On Instagram, Richard Findley posted his 2024 Festive Turning Challenge:
This is the first year I’ve done the challenge, and it comes at a good time because I’ve just turned a couple of bowls, so this was good hollowing practice.
Here is the bell I turned out of a piece of cherry:
Since I set up a dedicated fly tying desk, I needed something to hold my tying tools. Over the last two nights after Charlie went to bed, I made one out of a small slab of oak that I split and planed down two years ago.
I cut the bevels on the bandsaw, drilled the holes on the drill press with Forstner bits, sanded it down, then finished it with a 2:1 jojoba oil to beeswax blend.
I like that I was able to make it fit my specific tools and supplies. I left room for growth, in particular for more UV resins of different viscosities.
In progress and dry fit:
Thanksgiving itself is probably my third favorite holiday, but I always get a lot done on personal projects and a lot of quality family and friend time during the week, which bump it up in my overall admiration.
Thanksgiving Day we hosted another couple who are NY transplants and also have a 3yo who gets along very well with Charlie. We cooked a turkey from Hemlock Hill Farm (local), our guests made some of the sides (their sausage stuffing was particularly good), and we all had a great time. The kids played together most of the afternoon and evening, so the adults got to hang out and chat.
Amanda decorated the table with a flower arrangement of her own design in a vase by our friend Natalie at Resist Ceramics and a table runner by our friend Erin at Red Cottage Fiber Studio. Amanda also made the apple pie.
For 11 years Amanda has been slowly chipping away at my Grinchy heart and inching back the Christmas decorating from December 15. This year we started decorating on December 1.
We drove up to Ashfield, MA, to get a coppiced balsam fir from my friend Emmet van Driesche at Pieropan Christmas Tree Farm. It might be the only coppiced Christmas tree farm in the US! Amanda and I drove up there in 2020, pre-Charlie, and this is the first year that nap schedules allowed us to visit as a family of three. Charlie loved it.
I tied some soft hackle flies this week. Sizes 16 and 18.
I like the look of those orange body/brown hackle ones with the cahill thorax. I don’t know what they are called, but I saw some in a friend’s fly box and had to tie some.
I really like the look of those slightly angled hooks, too. They are Gamakatsu R18-B. I’m going to get some in more sizes. R17-B and R19-B have similar profiles with different wire weighs. R18 is a heavy hook, R19 is a standard hook, and R17 is a fine hook.
I also tied some Thanksgiving-appropriate flies.
All the setup and tear down time required to tie flies at the dining room table was getting to me, so I set up a small fly tying station in the corner of my office with a desk we were going to get rid of.
Nice to have the thread, yarn, and wire out so I can draw inspiration from it and not have to dig.
The desk is small, but definitely workable. It is in front of a door we never use (really, opened maybe 4 times since we moved in 5 years ago), so I don’t mind blocking it.
Charlie and I fixed the broken excavator toys at the playground near our house today. They are Charlie’s favorite things to play with there and they’ve been broken for a month, so we got some bolts and fixed them.
I wrote last week about getting serious about sharpening my lathe tools. I made that happen this week. I got a slow speed grinder, CBN wheels with 80 and 160 grit, and a pro-grind jig. I reground the profiles on all of my lathe tools this week so I can sharpen them in a repeatable way with the jig, and it made a world of difference when I used them.
This helped me realize a goal I’ve had for the past 5 years: Turn a wooden bowl on the lathe. I’ve been chipping away at it for the past two weeks and finished my first one tonight. I turned it out of pine from a 2×6, and I have 4 more of these dimensional blanks to turn as practice before I turn a nicer piece of wood.
I’m sure there is more, but that is all I can remember 👋
When I went to pick up our turkey from Hemlock Hill Farm this year, I noticed a turkey feather on the ground. I couldn’t resist tying a couple flies with it. The barbs and afterfeathers provided nice bodies and tails for these dry flies and midges. Sizes 16 and 18.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I turned some tenkara line spools out of spalted maple on the lathe.
Tenkara spools are something you can wrap your line around while in transit. Tenkara rods are longer than standard fly rods, collapsable, and have a fixed length of line tied to the end instead of a reel. When you move around, a spool makes it convenient to wrap up your line and collapse your rod. I prefer spools to the line keepers that attach to your rod because wrapping and unwrapping the spool is about 10x faster.
One is slim and the other is a little larger with a smaller secondary spool in the middle for locking the line. Both have magnets for storing/drying out flies. Each spot can comfortably hold 3 flies each. They have small notches cut out for wedging in your line.
I finished them with a 2:1 jojoba oil and beeswax blend, the same thing I put on spoons and other carvings.
Compared with a Nirvana plastic and foam line spool:
I first tried making them out of cherry, but I made a critical early mistake. I drilled the center hole about 1/8″ too large and it wouldn’t stay in place on the rod. I had to treat those as a learning prototype and try again. I ended up making the next batch smaller anyway.
Drilling out the magnet holes on the drill press:
One of these is a gift and I’m keeping the other. I don’t intend to mass produce and sell them. The design was heavily inspired by the ones Dennis Vander Houwen makes at Tenkara Path and if you want one, you should buy one from him.
The cold weather is here, and I am happy to have it. It snowed on Friday, but melted overnight.
Given the weather, I’m in full hearty meal mode.
Charlie was home sick on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. That made for a challenging work week. He was vomiting, but had full energy and was bouncing off the walls, which is a recipe for chaos.
On the project front: I’ve been trying to work on something for an hour or two each night after Charlie goes to bed.
One night this week it was finishing a lathe project I’ll post about soon.
Another night I tied a bunch of Ishigaki kebari in different colors and sizes 14 and 16 hooks.
Another night I cut a bunch of bowl blanks out of glued together pieces of 2x6s. I’ve only done spindle turning and I want to learn how to turn bowls, so I’m taking the turnawoodbowl.com course and need a bunch of blanks to practice on.
I completely rebuilt the inside of my workshop at the beginning of this year and I thought the next phase was going to be making upgrades to my old Shopsmith, but I’ve decided to get serious about sharpening instead.
