an infrequent repository of mostly new stuff
Full Moon, bare trees
The oaks are letting loose their leaves now.
Driven by the wind, they pour out of side streets and across the road like wash over a sandbar, sea foam scudding on a Spring Tide.
It’s a young wind, too, gusting into the 30’s toppled some trees, and knocked the power out for several hours earlier in the week.
Sunshine starts a second snowfall
There are things you do in your 50’s that you thought you’d do in your 20’s.
This is a given.
What you remember is often what you wished for,
not what really happened.
Some things you declined to say when you could have will ring in your ears forever.
It’s better to say them all.
There will be more joy than you expected,
certainly more than you thought you deserved.
You will continue to have conversations with people you loved,
decades after they’re gone.
You will often cry unexpectedly –
not when things are sad, but when they are beautiful.
These are some things I’ve learned.
Aeon’s tiller fitted and ready for finish
Tried something a little different on the second Tiller. I have some brass knob handles to fit on the ends – something comfortable to hold that will keep a line from slipping off – but I’m not certain yet I’ll use them. In the meantime, that leaves an opportunity to play a bit with the handle ends and see what works. So Aeon’s Tiller got a carved knob end. It may just get cut off, but it was fun to try out.
Rudder ready for cleanup and shaping
The second rudder went together a little easier than the first. On the first one, to save time, I tried to glue up the whole thing all at once. It came out okay, but it was a pain. With no reason to rush, this one went together in stages – the core was glued up first, then the cheeks and outer layers sandwiched on later. Continue reading “Rudder Number 2”
Tending Fire
“…I have a sort of sea-feeling here in the country, now that the ground is all covered with snow. I look out of my window in the morning when I rise as I would out of a port-hole of a ship in the Atlantic. My room seems a ship’s cabin; and at nights when I wake up and hear the wind shrieking, I almost fancy there is too much sail on the house, and I had better go on the roof and rig in the chimney.”
Herman Melville – in a letter, December 12, 1850
It snowed again last night, big wet flakes that clung to everything. Overnight, a breeze blew the trees bare along the ridge line, leaving the forest frosted thick in the lee up the hillsides, so the mountains are stark white, outlined in black. Really striking.
Hatch Cover and Mast Collar
Progress has been steady, though you’d never know it from the blog posts. There’s some catching up to do.
The Hatch Cover and Mast Collar are almost done, as are the Rudder and Tiller. Used the same sandpaper trick to shape the Mast Collar to the curve of the deck, and tried to lower the profile of this one a bit so it isn’t so prominent. The Hatch Cover turned out well, despite attempts by the wood to curl in on itself. Just took a lot of careful scribing and clamping – and leaving that bucket of water in the hold all week.
Hatch Cover clamped in place
Managed to get a little work done between New Years festivities, etc..
The weather warmed and melted all the snow, but humidity is still very low. Getting the hatch cover cutout back to it’s original shape required several days in a tent of plastic with a wet paper towel inside.