  But in the mean time, it crossed a milestone this month.  100,000 miles.  This is the second car I've driven over that milestone.  It's hard to believe I've had the Rav that long.  It's still going strong.  I still think of it as new-ish.

  Hopefully, it will will keep going strong.  I've never had a car that made 200,000 miles.  Maybe, if I'm really nice to it, this one will.

Two Snake Morning.

When we got back from our walk this morning and I was getting ready for work, I noticed this guy on the palm tree outside my bedroom window.

He looked like he'd been perched there all night and was quite comfortable. I got out the big camera and the tripod, cause it was overcast and the light was low. Got to play a little with the depth of field on the image and could use a nice slow shutter. He wasn't moving and the breeze hadn't picked up yet.

Then I finished getting ready for work. I cracked the door to the garage and hit the garage door opener, grabbed my bag and swung open the open for light, because the light in the laundry room was already out. Then I heard this "spat" sound and looked out to see another snake on the garage floor between the cars. Near as I can guess, this guy had been sleeping on one of the support struts of the garage door (on the inside) and had just been unceremoniously dumped. What a rude awakening. I yelled for Edward cause the last thing I wanted was for him to crawl under and up onto the Rav4. Fortunately or unfortunately, I think this guy was a little stunned. We chased him out of the garage with a couple of brooms, slowly as it turned out. He just wasn't moving very fast. My best guess is that he spent the night in the garage. Yesterday, after the bug man came we left the garage door open for about 20 minutes. It had been raining hard when I left for work and I'm guessing he crawled in then, and settled in the door struts where it was cool overnight.

He was a corn snake, about 4 feet long and really pretty. I didn't have the big camera so the picture isn't that good. He wandered off into the front yard with a little coaxing. Hope he was OK. Perhaps he should try sleeping on palm branches instead.

Into History....

As the Space Shuttle Atlantis rolled to a stop on the TV, the final, quiet sonic boom crossed the house and passed into history.

10 Inches...

10 inches. That's how much hair I had cut off the other night. It's a pretty big thing, actually, since 4 years ago I barely had a quarter of an inch of hair on my head.

Those of you who know me know my hair. It has a mind of it's own. See, my hair and I have an agreement: It does what it wants and I like it. It's worked out over the years. It's much less stressful to let wavy hair wave, rather then try to get it to curl, or not, in the style of the moment.

Mom always kept my hair short when I was growing up. What's cuter than a little girl with curly red hair? I always hated getting my hair cut. As I got older, I tried to convince Mom to let me grow it longer. Our first compromise was a shag cut, a mullet if you will, that makes me shudder now at the thought of it. Finally, some time between grade school and high school I started growing it out, and except for a few mid-length years in college it's been long ever since.

Until 2007.

In January 2007 I was diagnosed with breast cancer and after surgery came chemo. You all know what chemo means. Breast cancer is pretty traumatic, and anything you can do to feel like you have control over the situation is worth doing. So before I started chemo, I cut my hair short. Three inches short. I hadn't had hair that short since I was in 5th grade.

My wavy hair immediately coiled like a stretched spring that had been released. The waves turned into curls. Needless to say that didn't last long. Four weeks later, chemo did it's thing. I have to tell you, if I never see the shape of my own skull again, it will be too soon.

It was May when my hair started to grow again. By the end of June chemo was over and it was definitely making a comeback. The ends, as they grew out, twisted into ring curls, the rest of it followed suit. It gave new meaning to the term "curly" and remains curlier then it was before chemo even as it got longer. Fortunately, it also remains it's brilliant red, something I am very happy about.

There was a day when I didn't like the color of my hair. Until junior high I didn't know any other redheads. I was called "carrot top" and "fire head" and all the other names kids think of when they want to pick on you. I hated my hair color. It made me different at an age when nobody wants to be different. My grandmother used to tell me that everyone was jealous of it, that's why they teased me. She said I would love the color of my hair one day. You know what, she was right. Today I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Friends kept asking if I was going to let it grow again or keep it short. Everyone said it was cute when it was short. My cute days are long gone. I'm too old for cute. So I let it grow out again, only cutting my bangs when they got in my eyes. It was just down to my waist. It had also gotten to the point where, curls and all, it was getting hard to manage.