The goal of the workshop upgrades was to be able to walk out to the workshop and immediately get to work on something instead of wasting 20 minutes moving things around, finding the right tools, and getting by set up. Big progress on that goal so far!
Upgrading the Shopsmith to make it safer and more capable would be very useful, but that isn’t really my bottleneck right now. It is still very functional and I did upgrade the bandsaw table already, which has been helpful.
Right now the main bottleneck is keeping my tools sharp, particularly my lathe tools. I have a couple jigs to sharpen on the Shopsmith itself with the disc sander, but changing tools to sharpen is a pain and eats into the already limited workshop time I have.
I think it is time for a semi-permanent sharpening station with some higher quality equipment so I can sharpen what I am using in a minute instead of twenty, and without frustration. This investment will save me time in sharpening and save work time, too. Sharper lathe tools cut cleaner and faster.
My current plans will allow my to sharpen other tools quickly, too. Bench chisels, hand gouges, hand planes, and maybe even my planer knives. I’m hoping to get everything set up this week.
I’m also becoming increasingly convinced that lathe work is mostly easy when tools are sharp, but they dull faster than you think and the sharpness to difficulty cliff is steep.
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this 5 years ago. This planer was essentially dead space when not in use, but now I can put a router table, miter saw, or bench grinder on here.
I got Charlie outside a decent amount this weekend. We walked some of the carriage trails at Rockefeller State Park (and he climbed some big rocks) in part because I wanted to take a look at the Pocantico River, which is a potential fishing spot. It is stocked, and while some local forums say that it gets fished out every year, I simply don’t believe that. The river doesn’t show signs of being heavily fished beyond a few spots without tree cover. Most of it is narrow pocket water and it is still flowing despite the drought. I bet there are holdovers in spots that aren’t on the path and don’t suit themselves to using a standard fly line, and I bet I can fish them with my tenkara rod.
We also spent a couple hours at the playground and park on Sunday, and Charlie had a great time.
I went to the premier of a documentary about the 100 year anniversary of the Bear Mountain Bridge today, which included some interesting notes about how they maintain it.
Afterward, there was a panel discussion and someone asked why the Bear Mountain Bridge is still in good shape after 100 years while the Tappan Zee Bridge, the bridge just south of the Bear Mountain Bridge, had to be replaced after 62 years because it was in bad condition.
The panelists leaned into their mics at the same time and said, “Leadership” and pointed at one old guy off to the side, Harry Stanton. He led the NY Bridge Authority starting in the 1980s and decided to double down on maintenance of the historic bridges and do it all in-house. They still follow the philosophy he set today. By comparison, the Tappan Zee is run by the NY Thruway Authority.
I love how the subtitle of the film is “The First 100 Years.” They intend to keep maintaining and using the bridge as long as possible.
I’ve been working on other people’s blogs at work all day, time to post on mine.
Downtown Peekskill with Amanda and Charlie on Monday evening. We went to dinner at the Irish place, and we also checked on the Little Free Library and exchanged some books.
We had another tough weekend with Charlie, so I’m trying to remind myself of the high points this week:
Charlie, while in the bathtub:
“Daddy, are you finkin what I’m finkin?”
“What are you thinking, bud?”
“We take the garbage and flush it down the toilet!!!”
I’m suddenly pretty glad I preemptively bought that toilet auger two weeks ago.
The rhetoric about non-natural fibers in clothing being “endocrine disrupting” smells like nonsense to me and I can’t find actual proof of it being a problem. It is okay to just say you prefer the feel of cotton or flax. You don’t need to make nonsense claims to position it as morally superior.
I only see hypocrisy, false promises, and contradictions so far from Trump’s cabinet picks and statements. It is amazing how short of a memory the American electorate has. If you are optimistic about Trump’s reelection, I guarantee you will be disappointed. If you are upset about Trump’s reelection, you will continue being disappointed. More of the same.
Sometimes I question whether or not the AI doomers truly believe that AI will kill every human within our lifetimes. If they did, I’d expect more radical (read: forceful) action than talking about it on podcasts.
If you truly believe we are all going to be wiped out anyway, what is the downside? Certainly the EA folks have done a Bentham-esque calculation on this.
It is hard to take people seriously if they have a fundamentally asymmetry between their beliefs and actions.
I am very organized, but I have such disdain for tax and insurance paperwork that I just throw it all in a physical box and forget it. Amanda thinks this is crazy, but it works. When I need one of those papers, I open the box and rummage through it. I always find what I need.
We refer to it as “The Box”, and it is roughly stratified by year. There is at least five years worth of paperwork in the current Box. I hate The Box, but it is an unfortunate necessary part of life.
This came to mind because I rummaged through The Box to find FSA-related paperwork. I found it in about 30 seconds. No need for folders, binders, labels, etc. The Box works.
Dudes talk a lot about how much hair loss sucks (and it does!) but no one prepared me for how horrifying it was when the lady cutting my hair asked me if she could trim my eyebrows.
I forgot to post this a couple weeks ago, but I made an angled cover for Charlie’s sandbox to keep the rain from pooling up in the tarp that was on there.
In the first meeting of a new book club last night we discussed Le Carré’s A Perfect Spy. Next month is Updike’s Pigeon Feathers. We are essentially using this book club for accountability to read books we’ve wanted to read but haven’t made the time for. By knowing we will talk about it together we’ll actually read them. We are a small group and meet virtually, let me know if you are interested!
I tied some flies this week.
The worms are an experiment to see if the wool yarn will work if I seal the ends with resin. I don’t really like chenille.
I know midges are usually tied smaller, but size 16 are the smallest hooks I have right now. I need to get some 18-24. Tried some different beads on those.
I like the look of the partridge feathers more, but find the hen feathers much easier to work with.
What’s next:
Here are the flies I took out fishing on Friday and Saturday, all tied by me.
I fished the Amawalk outlet on Friday, and explored more of the section below the Wood St Bridge. I hiked a long ways to explore, but I didn’t catch anything. Bummer. I found another scrape, though.
