Wednesday's wooden soldier

December 8, 2016 - Thursday

15 degrees/cloudy- snow/windy

Pentoga Road

There's not much time to write this morning as I have an 8 o'clock appointment with Eric, the boy dentist. I had a great dental check up last month that revealed only one small pit in the side of a molar that will be fixed today. Actually, I think it's more of a preventative type thing; get it fixed before it grows into a cavity.

As with most the country, winter has set in with a vengeance in the UP. Yesterday's wind and cold temperatures kept me confined to either the house or the shop. It just wasn't a nice day to play outside.

Wednesday morning and early afternoon was spent working on ornaments or the frame for the Old Man. 

I'm not happy with the frame I made and spent well over an hour making a new one. I'm still not happy. At one point, I was within 1/16th of an inch of having everything go together and I made ANOTHER dumb mistake by trimming on the wrong line. 

The Old Man has been set aside until the morning arrives that I have lots of patience and am willing to try it again.

I tried a new design for a wooden soldier that I'd seen on the internet. I had my open computer well away from the shavings of the lathe and would walk across the shop, look at a downloaded picture, then go back to the lathe and work on the piece trying to replicate it.

Since my original wood stock was skinnier than that shown in the picture, my soldier was thinner, but he came out okay, I guess.

The rest of the day was spent in the house, looking at a new seed catalogue that arrived earlier in the mail. I'm becoming somewhat bored growing the same variety of vegetables I've grown for the past five years. It's time for a change. 

I believe I'm going to try some row covers this coming year so I can attempt a few more southern crops, try sweet potatoes, peanuts and so on. I also have ordered a new giant pumpkin strain to eventually cross with what I already have and seeds from a past world champion sunflower arrived earlier this week. 

I've made the self-realization that it's the preparation and challenge of growing good vegetables and flowers that I enjoy most. 

I'm also at a crossroads of whether to further expand the garden, move the greenhouse, dig the pond, build a bridge, construct a gazebo, etc. I want to do all that, but then I think of all the work involved. It would be a multi year project, but then what else do I have to do other than go fishing and build Grady's playhouse and play in the shop and keep the grounds mowed and trimmed and put up wood and work on the house... yeah... well, there are only so many hours when it's warm enough to do all that. We're also talking about building an addition, a first floor bedroom, bath, and laundry, onto the house. If only you had my life, you'd understand.

And beginning with maple season, this coming year is canning year. We've finally used most of the maple syrup from the past three years. This will be a heavy gathering and boiling year, hopefully making enough to last well into the future. The same goes with making jam and jellies. We've used that that I stockpiled from three and four years ago. Rather than making a huge mess every season, I'd rather make large batches once every few years and be done with it. What to do. What to do?

It was this and other things that weighed heavily upon my mind Wednesday afternoon as I sat by the wood stove studying the seed catalogue. The stress of thinking about this coming summer was too much and caused me to doze off, eventually taking a full fledged grandpa nap. 

Sargie was home early and she spent the evening doing Christmas cards. I sat across the room studying various garden pond plans online, mentally picturing how my garden would look with one design or the other. Brutus was just as busy stretching out in front of the wood stove, no doubt dreaming of the squirrels he'll be chasing next summer. 

Sargie's back to work early this morning. She's off Friday and Saturday and it appears we'll be making a road trip Friday morning to Green Bay to do some Christmas shopping. 

I'm going to get my tooth worked on this morning then no doubt I'll end up in the shop after. Well, that's only if I'm not too stressed about thinking of warmer days ahead while sitting by the wood stove reading another new seed catalogue that arrived in yesterday's mail. It's tough, but I'm man enough to belly up and face the responsibility. 

It's not always a rose petal-laden path we tread on Pentoga Road.

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales of Pentoga Road...