I've donated hair to Locks of Love 3 times, the last time right before chemo started. This will make 4 donations. The minimum length to donate is 10 inches. They use it to make hair pieces for children who have no hair, and can't afford to buy a wig. I can't think of a better thing to do with it. Lord knows I have a lot of it. My ponytail is over an inch across. It seems like its only fair to share.

My hair now sits right at shoulder length. The ring curls haven't returned, but it's still curlier then it was before. It makes me feel good to know that my hair might make someone happy. Some of the kids that Locks of Love help have also lost their hair to chemo. I know how they feel. If my hair goes to someone who is going through chemo, and I can somehow make it easier for her (or him) to get through that tough time, then it's worth it to me. I'll do it again, too, and this time it isn't going to take four years to grow it long enough to give away.

Not a good sign....

Our ficus tree is definitely a tropical plant. So much so that it takes freezes hard. Really hard. Two years in a row may be more then it can take.

Last summer, after a particularly tough winter for it, we had it trimmed. The tree was more then 30 feet high and much more then we could handle, especially since part of it hung over the house. The tree had started growing back and looked like it was going to make it. The tree service cut it back to the level where the growing back. We hoped it would fill in over the next few years, shading the porch again as it has for much of the last decade.

This January brought another freeze, and the ficus took it hard again. And while didn't loose all it's leaves like it did the January before, it lost enough of the "new" growth to be concerning.

Fast forward a few months.

We noticed a woodpecker busily tapping away at one of the upper branches, back in April. Then we noticed that many of the big trunk-sized branches had loose bark and fungus growing them. Not just on one, but many of them, all over the tree.

I planted that "tree" when we first moved into the house 17 years ago. It was originally a houseplant consisting of many ficus saplings, all in one pot, I had bought for my apartment when I lived at the Willows. After we'd learned that the former owners had taken out an oak tree to put a pool in the back yard (something that never happened), we planted the ficus as a replacement, along with several other trees. Little did we realize how big it would get, or how we would come to appreciate the shade it provided for the house, the porch and the living room during the brilliant Florida summers.

The other day I noticed something white on one of the trunks. The next round of fungus attacks had begun. While the south part of the tree looks stronger, with it's bright green leaves shiny and looking strong, the north side appears to be struggling, the leaves dull and streaked yellow green.

The question now becomes will the tree as a whole survive? I don't know if what were once individual saplings, are now so merged and intertwined that they are truly one tree, and if so, can it survive half of it's trunk rotting and dying from within. One thing is certain, however, fungus growing on its trunks is not a good sign.

It's hard to say if the tree will survive. The base of this tree as about 3 feet across. It has, or at least it did have, a lot of reserves to survive a freeze. Most of those reserves are exhausted now. I've seen other types of trees survive being hollowed out from within. Maybe this one will also. Only time will tell. Time and no freezes for the next few winters.

Down...

I love clouds. There is something amazing about watching a thunderhead boil into the summer sky, knowing that rain is on the way. The contrast between the bright white and brilliant blue of the summer sky is beautiful, powerful and inspiring.

But every once and a while I get to see clouds in a different way.

Instead of the flat bottom of the point of view we all normally see, the clouds take on an entirely different character from above.

It's a landscape that changes in moments as you zoom by, with mountains ranges as transient and ephemeral as their earthly cousins are solid.

You can find yourself in the midst of a forest of cumulus towers punching holes through higher, thinner clouds,

... or looking down on rolling hills set among flat planes with only clear sky above, while you wonder that those clouds you thought were so high up now seem so low, their shadows playing gracefully across the surface, creating patterns and shapes as fascinating as the clouds themselves.

I'll always love flying amongst the clouds. They can look so solid...

...yet you could pass right through them.

