Amanda, Charlie, and I went to Retake Remake, a local art supply thift shop, to look for some project materials. I picked up a $4 grab bag of different colors of wool yarn to turn into dubbing!
I am good on greys and browns from making dubbing from fur a couple weeks ago, but I wanted a couple more colors: Ginger, olive, green, and black. I had planned to dye some fur in these colors, but when I saw the variety packs of wool yarn, I thought I’d give that a shot. Wool is nice for wet flies because it holds water nicely, and the added weight makes it easier to cast.
Like before, I blended the wool (cut into 1/2in pieces) in a coffee grinder.
For the ginger, I used 1/2 orange, 1/4 brown, and 1/4 tan.
For the black, I used 2/3 black and 1/3 the Oxford color, which is black with a bit of grey mixed in.
For the green, I used some unpictured light green and dark green yarns.
For the olive, (better in the below photo), I used the green from above and added more brown and a bit of grey.
The original uses Ginger Angora Goat, but I think this wool makes a decent substitute. I’m pleased with the color compared to the original.
I am also pleased because, even though I didn’t have any green flash, coloring regular pearl flash with a green permanent marker seemed to do the trick, and it held up under the faucet.
More of these Squirrel and Gingers to come! I like the look of squirrel fur as hackle. I might made a couple sakasa versions for fun, too.
I make all of my chicken-based soups with ground chicken + stock now. It is much faster and doesn’t dry out. Tonight’s edition is chicken and wild rice, my take on the Panera one.
More snow! More sleet! More ice! We’ve had more precipitation this winter than the last five we’ve been in Peekskill. Ready for spring.
If this isn’t the most 3 year old parent thing:
“Charlie why does your hair smell like cinnamon toast?”
Giggle giggle giggle
Charlie has been really engaged with the Duplos and Magnatiles lately. He builds all kinds of different vehicles and buildings. He usually won’t let me take photos of them, but he did let me take photos of two this week.
The coolest one I’ve seen him build so far was two towers, each with a set of wheels on the bottom and a cab on top, connected about 3/4 of the way up with some long flat pieces. Imagine Tower Bridge on wheels. I loved it.
Amanda noticed Charlie singing a song to himself while playing with Duplos. He likes to make up short songs. This one got me, though:
Put your tears away, Daddy will fix it for you
🥹
Amanda made an art wall for Charlie’s art in the basement play area. Easy to swap out pieces as the makes them!
After years of battling crappy inkjet printers, I bought a wireless duplex color laser printer. I feel like I’ve finally made it.
Charlie, of course, liked the box.
We had another great swim class this weekend. Charlie was very brave and practiced jumping in, followed directions really well, and wore goggles for the first time.
Notion put out a fun face generator this week. Here is the one I made and the one Amanda made:
The only critique we had is that they need more face shape options. These are both too round for our actual faces.
Fly tying corner
What I tied this week:
Simi Seal leeches, size 14
Improved Montana Stonefly, size 10
Little Black soft hackles, sizes 12 and 16
Wednesday night I went to the local Trout Unlimited Croton Watershed chapter’s monthly fly tying night, which they started again after a couple year hiatus. There is where I tied the black soft hackles (using starling). I got a few tips from the old timers, one of whom knocked out 18 (!) emergers in just under two hours. Incredible. I’ll be back next month to learn more.
Amanda, Charlie, and I went to Retake Remake, a local art supply thift shop, to look for some project materials. Amanda picked up some felt and embroidery thread, Charlie was thrilled to fill a bag with crayons and get a tiny stapler, and I was surprised to find some old fly tying materials. It was split up into the different material bins, so I’ll have to go back and see what else I can find. I also picked up a $4 grab bag of wool yarn and blended a little bit of it into dubbing.
One thing I’m excited to try: I read about two methods for tying in large/oversized soft hackle feathers in a way that will fit them appropriately on a smaller hook. More on that soon.
No workshop time this week.
Work continued to be demanding and stressful this week. I’m working on it in earnest while simultaneously very much looking forward to my upcoming sabbatical.
Long week. Charlie was home 3/5 days of the work week (sick, then doctor, then snow storm), and work was very busy with a lot of people out sick or with kids home with school closed.
I feel like all I’ve been doing at work this week is reacting and adapting to unplanned things. Multiple late nights. This happens from time to time. Hoping for a normal week ahead.
Even with the late nights at work, I got in a little bit of woodworking and fly tying to wind down after Charlie went to bed.
I tied:
Some futsu kebari with the dubbing I made
A pheasant tail futsu
Some large sakasa kebari for murky spring runoff
Next up on the fly tying front:
Some more bead head nymphs
Some Japanese lanterns
Some jun kebari (soft hackle, not reversed)
Dyeing some marabou feathers (olive) and coyote fur (ginger).
I also turned an oak platter, which I wrote about here:
The day Charlie had to go to the doctor, Amanda and I switched off working and childcare like usual. I took Charlie to the post office and then to the local bookstore, where he found some train books and magazines. We bought one and it is popular! Big into trains right now.
Friday night I went to dinner with my friend Dave. The wings and drinks at the new Copperhead Club are pretty good!
Beforehand Charlie and I picked up Five Guys for Charlie and Amanda. While we were there:
“Daddy, do you want to eat some peanuts? I got these for you!”
Saturday Amanda had a friend over for some crafting and hanging out, so Charlie and I got out of the house for a while. We went to the Mid Hudson Discovery Museum in Poughkeepsie and had a great time!
Afterward we picked up some Detroit-style pizza at Hudson & Packard (which I’ve wanted to try for the last two years). I was underwhelmed. Baci’s Detroit is so much better! The dough has more depth and the sauce has more flavor.
The Hudson River up in Poughkeepsie had a lot of ice.
Between 8pm and midnight Saturday night it snowed about four inches. Charlie and I went out and made a big snow mound Sunday morning. Amanda joined us later for some more fun. Then Amanda and Charlie made a snow slushie!
I turned two oak platters recently, both from the same slab, in two different styles. One has a foot, a curved profile, and shallow cavity, the other has a flat bottom, steep edges, and a deeper cavity.
A couple years ago, my aunt and uncle in north Georgia had a big Post Oak (in the white oak family) blow over during a storm. My parents went down for a visit and my Dad and uncle milled the tree into slabs. Dad blogged about it here:
Some of those slabs eventually made their way to me and have been drying in my garage.
For the first platter, I cut a circle out of the slab, which had bowed a little bit. This was very difficult to turn, as the blank was completely out of balance. My lathe shook a lot even at the slowest speed. So for the next one, I paused and planed the slab down flat before I cut out a blank, which helped a lot with the balance. It is almost impossible to get them completely balanced because wood doesn’t have a uniform density.
The turning process for a platter:
Flatten the slab to balance it out.
Cut out a circle on the bandsaw.
Attach a faceplate and turn the bottom of the platter to the profile you want. I generally do some push cuts in toward the center to flatten it out in relation to the lathe, then mark and cut the mortice, then cut the profile. All done with bowl gouges.
Sand the outside.
Flip the platter over, remove the faceplate, then put the four jaw chuck in the mortice.
Shape the rim.
Hollow out the cavity.
Here is a video of part of the hollowing process:
Sand the inside. I use a progression of 80-120-220-320-400-600-0000 steel wool.
