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.

• I successfully turned the pine resin into rosin! Full length post with more details coming soon.
• I got back on the lathe and turned some prototypes of things I don’t want to post about yet because the next version will be a Christmas gift.
  • Next on the lathe I’d like to learn bowl turning.
• I started making a net for fly fishing from a nice branch I found in the woods. It is currently wrapped around a form to dry.
• I made a French cleat tool holder for some of my lathe accessories.
• I put a magnet on a piece of wood for taking better photos of flies.
• I made a small gadget for cutting zonker strips for tying zonker streamers. Essentially a few razor blades bolted together and separated by nuts to cut 1/8″ wide strips.

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.

• Two size 14 Grave Digger kebari
• One black wool sakasa kebari
• Two bead head black futsu kebari

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! 👋 📖

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.

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.

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:

• Black, white, and brown woolly buggers in size 12, 14, and 16. Some with tungsten beads, some with brass beads, and some with glass beads.
• Some killer buggers with glass beads (pink and red) in size 16. I wanted some smaller ones, all previous ones were 12s.

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):

1. We had Lance Dorfi install a radon mitigation system in the basement. We have put it off for four years, but it ended up being less expensive than we thought and took only three hours.
2. Amanda painted a dresser we’ve had in the basement for two years and I helped her put new handles on (going from one handle per drawer to two). And Amanda cleared space and put it in our closet.
3. We got a quote for replacing the siding on our house.
4. I removed two of the four ACs. Other two this week.
5. Charlie and I replaced the smoke detector in the attic.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson learned: You have to play it cool, start small, and capitalize on interest immediately.

I’m off to make dinner, then hopefully go for a bike ride and read some books with Charlie 👋

We traveled to north Georgia Monday through Friday to visit my aunt and uncle, grandfather, and cousins (all on my Mom’s side). My parents met us there. We enjoyed catching up, meeting my cousin’s son Maddox for the first time, and introducing Charlie to them for the first time.

Some highlights:

• Maddox and Charlie playing together on the swingset
• Visiting the Edge of the World Trail and rapids on Amicalola Creek.
• My cousin’s husband taking the two boys on rides in an excavator and loader. They even got to control the boom and bucket. It made Charlie’s week.
• Charlie getting to feed a horse.
• Stromboli night, a longstanding tradition at Higgins family get-togethers.
  • When I was young I was thrilled at being able to pick what I wanted in mine and having the first letter of my name marked on top with dough.
• Learning about tenkara-style fishing from my uncle, which includes a rod very similar to a Western fly rod, but without a reel or floating line and mostly collapsable. The line is fixed length. Typically uses barbless hooks. I am very intrigued. I picked up a couple books to read on it and started researching starter rods.
• My uncle also makes his own nets out of branches. I love the look of them.
• There are armadillos in north Georgia!
• Driving through Atlanta is nostalgic for Amanda and me. We had an apartment downtown for a summer the years before we got married. It was our first time living together and a big early taste of independence.
• We visited the Morrisons on the way there on Monday. It was great to see them! Charlie did not want to be in the photo.
• I picked and tasted some wild muscadine grapes. Very thick skins.
• Sitting on the porch, listening to the Barred owls, and watching a storm roll in.
• Having some great sausages from Frankfurt in
• Watching my grandfather, who can’t hear very well or move quickly, light up when Charlie or Maddox interacted with him.
• Checking out a couple styles of camp chairs my uncle made and getting measurements so I can make my own.
• Catching glimpses of Amanda and my parents each (at different times) reading to the two boys together.
• Charlie did great on the plane! He also liked the Plane Train at ATL. We sat in the front so he could see the tunnel.
• Learning some of the Cherokee treasure lore in the region. Check out Cry of the Eagle by Forest Wade.

After we got back home:

Friday night we grilled some burgers and I whipped up a quick aioli for them. Flying in and out of White Plains instead of LaGuardia or JFK made the difference of being able to cook at home instead of getting takeout.

Our nasturtiums look great!

My hot peppers are finally producing after a very slow start.

Saturday was mostly a “stay at home and put our life back together” day. I mowed the grass, Amanda and Charlie made mini blueberry muffins together, we did laundry and picked up around the house, then we were able to spend some extra time in the afternoon making a meal from scratch that we don’t typically have time for: Chicken and rice with homemade ginger scallion sauce, and scallion pancakes on the side. (Yeah, we had a lot of scallions to use 🙂 )

Charlie also helped me waterproof the Little Free Library by caulking the inside edges and adding weather stripping inside the door. I showed him how the caulk gun works and we applied it together.

