With my shifted work schedule (now 7am-3pm), Charlie getting home earlier, increased work stress, and needing weekends to put our lives back together and get ready for the following week, the last couple months have felt pretty busy and my weekly blogging hasn’t made the cut. My regular time for writing this weekly post has been Sunday nights, but now I’m going to bed earlier than I used to and need to find a new patch of quiet time to write it. Perhaps I actually get up when my body wakes me up at 5am and write this with some coffee while the sun comes up? We’ll see.

Here’s a brief recap of the last two months:

We’ve been spending as much time outside as we can after school while it is still light…

…and even sometimes after dark.

As the days grow shorter and colder it is challenging to keep a 4yo entertained indoors while keeping the house from becoming a chaotic mess. We might switch to Monday swim class instead of Saturday, which will help one night a week. Other nights we sometimes go to the library, sometimes go grocery shopping, sometimes do art projects, sometimes bake. Lots of reading. Accepting any and all ideas!

Swim class has been going well. Charlie is more independent and confident than the spring session!

Charlie is going through a lot of growth right now. Physically, emotionally, intellectually. It is really great to witness and help foster that growth. We have such a wonderful kid and we feel so grateful to be his parents.

Our new schedules and the longer school commute is finally starting to feel like normal after three months.

For Halloween this year, Charlie wanted to be a Spider Plant. Amanda loves making costumes and does a great job at it, so she made houseplant costumes for all of us. She was a String of Pearls and I was a Ponytail Palm.

One fun thing we’ve been doing more recently is doing “family movie night” together in the basement with a projector on the weekends. Charlie’s attention span is now long enough for a full movie, and he loves the ritual of making a snack tray, popcorn, and snuggling up together. We love it, too. Some of his favorites: Toy Story, Cars 1 and 2 (but not 3), Despicable Me 1, 2, 3, and 4, Arthur and the Haunted Tree House, Curious George: Cape Ahoy, and WALL-E.

Charlie had a canon childhood event last week: Cutting his own hair with scissors. We were able to cut it a bit shorter so it isn’t too noticeable. Thankfully picture day was the week before.

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One thing of note at work is that we soft-launched a project I’ve been working on: the Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer plugin. The plugin automatically fixes broken links by replacing them with archived versions from the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer

It got mentioned on stage at the Internet Archive’s gala.

I’m pretty excited about its potential! We still have a lot of work to do to improve it and promote it, but it is off to a good start. Over 100 active installs and growing with very little promotion so far.

I’ve had beta versions running on this site for months. It does what it says on the can!

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At home I’ve done very little woodworking and no fishing, but a little bit of fly tying and lots of reading. I also did the fly swap and wrote the recap post, which will be published soon over at Tenkara Angler.

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We didn’t have plans today and wanted to get out of the house and have some quality family time, so we hopped on the train and went down to the Intrepid Museum. Charlie was jazzed about going on a big ship, getting to see a real space shuttle, and getting to see some planes. We all had a good day. Now he is old enough that spontaneous half-day outings like that (lots of walking, multiple forms of transit, two meals out) are totally doable and fun.

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Looking forward:

We are hosting some friends for Thanksgiving again this year. I’m hoping to have enough free time over the long holiday weekend to make this year’s batch of hot sauce from my habaneros and to get out in the workshop and try to turn something.

Speaking of turning something, I’ve learned that Shopsmith is shutting down. I’ve been waiting on new quill since May and now it looks like I’ll probably not get it. Their customer service phone number and email are no longer working. Wondering how long until I should file a chargeback?

I’m writing this from bed, sipping some Sleepytime tea and listening to the wind and rain from the tropical storm hitting the northeast.

Days and weeks have been going by so quickly. Is this turning into a biweekly post? I’m not sure.

My 7am-3pm schedule has its ups and downs. I’m going to bed earlier than I used to, but I also have more daylight time to be outside with Charlie in the afternoon. I’m thankful I can timeshift.

We landed on a way to limit Charlie’s time watching shows that has been working well: Pick one allowed time and stay consistent. Previously we were inconsistent and it led to a lot of frustration on both sides. Now he can watch some shows in the morning until we start our day and that is it. Three weeks in and it is totally fine! Listening to audio while playing is a decent substitute, and we also find ourselves reading with him and playing together more in the evenings after dinner.

Charlie switched classrooms at school and is having a better overall experience. He is coming home happier and we are all breathing a little easier than the past month. We are thankful the school took notice and adjusted to his current skill level.

Another week of swim class without me or Amanda in the pool went really well. So proud of this kid.

Amanda and I both noticed that something changed slightly this week and Charlie is more able to be reasoned and negotiated with. He is more willing to accept alternative suggestions without fuss.

It finally feels like autumn! I made my first soup of the season on Friday: Potato & Leek.

Amanda and Charlie made some Apple Pie Cookies.

Charlie and I spent some time in the woods. As I had hoped the last couple years, we’ve reached prime rock climbing and stick/leaf/bark/nut/rock collecting age.

I spent a day in the city helping out with a WordPress training. It has been a long time since I’ve looked at WP through the eyes of a beginner. It is surprisingly complicated to set up a WP site from scratch. How on earth would a beginner know to go to Settings > Reading and switch the homepage setting from posts to page if they wanted a website and not a blog?