Apply finish. I used Tried and True Original (raw linseed + beeswax), which dries and hardens.
These are both between 10.5 and 11″ in diameter.
These are the first two platters I’ve made, and it was definitely a learning process. They are going to my aunt and uncle as a thank you for the wood.
Now that I’ve made two different styles, I think I prefer the kind with a flat bottom and steep sides. More coming in the future form different species of wood! Amanda wants some out of pine and walnut.
We are going through a phase where dinnertime has been a struggle most nights, but we’ve had two high points this week: Two nights where Charlie has eaten dinner without a struggle, he also initiated family storytelling, where he picks a theme and tells us a story, then Amanda and I have to tell a story that fits with the theme. Sometimes two people tell a story together, sometimes all three of us. It lasts at least 20 minutes and is a lot of fun! Looking forward to more of that.
Speaking of dinner, last week’s meal plan was helpful, even though we did it out of order. Here is this week’s:
Leftover fajitas
Pork tenderloin with green beans
Pasta with garlic, olive oil, broccoli, and chicken meatballs
Chicken shawarma bowls
Charlie’s…gastrointestinal distress is ongoing. That plus the cold means that we’ve been spending a lot of time at home inside. Charlie usually loves being outside, but he does not like being cold, and no matter how much we bundle up, temperatures in the teens are just too cold for a little guy. We’re all feeling a bit cooped up.
Wednesday night I tied some peacock herl soft hackle flies. I plan on tying more of these, but adding a floss rib. I’ll tie some with stiff hackle, too.
The method I like for reinforcing the fragile peacock herl:
Swipe some superglue on the hook shank
Wrap the herl around tying thread and wrap together
Reinforce on the outside by wrapping in the opposite direction with wire or floss
Thursday night I tied some Cutcliffe-style flies. These take stuff hackle and curl it back so it kind of looks like soft hackle, but keeps its shape better. I went down the Cutcliffe rabbit hole, starting with an article on Tenkara Angler, then a video from Adam Reiger, then eventually I found Cutcliffe’s actual book on the Internet Archive and started reading it.
The next day I called up David at Feather Emporium to chat about feathers, because I found the coq de leon tailing feathers to be too long for these flies. He agreed, and is going to put together a variety pack of shorter spade hackle feathers in different colors. I never would have gotten there online… sometimes picking up the phone is the best solution!
Friday night I only managed to tie a few killer bugs while watching a show. I was tired from a busy work week and picking up Charlie earlier than usual that day on account of the stomach bug.
Saturday I heated up the workshop, found my old beard trimmer, and made my own dubbing blends.
Not a very productive week on the woodworking front. Tuesday night I intended to turn another platter, but I broke three different screws in the bowl blank. That hasn’t happened to me before! I turned a small bowl that night instead.
I spent a couple hours planing down that blank and cutting it out of a slab, so I didn’t want to toss it on the burn pile. Home Depot didn’t have screw extraction bits small enough, so I ordered a set online. When they came in, they didn’t really work for these screws, so I decided to just drill out the screws and hope that the hollowing is deep enough for it to not be a problem.
I switched to using exterior deck screws with torx heads.
Hopefully I’ll turn it one night this week.
AWS has been charging me ~$2/mo for the past year for some reason I don’t fully understand, and I’ve been locked out of that account. I finally got access again and am trying to navigate the labyrinth to disable whatever is still running there. Something is feeding metrics to CloudWatch to the tune of ~$2/mo, which of course you can’t just disable in CloudWatch. Wish me luck.
Tonight I experimented with making my own dubbing blends from squirrel, coyote, and raccoon fur.
What’s dubbing, you ask? It is the stuff you twist around thread to make the body of a fly. Usually made from animal hair/fur, plant fibers, or synthetic fibers.
I hunted the squirrel back when I was a teenager and my Dad and I tanned it together. The coyote and raccoon tails my Dad harvested and froze, then we skinned them out after Christmas.
The process was basically taking an old beard trimmer, cutting some fur, then blending it in a coffee grinder with some add-ins to get the color and consistency I wanted. For flash I added a bit of Ice Dub, for color I added wool yarn.
Here is squirrel belly + tan ice dub:
Squirrel belly + rusty brown ice dub + red wool yarn:
The squirrel back fur has longer, lighter colored outer guard hairs + a fine layer of gray underfur that blends up brilliantly. I must have shot the squirrel in the winter, since it has thick underfur. The coyote tail has a nice layer of underfur, too.
I learned that the coffee grinder blends really well, and it cuts the Ice Dub or flashing material, but it won’t really cut the hair/fur. So I needed to cut the fur to length with scissors before blending. Here is coyote:
Here is what I ended up with. Top row has synthetic flash blended in (hard to tell without moving to see the light catch it), bottom row is all natural.
With the exception of the red, these colors are just from squirrel, coyote, and raccoon. Lots of natural color variation! By being selective I got a wide range.
Across the top:
Squirrel belly + tan ice dub
Squirrel belly + red yarn + rusty brown ice dub
Coyote tail + yellow ice dub
Squirrel belly + squirrel back + pink ice dub
Squirrel back + purple ice dub
Bottom row:
Squirrel belly + squirrel mask
Squirrel belly + squirrel back
Squirrel back
Coyote tail
Hair from the dark rings of a raccoon’s tail
Here is my set compared to Hareline’s “most popular” set. I didn’t have a natural box to compare with, which is why I wanted to make my own in the first place.
I couldn’t resist tying a few nymphs with it. Nice and buggy!
This whole set of dubbing barely made a dent in the squirrel pelt, raccoon tail, and coyote tail. I doubt I’ll have to buy any dubbing for the next ten years.
In the Spring I think I’ll do another batch focused on colors, probably using some dye. I think the coyote and the lighter rings on the raccoon tail will take color nicely.
I enjoyed making my own fly tying wax and now my own dubbing. I’ve also been tying with deer hair and squirrel hair from animals I’ve harvested myself. So what’s next? Perhaps harvesting my own feathers or dying my own bucktails.
I saw this going around and it looked fun. Thanks for the idea, James.
Why Did You Start Blogging in the First Place?
I wanted a place to share my photography and cool things I read and watched. That was 2007.
What Platform Are You Using to Manage Your Blog, and Why Do You Use It?
WordPress, self-hosted on Pressable. I use WordPress because it is open source, infinitely modifiable, with good defaults. I like the block editor and the vast plugin ecosystem.
I host with Pressable because I work at Automattic and get it for free. That said, I’d pay for Pressable if I didn’t work at Automattic because it is fast and solid.
Have You Blogged on Other Platforms Before?
I hand coded the first version, then moved to WordPress in 2008, then Jekyll in 2015, then back to WordPress in 2020. I moved back to WordPress because I wanted things to just work. There was enough friction with Jekyll, getting it built locally, and deploying that it kept me from blogging sometimes. Nothing worse than writing a post only to spend an hour trying to figure out some random Ruby gem error.
How Do You Write Your Posts?
90% of the time I write them directly in the block editor. For my weekly updates, I start by going through my photos on my phone from the week and looking at any notes I may have collected in Obsidian. I always start not knowing what I’m going to say, but usually end up with over 1000 words and it takes roughly an hour.