Saturday morning I went to Boyds Corner outlet, the first stream in the West Branch section of the Croton River. Much better day! I didn’t lose any flies despite lots of low tree limbs, the light soft hackle fly landed where I wanted it to most of the time, and I read the water better and found a lot more feeding fish than I did before. I was able to use a single fly the whole time (a size 14 soft hackle pheasant tail that I tied myself).
The stream I fished was super low because of drought, so it was mostly pocket water. The Dragontail Mizuchi triple zoom rod I have is perfect for this situation. I was able to pick apart the pockets quickly and change the rod length based on the surroundings.
I’m feeling pretty good about getting noticeably better, especially on the casting, but I need some help: I had a lot of takes and some of the fish even jumped out of the water taking my line with them, but I wasn’t able to land any of the takes. They jumped off the hook before I got them in. So, I have something to research more and improve upon. I think it might be either how I’m trying to set the hook, or not keeping tension with the rod after hook set.
Don’t get me wrong, it is wonderful to see them jump and to get to watch as a fish takes a fly I tied. I still had a great day, but I’d really like to get them in the net.
I’ll be back to Boyds Corner for sure.
I finally bottled that hot sauce I made.
A nice Thursday morning walk in the woods.
Until next week, I hope for more time to make things and blog about it. I usually do that after Charlie goes to bed, but tonight I had to go back online at 8pm to fix a problem. I’ll try to make up the time in the workshop one afternoon.
Short post this week. I need to get some sleep. It has been a long week and I am tired. This work week was stressful and parenting was difficult. Optimistic that next week will be better.
I made my own rosin and fly tying wax this week.
I tied a few flies this week, too. Four different kinds of nymphs.
I picked up my first bobbin on September 12. In under two months, I’ve tied 111 flies, made a bunch of my own tools, gathered some of my own materials, and learned a ton. Mostly in the evenings after my son goes to bed.
I plan to tie more nymphs this week. Probably some with soft hackle, and probably more of the Dave Whitlock Red Squirrel Nymph.
It occurred to me that “get a rise out of” is a phrase from fly fishing! Trying to get the trout to rise to the surface to take a fly.
I don’t look at my blog’s traffic stats much. I checked tonight for the first time in a while and the top post for the past six months is about building a climbing wall for my son. That brings me so much joy. I hope that post has led to climbing walls getting built for kids.
My friend Jeremy Wall did a public reading of some of his recent writing at Stanza Books in Beacon on Thursday. I went out to support him and hung out with some of the other writers afterward. Half of them were young parents like Amanda and me, and we had a great conversation about making space for your art and hobbies as a parent.
I spend Saturday at the WordPress NYC meetup, which was hosted at Automattic’s office. I was the staff rep for the day. The organizers are trying to reboot the meetup again. We hosted a helpdesk, and had 10 people show up with a wide variety of WordPress questions.
Being in Manhattan gave me the chance to pick up some things for Amanda’s birthday (a cake from Milk Bar and a gift from Charlie).
Birthdays look a little different with a toddler. Amanda and I coordinated ahead of time to get her out of the house for a few hours so Charlie and I could decorate and he could do the surprise. It was precious to see him show Amanda the decorations and give her a gift.
Our tradition used to be going to one of the NY steakhouses for a birthday, and we are keeping that somewhat alive by cooking a classic steakhouse dinner at home.
Sitters are hard to come by. We had a nursing student who was great, but she got a job as a full time nurse. The high school student who was also great is now at college out of state. Another high school student who we liked is at college a couple hours away.
Some limited thoughts on the election:
If you are a longtime reader, my political beliefs haven’t changed much, I’m just less outspoken and radical about them. My focus is elsewhere after wasting too much of my 20s on that. I’m more pragmatic and less idealistic now, which I think is mostly a symptom of being older and having more life experience.
I’m listening to the rain while writing this. It is the first rain in two months, and it is very welcome.
Two weeks ago I scraped some pine resin off of a pine tree. This week I turned it into rosin, then blended it into fly tying wax.
Rosin is the stuff musicians rub on violin bows to help them grip the strings better and produce better vibrations. Baseball pitchers use it to grip the baseball better, too. It is also in the core of some solders as flux. When added to wax, it provides tackiness.
Rosin is a brittle substance made from pine resin, essentially heated until the natural turpentines boil off. Rosin made this way is darker. The lighter clear stuff you see for sale in music shops is made by chemically separating and distilling out the turpentines and pine oils.
I took a walk in the woods at the end of my street and found the pine resin I needed on the third pine tree I found.
Some guides I found tell you to just burn the pine resin and it will turn into rosin. The problem is that most resin contains lots of bark, leaf pieces, bugs, etc. This stuff all turns into carbon when burned, so you have carbon + resin, which is essentially pitch. Useful stuff too, but I wanted just rosin, so I decided to separate it out. The best way I found to filter it is to dissolve the resin with acetone, then strain it through a coffee filter.
Once you have filtered acetone+resin, it is time to boil the acetone off. Acetone has a low boiling point (~132F), so I used a crock pot with oil in a double boiler setup and the acetone mixture in a small metal cup lined with aluminum foil. It took about an hour to boil off.
I recommend not using an open flame, as acetone is pretty flammable. This small crock pot lives in my workshop for tasks like this.
Next the natural turpentines need to be boiled off. They have a much higher boiling point, around ~350F, so I used a propane burner in a double boiler setup for that. With the acetone gone, I was much less concerned about it catching fire.
This took another hour, and after it cooled I got ~10g of brittle, crumbly rosin. Exactly what I wanted.
I wanted to make three different blends of wax for fly tying:
I used these two resources for ratio inspiration:
For the oil I used castor oil. I was going to use something like generic vegetable oil or grapeseed oil, but when I looked it up I learned that castor is thicker, tackier, and more viscous than cooking oils. I found some at the drug store, where it is sold as a laxative and as a hair product. Who knew?!
I thought about using duck fat for the soft wax, but the only duck fat I had on hand was saved from dinner, tinted red and smelled like paprika and garlic, so that was out.
