Sunrise on Pentoga Road

January 23, 2021 - Saturday morning

2 degrees/clear skies/calm winds

Pentoga Road

Pretty eh? I snapped the picture a couple of days ago just prior to leaving for my walk. Seems at times, I find myself thinking more about the day ahead rather than stopping and breathing in the moment. In this case, it was a beautiful sunrise.

It was a nice, brief, vacation away from writing, at least the blog. I've been working on my trail journal (hiking blog) a bit and even roughed out a paragraph or two on the book. Still, it didn't feel right to get up in the early morning hours and not reflect on the previous day. 

As I've mentioned previously, writing this blurb is what keeps me between the lines. Similar to stopping and enjoying the sunrise, if I don't write each morning, my mind and body seem to only concentrate on what will be, not what has been.

The last few days have been spent mainly in the shop or chasing Sargie Pants around the house. 

Okay, that's a lie. I haven't chased her too much. She chases me.

Oops, another fib. 

We do enjoy each other's company though and have settled into our usual deep winter routine. I'm up early, write, then go for my walk. We eat breakfast then head out the door for a drive and to get her daily Coke. After, I warm the shop and spend a few hours out there while Sargie does her thing. A couple of days ago, she drove to Iron Mountain to drop a couple of things off at Hambone's while I remained home, working in the shop.

Hambone's baby sister is still firmly ensconced inside her mama. She kicks, dances, and does the boogaloo, and after yesterday's checkup in Green Bay, appears as though she's on track to make her early entrance (or exit, depending if you're Mel or the baby) in the next week or two.

I've been busy creating sawdust, but nothing of any significance. The bulldog's head was finally sawed, but not before I followed a wrong line and made him a one-eyed pooch.

Wrong cuts on a segmented art piece are very repairable, but require precision sawing. It took me a bit, but the dog finally had two eyeballs once again.

Needing the workspace for other projects, I taped the pup's head back together, attached them to a backboard, and stowed them away for a few days. 

All the pieces are sawed, but firmly attached to each other with packing tape.

I want to begin sawing the body of the bulldog sometime this next week. With much larger and not so complex pieces, it ought to go much faster.

My eyes has been getting noticeably weaker over the past few months making some tasks more difficult than they ought to be. I solved the problem, at least temporarily, by purchasing a large, lighted, magnifying glass to use while working at the scroll saw.

Talk about nice! Had I known how well it works, I'd have gotten one even before the eye problems returned. Clarity through the looking glass is near perfect and I can once again saw with certainly, not "thinking" that a line goes one way or the other.

My big project for the past few days has been to make a fool proof jig to use when sawing segments for a bowl.

Wanting to get rid of some of the scraps lying around the shop, the jig was constructed completely from odds and ends, those pieces of maple, mahogany, oak, and plywood, that were too good to throw away, too small from which to make anything of any significance in size.

It started with a piece of ply board, cut from the middle of a larger piece from which pieces had been taken. Sawed and sanded, it looked like new.

I had to use the router, by far, my weakest skill in the shop. To alleviate cutting a wrong circle I made a jig. Hmmm, I made a jig to make a jig. Well, that's what I did.

And finally, in the end, the segment sled was constructed. It will make perfect segments to be used in a bowl every time. You may remember the trouble I had last week making perfect segments, Pi r 2 and all that stuff. Once I make the patterns, I should be all set to go.

The meal of this past week was a PERFECT center cut pork chop done on the grill in zero degree weather. Along with cottage cheese and Sargie's Brussel's sprouts seasoned to perfection and baked in the oven, I could have eaten ten or twelve chops had my teeny, tiny, delicate, tummy been able to hold more. 

Okay, I ate two.

So that's about all the news I know of. Yooper Brother Mark is on his way out for our usual Saturday morning walk. Otherwise, Sargie and I will follow our usual daily routine, but then you never really know. 

When it comes to making plans, Sargie can be a loose canon. It's the life of uncertainty I lead.

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

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...