So I'll keep my eyes looking skyward when I'm on the ground, looking for the play of nature in all her glory.

But when I'm flying, I'll be looking down instead of up. Because those are the times when I can see the clouds from an entirely different perspective. One that's as unique and ever changing as the days themselves.

Up..

Last month I went to Miami on a business trip. I didn't
just go to Miami, I went to MIAMI... as in Downtown, as
in the Center Of The City, where there are a lot of buildings.

Tall buildings.

Really tall buildings. You stand at the bottom
and look up. Way UP.

It made my neck hurt.

Some of them we residential...

...but more of them were banks. Miami is a banking center.
Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citi. They were all there.
There were others.

Doesn't look like the building you'd find on the corner
of Park St and Main, does it?

They even lit them up at night, so you could still see them.
Wouldn't want to loose something that big in the dark, would
you? You might trip over them, or something.

I guess I'm not much of a city girl. These man-made canyon
walls were just too unnatural for me. The noise and bustle
of the traffic as it ebbed and flowed along the streets
made me wish for quieter, greener places.

Miami was nice to visit. But in the end, I'd rather be
in the middle of nowhere, looking up at one of these...

...than a forest of these.

Territorial Boundaries...

Like two confused warblers, the cries of the loaders call out not their territories, but their retreats in the cool morning air...

We Needed The Rain

Storms move onshore.
A crow caws on the light post.
Protector or trickster, message or omen.
A sign of things to come?

The clouds move over us,
Cats careen from room to room.
Thunder rumbles and lightening flashes.
The sky is only bright to the east.

The wind swirls and blows.
Rain runs from the roof in rivulets.
The birdbath fills and overflows,
Watering newly planted seeds.

The storm passes.
The crow moves on, his job completed.
The message from the gods:
No tricks today.

The western sky brightens.
The dark clouds retreat to the east.
I like crows.
We needed the rain.

Fly Away....

Female Bald Eagle - St Petersburg, FL

The Norfolk Botanical Gardens have hosted a live Eagle Cam for several years now. The cam allowed people literally all across the world to watch a pair of wild bald eagles raise their young without disturbing them. I fell in love with this pair of eagles about a year ago, as they were raising last years brood of three chicks. This year, the pair had another brood of three chicks, a testament to the parents themselves and the resources near by. This was the third year, at least, that this pair had a clutch of three eggs.

These were wild eagles. The parents weren't banded. The female was thought to be 15 years old. The male a few years younger. Each year researchers would raid the nest twice, once to band the chicks, measure them, weigh them and use that information to determine their sex, and a second time to place a tracking transmitter on the biggest, oldest chick, so they could continue their research and track their movements once they'd left the nest. A local tree service volunteered a climber to help first lower the chicks, then raise them back to the nest each time.

The parents and the chicks never receive names. They were simply "the female", "the male" and after banding "NV", "NX" and "NZ" for the chicks this year. But even without names, we grew to love them. That's why it hurt so much when the female was struck and killed last Tuesday by a plane at the international airport nearby. The area around the airport is prime hunting and fishing habitat. The Gardens themselves a protected space ideal for raising young eagles. The state of Virginia used the Cam to increase the knowledge of eagles in the wild and to raise awareness of eagles and their lives. The bird strike was an accident.

People poured in sympathy and sorrow to the moderated blog that the NBG runs. During nesting season, people can write in to ask questions. Teachers used the Cam as a teaching tool to help their students appreciate these majestic creatures. We all learned about the lives of the eagles. Little did we realize that they would also teach us about death in the wild, and the impact that we, as humans, have on the natural world.

The male continued to bring fish to the nest the next morning, and after waiting a short time for the female to return, started feeding the chicks himself, something he'd done before. But by mid-morning Tuesday, there was no need to bring any more fish.