The other 10% are project posts that I draft over the course of a couple days, usually while I am still working on the project. Usually in Obsidian or Drafts, which is more accessible on my phone when I’m out in the workshop.
When Do You Feel Most Inspired to Write?
When I’m creating things in real life.
Do You Normally Publish Immediately After Writing, or Do You Let It Simmer?
I press publish and walk away. I barely even proofread. I figure Zeldman will message me if I have a typo 🙂
What’s Your Favorite Post on Your Blog?
Hard to pick just one. Here are a few that stand out:
Over Christmas, a teacher both Amanda and I had in high school, Chas Deremer, gifted me some pheasant tails from a recent hunt to tie flies with. To return his kindness, I wanted to tie a box of flies for him using those tails.
So for the past three weeks I’ve tied nothing but various pheasant tail patterns in sizes 12-20, exploring the possibilities of this one material through dry flies, weighted and unweighted nymphs, streamers, midges, and kebari. Pheasant tails for all fishing situations.
This helped me learn some new tying skills while limiting my options enough to narrow the list of infinite possibilities. I tied eight of each. Four for Mr. Deremer, four for me.
I used the tips from trimming the wing case to use as the wings on the next fly.
Soft hackle pheasant tail
A classic and one of my favorites.
Hook: Gamakatsu R19B, sizes 14 and 16
Thread: White Veevus GSP, 100D, colored with alcohol markers
Rib: Copper wire
Body: Pheasant tail
Thorax: Peacock herl
Hackle: Partridge
I tried using a single kind of thread, GSP, colored with alcohol-based markers when I need a color. Read for the head, olive for tying in the peacock herl. This technique is described by Barry Ord Clark in The Feather Bender’s Flytying Techniques, which I’m reading. GSP, or Dyneema, is super thin, but incredibly high strength. So far it has been pretty easy to work with, as long as I wax it at the beginning so it doesn’t slip around on the hook. It is nice not having to switch threads when you need different colors, just get out a different marker. I cut it with an Xacto instead of my tying scissors to save them the wear and tear.
Frenchie
A modern favorite created by Lance Egan.
Hook: Orvis tactical jig, size 16
Bead: Slotted tungsten pink bead from Saluda
Thread: Pink 8/0
Rib: Gold wire
Body: Pheasant tail
Collar: Pink ice dub
Hard head nymph
Hook: Moonlit TOGATTA ML502 size 14
Bead: Slotted tungsten, gold
Thread: Black Veevus GSP 150D
Rib: Gold wire
Body: Pheasant tail
Collar: Peacock herl
I know these are similar to the Frenchie, but they are easy to lose, so I thought I’d do a variation. I also waned to experiment with various dubbing collars, but I liked the peacock best.
Thread: White Veevus GSP, 100D, colored with alcohol markers
Tail/hotspot: Orange marker on the thread
Rib: Gold wire
Body: Pheasant tail
Wing/gills: Hareline white para post yarn
Thorax: Peacock herl
I got the glass beads from Michael’s in the jewelry section. The small body of these small flies allowed me to use shorter pheasant tail barbs. I did half with a wing and half with gills, and you have to tie these in a different order.
Dry pheasant tail midge
Hook: Saluda SB501 dry, sizes 18 and 20
Thread: Black Veevus GSP 150D
Body: Pheasant tail
Hackle: Grizzly
I learned that size 18 is about as small as I like to tie. 20 is just too small. I tied a few size 20s and went up to 18 after that.
Another variation would be to add grizzly hackle wings to make it an Adams.
Parachute pheasant tail
Hook: Gamakatsu R19B size 14
Thread: Dark brown 8/0
Post: Hareline white para post yarn
Rib: Gold
Body: Pheasant tail
Thorax: Peacock
Hackle: Furnace
The first couple were frustrating and slow, so I took a break for a couple days. The second batch was faster, easier, and turned out better after I switched to finer thread and doubled the amount of para post, based on some helpful tips from folks on Bluesky. Nice community over there.
One interesting variation to try in the future is using pheasant tail for the post as well. Para post floats better, though.
Pheasant tail X-Caddis
Hook: Gamakatsu R19B size 14
Thread: White Veevus GSP, 100D
Tail: Para post
Body: Pheasant tail
Rib: Fine gold wire
Thorax: Olive dubbing
Wing: Elk hair
These went faster than I expected. It was my first time using a hair stacker and my first time using elk hair, which is a big more coarse and easier to work with than deer hair.
I’ve seen these called Asahi kebari, too. It is a small streamer with pheasant tail as the wing. I really like the look of the floss rib over peacock herl and will use that more in the future.
Pheasant Tail Sakasa Kebari
Hook: Gamakatsu R18B, size 14
Thread: Red 6/0
Hackle: Ringneck pheasant back feathers
Rib: Gold wire
Body: Pheasant tail
Thorax: Black peacock ice dub
I tied half of these on a size jig hook after seeing Tom at Teton Tenkara do that for some sakasa kebari, then I switched to a standard eye hook.
If/when I do more of these, I think I am going to leave off the tail and instead make the body longer.
Some general things I learned:
Peacock eye feathers are cheaper and higher quality than the packs of strung peacock herl sold to fly tyers. I bought a strung pack before I knew any better. I recently bought some full feathers on Amazon ($5 for 12 of them), and they are so much better! I don’t know why anyone would prefer the strung stuff.
It is important to keep the pheasant tail fibers from crossing each other while you wrap the body, so they stay flat.
It is easier to wrap pheasant tail fibers by hand rather than using hackle pliers.
If they pheasant tail fibers start to slip from your fingers, you can stick a finger on the hook to keep everything from unraveling.
How to use a hair stacker.
If you keep the thread just in front of the pheasant tails while wrapping, the thread will help keep everything in place.
How to photograph flies! Lots of light, close to the source. In addition to the lamp I use on my fly tying desk, I use a bright variable temperature LED that usually lives on my desk for video calls. I hold this next to my phone while I take photos.
I made two of these boxes:
This was fun! After taking a break to tie some various tenkara kebari I’ve had my eye on, I might do this again with red fox squirrel tail as the material.
We woke up to a total of ~7 inches of snow on Monday and a couple hour school delay, so Charlie and I suited up and went out to shovel, clean off the car, and play.
The past two weeks have been in the teens and single digits (fahrenheit). It finally broke freezing this afternoon. So cold that the snow we got on Monday is still powdery! I’m glad we got a proper freeze for a while.
From a mid-week woods walk:
Whatever seasonal sickness(es?) going around visited our house this week. Charlie was home a couple days, Amanda felt crummy a couple days at the same time as Charlie, then I felt crummy Friday night and Saturday.
Amanda and I switched off working and hanging out with Charlie, so we both had a stressful week trying to meet our deadlines at work. On my team, we also had a lot of time sensitive work come in over the two days where Charlie was back at school, so no reprieve there.
We are all looking forward to a regular week with hopefully no surprises.
Speaking of being at home with a sick kid, Charlie has figured out how to navigate the Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+ apps by himself, so we’ve had to start figuring out the parental controls and content blockers. Fairly new development because he never really switched shows or apps by himself before. Fun times.
One tactic that we used this week is setting up movie time in the basement with a projector and the big cushions from our deck furniture. Charlie doesn’t have the attention span for a full movie yet, but we did get a solid hour each time we tried it. I know that tactic will stop working soon, but for now it is still novel.