I did a bit of math to figure out the allocation of rosin to each blend, then calculate the other ingredients based on the amount of rosin in each. I weighed them out with a sensitive scale.
I set up a double boiler again on the propane burner, this time with water instead of oil, and melted down each set of ingredients. It took me 3x as long as I expected to melt this stuff down. The rosin took a long time to soften to the point where I could blend it in with the beeswax and castor oil.
Once liquified and blended, I poured each into the appropriate vessel or mold.
I let the wax set and cool for 24 hours, then tested it out. They are all appropriately sticky, which was the goal of making the rosin.
Both the dubbing wax and the soft wax allowed me to make a dubbing noodle on regular thread with no problem after applying this wax. Pre-wax it wouldn’t stay.
The first is a green hot butt nymph with a green dubbing body. The second is a Dave Whitlock Red Fox Squirrel Nymph. Tail is fox squirrel guard hair, dubbing is the squirrel’s under fur and a bit of ice dub. I hunted the squirrel myself. Size 12 fly.
I’m pretty happy with the outcome, even though working with the small quantities of rosin was a pain. Even this small amount is likely to last me a couple years, so not much need to make a larger batch unless someone else I know gets into tying and wants some.
I might melt and transfer the dubbing wax from the twist-up stick to an old Burt’s Bees chapstick container for the smaller size. We’ll see.
Trying out some jig hook Frenchie nymphs with Shetland Spindrift wool yarn bodies instead of traditional pheasant tail bodies.
This is my first time using the pheasant tail feather my Dad found, and my second time using dubbing. I’m getting better at the dubbing, but still inconsistent.
I’m going to sleep on it, then pick a body color to tie more of. The darker Grouse (235) is closer to what the pheasant tail bodies look like, but the lighter Autumn (998) has some lovely reds and greens, and looks a bit like hare’s ear. The yarn looks buggy! I’ll probably try some traditional pheasant tail bodies, too.
Hook: Moonlit TOGATTA ML502 barbless jig hooks
Thread: Wapsi Ultra 140, red
Bead: 3.0mm slotted tungsten, gold
Thorax: Hareline Ice Dub, UV pink
Body: Shetland Spindrift wool yarn, Moorit & Shaela, Grouse, or Autumn
Rib: Wapsi Ultra brassie wire, copper
Tail: Pheasant tail
Charlie worked with me in the shop on Monday night and I got down the hand drill and bit brace for him to check out. I was surprised by how quickly he grokked them. It was cool to see. He drilled decent holes by himself much safer than with a battery drill. I’ll have to find some his size.
This weekend I showed him how to fix his stuck loader bucket by oiling the joints. He did it himself on his workbench.
We spent some time in the woods on Saturday. It was a beautiful day.
We also raked leaves.
I got some time in the workshop this week, mostly in the evenings.
Charlie and I cleaned out the gardens and put away a bunch of outdoor furniture today. Then we we and picked up some wood to make a better cover for his sandbox that won’t let water pool up in the center.
We did a Trunk or Treat at Charlie’s daycare on Halloween (kudos to Amanda for the decorations!) and then trick or treated with friends in Lake Peekskill that evening.
Not much to say about work other than I’ve gotta keep my nose to the grindstone.
Hoping to tie some flies tonight. Probably just some killer bugs, maybe some zebra midges. Just something simple. I’m tired but need a mental break.
Charlie and me at Home Depot:
“Daddy, what’s this?”
“An eye bolt”
“Daddy look!”
Charlie made a bus out of clay.
I worked at the Automattic office in Manhattan on Wednesday.
It was a beautiful day, so I had breakfast in Union Square before a phone call.
For lunch I went to Thai Diner. Short rib in pad thai is not something I would have expected but pretty good.
After work I went to Paradise Lost with some coworkers.
Then off to Neal Stephenson’s book reading and signing for the launch of Polostan at The Strand.
We kicked off a slew of Halloween events this weekend. Charlie asked to be a Bucket Truck two months ago and has been consistent, so Amanda created an awesome ConEd bucket truck for Charlie (his arm is the bucket!) and helmets for us.
Sunday we met up with Meg, Jeremy, and Miles at the library for a haunted house that our friend Colin helped put together. The boys are eating popcorn.
More festivities later this week!
I processed the end-of-season habaneros and jalapenos into hot sauce.
Bottles are on their way, so I’ll bottle this up later this week. Let me know if you want a bottle! The orange habanero has a great bite, but also lots of garlic, onion, and carrot. The green jalapeno has onion and garlic, too. Both have vinegar.
Charlie and I walked down to the park and went to the playground, then walked to the track and found an abandoned soccer ball, and had a lot of fun kicking it around.
I went fishing at the Amawalk outlet on Saturday. I caught two wild brown trout on my tenkara rod with a size 14 killer bug that I tied.
I didn’t get a photo of the ~6″ one because I fumbled with my net and didn’t keep tension on my line, so it hopped off the barbless hook at my feet. Here is the tiny 3.5″ one:
Still a beauty, very gratifying to catch on a fly I tied.
It was a nice day and I’m glad I got the chance to get on the water. The flow was very high despite our lack of rain. Lots of water getting let out of the reservoir. The water was almost a foot higher in some spots than last month.
While walking between spots, I spotted a scrape! The rut is starting.
I can’t wait for the election to be over. The robo calls, spam texts, and flyers in the mail are so annoying.
I made a couple things this week. Here are the posts in case you missed them:
I also tied a few flies, but didn’t take good photos.
This was my first try with dubbing, and it confirmed to me that I definitely need to make some dubbing wax. Getting the dubbing to stick to the thread was kind of tough.
I like the bead head futsu, I think I’ll tie more.
I’m off to read more of the new Neal Stephenson book before bed. Good night! 👋 📖
I read Tenkara Bum’s post about fly rod spoons, which aren’t really available anymore. If you are lucky you can find a brand from Japan like Rodio, but the shipping is killer and they are hard to find. It is easy to find larger spoons, but for throwing them with a fly rod you want a weight of 0.5g (roughly 1/60oz)or less. That’s tiny!
