Week of September 2, 2024

A lot of things this week didn’t go according to plan. That’s okay, we adapted and still had a good week.

Monday was the Labor Day holiday and we played a lot outside, trying to soak in that last bit of summer. After a good afternoon of playing outside at home, we got ice cream and went to a new playground we hadn’t been to before in Verplanck. Charlie really savored his ice cream and enjoyed the cool roller slide they had.

A coworker a friend was supposed to visit from the UK and I had planned to work in the NYC office one day, have him up for dinner, hanging out, and rowing before he left, but he caught covid and had to stay home. Bummer.

The weather was great this week, so we tried to prioritize outside time as much as possible in the evenings. We took some walks, went to the playground, and played on the porch and in the yard.

On a walk in the woods and through the park, Charlie was very interested in our shadows. “Look Daddy! Our shadows are holding hands!” ♥️

He also pointed out this interesting shadow and asked me why it looked like that. The light had 8 individual bulbs instead of one large one, and no diffuser, so each made shadows, slightly offset. Pretty cool.

Amanda processed and dried a bunch of our herbs this week. We now have lots of dried oregano, thyme, and chives to cook with this winter. She also made a lovely lavender wreath for the living room.

We’re enjoying the cool weather. Charlie has been extra snuggly.

Saturday morning Amanda and Charlie hung out with some friends, so I got some workshop time. I did some cleaning and organizing, made a french cleat holder for the bench dogs, finally put the old gouge I cleaned up into the new handle I made, and started shaving down a piece of oak for a hammer head with the draw knife.

For the gouge handle, I drilled a hole that was a little too small, then knocked it in on the bench. I prefer a good friction fit to using epoxy. I cut the collar out of a piece of copper pipe and held it in place by punching two small indents in it. I know poplar is a but soft for a tool handle, but it is what I hand and I wanted to try the process on something I had laying around. It is easy enough to replace if I need to.

I wrote last week that I was considering trying out tenkara fishing. I’ve been reading about it all week and decided to give it a shot. I bought a rod that should be here in a few days and I’ve been scouting potential locations nearby.

New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation keeps records on trout streams, including stocking info. They have a handy map, which will give me a great place to start. Here is what is in easy driving distance:

Hoping to get out and scout some of these soon! I’ll probably go out to a local pond to figure out the basic casting technique first.

I’m also interested in smaller woodland streams and brooks that tenkara seems particularly suited for. There is one about a 15 minute walk into the woods at the end of our block I want to try, and many more in the state and county parks around here. Those will take some more leg work to scout.

I pulled out my jumbled mess of flies from the last 20 years and spent two evenings sorting through them and figuring out what they are. Lots of flipping through books and internet searches later, I’m somewhat confident in the categorization. Now I need to get a home case for these instead of trying to keep them in the small ones we carry on the river.

I thought it might also be fun to get Charlie interested in fishing, so we went and got a rod that is just his size, one of those push button kids rods. We also put together a small tackle box for him.

I was a bit ambitious and included lures, but I quickly realized we aren’t quite there yet. Maybe next year. I tried to teach him how to cast in the front yard before going fishing in the local park pond, but he isn’t quite coordinated enough. Even though he got a couple good casts in, it ultimately ended with him getting frustrated and being completely turned off to the idea of going fishing. I felt horrible. I took natural interest and excitement and completely fumbled it. What I should have done is just taken him to the park and let him drop a hook with some corn in the water and hook a couple bluegill to keep his interest.

A couple hours later I was able to get there in a roundabout way: Going for a walk in the park, walking by the pond, and wondering aloud if there are any fish in there, and working up to the reveal that I had Charlie’s rod and net in the car. It worked.

Instead of casting and reeling back in, we used a bobber, hook, and corn. I helped him cast it out, then he watched the bobber and reeled it in when the bobber disappeared (or it took too long to disappear). Charlie caught three fish, two bluegill and a pumpkinseed, and was thrilled.