Researchers and conservators moved quickly to do what was best for the chicks survival. Feeding three hungry, growing eaglets is a tough job for two capable parents, but it would soon become too much for the male. Without enough food the eaglets could become weak or sicken. Worse, they could begin to turn on each other, perhaps pushing the youngest, smallest chick from the nest. Instead, the researchers decided that the best thing was to remove the three chicks from the nest and raise them in captivity, isolated as much as possible from humans, so that when ready, they could be released into the wild to live as they would have had their mother survived.

What surprised me was how sad I felt for the eagles. I would check in on them once a day for a few minutes to see what was going on. I would try to figure out which parent was on the nest and was getting pretty good at it. The females are larger then the males by about 25%, as are all raptors. The chicks, at 5 weeks old, were just starting to get their permanent feathers, and in the last day or two had started picking at the fish their parents left behind while hunting, learning quickly to feed themselves. Now the nest looks empty and bare. Ironically, this female lost her mate to a plane strike in 2003. The next year she returned to the Gardens with a new mate, the male we love today. Tuesday afternoon after the chicks had reached their new home, the Cam showed the male sitting on the nest eating fish he'd brought for the chicks. It about broke my heart. I feel like I have lost one of my own...

They say he'll move on in a few days. That he will mourn and grieve his loss, but not the way we do. Remorse and sorrow are human traits we attribute to the animals we love. Still, I can't help feel for this male, who first lost his mate, and then lost his family. They say instinct will be his guide, but nature can be a harsh mistress, especially when humans are involved.

Hopefully, the male will find a new mate. The area has a number of other eagles. Maybe he'll bring her back to this nest in the Gardens as the female did with him. And if he does bring her back, we'll all be there next year, watching the eagles on the Cam, raising a new family in the skys over the Botanical Gardens, free and brave and wild.

For updates on the NBG eaglets visit:

Wildlife Center of Virginia - 2011 NGB Eaglets page

Norfolk Botanical Gardens - Eagle Cam (see the moderate chat on the right)

On Commission

I just finished my first, ever, commissioned crochet project. A friend at work asked me if I would be willing to make a blanket for her friend's new baby boy due in March. She had remembered that I had made a blanket for a mutual friend many years ago. She said she wanted something special. I said sure I thought I could do that for her, but I had a few other things to finish first.

I did a little research on line to see what other people were charging for hand-made baby blankets. Some people charged by the hour and up to $10-15/hr, some just charge 3X cost of materials, while others just covered cost of materials. Prices ranged from $30 to $300 or more.

The blanket I made before this one, for a different friend of mine that just had a baby, took me about 15 hours to make and 7 skeins of yarn (cost: $33). For the 3X cost model, that would have been about $99, but ND and I agreed on $110 and I would pay for the yarn. I think that was fair. I didn't want to gouge her, and she wanted to pay a fair price for the work.

I didn't keep track of the hours and I only needed 6 skeins (and still had enough for the bonus hat). It took about 3 weeks to make, working on it when we were watching TV ("I Claudius" helped a bunch), and a little before going to bed, but otherwise no real rush. The baby was due on March 5th, so I had plenty of time (except that babies being babies, he decided to arrive 2 weeks early. Oh well.)

I brought it in for ND on Monday. I worried while I was making it that she would be disappointed in it, or she wouldn't like the colors I picked or whatever. I guess I shouldn't have worried. She flipped out when she saw it, absolutely loved it. Especially the hat. I'm glad. Today she handed me $120 and said keep it, it's worth it. Um.. OK. Thanks.

Hope the new mom and dad like it. I hope it's something they will cherish. And I hope, really hope, the hat fits, cause I have no idea how big this little boy's head is.

Playing With Power Tools: Sandy's Box

More then a decade ago, I stopped by one of the roadside firewood venders on a cold Florida night. I'd been thinking for a while that getting one log, complete with bark, would make a great scratcher for the cats. Thomas and Sandy both seemed to like scratching on something rough, and I'd seen other neighborhood cats scratch on the trees outside.

I asked him how much for one log. I have cats and one log would make a great cat scratcher. He looked at me kind of funny, but smiled and said take any one you like, no charge. Thanks. I picked out a log that had some good bark, and looked pretty solid. Perfect.