I was intrigued, so I decided to make some of my own.
The closest thing I could think of is the spinners on rooster tails. They are the same basic shape and some are quite small. I spent a couple hours doing research and found a company that sells fishing lure components and ordered a sample of their smallest spinner blade sizes and split rings.
Dime for scale so you san see how small some of these are.
Next step: adding a hole on the bottom of each one. I thought I’d use a drill press, but they are so small that holding them in place is kind of a pain. What ended up working the best was a small (1/16″) jewelry metal punch, available in every craft store. I assume they are used for earrings. Works great.
According to Tenkara Bum, the best fish catcher was the Daiwa Presso Vega in the Nightmare color scheme:
I did my best to replicate that with the polished brass spoons, glossy black spray paint, and orange glossy enamel paint.
Next I added some size 0 split rings and size 14 hooks. These split ring pliers were very useful.
In my most recent fly fishing outing, I threw one of the spoons a few times to see how it works. It wobbles and flutters pretty well when swung across the current. I didn’t catch anything with them on this outing, but I’ll try them again soon. I think they’ll do better in bigger, slower moving water than the shallow, fast water I was fishing today. I expect them to do well for bass and panfish, too.
Ongoing challenges:
Why am I doing this?
Quick project this week: A wading staff for fly fishing. Features depth marks, a T-handle with catches carved in to free snags, and magnets to dry out flies. The paracord clips to my waders so I can drop it without worrying about it floating downstream while I’m trying to land a fish.
Made from a cherry branch from our yard, peeled and roughed with the draw knife (with Charlie’s help!), then refined with a rotary tool. The T-handle is pegged and glued, then lashed on with waxed string. Finished with oil and wax.
I used it today at Amawalk outlet and am happy with how it turned out. It definitely helps with stability, both in the water and going down steep banks. I used it to free a couple snags successfully. The magnets held flies even when the staff was submerged.
I love the way cherry ages, so looking forward to a rich color on this in the coming years.
Charlie and I were on our own until Wednesday, when Amanda came back from London. We played outside, got pizza at Baci, went grocery shopping, did dishes, and read books. We also worked through the meltdowns together and took 3x as long to get out the door each morning, because even though I only post smiling photos here, my son is still a three year old.
Later that week we had to pick peppers, tomatoes, and tomatillos in the dark ahead of a frost. For now we set them out on the porch in the sun each day to ripen, and Charlie helps me sort out the ripened ones. We freeze them until I have time to make hot sauce.
Amanda peeled her luffa plants and plans to make sponges out of them.
Charlie carved one of the pumpkins we grew!
We found a leaf bug!
Friday Charlie was home from daycare with a stomach bug. He bounced back the next day, and we visited a school open house (It is wild that it is already time for that!), played in the backyard and workshop for a couple hours, then went to Miles’s birthday.
Then Sunday Amanda and I both woke up with the stomach bug. It hit us hard. It felt like a repeat of the time we got food poisoning from some place in NJ (the worst state in the union, by far), but this time we at least had two bathrooms on two floors instead of one tiny apartment. Charlie was fine, had full energy, and very much wanted attention. It was a challenging day.
Charlie is picking up the very basics of phonics. He has surprised us this week by telling us what letter various words start with after we say them. We recognized a few from ABC books we’ve read, but then threw some curveballs out and he gets 75% of them. Time to break out the phonics book.
Our street got repaved this week. Looking forward to getting Charlie out there on his bike and scooter. Much better for cruising.
Last week was one of the toughest weeks at work in the past couple years. So many things changing so quickly with short turnarounds. Many late evenings. I have a feeling there are more of these weeks to come, so I need to plan ahead to stay flexible and take time off to recharge.
I have a few small projects in the works.
First is a wading staff so I don’t fall when I slip on rocks in the river. Charlie helped me strip the bark off a piece of cherry with the draw knife. I’m making it a T-handle so it is comfortable to hold on to and so I can use the handle to release snags. I’m thinking of adding some depth marks so I know how deep the water is (inspired by my uncle Kevin) and some holes with magnets for drying flies, inspired by Tenkara Path’s beautiful spools.
Second is some fly tying wax. I already make my own wood finish wax, so why not fly tying wax? I found an old timer’s recipe, which included rosin. After some research, I learned you can make rosin out of pine resin, so I scraped some pine resin off of a pine tree on a walk.
My general plan is to dissolve it with acetone, strain it, boil the acetone off, then cook off the natural turpentine and water at a higher temp. Then I’ll mix it with wax and a little grapeseed oil. The rosin is the sticky component, the wax and oil make it pliable. Apparently you can just boil it down and burn off the bark, woodchips, and bugs, but that added carbon will turn it more into a pitch and make the color darker. I’m looking for a nice amber colored rosin, hence the acetone step.
Third is fly rod spoons. I read Tenkara Bum’s post about fly rod spoons, which aren’t really available anymore. If you are lucky you can find a brand from Japan like Rodio, but the shipping is killer and they are hard to find. It is easy to find larger spoons, but for throwing them with a fly rod you want a weight of 0.5g (roughly 1/60oz)or less. That’s tiny!
The closest thing I could think of is the spinners on rooster tails. They are the same basic shape and some are quite small. I spent a couple hours doing research and found a company that sells fishing lure components and ordered a sample of their smallest spinner blade sizes and split rings. I think I can drill an extra hole and add a barbless hook, then paint them to my liking. Send me a message if you want a couple to try out.
Dime for scale so you san see how small some of these are.
I mentioned last week that I brought back some deer and squirrel hair from animals I bagged 16 or 17 years ago. I tried tying some flies with them tonight.
I tied five streamers with squirrel tail and varies bodies and throats, all on size 12 barbless streamer hooks:
Then I tied two deer hair flies, a sedge and an emerger with a tail. Both used some greyish brown yarn for the body instead of hare dubbing. Both were on size 14 barbless hooks.
Overall good experimentation, even if I only tied seven flies. What I learned:
What’s next?
At work today someone asked today about how we recapture the magic of the early days of blogging. I have some ideas.
