The air was filled on Monday with the sights and sounds of migrating geese.

April 18, 2017 - Tuesday

27 degrees/cloudy/calm winds

Pentoga Road

I am looking out the window watching a wild hen turkey walk across the yard and into the garden. She crosses under the lowest strand of electric fence as though it's not even there. Her feathers must be poor conductors. There are 9,000 volts surging through those wires, enough to fend off marauding deer, bears, bulldogs, and humans. Thankfully, wild turkeys are insect eaters or the garden would be in big trouble.

The promise of spring continues, but it's certainly taking its time getting here. I see one to three inches of snow is forecast for Thursday. Mississippi Brother Garry talks about cultivating his sweet corn and all I can do is dream of playing in the dirt. I rather suspect this year will be like so many others in the past, that we'll go right from winter into summer and simply skip spring. 

My walk Monday morning was a wet one. I trod through rain and snow as the wet flakes exploded into instant puddles of water on my face. It wasn't the most pleasant stroll I've taken in recent months.

I was eager to head to the shop. Visions of a new bowl design have been dancing through my head and I could hardly wait to apply chisel to wood.

A good piece of aged birch was mounted in the lathe. Ah, to turn a bowl like one I'd seen in a catalogue with a small hole in the top, a wider middle, a slim bottom, with just a bit of a base.

I listened and sang to the sounds of the 70's as one layer of wood was peeled off after another.

Snag!

I had become cocky and in a hurry and applied too much pressure. The top half of the bowl went flying across the room. I wish I could blame the wood, or the lathe, or the chisel, but the blame fell solely on my shoulders.

Blankety-blank blank darn heck son of a biscuit eating witch. 

I'm man enough to suck these things up. It's all part of the learning process, right? I've only been turning for six months and besides, what's a chunk of fire wood anyway?

Hmm, I could salvage the lower half of the bowl, make it an open structure, something that I could give to one of the nieces or granddaughters to play with.

It was going well and I was almost finished. Just one more teeny/tiny, itsy-bitsy, layer to remove from the side towards the bottom.

It was removed alright, along with the rest of the sides and top.

I stared, unbelieving, at three hours of planning, calculating, and turning. All that work only to have it become kindling for the wood stove. 

I didn't clean nor did I put anything away. The music and lights were turned off and the shop door closed. I walked away swearing to never return. I would not touch another lathe, think of another design, or consider making another bowl, never, ever, never in this lifetime.

I needed something to wear off some frustration, a winter's worth of pent up energy. 

It didn't take long to find a tarp-covered woodpile. Working up next year's firewood was a salve that would make me feel better. 

Sargie's been after me to either build another wood shed or to get rid of the giant wood piles. She says they make the place look like a bunch of hillbillies live here. I've threatened to move a non-working refrigerator onto the front porch and change Brutus's name to Blue.

The rest of the afternoon was spent hauling, splitting, and throwing chunks of firewood into the empty bin. The more I sweat, the better I felt.

Of course, in true hillbilly fashion, I use duct tape to keep my square wooden spacer intact. It saves the ram from having to travel quite so far to split the wood.

Who cared about making bowls, eggs, snowmen, candlestick holders, and other nonsensical things on a lathe? Heck with the Uncle Sam figurine I was going to turn for the Fourth of July. 

Real men put up firewood. The great outdoors is our bathroom and we spit and whittle, not play artsy/craftsy sensitive-guy while closed up in a comfortable shop making fifi bowls and ornaments. 

By late afternoon, this real man was tired and sore and seriously wondering why we don't use our fuel oil furnace more rather than burning wood. I was feeling like an old, tired, grandpa who was missing his shop... or at least the recliner in his shop.

A shower made everything better. With Sargie home from work, we enjoyed cheesy/broccoli/potato soup while watching Dancing With the Stars. Bedtime came shortly after.

Sargie doesn't have to work today. We're going to pull the trailer north to Marquette later this morning where I'm planning on purchasing a 275 gallon liner for the future garden pond. My bet is that this cold weather will end at some point before I die of old age and I can begin to work in the garden.

Meanwhile, there's a cup of coffee to finish while I look at pictures of various bowl designs. 

Oh, the lathe thing and saying I'd never go back to it? I was just being a baby and having a hissy fit. I've learned that real men are capable of being sensitive and can make bowls AND put up firewood.

Say what you will, it's just the way I roll.

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

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...