I brought it home and put it out on the porch. Unfortunately, none of the cats thought much of it. They sniffed it a few times, then walked away. Oh well, it was worth the shot.

Over the next few years it sat out on the porch. After a while we set it up against the milk crates, thinking the more elderly of the cats might like it as a ramp up to the top. Not really, but after Edward drilled a few holes in one end and used some string to tie it to the crates, Sandy did actually start using to climb up on the crates. As her eyesight got worse, she started walking up it with her front paws, and when she reached the top, hopped up with her back paws.

The log remained out on the porch for a few more years after Sandy died, but eventually, we took it down and put it in the garage where it stayed for a number more years, until Jan 2010, when we almost took it with us to the Cabins in Myakka and burned it. At the last minute, I changed my mind. I get overly sentimental sometimes, but I wasn't ready to let that log go, so we put it back in the garage where it stayed for another 12 months, while I waited for the inspiration to hit. What could I do with that log?

This past December it hit me, but too late to do anything for X-mas. In January, I snuck the log to work. I had a plan.

It still took another 2 weeks to get started. I almost waited too long. I was afraid of screwing it up, ruining the wood and my idea. Edward's Birthday is the end of Feb, and if I messed it up, I wasn't sure what I would do. I just had to be careful.

I took the log down to the shop and talked to the guys down there. They gave me some advice on what to do, some do's and don't with power tools, which intimidate the hell out of me, and sent me on my way. This wasn't the first time I'd built something in the shop, just my most ambitious project yet, in spite of it being the smallest. We set up the band saw made the first cut. This one was to give me a flat surface to use as a base to cut the log into boards. Pretty ho-hum grain on this cut, but it wasn't the grain I was looking for, it was the fact that this log we had kept all this time was going to turn into something special. At least that was my hope.

I turned the log 90° and made the second cut. That's when things got interesting. I didn't get the normal wood grain pattern you might have expected. It was dappled and spotted with pale heartwood and gray outer wood for about an inch near the bark. That's when the guys that work in the shop started a debate as to exactly what kind of wood this was. Oak? Maple? Birds Eye or Curly Maple? Buttonwood? There wasn't any agreement. All I knew was that it looked really, really cool.

Now that I had the log sliced up, I needed a more concrete plan. I knew how much wood I had now. "I want to make a box," wasn't going to be enough. I decided on a size to make it and ended up treating it like a stained glass project. I made a mock up of the box from a manila folder, then cut all the pieces out of paper and laid them on the wood. I had enough for the box and still had one extra board. I think Jordan thought I was being a little ambitious, but he was game, he was going to be my main sounding board and advice giver.

The most nerve wracking part was the first cuts. Measure, mark, measure again. Think it out, don't rush it.

Because of the coloring in the wood I wanted to make it so that the gray wood was all at the junction of the top and bottom. There weren't pieces big enough for the flat top or bottom to be done in one or even two pieces. What if I don't get the box square, or the top is, but the bottom isn't? What if they aren't flush? What if...? It kept me awake one night worrying about it.

I got the side pieces for the bottom and top cut, sanded and dadoed. A "dado" is a joint where some of one board is cut away and the other board is fit into the gap. It's a common joint for book cases. In this case the dado was on the long boards and the short boards fit into the cuts. Then I glued them together and clamped them tight.

Next was the top. I took two long boards of the pale wood and sandwiched between them four short boards with the gray wood in them, with the gray wood toward the center in each half. That gave me an interesting pattern for the top. The bottom was just four pieces of pale wood. They all had to be joined, sanded and measured out, Then the top and bottom had to be dadoed themselves to inset into the top and bottom boxes. Neither the top nor the bottom boxes came out exactly square. But I was hoping that I could overcome that in the finishing.