First, I don’t think that magic is gone! Sure, a lot of people moved to social platforms. The dopamine hit is just too addicting. Fortunately a lot of cool people are still blogging, and doing interesting things with it. Check out the People and Blogs series, and more importantly the blogs referenced in them, for inspiration. I maintain a feed of the referenced feeds here: https://peopleandblogs.feedland.cloud/
What else can you do? Reclaim your stuff from social media and do more with your own site. Make it deep. Make it you.That’s where the magic is.
Yeah, I need to take my own advice. That’s why I’m posting this. Next I need to revamp my blogroll and respond to this month’s IndieWeb Carnival prompt.
Hit post.
It feels like fall here. Charlie and I returned home from a trip to cold, windy weather, and a yard covered in leaves. We had to turn the heater on in the house for the first time this season. I’m sipping some cognac while I write this. Nothing fancy, Gilles Brisson VS. Good sipper.
There isn’t much to report from the beginning of the week. Lots of packing for our respective trips and hoping our colds go away.
Amanda went to London for Kat and Nate’s wedding and Charlie and I went to Ohio to go camping with Grandma and Grandpa. All three of us flew out of JFK around the same time on Thursday, so we were able to go the airport together.
Charlie is a really good flier. There and back we played with cars and magnatiles, made up stories about the safety instruction card illustrations, and had snacks. Turbulence didn’t bother him at all.
One of the helpful things for long car rides to and from the airport was the Thomas & Friends Storytime podcast. Charlie loves it. He’ll quietly sit and listen to it with his headphones for a while.
We went camping at East Harbor State Park, near Marblehead. Charlie settled in to camping pretty quickly. He helped us start a fire, slept well in the camper, dug into breakfast, and rode his bike.
We spent most of Friday exploring. We went to the lake at East Harbor, Marblehead Lighthouse, and Castalia Fish Hatchery. We all enjoyed finding fossils in the rocks at Marblehead and feeding the rainbow trout at the hatchery.
Saturday was Trick or Treat at the campground. We made a makeshift explorer costume (backpack, lantern, binoculars) for Charlie and hit the pavement. He ended up with a huge bag full of candy and some spooky tattoos! Some campsites had more decorations than most houses our city. They must have brought a separate trailer just for their decorations. Some people really love halloween. Not for me.
Saturday night brought a huge thunderstorm that Charlie slept through, but none of the adults did. Sunday was rainy and we headed back to my parents’ house. Charlie, always the helper, pitched in on packing up. He particularly liked pushing the buttons for the retractable awning and slide outs.
It was a nice trip. I was 100% offline from work, which was much needed after the last couple weeks.
While at my parents’ house, my Dad helped me get some deer hair from a hide, some squirrel tails, and a pheasant tail. I shot that particular deer and the squirrels about 15 years ago, and the pheasant tail feathers my Dad found while walking in the woods. Now I have some more fly tying ideas! Bookmarks are collected here. I’m excited to use materials the have some extra meaning and history.
After Charlie and I landed at JFK, we drove back to Peekskill, went grocery shopping, had dinner at Chipotle, and started getting ready for the week. Amanda comes back Wednesday.
Early this summer the founder of Peekskill Walks reached out and asked if I’d be interested in building a Little Free Library for Esther Place, a former street that has been shut down and turned into a much needed outdoor community hangout spot.
Sure! I love woodworking, books, and hanging out at Esther Place drinking my coffee while Charlie plays with the blocks and chalk, so I was in.
I didn’t use a set of plans, but I did look at a bunch to get an idea. I sized it to fit the space, and went with roughly 28″ tall x 16″ wide x 15″ deep. This is tall enough for two shelves, with the bottom being tall enough for big children’s books. This was important to me, and I borrowed some of Charlie’s books to make sure they’d fit.
It was going in a covered nook, so it didn’t need shingles or a wide overhang on the roof.
I made it out of 3/4″ exterior grade plywood. I started with the box. I made a little corner clamping jig to help me hold the pieces together for screwing. I had to shave down a couple parts with the block plane so the angled roof would sit flat.
Next was the door. I wanted the middle to have plexiglass, so I built it like a frame. I used L brackets on the back side. Everything fit pretty nicely on the first try. I was pleased.
I used a little bit of everything to make various cuts. Some were on on the table saw, some bandsaw, others were with a mini circular saw, and the door miters were on the miter saw.
I gave everything a nice sanding and then handed it off to another volunteer to paint it. Then it came back to me so Charlie and I could caulk the inside and add weather stripping.
It is sturdy and bolted in place on metal brackets.
It was on private property so we didn’t have to deal with city permits. I was wary of drilling into someone’s wall without knowing what was on the other side, so the building owner connected me with his maintenance guy to help me hang it. That was a good move because there was a pipe exactly where I wanted to drill, and the wall was thinner than I expected.
We debuted it on September 22 with a little celebration at Esther Place.
Since then I’ve checked on it a couple times and it is definitely getting some use and has book turnover!
It has been registered with Little Free Library, charter #192049. It should be on the official map soon.
The big thing this week is that 159 of my colleagues at Automattic left over three days as part of this ongoing struggle with WP Engine. I stayed. The offer was generous and tempting, but I think Automattic is in the right when it comes to the lawsuit and I believe in Matt’s leadership of both Automattic and the WordPress project.
It has been a wild ride this week. I went into the Manhattan office one day, the final day of the deadline, and saw three people at a table near me post their resignations after nervously pacing around, then get out of their chairs, shut their laptops, and grab a beer out of the cooler. Cheers, former coworkers. I wish you the best 🍻
The folks who stayed now need to roll up our sleeves and get to work.
On one of our evening walks down by the river, Charlie wanted to load rocks in one of his toy trucks so he could throw them in the water. Why not, little man? 🤷♂️
I got to have dinner with two separate friends this week: Chris after work on Thursday in Manhattan at Casa Carmen, and Jeremy on Friday at Slainte in Peekskill. Being intentional about catching up with friends is something I am proud of.
I checked on the Little Free Library on Friday. Lots of book turnover from two weeks ago! I’ll go stick some more books in there soon.