Lest you think all we do is distract our kid, let me remind you that him being home sick while we have to work is atypical. His pre-K3 is a fun, constructive environment and we have a hard time matching that while we have to work. Weekends while everyone is healthy are a different story.
Charlie has longer and longer stretches of imaginative, constructive solo play now, which is fun to watch. He’s been building lots of things out of blocks by himself this week, and involving his various trucks, excavators, and dump trucks in the process. He engages with his blocks longer than he’ll watch a movie! We love to see it.
One night Charlie wanted more connection, and kept bringing books for us to read to him at the dining room table after dinner. It was lovely.
Pre-Charlie, Amanda and I were never meal planners. We almost always winged it.
Now, we almost always find that if we don’t put in the effort on the weekend for the following week, we end up stressed and eating crap.
So, today Charlie and I went grocery shopping at Stew Leonard’s and I made a plan for the week.
Today: Steak, potatoes, salad (sub mac and cheese for seat 2)
My friend Jeremy Wall told me last week that he got a band together a couple years ago and recorded some instrumental jazz tracks, put it up on Spotify, but then never really told anyone about it.
It is really good! I’ve been listening to it this past week while I work. Thought I’d share:
I didn’t get out to the workshop at all last week, but hope to this week. I’d like to turn another platter and more bowls. I have the blanks ready to go.
My pheasant tail fly tying project is almost done. I have one pattern left to go, and the blog post 95% written with a space to drop in the last pattern. I’ve learned a lot and tied some nice flies, but now I’m ready to tie something else other than patterns with pheasant tails.
Next up are some more tenkara kebari, probably some Japanese Lanterns, pearl sakasa, peacock futsu, and some little black jun kebari with starling feathers. Then I’d like to try squirrel tail again, and I might do a project with just squirrel tail after I get my box full of kebari that I can use once the weather warms up.
Here is what I tied this week:
Pheasant tail glass bead midges, size 18
Pheasant tail parachutes, size 14
The first batch was frustrating and slow, but the second batch was faster, easier, and turned out better after I switched to finer thread and doubled the amount of para post, based on some helpful tips from folks on Bluesky. Nice community over there.
I wouldn’t characterize myself as a capital P Prepper, but the rising occurrence of severe storms and natural disasters brings our own emergency preparedness to mind. I started thinking about this last year and put together an emergency box, but I asked myself last week where I think we are most vulnerable, and three things came to mind:
Heat
Water
Food
I already had some preparation in these areas, so I doubled down on it this week and am feeling better. I picked up some Sawyer filters for water, more propane for the generator, and extra dry goods. Nothing crazy. We have limited space.
As a side note, what I think differentiates lowercase p preparedness and capital P Preppers is preparing for widescale war/societal breakdown/apocalypse scenarios where you have to be self sufficient long-term and defend yourself. I’m not worried about that. I want to be secure and be able to help out neighbors if we have a natural disaster. We know from our prolonged power outage a couple years ago that northern Westchester is one of the last ConEd customers to get power back because NYC and lower Westchester always get priority.
This kind of prep is an asymmetric calculation for me. It is low cost (besides for the generator, we’ve spent less than $1K on supplies) with a very large upside if we have a disaster.
Snow is coming down heavily as I write this. We have about 4″ now, and it is supposed to continue until around 4am. We picked up a snow shovel that is “just my size” for Charlie, so after dinner he wanted to go out and shovel, even though it was still coming down. I’ll never say no to playing in the snow, so we went out. We had fun, even though the sidewalk and driveway were covered again by the time we came back in.
It is tough to be a 3yo and figuring out the world, but not really in charge of anything. Charlie is having a hard time right now, lots of tantrums and struggles, especially around meals. To top it off, he hasn’t been feeling great (cough, runny nose, upset stomach). Tough times for a little guy. To quote Dr. Becky, he is a good kid having a hard time.
What never fails to improve his mood is getting outside. He often protests, so we start out walking with him on my shoulders, but after five minutes or so he gets interested in something and wants to get down to check it out. After that, it is usually “easy peasy lemon squeezy” as Charlie likes to say. (Picked up from Hank on Trash Truck, I think.)
Thankfully the weather was a bit warmer and calm before the snow storm blew in, so Charlie and I got out and went for a walk at Croton Point. The thing that got him down was wanting to check out some rocks, which we then walked along for quite a ways! After that, smooth sailing. I loved listening to him talk about the rocks and the things he noticed.
We hadn’t been to this part of Croton Point Park before, so count this walk as part of my “explore the local area more” goal.
We can tell he is trying hard and learning a lot, even day-to-day, and we are so proud of him. (Charlie, if you are reading this in ten years, we love you and are proud of you!) One thing in particular that comes to mind is that he opted to not eat all of a cookie he was having “so that I don’t frow up.” Good job listening to your body, bud.
Charlie, going through the glovebox in the car and picking up a packet of Shout wipes we keep in there:
These are coffee wipes ’cause Momma wipes her shirt when she gets coffee on it.
😆
One of Charlie’s favorite things after a walk is “warming up in the car” (even when it isn’t cold out). We essentially play in the car and listen to music for 10 minutes before we leave. He gets to be in the front seat, sometimes the driver’s seat, since we aren’t driving. He loves it, and it has becoming our thing. I love it, too.
Tuesday night we made some peanut butter birdseed pinecones.
I got coffee with friends twice this week. I need to make it a regular thing.
I was down by the coffee shop this week, so I checked out the Little Free Library. It had 100% book turnover from when I checked it out in October, and there are a good mix of Spanish and English titles in there. Warms the heart.
I SnoSeal’d our boots and leather shoes ahead of the big snow storm. Great packaging, and great product.
I turned my first platter this week on the lathe, out of a piece of oak slab. I learned a few things from my first attempt that I’ll apply to the next one this week. Namely, I should plane down the warped slab before trying to turn it, because a 12″ x 2″ off-balance piece of wood is scary at 800 RPM. Also, using an angled scraper to scrape the middle flat leads to tear-out, so I need to shear scrape with my bowl gouge instead. The next one will be faster and better!
I already started on the next one by running the slab through the planer and cutting it out into a circle. I love the look of oak.
I made a fabulous discovery about my planer! It throws an incredible amount of woodchips, which is a pain to clean. I wished that it had a dust collection port, and the obvious place to put one is on top. I took a closer look and noticed that the logo had a screw in it, so I got curious and removed it. There was a hole the standard size of a dust collection port under it! I screwed in an adaptor and was off to the races. It cut the amount of mess by ~90%.
I cleaned up an old railroad track anvil that came from someone in the family who passed away recently (an uncle’s father). Next step is to sand the top and the horn down outside because I don’t like grinding or sanding metal inside. Metal dust is a pain. I’ll probably do that in the spring when the weather is nicer.
I made a base for my fly tying vise out of a live edge slab! Check out the post:
I also tied some Arakawa River Kebari (sometimes called Asahi Kebari), bead head pheasant tails, and some soft hackle pheasant tails. For the past two weeks I’ve been tying exclusively flies with pheasant tails, which I’ll post more about soon when I wrap up this exploration.