Once that was all glued together it came time to put on the hinges. I measured those carefully, cut and then sanded insets for the hinges, then carefully drilled the pilot holes for the screws. I had a box made by a professional to model it on, so I knew I had to remove some of the wood to get the hinges to work right. The first time I closed the box, it popped open like a jack in the box. Looking inside the screws were bumping up against one another. Sanding more wood only helped a little. Then I tried sloping the hinge slot towards the inside of the box. Bingo. The box closed tight. A little more sanding to get the back to sit close and that was done.

The last hard part was getting the top and bottom flush. I only had so much wood I could remove without bottoming out the dados on the front and back. Part of setting the hinges was to be sure that I wouldn't sand away the whole dado while the back edge was flush. I should be OK. I used two clamps to hold the box while I sanded. First I sanded the over-sized, or proud, wood from the top and bottom, then sanded the sides and front faces so that the top and bottom were flush. Lance wondered by as I was finishing. He ran his hand along the front face and just smiled. The last thing to do now was a final sanding, and varnish it.

The varnish brought out the incredible grain from this piece of old firewood. The first coat of varnish gave it a rich honey-gold color and brought out the depth in the grain. No stain was needed on this baby. The next two coats finished that process. I varnished it disassembled, so that I could set each piece down after it was done. Both the top and bottom rested on 3 nails set through scraps of plywood, so that there were only 3 tiny points of contact as they dried, since I varnished inside and outside at the same time. It worked perfectly. After the third coat dried, the hinges when on for the last time.

When I was young I used to play in my fathers shop, sometimes building things out of scraps of wood with nails, saws and hand powered drills. My grandfather had numerous power tools in his basement, but I wasn't the one he used to show how they worked. I used to watch anyway. When I was in junior high school girls took sewing and home economics. Being able to take shop was before my time. That didn't stop me from wanting to learn some basic wood working. I love to watch Norm Abrams on New Yankee Workshop. I just never had the access to the tools or the knowledge to build anything.

The nice thing about working at an office that fabricates a lot of it's own equipment is they have lots of really cool (i.e. really dangerous) tools. We have a shop that's to-die-for, and guys who know what to do. We're allowed to use the tools at work on a limited basis, as long as we don't get in the way of real work and we don't use up resources. There are wood working tools there that would make Norm proud. Besides, working on something there means it's hidden from Edward as well, and it can be a surprise.

I love to make things and I'm really happy with the way the box turned out. As luck would have it, the box will exactly fit Edward's drawing pencils, or the Market Deck from one of our board games. That wasn't planned, but it works.

So I add this box to the things I've made Edward in the wood shop at work over the years. It started with the DVD cabinet, then the bookshelf, the file cabinet top and now Sandy's box. If you'd asked me a few years ago if I thought I could have made the box from a simple piece of fire wood I would have thought you were crazy. But I did it. And now we have a box, a really cool box. And a beautiful reminder of our friend.

Seeing Ghosts

St Petersburg had a big day today. They officially opened the new Salvador Dali Museum on the waterfront, and I do mean on the waterfront. There was much speaking and celebrating and parading. The parade, which went from the old Dali Museum to the new Dali Museum went right past my office window. And while I couldn't see it, I could hear the drum corps at the front of the line, so about a half dozen of us went out and watched it go by. It lasted about 10 minutes.

At 11:11 on Jan 11, 2011 (Dali had a thing for numbers) they cut the ribbon, well, they didn't actually cut it until about an hour later, but the ceremony was well under way when the clock struck 11:11:11.

The building is pretty incredible. It has an amorphous glass window that seems to bubble out of the front. It overlooks Tampa Bay. The building is right across the street from the Bay. I mean it's right on the water. Something that baffles those of us that work in hurricane research. They say the collection is on the 3rd floor, where it will be protected even if we get a Category 5 Hurricane. That is as long as the building itself doesn't get flattened.

There were a number of dignitaries there. St Pete's Mayor, the Museum director, the son of the man whose collection makes up more then 95% of the permanent display. Even S.A.R. la Infanta Cristina of Spain, Duchess of Palma de Mallorca was there. She's actually the one that cut the ribbon. It was all very formal.