Sunday Charlie and I went out rowing early with Jon Richer. Charlie did great out in Peekskill Bay, even as the wind picked up and it got choppy. He is also starting to figure out how to help me navigate: I point out where we want to go, and tells me when I’m not going the right way and points toward the place I pointed out. He got a thrill out of going under a train trestle.

Turns out Jon is interested in tenkara too, so we’ll probably get out on some streams in the spring.

Midday we went to a birthday party at Fishkill Farms and picked apples.

I’m mentioning mostly highlights here, but it is worth mentioning that it was kind of a tough weekend. For large parts of both Saturday and Sunday Charlie was inconsolable. He must be going through some developmental changes right now and is having a hard time. It is age appropriate and makes sense, but that knowledge doesn’t make it any easier. We are trying our best to be patient and supportive, but it is very grating. We all ended the weekend emotionally exhausted.

Here is to an easier next week! 🤞

This week had greater than normal variance. Higher highs and a lower low than usual.

The highs: I had some really great moments with Charlie this week. The weather was beautiful.

We went for a lot of walks and bike rides by the river in the evenings, and I’m regularly astounded by his memory and ability to notice things. I treasure those walks.

Charlie and I were on our own for a couple days while Amanda was in Miami for work. It went better than expected (certainly better than the trip last month.) Every single thing seemed smoother this time around, from morning and bedtime routines, to daycare drop off, to Charlie listening to his body and communicating when he had to potty. I’m really proud of him.

Two highlights:

1. We tried a Texas-style bbq shack we pass all the time. I ordered pulled chicken for Charlie, but he surprised me by preferring brisket and eating most of the brisket I ordered (and I ordered fatty brisket, not lean!). I’m excited to have another person in the family who appreciates brisket.
2. We had a fire in the chiminea on the porch on Friday night. He helped me collect sticks to burn, he was fascinated by instead of scared of the big rat snake we encountered, he enjoyed watching the fire, we talked about fire safety and he was quite diligent, we looked at the stars and talked about the Big Dipper, we set up his small tent on the porch, we snuggled and ate ice cream as the flames turned into embers. A great evening.

The low:

A friend from high school took his own life this week.

I only have four friends from high school I keep in touch with, and he was one of them. It hit me harder than I expected, and even though it probably wouldn’t have changed the outcome, I feel guilty for not talking with him recently. The last time we chatted was over a year ago. I thought about him two weeks ago and meant to text him, but I didn’t. Man, that feels awful.

He had a big impact on my life. He was a few years ahead of me in high school and patiently taught me the basics of PHP and MySQL, which I now use daily in my work with WordPress at Automattic.

Reflecting a lot on him over the last couple days, I realized that I identified with him more than anyone else I went to high school with because of our similarities across different areas of my life:

• We grew up in the same school system and even though we were a few years apart, we followed the same class track. We both worked after school in room 320 on the tech team managing the school system’s website, intranet, and email server. We were in a Sunday night book seminar together as well.
• Every time we talked we were exploring similar ideas, reading similar books, and following similar blogs. He was a reader and commenter on this blog and a couple other blogs I contributed to.
  • I appreciated his intellectual curiosity.
• He had very similar political leanings and an interest in economics, which was a big part of my life from 2008-2014. Only 2 people from high school shared this interest, and I recall that he introduced me to some of the early blogs I read in this space.
• We shared an interest in the outdoors, and good hikes and national park visits were a frequent topic in our email exchanges.
• We both worked in the tech industry.

I have lots of friends that I share one or two of these things with, but he was the only one who comes to mind who I shared this much similarity with in areas of my life I normally think of as separate.

Despite this, we hadn’t seen each other in person for a decade. We mostly kept in touch via email or blog comments and occasional video chats, which seemed totally normal for us.

I wish I would have talked with him more frequently. I wish I would have shared a meal with him at Christmastime each year. I wish I would have known he was struggling. I wish I would have told him these things and told him how much he matters. Now I’ll never get to. It makes me incredibly sad.

Life is about navigating living with these wildly different emotions (joy, pride, fulfillment, sadness, regret, grief) in the same day and continuing to fulfill your obligations while they happen. We often think about these things in isolation, but they happen in the same short period of time and same physical location. You experience them together and life doesn’t stop. My son still needs me to be a father, get us home safely, and make us both lunch even when I’ve just read a heartwrenching email in the parking lot at Trader Joe’s. And even though that little boy mostly needs things from me, he gives so much to me, too. So much joy, pride, and love. Even comfort—he noticed I was sad and came over to give me a hug and sit in my lap.