For the soft hackle PTs, I tried using a single kind of thread, GSP, colored with alcohol-based markers when I need a color. This technique is described by Barry Ord Clark in The Feather Bender’s Flytying Techniques, which I’m reading. GSP, or Dyneema, is super thin, but incredibly high strength. So far it has been pretty easy to work with, as long as I wax it at the beginning so it doesn’t slip around on the hook. It is nice not having to switch threads when you need different colors, just get out a different marker. I cut it with an Xacto instead of my tying scissors to save them the wear and tear.
Man, I like that live edge base. It will bring my joy every time I use it.
I had a Griffin Odyssey Spider that clamped to the table, but I found that kind of limiting. It was shorter than was comfortable, and I found myself hunching. I wanted something taller that I could move around, so I decided to build a base for it.
I kept my eye out for the right piece of wood for about a week, until I remembered that the previous owner of our house left a live edge slab of maple in the garage that was too shallow to use for a shelf or table. Perfect size for this!
I cut a chunk off, then beveled it with the miter saw, orienting the live edge so that I could use it to take photos of flies on. I sanded it down, then coated it with Tried and True.
I found someone on Etsy selling base stem adapters, which is exactly what I needed to make this happen.
To add the stem mount, I drilled out a spot to inset it, then drilled out the spot for the securing screw. I did a test fit on a piece of scrap to get it right before drilling out the live edge piece.
The stem adapter will fit most vises (3/8″ stems are standard), so if I decide to upgrade my vise I can keep using the base.
I added rubber to the bottom to keep it from slipping.
I’m really happy with how it turned out! I tied some soft hackle pheasant tails on it already, and it was nice to have them closer to eye level and to be able to move the vise as needed. It didn’t rock or move around at all while tying.
I’m thinking of carving a spot to set hooks (or maybe insetting a magnet), but I wanted to use it for a week first to figure out the location.
One of the challenging things about being a parent who works full time is the very limited free time for hobbies. The exhaustion fog started lifting around the two year old mark, and we started feeling more rested and interested in our hobbies again, but the free time hasn’t changed much.
Now at the three and a half mark, I feel like I’ve found a way to make the most of the free time I do have. Here’s my method:
Set up a dedicated space where you can go and make meaningful progress right away without having to set it up.
I spent a lot of time rebuilding the inside of my workshop this year to make it a useable space where I didn’t have to spend the first 20 minutes looking for tools and moving things around.
I dedicated a corner of my office for a dedicated fly tying desk in November, because getting the vise and materials all set up at the dining room table each time I wanted to tie was enough of a barrier to keep me from doing it some evenings.
Amanda recently re-did her office space, too. She put in shelving, storage, and a large, counter-height crafting table where she can leave in-progress projects set up without worrying about Charlie getting to them.
We both feel very fortunate to have the space to do this. Even though our house is small and the shed is small, we’re using the space to the best of our ability.
Organize and clean
Organizing things minimizes the amount of time spent searching for that thing you need to work on a project. It is nice to know exactly where to look for a tool or a material, and have them easily accessible. Nothing is more frustrating than spending valuable time searching through boxes.
For my tools, I use French cleats. Everything has its place.
For fly tying, I have a thread organizer and I put my hooks and beads in a binder with baseball card pages, sorted by size. Feathers are in a large zipper pouch, and my tool are in their caddy.
When I don’t have enough time to work on a project, but I do have 15 or 20 minutes, I’ll spend that time cleaning and organizing my spaces.
Always have something ready to do
Woodworking and fly tying are, for me, sometimes more about the process than the outcome. The act of working on something is recharging for me, so to get out of a funk I just need to get to work, whether or not I want to. The mental overhead of having to first decide what to do is sometimes enough of a barrier to keep me from doing it, especially if I have a limited time window.
For woodworking, I try to have some materials prepped and ready to go for a few small projects at all times. Right now I have four bowl blanks and a platter blank ready to turn on the lathe, and two handles for tools ready to turn.
For fly tying, I keep a list of flies I want to tie next, along with recipes. I also sometimes set out and prep the materials for the next pattern (example: 8 hooks with the beads already on them, the dubbing material, the thread, 8 pre-selected feathers, 8 sections of wire).
When I have a spare 15 or 20 minutes, not enough time for a project but I want to do something, I’ll get materials together for my next project.
How do you make the most of your limited hobby time? I want to learn from you! Let me know in the comments.
My friend Erin at Red Cottage Fiber Studio sent me some photos of a well used (and slightly misused) darning ball for mending fabric that she found at a yard sale. Looks like it was made from a piece of oak.
I had a chunk of cherry from their property sitting in my shop, so I decided to make one of similar size and shape as a gift.
The process:
Mill the chunk of wood down into square stock on the bandsaw
Rough the square stock round with a roughing gouge
Remove the excess around the handle with a bedan
Shape ball and handle with a large spindle gouge
Shape the ball to handle transition with the spindle gouge
Sand with 80 – 120 – 220 – 400
Cut the bands on the handle with a skew, then burn them in with guitar wire
Last week we got invited to a last-minute birthday party the night before. I wanted to turn something on the late that night anyway, so I decided to make a kitchen mallet for a gift. Sometime to crush ice, make cutlets, smash cucumbers, crack peppercorns, etc.
I turned it out of a cherry limb that fell out of the tree in our yard earlier this year.
Unfortunately no in-progress photos, but here is what I did:
Cut a section of the cherry limb to length
Chuck it with the spur drive and rough it out. It was off-balance so a bit precarious at the beginning. Thankfully it was still pretty green, so it was easy to rough with a roughing gouge.
Once round, I removed most of the waste material around the handle first
Shaped the head of the mallet and the handle transition with a large gouge
Shaped the handles with a medium gouge
Sanded (80 / 120 / 220 / 400)
Cut the grooves with a skew, then burned them in with guitar string
Buffed with 0000 steel wool
Cut off the lathe with a parting tool
Coated with Tried and True original
Buffed with 0000 steel wool again
I expected it to crack because it was turned green and it still had the pith in it. That is part of the charm as it ages and you use it. I heated some beeswax/oil blend and poured it in there to seal it up a bit. If it becomes unusable I’ll make them another one.
I’ve made a couple other mallets in this style before. I’ll probably make more in the future. I like this style and they are fun and easy to turn!
In an effort to post more, here is an oak cup I turned recently and mentioned briefly in a weekly post that I think deserves its own post.
I’ve had this piece of oak in the workshop for a couple years. I roughed it round at some point and abandoned whatever I had in mind for it, so I’ve kicked it around for a while. I noticed it and thought, “Ah! A perfect cup for holding my long fly tying feathers.” Sometimes it takes years and the right circumstance to see the finished piece in raw wood.
I didn’t take photos of the process, but here is what I did:
Chucked with the spur drive
Finished roughing it out with a roughing gouge
Turned a tenon on the end
Reversed in the Nova chuck jaws
Horizontally bored out most of the center with 1 5/8″ forstner bit
Removed the rest of the material with a bowl gouge, mostly using scraping cuts
Sanded the outside with sandpaper
Sanded the inside with sandpaper wrapped around the end of a thick cardboard tube
Cut the grooves with a skew, then used guitar string to burn them in
Buffed with 0000 steel wool
Cut off the lathe with a parting tool
Coated with Tried and True Original
Bugged again with 0000 steel wool
This now lives on my fly tying desk and holds the larger feathers (pheasant tails, turkey feathers, and soon peacock eyes.) I love that it has bug damage! The spalting complements my tool caddy nicely.