Charlie playing with the hose:
Look Daddy! I’m making a RAINBOW!
I took Charlie to the craft store to pick up a couple things we needed. He picked up some muffin papers and really wanted them, insisting on carrying them around. When I asked what he wanted to do with them, he said, “I want to share cupcakes with my friends.” So later that day Amanda and Charlie made cupcakes from scratch and he took them to school. He was so excited and so proud of them. It was very cute to see. I’m glad we encourage and go along with his ideas when we can.
Charlie and I went with one of his friends and her dad to the fall festival by the waterfront.
I coined a new term for bounce houses: Chaos Castles.
One clear difference between little boys and little girls: Every little girl in Charlie’s friend group will sit and patiently paint something, then walk away clean. Every little boy ends up covered in paint after about five minutes.
I replaced two window screens and the screen door this week, all three long overdue. Also washed the ACs and put them away.
I used a speed stitcher for the first time this week to stitch some webbing into a double floatant holder. The gel kind goes on the bottom, the power goes on top.
I cut webbing to length using a crappy chisel that I heated with a blowtorch, then I cut the circle for the gel floatant to slide through with a heated up section of copper pipe. Then I stitched a loop at the top for a clip and two pieces of elastic to secure the bottles.
The speed stitcher worked great and I know I’ll get some use out of it.
It doesn’t matter that summer is over. We use the grill year-round.
I tied some more flies over the weekend. Some things I tried:
What’s next? Probably some more flies with stiff hackle. Different kinds of futsu kebari, elk hair caddis, stimulator, or blue winged olive.
The habaneros and jalapenos are finally starting to turn red! I don’t have time to ferment them to make sauce right now, so I’m picking and freezing them until I do have time in a couple weeks.
We moved five house projects forward this week (three big, two tiny):
The WordPress world is in uproar this week. It has made work interesting. The WP people reading this already know, and the non-WP people reading this probably don’t care, so I won’t bore you with the details other than to state which side I’m on.
I’m on Matt’s side, and not because I work at Automattic. If that were the case, I’d just say nothing. I’m on Matt’s side because, after reviewing the arguments from both sides, I believe WP Engine (on orders of Silver Lake) to be acting in bad faith over the last couple years and refusing multiple reasonable offers to make it right.
I think Matt took it public in the wrong place at the wrong time without making all of the details public, leaving a lot of people at WCUS with a bad impression that he is now fighting against. The C&D should have come first the week before. But that horse is out of the barn and all it can do is run fast enough to win the race and make sure it clears the fences and ditches.
Based on what I know about the facts at this time, I firmly believe Matt to be in the right on this.
We went to a baby shower at a bowling alley on Saturday. The expectant parents wanted something non-standard that everyone could attend, and that certainly fit the bill. The daycare contingent hung out on two lanes and barely contained the chaos of three year olds trying to pick up and roll bowling balls 1/4 of their body weight. The parents finished the frames that the kids didn’t want to do. One dad hurt his back (not me). All-in-all, a good time. Bowling alleys are underrated (though most are in need of a good clean and a facelift.)
Charlie thought the keyboards that allow you to put in the bowlers controlled the ball after you threw it, so after every throw (light roll) he’d run back and press the buttons. It was cute.
Charlie had picture day at daycare this week! He looked very handsome in his sweater and pants. Unfortunately he was not thrilled and didn’t smile. 🤷♂️
I tied a lot of flies this week.
I also got out and casted them! Sunday morning I went to Muscoot River/Amawalk Outlet (PDF).
I’m floored that this amazing wild trout stream is only 30 minutes away and I haven’t gone until today (or known about it until a couple weeks ago.) The river is fed from Amawalk Reservoir (there are a few of these going between the extensive reservoir system here) and is cold year-round. I measured the stream at 54F this morning, perfect temp for trout.
Unfortunately neither I nor the couple people I ran into caught anything or saw trout rising. I could see a bunch holding at the bottoms of the pools I drifted, but they didn’t react to flies drifting right in front of them. Some days are just like that.
Despite being skunked and getting rained on, I had a great morning. I got to try my tenkara rod for the first time and got the hang of casting it after about an hour. I have a lot to learn, but I can more-or-less make the fly go where I want. The tenkara rod is great for the Muscoot, which has a lot of tree cover. There were many spots where I don’t think I could have casted my western reel fly rod, but I was able to adjust the length on my tenkara rod and cast just fine.
I also got to explore and take notes for future visits. There are multiple pools and nice runs within 10 minutes upstream and downstream of the parking area. Lots of brown trout, some crawdads, and lots of birds. I suspect it gets crowded on nice weekends, so I’ll try either going during the week or hiking further from the parking area next time.
The killer bugs I tied sink to the bottom nicely. The red double bead kebari sink to about mid-level. The other wet kebari stay a couple inches from the surface, and the dry Ishigaki float (as expected).
I learned that I probably need to tie some smaller flies. I did a lot of 10 and 12 (easy sizes to learn on), but I definitely need more 14 and 16 given the size of the browns around here. And maybe some bead heads or more with wire, because the fish are holding at the bottom of deep holes. Maybe some zebra midges and brassie midges.
I only lost two flies, one in a tree and one under a rock in a pool, both Killer Bugs, which are the easiest to tie. I came back with eight more flies than I went with because I found ten (!) in only three trees at the popular pools. The hanging tippet caught my eye first, so I bent the branches down with my net and salvaged the flies. There were a couple more that I couldn’t reach. Here is what I salvaged:
I’m keeping five of them. The other five are too rusted or disintegrated to use. I used to do the same thing when I went golfing–I had fun searching for lost golf balls in the rough or woods and went home with a dozen each time.
I needed something to hold my wet flies so they could dry before I put them back in my fly case, so I grabbed a wine cork, put it on a string, and hung it from my fishing pack. It worked great!
