February 9, 2017 - Thursday
-5 degrees/clear/breezy
Pentoga Road

That bowl above is the smallest thing I've ever turned. It's made from the hickory that Yooper Brother Mark brought back from their plant in Kentucky.

One thing about it, a person can stuff all the food he wants into the bowl and not worry about gaining weight. 

Sargie brought my new glasses home last night from the Vision Center. There are definite advantages to having one's own personal optician! 

The adjustment is proving somewhat difficult with the progressive lenses. I can see distances quite well. Mid level reading is okay and small print is fine as long as I hold the material close, very close. I can see smaller letters better than before, but they have to be right under my nose. 

I was somewhat disappointed last night to find that the new lenses didn't magically cure the advanced macular degeneration that's slowly consuming both eyes. I'd almost convinced myself the glasses would provide the magic cure. 

Strange, the mind games we play between our ears. I'm a big boy. I knew better, but still, there was an almost teary-eyed moment after initially putting the glasses on and discovering they weren't the magic pill I'd hoped for.

So, it's onward and upward for the old professor. There are millions who have much worse vision than my own and for what I have, I'm grateful. 

I landed in the shop after yesterday's walk. The wood I'd glued and clamped the night before didn't hold and I wanted to make something from the hickory pieces that were stacked in the shop. Each was only 1x1 inch, too small to do much of anything. Hmm.

It took all morning to turn two bowls, each not much bigger than a thumb nail. My chisels were too large for such intricate work, yet I managed to improvise and squeeze one or the other into a nook or cranny when needed.

Sanding proved as difficult. My fingers were too big for the opening. In the end, I used the erasure end of a pencil covered with sand paper. It worked.



I ended up making two bowls and a goblet from one six inch piece of material. I never thought I'd spend an entire day making completely worthless objects, but it was fun and the time flew.



The stem on the goblet was a real challenge. If I had it to do over again, I'd attempt to make it even thinner along with the base, but hey, most of goblet was done by touch and both the base and stem felt tiny between my fat fingers. After looking at a close up of the picture, both could have been smaller.



I learned that a bowl sent to my granddaughter, Abigail, had been demolished in the mail. Luke said the box was in pretty bad shape. After hanging up the phone, I went back out to the shop, started the heat, and turned a new birch bowl. After working on the mini earlier in the day, shaping a more normal sized one seemed like a walk in the park. It will be in the mail in the next few days.

I was back in the house by late afternoon and managed to dust the first floor as well as run the vacuum over the rugs and sweep the floors. The second floor was also vacuumed. 

While I was in the cleaning mode, I thought I might as well change Goldie's water. I dipped the goldfish into an empty ice cream pail and was scrubbing her large vase/bowl, when I hit it on the side of the sink causing the glass to break into several large pieces. Goldie's going to have to make due with the plastic pail until I can get to the pet store in Iron Mountain to purchase a new house for her. 

Sargie was home early and we enjoyed a mega salad for supper. The rest of the evening was spent watching prerecorded programs on the DVR.

Sargie opens today. I'm going to skip my walk and begin dividing a large package of bulk hamburger for the freezer. I want to work in the shop and think I'll go over to Iron Mountain later this afternoon to drop off my taxes, find Goldie a new house, purchase some needed sandpaper, and meet Sargie after work so I can ride home with her. 

Sounds like a full day to me, but then as we all know, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...