Would these posts be better if I didn’t try to write them on Sunday nights, when I’m usually exhausted from the weekend? Probably, but I’m not sure there is a better time to write them. So it goes.
Speaking of, I’m tired tonight. Long week with Charlie home sick half of it and a busy, call-heavy week at work. Also, Charlie must be going through another developmental growth spurt because he has been much more temperamental than usual this week. Challenging on the parenting front.
Still, there were good times, laughs, and sweet moments.
Scenes from a Saturday morning woods walk:
Charlie correctly pointed out that a woodpecker made the hole in the tree! I picked him up to examine it, since I was fascinated by the frozen sap.
He decided we should climb a steep hill together, so we did. He did it mostly by himself, and later that day he mentioned he was proud of himself for climbing that hill ♥️
Wow, Daddy! We can see the WHOLE woods from here!
We could, and we could even see the river from there.
I’m so glad we live close to the woods. Charlie is now interested in tromping off-trail, which I like to do, too. He is observant and curious, and I love teaching him about what he finds and sees.
Later that day I took him to swim class and we had fun again. I love doing that with him!
We painted Valentine’s hearts one night this week, at Charlie’s request. He calls them Holiday Hearts. It is fun to make our own decorations!
There is so much in our own communities that we ignore/miss/tune out/don’t notice. One of my goals this year is to explore and experience where I live in new ways.
Today we stopped by a bakery we’ve driven by for a year but hadn’t been to. Then when we went to a park we’ve been to dozens of times, I checked out the tiny nature center I’ve never noticed before. It had some cool Native American artifacts!
This is an extension of trying to lean into the seasonality of this region. Noticing how the brook in the woods changes from season to season. Keeping an eye on the wineberries so I can pick them at peak ripeness. Noticing when certain wildflowers emerge. Which birds are around when.
Taking it a step further, I’d like to see the same place from a new perspective. I’d like to walk or ride my bike some places we normally drive and experience it at a slower pace. Fish a spot we’ve only driven by. Try catching some striped bass where I normally row my boat. Have coffee in a new park. Go to different playgrounds with Charlie.
I bet that most consumer mods on cars perform worse than the stock models. This probably wasn’t true in the 70s and 80s, but is today. All these lowered Subarus and Hondas that sound like leaf blowers are louder and burn more gas then their stock counterparts off the lot, and mostly get driven in stop-and-go traffic.
The anti-woke backlash hash over corrected. A good chunk of what gets labeled as woke is just people being polite, welcoming, and non-antagonistic.
I’ve been using Openvibe for the past couple days to cross post to and consume Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, and Nostr. It has an easy onboarding flow to get all of the platforms signed in, and it works better than I expected. (I expected it to be hacky and janky, it isn’t!)
I’ve been taking magnesium to help me sleep for about a month now, and it helps! Glycinate seems to work better than citrate for me. I didn’t take it for a week, and I noticed a difference. I’ve also experimented with 200mg vs 400mg, and notice a difference there, too. Most nights I stick with 200mg. If I don’t take it by 10pm, I skip it so I’m not groggy in the morning.
I spent an afternoon helping the Yorktown Library with their WordPress site.
My current fly tying project is exploring different patterns using pheasant tail, since Chas Deremer gave me some over the holidays. I’ll do a full recap post once I’ve tied more, but this week I tied pheasant tail nymphs, dry pheasant tail midges, and Teeny nymphs. Many more to go on my list!
In the workshop on Saturday afternoon I turned a small oak dish and got started making a pedestal for my fly tying vise, which currently attaches with a clamp.
I finally got this dust hood mounted on the lathe while having it be easily removable. It occurred to me yesterday that instead of making something that will sit on the bench tubes and hold the hood, I could just screw a dowel on it and stick the dowel through a hole in the carriage that I don’t use while running the lathe. Works great, and if I need to push it back I just unscrew the dowel and screw it into a different spot. Takes 30s.
I can also clamp a light to it.
Hoping to get out there again this week and make more!
At some point in early 2021 I planed them down flat. I think I had three individual foot-long slabs. I’ve used them for various projects the last couple years. I had one slab left, so I cut it into three small circles on the bandsaw.
I put a faceplate on it and turned a tenon, and shaped the outside.
Reversed and put the tenon in a chuck and started hollowing it out with a bowl gouge and scraper. One hollowed, I sanded it.
Once sanded, I took it out of the regular chuck and put it on a jam chuck to remove the tenon.
This posts spans the Christmas holiday through now, because I didn’t post an update while traveling. Unfortunately those two periods of time, though only a week apart, feel more like a month apart. Here’s the abridged version:
Charlie traveled really well both there and back. We switched his car seat to face forward, which was a whole new world for him. He loves it. Amanda was able to sit in the front seat for the entire trip, both directions!
We had lots of good family time. Watching Charlie’s relationship bloom with his grandparents is special. He played really well with his cousin Nora, too.
Charlie got in the Christmas spirit and participated in/understood the Santa thing this year. It was precious.
Charlie sang Jingle Bells a lot and wished us all a Merry Christmas individually for a couple days.
I visited Bill Strohm and Chas Deremer, two mentors from high school. It has been gratifying to keep that relationship alive and relate to them now as an adult and parent rather than a teenage student. Chas brought me some fresh pheasant feathers from a bird he shot the day before!
Dad and I prepped some fly tying materials from a coyote tail and a raccoon tail. I have them drying now and will tie with them probably next month.
The bird house ornament Dad made this year was next-level. It is a mini version of my workshop!
Charlie likes Christmas Jello and fresh Hungarian sausage.
We visited my cousins the Harkers on their farm. Charlie loved the tractors.
We got to meet Sean Nelson’s little boy, Augie, and visit with his family. What a little cutie.
The daily get-togethers and being off of his routine was a bit much for Charlie. It is hard trying to pack it all into a week. We noticed a big improvement when we back into his routine again.
Some photos:
New Year’s, abridged:
We went grocery shopping, went to a cheese shop, and did fondue at home on NYE.
We tried to play outside as much as possible and get our grumps and wiggles out.
I tied a few flies before midnight.
I made a sausage, beans, and greens dish on New Year’s Day, downsized from the original plan of cassoulet because we were all a little done and ready to go back to school and work the next day.
Post New Year’s, abridged:
We went back to work and school.
We buckled down and finished an application for a school we are interested in sending Charlie to. It is wild to us that it is so soon!
I turned a few things:
A kitchen mallet as a gift for a friend
A cup for holding long feathers for fly tying that don’t fit in the bag I keep the smaller feathers and partial skins in.
We went to a friend’s birthday part.
Charlie’s swim lessons restarted. What a difference a year makes! He had fun, listened really well, and willingly did all of the exercises. I was in the pool with him and we both had a blast. Looking forward to next week.
Charlie and I went on an adventure to Bear Mountain to get our wiggles out on Saturday afternoon. The carousel was working, and our little turkey insisted on riding a turkey. After that Charlie wanted to try out the ice rink, and I couldn’t redirect him, so we rented some skates and tried it out. Mind you, I can’t really skate and I’ve been on skates a total of three times in my life. Still, we gave it a shot. I stayed on my feet the entire time and held on to Charlie, propelling us both around the outside edge for one full lap around the rink. We left without injuries and still in good spirits.