Unfortunately the super glue bottle leaked while I was glueing it up and I almost glued four of my fingers together. I didn’t notice until I met some resistance moving my fingers, which was almost too late. I ran to the nearest sink and ran my hand under water right away, which seemed to mess up the glue enough that most of it didn’t dry clear and I could flake it off. That was enough to get my fingers apart and get my wedding ring off without ripping my skin. I spent the next two days picking off dried glue from my hand.
That stuff is no joke.
Amanda and Charlie made an apple pie on this rainy, cold Sunday. I made a Fallback to go with it. Cheers to Autumn.
I tied 17 flies tonight. I’m getting faster!
In-progress shots:
These were fun to play around with and see what I could make.
I also had fun getting my SLR out and using it again. Hopefully these photos are a little better.
I need to get better about not crowding the hook eyes. Some of these I might have a hard time threading the tippet through.
Charlie wanted to help. He is pretty good at rotating the vise while I hold the thread and let it wrap.
You can see my makeshift backdrop of brown paper. It worked okay, but I’ll find something else next time.
I’m planning on taking my tenkara rod out on a river this weekend, so I have my small fly box filled with flies I’ve tied myself:
By my tally I’ve tied 53 so far.
A follow up to yesterday’s post on tying glass bead kebari:
I tied eight more of the same pattern (pheasant hackle, red thread, peacock herl) tonight and am starting to get the hang of it. I also stepped down from a size 10 nymph hook to a size 12 dry fly hook, which has a slightly longer shank than the nymph version, allowing a bit more room to fit the beads, hackle, herl, and tail.
I also experimented with mashing it up with another classic pattern, the partridge & orange: I used partridge hackle, orange thread, and Shetland Spindrift wool yarn in moss in place of the peacock herl. I kind of like it and will probably tie a couple more.
I’d ideally like to tie ten of each pattern I like to get the hang of it. The first three are not that great, four is acceptable, then 5-10 are usually keepers. That will roughly take me two nights if I’m learning a new pattern (I’m slow and still learning).
I took a closer look at the pheasant feathers tonight and feathers from this section seemed to fit the size 12 hook better, leading to better, more balanced flies.
The photos are still tricky… I don’t have enough light at night to get the most out of my SLR without setting up big lights, which I don’t have time for, and the photos from my phone are overprocessed and lack detail. I guess I need to be patient and take photos the next day.
Back to stiff hackle flies next. Probably the Shetland Futsū:
Trying out tying some Glass Bead Takayama Sakasa Kebari by Jason Klass. I have a lot to learn, but am making progress, which is all I can ask for.
Tonight I got a little better at matching my material to my hook size and used two new ones (glass beads and peacock herl) for the first time.
These have glass beads, red thread, pheasant hackle and peacock herl.
Originally I picked pheasant feathers too large for a number 12 hook, then upped the hook size to 10 and picked slightly smaller feathers. I only had enough time to tie three, but the third came out better than the first two.
Here is the first:
And the third:
In-progress shots:
Today is the Autumn Equinox. I couldn’t help noticing that the sunset and the light it cast on the Croton Reservoir was brilliant. I’m looking forward to autumn, cooler days, chilly nights, and fewer insects.
It was warm enough to feel like the end of summer this week. Warm enough to play with the hose, warm enough to get ice cream. We also had an incredible moon, and I was able to get a slightly closer shot through the binoculars mounted at the end of the pier.
Our accidental pumpkins (one of the luffa seeds we planted from a pack ended up being a pumpkin) ripened, so we put them on the front porch, then added some mums. (Watering mums in a bucket is the proper way, we recently learned!)
Speaking of luffas, ours are growing quite nicely.
I tied more flies this week. I put a post up about experimenting with different kinds of wire around the house for adding bulk and weight. A couple days later I picked up some lead wire, which is much better to work with. I also got some proper fly tying thread, and, unsurprisingly, it too is easier to work with than sewing thread.
Next I tied up a couple more Shetland Killers in different colors, then a couple Keeper Kebaris. I love the look of the pheasant hackle.
Next I want to try tying some with peacock herl.
I made myself a bobbin threader and a bodkin this week!
For the bobbin threader: The kind folks at the local guitar shop gave me some broken guitar strings, and I was able to cut a few lengths of the high E string to use. I put it in a handle I quickly carved out of an oak cutoff.
For the bodkin I used a larger triangular needle from the set I bought for sewing boat skins. (I never use the straight ones because the curved ones are easier on the fingertips.) I carved an oval-shaped handle from a mahogany cutoff and set the needle in.
I like making my own tools, and both of these were immediately useful in my next tying session.
Saturday was a tough day. Charlie was cranky for the first half of the day and would not be placated. After an unsuccessful nap I took him to the playground to play with some of his friends, and it was like a switch flipped and he was suddenly fine. Unfortunately it switched back again later because of the no-nap.
Saturday night I went to install the Little Free Library I built ahead of the unveiling party Sunday, and in the 5 minutes between putting my flashers on and carrying the library 50ft away, a cop showed up and wrote me a ticket. He was a complete dick about it and completely unwilling to listen to me calmly explain what I was doing and why.
Unfortunately Peekskill uses a third party to collect tickets, so the incentives are aligned in favor of zero leeway, and it is unlikely I’ll get them to budge. Calling City Hall won’t help, either. I’m just going to pay it and save myself a lot of headache.
Longtime readers know that I generally view police with contempt, and this certainly doesn’t help.
Sunday Peekskill Walks held a ribbon cutting party for the Little Free Library I built. (I’ll put up a post about that this week!)
Charlie got to help pull the drop cloth off of it and be one of the first few people to put books in. Lots of people brought books and ended up filling it. I’m excited to have it out in the community. I hope it gets some use!
Sunday afternoon Charlie and I had a Daddy & Charlie shopping trip to Yonkers. We were there most of the afternoon and went to the Lego store, Gap, Old Navy, LL Bean, the Container Store, and Stew Leonard’s. We picked out some new pants, a picture day outfit, and a winter coat for Charlie. We both had a great time!
That reminds me, Charlie and I went to the bookstore and picked out a couple of Charlie’s favorite books to donate to the Little Free Library, and we ended up spending a while sitting and reading together there. I love moments like this.