Life is so much more complex than I thought when I was younger. That is what this week was about… life, death, joy, pain, pride, regret, and the deep complexity of life.

Hi! I’m back. I’m fine, just needed a break from blogging. I thought I’d return later than this, but I started feeling that blogging itch again, so here I am typing away late on a Sunday night after everyone else has gone to bed.

A recap of June, July, and beginning of August

This summer has been hot and humid. The heat started around the same time (we always seem to put in the ACs the week of our anniversary), but it jumped into the mid 90s and stayed there for the end of June, all of July, and the first week of August. Brutal.

• Charlie got to pull the air horn of a semi truck at a Touch a Truck event in Verplanck.
• I had jury duty at the US District Court in Manhattan. (Think Chuck Rhoades in Billions.) I had to go in two days and went into a court room for the selection process, but didn’t get selected.
• I took Charlie out in the guideboat on the Hudson for the first time. We rowed from Verplanck to Stony Point and back. He did great and loved it.
• We spent the week of the July 4/Independence Day holiday in Groton Long Point with the Wasmer family. We caught crabs, swam, played, made sand castles, ate some tasty meals, walked in a parade, and relaxed. Charlie even played with sparklers for the first time. On the way home we stopped at the Stepping Stones Childrens’ Museum.
• I started a new position at Automattic. I now oversee the whole engineering team (3 sub teams in all) in the Concierge group instead of just one of the sub teams. The transition has been more challenging than I expected.
• Charlie and I took walks in the woods, including a morning exploring the creeks.
• We ate our yearly helping of sausage and peppers at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Feast.
• I built a Little Free Library for Esther Place in Peekskill.
• We celebrated Colin and Hayden’s marriage in Lake Peekskill.
• Our garden did great in the hot, humid weather. We have tons of roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, borage, tomatillos, and potatoes. The nasturtiums did better than they’ve ever done and we have plenty for drink garnishes.
  • We made lots of pizza sauce, lots of tomato paste, some salsa verde, and borage ice cubes. We also froze a bunch of tomatillos for this winter (chili verde with pork, albondigas, etc), and gave a bunch to friends.
• We had Charlie’s third birthday party. Even though it rained and everyone had to go in the house, the kids still had fun.
• While my parents were visiting, Charlie and I took them to Stony Point to check out the historic Hudson River lighthouse and Revolutionary War battleground.
• Charlie mastered his balance bike and can now lift his feet up and cruise down ramps at high speed.

Some small moments:

• Coffee on the porch in the morning.
• Ice cream at Blue Pig.
• Playgrounds with Charlie.
• Charlie asking politely to wash the car.
• Charlie and I spraying each other with the hose.
• Meeting friends for dinner, play dates, hangs at the farm market, impromptu pizza and ice cream.
• Going to the park to play, but watching a magic show instead.
• Checking out a tree frog, green frogs, garter snakes, and snake skin.
• Charlie having the time of his life on carnival rides.
• Charlie running around joyfully in the rain.
• Snuggles.
• Charlie riding his bike down the street with his birthday balloons attached.
• Playing cars.

What I read:

• Extremely Online by Taylor Lorenz
• My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
• Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
• Two books by Eliot Peper: Foundry and Reap3r
• The first three books in the Expeditionary Force series by Craig Alanson

I’m currently reading The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey.

Week of August 12, 2024

Let’s start the weekend before, August 10 and 11. We met Kate, Ben, and the twins at the TaSH Farmers Market in the morning and had Cuban sandwiches for lunch at Croqueteria, then went to Jay and Marie’s that afternoon for a summer garden party. Amanda and Jay played their flutes, then Jay, Jeremy, and Matthew played some bluegrass. Detra sang.

The next day Charlie and I spent the morning walking and riding bikes along the waterfront and exploring the newly opened Fleischmann Pier. That evening we met Kate, Ben, the twins, Jeremy, Meg, Miles, and Grandma JuJu for dinner in Beacon. The restaurant messed up the reservations, so what was going to be a chill outside dinner ended up being a stressful inside dinner with four young kids who much prefer to be anywhere but at a table, and six parents wishing the service was faster. Oh well. We got through it, we all ate, but zero adult conversations were had. After dinner we found an ice cream shop across from a playground, which is exactly what we needed.

Monday we picked tomatoes and potatoes. We found a small garter snake who had been living under one of the potato bags.