Charlie said, “We need Momma cuz we don’t know howwa ice skate. Momma will teach us.”
Charlie has been very polite lately! Lots of please, thank you, no thank you, etc.
Charlie is sick today with some stomach illness and a fever.
I tied some flies!
Pheasant tail sakasa kebari
Copper John kebari
Olive bubble kebari
Purple jun kebari
Barry Ord Clarke’s Mutantz (made with hot glue and a lighter)
Things on my mind right now:
Planning for my sabbatical (April, May, and June)
Planning a small 35th birthday party
What flies to tie next (probably more pheasant tail patterns)
What to make next in the workshop (probably more practice bowls)
What to read this year. I read mostly fiction last year and need some more non-fiction in my life. Send me your recommendations!
Reading more blogs this year. Send me your blogroll’s OPML.
Last year I used this format instead of a long-form recap of the year, and I liked it, so I did it again this year. The categories changed slightly, and I have some notes as to why on the bottom.
Getting into both tenkara and fly tying this year, I’ve had to read and learn a lot. Jason’s blog is a go-to resource for me with a big archive of useful stuff.
Glimpses at different points of time of an ever changing city, meticulously researched. I look forward to the posts each Monday.
Meals
The Oklahoma Onion Burger at Hamburger America. The best burger I’ve had this year.
The Butcher at Benny’s Brown Bag. Turkey, Havarti, Dill, chips. So good.
Chipotle’s quesadilla kids meal with sides of pork, white rice, and cheese. This is Charlie’s favorite takeout meal, and we know he’ll eat a filling, nutritious meal whenever we get it. So it makes my top list because it is clutch.
Places
The newly rebuilt Fleischmann Pier in Peekskill. Charlie and I walk there regularly and it is always great.
Groton Long Point, CT
We vacationed here with the Wasmers this summer, and it was a beautiful, vibrant little summer community where everyone walked and kids had a ton of autonomy to ride their bike to various activities. The July 4 parade was a lot of fun!
Amawalk Outlet
I sought out some local streams since getting back into fly fishing this year. The Amawalk Outlet (Muscoot River) is my favorite spot so far. Wild brown trout fishery that is secluded and serene. Natural beauty nestled between a couple large towns, but feels like it is in the mountains.
Used our homemade banana liqueur for this. Very tasty.
Carbonated mai tai
Learning how to carbonate things from a CO2 tank was pretty cool, and carbonated mai tais are very tasty.
Purchases
Leatherman Skeletool
I’ve used this almost every day since buying it. Has pliers, a knife, a screwdriver, and a bottle opener, yet is slim. I like the CX version, the one with a straight blade (no serrations).
Dragontail Mizuchi Tenkara rod
I got into Tenkara-style fly fishing in the latter half of the year, and am enjoying learning to use this rod effectively. I like the different zoom lengths.
Pro-Grind lathe tool grinding jig
This seriously upped my lathe tool sharpening game. I should have gotten one five years ago.
Honorable mention: HOTO Precision Screwdriver Pen. Beautiful and self-containing.
Memories
Rowing on the Hudson with Charlie, from Verplank to Stony Point and back.
The period of twilight during the total eclipse.
Wading in the creek in the woods by our house with Charlie.
The theme here is that I love making stuff that I use.
Accomplishments
Helping Charlie become potty trained. We are so proud of him for figuring it out and becoming more independent, and proud of ourselves for patiently supporting him through it.
Rebuilding my shop, making it a space where I can go out and make real progress instead of spending the first 30 minutes cleaning, moving stuff, and finding the tools I need.
Learning how to turn wooden bowls – a goal of mine for the past five years!
What I left out:
I left shows and music off the list this year. I didn’t really listen to or watch anything new worth mentioning.
I also left Software off the list because I’m using pretty much all the same software tools as last year.
Sadly, I left out Articles because, even after going through my Likes and Bookmarks, nothing incredible sticks out to me this year. I just didn’t read that much good stuff online, which I am going to try to remedy in 2025.
I worked in Manhattan on Monday to host a WordPress community event at our offices after work. I got in some last-minute shopping and had lunch at Hamburger America, and caught up with some coworkers I hadn’t seen in a while. The event itself was kind of a bust, but while waiting on the subway platform on my way home, I ran into one of our friends from Lake Peekskill, also on his way home, and we got to chat for the next two hours on the train north. Serendipitous fortune!
We got some snow this week on Monday, Friday, and Saturday. Chilling temperatures this weekend, too. 11F out right now, and it will be 7F when we wake up in the morning.
Charlie and I had some fun out in the snow.
I turned a scoop on the lathe over two late evenings this week. It was a good learning experience, but the final product doesn’t quite match what I had in mind. It needs a longer handle, thinner walls on the scoop, and spent way too much time hollowing out a larger section than needed. The next one will be better.
I don’t mean to brag, but I have a cleaning crew come vacuum up the woodchips after I use my lathe.
I tied more flies this week. Some eggs, bead head nymphs, and leeches.
I really like the look of the grey ones.
Speaking of tying flies, it has been about three months since I first got a vise and gave it a go, so let’s check in:
I’ve tied 226 flies so far. About a quarter are crap. Bad proportions, bad execution. Another quarter are pretty good. The remaining half are somewhere in the middle: They’ll catch fish and stay together, but have room for improvement.
I’ve given some of the better ones away to friends and either tossed the bad ones or cut the thread off with a razor to reuse the hooks.
I’ve tied:
Tenkara flies
Wet flies
Dry flies
Streamers
Nymphs
I’m slowly chipping away at the basic skills. The nymphs above all have dubbed bodies, and that was a first for me. Previously I really only dubbed thoraxes/collars.
I’m getting more confident in figuring out the order of what gets tied on when I see a pattern recipe. I’m also getting better at getting the proportions right.
I still have a lot to learn, though I imagine that this is something I’ll do for years to come, though not at the same rate. Once I feel good about having reached a decent competency level, I’ll probably just tie enough to keep my fly boxes full and gift some to friends. I have no interest in trying to sell them or tie things just because. I have too many other things I want to do.
What’s next?
The local Trout Unlimited chapter has a tying class in April I’ll probably attend to learn some new skills and meet some local tyers.
I’m done until the new year, but once the holidays are over I plan to tie more tenkara flies, pheasant tail patterns, fox squirrel patterns, then some dry flies.
I’m sketching more ideas for patterns. This is for a standard winter box:
It is challenging trying to learn two new skills at the same time (fly tying and bowl turning) that take blocks of focused time to make progress on. I try to spend at least one night (post kid bedtime) each week on each one, but I make better progress when I can do two nights in a row on the same thing, which I usually don’t have time for.
January and February are a bit slower than the last two months have been, so we’ll see what I can accomplish then.
The other thing that is tough is that I have other woodworking ideas I want to work on besides bowl turning, which limits the learning time even further.
I think I just need to be more patient with myself. I am making a lot more progress this year than I did last year. I also need to remember that the folks I am drawing inspiration from in the fly tying and bowl turning communities are folks that have been doing it for decades and spend most of their time on it.
This week was a whirlwind of finishing things up at work before the holiday, various holiday get togethers, a friend’s birthday party, last minute shopping, and travel prep.