They said several well known stars were there including Susan Sarandon. But I didn't see anyone else of note, except one. It would seem that Dali himself attended the ceremony. I bet he liked the new building.

An Accidental Sparkling Mead....

We've been making mead for 25 years now. But 2009 marks the first time we've ever made a champange mead, also known as a sparkling mead.... Unfortunately, that wasn't what we intended to do.

We were sitting in the front room the other night when we heard a "whump" in the kitchen. Edward got up to look, only to see a cork had popped on one of the bottles of mead that we had in the wine rack. It was foaming out all over the rug.

Back when we were living in Maryland, back when we knew others still making mead, we'd gotten a bottle from a friend. It was corked and labeled and set on it's side in our closet off the living room. We noticed one day that the cork was pushed out somewhat. We pushed it back in and thought "we should keep an eye on that..." Time passed, it pushed out a little again every once and a while and we pushed it back in. Then we went away for a weekend.

When we got back we noticed that there was a heady, sweet smell in the living room that got stronger the nearer you got to the closet. When we opened the door we knew why immediately. That bottle had popped it's cork and about half of the mead in it had spilled onto the carpet on the floor of the closet.

Back in those days we didn't have a carpet cleaner. Back in those days all we had were towels and warm water. We soaked and scrubbed and rinsed for a long time. It didn't really help. The mead had had enough time to soak well into the carpet. From that point forward, whenever we opened that closet door, you could smell, ever so faintly, the rich aroma of honey... It was forever dubbed the Mead Closet...

We've never had this happen before. At least not with one of our bottles. Which is why we were somewhat embarrassed when this bottle popped last night.

We like to share our mead. We gave away nine bottles this year. Several of which have turned out to be of the sparkling variety. At this point, all the bottles have been accounted for, and the current owners duly notified. So far, three bottles have turned out sparkling, another sparkled only barely. We poured some from the bottle that popped. It looked like champagne. All we can figure is that it must not have died completely and when bottled, it started a secondary fermentation. We do use champagne yeast, which may have had something to do with it, though as I said before, we've never had this happen. The last two bottles we filled were the two that we kept ourselves. One of those popped.

The good news was we heard it pop and Edward got to it before more then about a glass worth spilled. He quickly grabbed the bottle and used his thumb to stop the flow. I started grabbing towels and throwing them on the spill. There was mead on the carpet, on the wine rack, the kitchen floor and island and the bottom of the barstools (four feet away). We don't think it soaked too far into the carpet. We had to get out our big carpet cleaner and run it over the whole area. We can only hope that we got all of it up.

We opened the only other bottle we had left from that batch that night as well. As soon as Edward broke the seal, we could tell it was under pressure and it started to bubble. Who knows how long it would have been before it popped as well.

For years we've thought about trying to make a sparkling mead... the operative word being "trying", not having it happen accidentally. Thus, we have a small stock of champagne bottles, plastic champagne corks and few of the wires to tie them down. Why not try to bottle up the remaining sparkling mead in a bottle designed for it? So that's what we did. We cleaned and sterilized a bottle and cork, then carefully transferred the mead to the new bottle. It foamed just like champagne. Then, we carefully corked the bottle and tightened the wire over it. We even had a spare label. Hopefully, there will be enough carbonation (or additional fermentation) to keep it sparkling when we open it again.

We've kept a record of all the batches of mead that we've made since 1990. We've added a note that the most of the 2009 bottles have come out sparkling. There wasn't much indication that this would happen when we bottled back in November, but we should have known something was up when the first person to open their bottle reported a pop and "magical smoke" rising from the neck. Luckily, no other bottle has popped, especially during shipping. That could have caused more trouble then I care to think about.

Maybe we'll try to make a sparkling mead again. We have more champagne bottles and a few more corks, but we'll have to buy more wires. We've kept them in case we needed them. We just didn't realize we would need them this year.

How did the mead taste? Wonderful. Magical. Dry, but not harsh. I wonder if we can do that again if we tried. Maybe next time we'll try to do it on purpose, instead of accidentally...