Tuesday we had an impromptu pizza and ice cream hangout with the Crisantes. Baci’s woodfire Tuesdays, then the Blue Pig. Amanda had some free time during the day and weeded the garden.

Wednesday I started making some banana liqueur. I macerated bananas with Demerara sugar and soaked the peels in some dark rum. Charlie came home from daycare with a fever, which persisted through Thursday night. Amanda and I switched off holding him.

Amanda made pizza sauce with the romas we picked.

Friday I took off work to go on a long kayak paddle with Jeremy Wall. We planned it a month ago. We started from Annsville Creek, paddled up past the Bear Mountain Bridge, up Popolopen Creek, ate lunch, went swimming in Hell Hole, then paddled back. ~8 miles round trip. It was nice to be out on the water.

We pulled our kayaks up on the short and walked up to Fort Montgomery, where I learned that Iona Island used to be called Salisbury Island.

Saturday Charlie and I spent the morning in Beacon and Cold Spring. We got donuts at Peaceful Provisions, coffee at Big Mouth, then played for a while at the Tiny Tots park in Cold Spring. He was finally feeling better and needed to get out of the house, and Amanda needed some time to herself since Charlie sticks to her like glue when he doesn’t feel well. While we were out, she made tomato paste from the second big batch of tomatoes we picked.

During naptime I finished making the banana liqueur, which I used in drinks for us later that evening (Breakfast Mai Tais).

Sunday morning I got up early and made some Haitian pikliz, then breakfast (fried potatoes, sausage links, scrambled eggs). The forecast called for rain for the entire day, so we racked our brains for a way to get out of the house. We decided to hop on the train and ride it to Grand Central, have lunch and explore there, then ride it back. Charlie thinks trains are the coolest, so he was excited and ended up having a great time. He was glued to the window the entire way there, then fell asleep on Amanda on the way back. Chris Johnson and Meg Walter met us for lunch at Grand Central and walked around with us for a bit.

It seems like a small thing, but it means the world to us that we have friends who do impromptu things with us. That happened four times in the last week, and we feel incredibly lucky. It took us a while to build up a community after moving here, and the first two years were pretty lonely (COVID definitely didn’t help.)

No one really mentions how hard it is to build a community from scratch when you move somewhere new with no family around.

Busy week around the house.

First, the surveyor arrived on Tuesday and staked out our property line.

It was warm that day and when Charlie got home from daycare he helped me water the garden, then played with the hose. His favorite outdoor activity! (Compare to the same week last year.) He was also pretty busy with his wheelbarrow later that day and the next morning.

Wednesday the fence crew arrived and started replacing the fence.

A couple hours later the sump guys came to install the sump and dry well. I was amazed that they knocked everything out in just three hours.

Thursday and Friday Charlie was home from daycare. It breaks my heart to have to work while he is home, because he notices that I’m not paying attention to him. I did get to spend some quality time with him after work to go get ice cream and take him on a little bike ride along the Old Croton Aqueduct before picking up dinner.

Later he acted like he was typing on a computer and pretended to ignore us. Gutted me.

Despite all the distractions, I was able to get through my to-do list at work this week, but it was challenging for sure.

Saturday I cut down a tree limb that was already cracked because I didn’t want it to fall on the new fence. I also spent a couple hours replacing the vinyl trellis under our porch with wood.

Saturday night we learned the hard way that our sewer is clogged. It backed up into the utility tub in the basement. Thankfully we caught it early. I thought it was just that sink plugged at first and spent a while trying to snake it, until I saw more bubbling up when I heard water running upstairs. I was not excited to realize that I was elbow deep in shit water 🤢

A plumber came the next morning and cleared the blockage pretty quickly. We got lucky because the blockage was in the house trap/U trap rather than something worse like tree roots in the front yard. At least I learned how the U trap works, where the clean out caps are, and saw the plumber (a nice guy named Mike who works for Sewer Heros) use a 6ft toilet auger to clear the blockage. It looks like Harbor Freight has one, so I’ll pick one up next time I’m over that way.

Sunday we did a lot of yard work to get ready for a Memorial Day party. We hope the newly forecasted rain holds out.

Charlie had a lot of fun helping us wash the outdoor furniture. He is the keeper of the hose. He also helped me push the lawn mower for a while.

My friend Jon stopped by for a short visit to check out my workshop upgrades, the fence, and the sump.

The fence is coming along nicely. We gained a few feet inside the fence since the old fence wasn’t on the line. The yard feels bigger! Should be wrapped up sometime next week if the weather is nice.