Winding down for the holiday and family time. I probably won’t write a weekly update next week, though I have some year-end reflection posts in the drafts. 👋
I wanted to tie some egg patterns to fish myself and to gift to some friends, so I stopped by a fly shop in Manhattan to see if they had any materials. They had yellow and orange, so I picked some up. They didn’t have pink though, so I thought I’d get creative and try out some materials I already had to see how they’d work: wool yarn and dubbing.
Top left to right: Shetland Spindrift 301 wool yarn, pink ice dub, a blend of the orange dubbings I have, Orvis egg yarn. Bottom: Orange EZ Egg yarn.
When I got home, I tried out the EZ egg yarn and found it very easy to tie, and it produces a nice looking egg! I used an orange bead instead of a hotspot. The EZ yarn is essentially a chenille base with other materials spun onto it.
I also picked up some old stock Orvis yarn, which you have to tie in, then cut to shape. I found that more difficult to work with and don’t like the look of as much. They are the yellow eggs in the photo below.
The other problem with the other yarns is that they seem to work better on larger hooks, like size 10 or 12. Great for big trout and steelhead, but for some of the smaller wild trout near me, I’ve been using size 14 and 16 hooks most of the time. These larger yarns aren’t ideal for that. So I decided to see how the wool yarn and dubbing would work!
For the pink dubbing egg, I decided to use a size 16 jig hook, because I had pink slotted beads that would fit. Plus, wild trout eggs would be a bit smaller.
The dubbing eggs have a great shape!
Especially with the dubbing flies, I dabbed UV resin on the head and tail to lock everything in place.
The EZ Egg Yarn was a winner in when I consider the combo of speed and looks.
Dubbing eggs were second because they look great, though they take a while to tie.
Wool yarn eggs are okay, but aren’t as fast to tie as the EZ Egg yarn, and don’t look as good.
The yellow yarn was the worst. It is kind of ugly and take almost as long as the dubbing eggs to tie and shape.
Good experiment. Going forward, I’ll probably buy a couple packs of the EZ Egg yarn in different colors and sizes and use that for egg patterns. If I had an endless supply of dubbing I’d just use that, but dubbing is about the same price as the EZ Egg yarn, but faster and easier to tie. It also leaves my dubbing available for other flies.
The big thing this week was that we unexpectedly replaced our washer and dryer. The washer started leaking on Monday, so I took the front off and laid on the floor watching it run a load. The leak was coming from where the shaft goes into the wash basin, and my Dad, who repaired appliances for 30 years and knows pretty much everything there is to know about appliances, thought it wasn’t worth trying to replace the basin on an old washer that came with the house. I already replaced parts on the dryer last year, so we decided it was time for a new set.
That saga took:
Monday evening (diagnosing, ordering a new set)
Tuesday evening (disconnecting the old ones and getting them out of the basement)
Wednesday afternoon and evening (delivery and self installation)
Sunday morning (Craigslist dryer pickup)
That ate into a lot of the time I had hoped to spend in the workshop making some gifts. Such is home ownership. Still better than renting, IMO. I’m glad we were able to replace them so quickly.
I feel like I’m making progress on fly tying. I learned a couple new techniques this week for dubbing and I’m feeling more confident about basic techniques. I still have a lot more to learn, and I think the next step is learning how to tie in wings for dry and wet flies. I’ll probably start with a couple of traditional wet flies with mallard wings and some mosquitos for small dry flies.
I tied some green caddis larvae, ping bead Frenchies, and leeches this week. I also sketched out some ideas with colored pencils.
I wanted to try tying some leech patterns tonight, but I didn’t have any simi seal, so I made my own blend from different colors of hare’s mask dubbing and ice dub. It kind of worked and had nice color, but the hare’s mask is too short and fine. The simi seal is made from longer, coarser fibers. I also don’t want to use all of my dubbing just for leeches (they take a lot!) so I ordered some simi seal.
Good experiment, though! I learned about blending dubbing, how to use a dubbing loop, and three different techniques for tying leeches.
I’m thinking about expanding my patterns so I can make some seasonal boxes and expand my repertoire. I feel pretty good about my winter list, and will start tying them after the new year. Short list, mostly basics that are suggestive rather than trying to imitate a specific insect.
I got out into the workshop Sunday evening, which is why this post is going out on Monday. I’m writing it on the train into Manhattan.
I finished another bowl and made a darning ball for a friend who posted a photo of an old beat up one they picked up at a garage sale. I had a piece of cherry from a tree that fell in their yard, so I used that.
Some holiday festivities this week:
Amanda and I buckled down and finished writing our Christmas cards. Charlie helped us mail them.
Saturday we went to the Wall Holiday Party, which always includes live music and singing. Amanda played her flute!
Sunday we went to the train display at the Lasdon Arboretum. Charlie loved it.
Strange mushrooms popped up in our yard!
Maybe a hygroscopic earthstar?
I love soup season. This is some pasta e fagioli with white beans.
We woke up to a couple inches of snow this morning!
Christmas decorating is a process. We dehydrate grapefruits each year, put cloves in oranges, and string cranberries. We got that done this week.
I really like that all of the wooden ornaments for the tree are ones I’ve turned over the last four years.
We also got a train for around the tree and Charlie loves playing with it. It captures his attention!
Speaking of Charlie, he has his first imaginary friend. His name is Fire and he is a dragon who lives on top of the castle on the playground at his school, scaring away all the knights. Fire flies alongside the car with us wherever we go. He eats mulch.
Always up for exploring new playgrounds.
I did a lot of woodworking in the evenings this week.
I turned a second bowl and four Christmas ornaments, and made a fly tying tool caddy. I have a third bowl half done, but had to stop halfway through hollowing.
Finished the bowls with a thin coat of a blend of raw linseed oil and beeswax, buffed with 0000 steel wool after 24 hours. Linseed dries. The ornaments are finished with a jojoba oil and beeswax blend, which doesn’t dry.
I opened up the Shopsmith headstock to oil it this week. Still running nicely.
I want to turn a couple more bowls with this practice pine before trying some maple, cherry, or oak. Then I want to break down a couple big pine rounds I have in the backyard into blanks from a tree that was taken down a couple years ago.
I also need to make a dust collector for the lathe. I think I’ll go with something like this.
I also tied some flies. I am trying to improve my dubbing skills, so focusing on dubbing bodies right now. I’ve found Barry Ord Clarke’s videos very helpful. Next will probably be some Walt’s Worms.
I picked up my sketch book for the first time in months (remember that resolution? yeah…) and sketched a bunch of ideas for flies and ornaments.
We finished off the Thanksgiving leftovers with a turkey pot pie this week, and we used some of the stock we made for chicken and wild rice soup.
Amanda and I got ourselves an air fryer on Black Friday. What are your favorite air fryer recipes?
I had just gotten back into the workshop after a 2 and a half year hiatus after some nudging by my friend Jon. That sparked the rebuild I started a month later. Big difference now a year later!
Two updates I want to make to my blog:
Adopt Jeremy Felt’s “This week also appears in [year]” feature.
Change category and tag archive pages to titles and dates only, no content.
Two updates I want to make to my digital garden:
Add bookmarks to more top-level pages, maybe in the sidebar? If a bookmark tag matches the slug of the page, it should show up.