I chatted with someone we know on the train to NYC and sat with someone else we know on the train home. A couple days later Charlie and I ran into two different people we know around town while running errands. After almost 6 years here (the first two years restricted by Covid and having a newborn), it finally feels like we are part of a community here.

Checking out the sign by the lake at FDR state park. Charlie can identify some of these fish!

I’ve tied flies two nights in the past two weeks. One more night, I think, and I’ll have the flies for my uncle and me to enter into the exchange. Feels good to be back at the vise.

I finished The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan.

• Despite growing up not far away, this book was my first time hearing about the Great Black Swamp that stretched from Fort Wayne to Toledo.
• I knew about Zebra mussels, but not Quagga mussels. To be fair, they look very similar.
• I didn’t know that the water turns over almost completely in the lakes every 3 years.
• It is encouraging to hear that native species are adapting to eat the invasive goby and mussels.
• Goby spread botulism, causing bird die-offs.
• The lack of lake ice formation in recent years has led to a larger than expected increase in water temperatures and evaporation in the lakes, dropping water levels and causing more algae blooms. Things because water not covered in snow and ice keeps absorbing the sun all winter instead of reflecting it.

Recommended!

That’s all for now.

As you can tell, I’m having trouble getting to these weekly posts right now. I’m going to have to change the timing, I think. Sundays have been filled with shopping, cleaning, and meal prep. I’m writing this post while our breakfast for the week finishes cooking.

The transition to Charlie’s new school (mixed age 4 and 5 pre-K) has been challenging for all three of us. For Charlie, it is much more structured than the daycare he went to before this, with entirely new teachers and classmates. For us, it is the new schedule and longer drive. We are still figuring out what our work schedules look like now that he is back home by 3pm instead of 5pm. The past couple of weeks have been a lot of time shifting. We’re going to continue experimenting with different schedules and perhaps hiring a sitter for a couple hours twice a week until we find something sustainable. This week’s experiment: I’ll start earlier and shift my workouts to after work instead of the morning. We’ll see how it goes.

We’ve been completely focused on Charlie and work during the week, then catching our breath a bit and marathoning chores to get ready for the next week during the weekends. I have very few photos on my camera roll from the last couple weeks. Just trying to keep things going.

Despite the challenges, we are feeling great about the school Charlie is going to. They have a big emphasis on building community, so we’ve gone to a playground meetup, a curriculum night for the parents, and a Friday afternoon assembly. His teachers have been so kind and are dedicated to helping each child learn and grow individually. Even though Charlie is the youngest in his mixed age class, we’ve seen him grow and open up as the month progressed. He confidently walks in the front door of the school on his own and has told us a few Spanish words he’s learned. He’s learning to name his emotions with The Mood Meter. There’s still a few challenges I won’t write about here, but after meeting with his teachers, I’m feeling confident that they (and Amanda and I) will help our little guy work through it.

Amanda and I went to the school’s Friday afternoon assembly this week because Charlie’s class was one of the ones presenting. I love that they have kids as young as 4 standing up and presenting or performing in front of large groups regularly. By the time they are teens, it will feel like second nature for them.

One Friday after school this month I took Charlie to get ice cream and ride his bike along the river immediately after school. It was just what we both needed.

In general, afternoons have been a lot of playing outside and unstructured play time (magnatiles, sandbox, legos, mud kitchen, water hose, walks in the woods.) One afternoon we even got to play with some dry ice that came with something we ordered.

I’m feeling really proud of this kid this weekend. Saturday we showed up to the first swim class of this season, only to learn that the skill group times had shifted and we weren’t notified. Instead of the parents going in the water with the kids, the kids in this skill group did the class solo. Charlie and I talked about it and decided to give it a try, with me on standby ready to jump in the pool with him if needed, but he did great by himself, and was patient hanging on the edge when it wasn’t his turn. Towards the end of the class, he was comfortable enough that he started bobbing himself up and down while he waited. I left the class dry. Next week I’ll be in the bleachers.

I’m certain that being challenged regularly at the new school had something to do with his confidence in being able to do swim class alone. At the last session in the spring, there is no way he would have tried doing it himself. He is growing physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Saturday night Charlie and I camped out in a tent in our backyard. We made hotdogs for dinner, s’mores for dessert, then read a few books in the tent and went to sleep. While we were making s’mores in the chiminea on the porch, an owl was hooting in our neighbors’ tree, so Charlie started hooting back. They answered each others’ calls a few times! It was magical.

We stayed out in the tent the entire night. Charlie wasn’t scared at all. He woke me up gently at 5:30am to tell me that he “had a BIG dream!” (all about truck chases, fire extinguishers, and rockets blasting off), then we listened to some Daniel Tiger stories on his Yoto and played with some toy cars until the sun came up.

The good stuff.

I went into this blogging breaking thinking I’d just skip a week while my parents were visiting, then it turned into over a month.

The first week we were focused on getting ready for Charlie’s birthday party, which turned out great. We put up a 20×20 tent since it rained unexpectedly the last couple years, but we didn’t really need it. The weather was cooler than previous years, too. Kids played on the swingset non-stop and the bbq we ordered from the Little Cabin was great. Charlie requested a piñata and picked out a yellow baby chick as big as he is, which was popular.

Next weekend we went to an outdoor concert in Ossining on Friday with Kate, Ben, and their kids, then Sunday we had Jay and Marie over for dinner.

The next weekend we got Charlie a haircut, we went to a birthday party for Hayden in Lake Peekskill, then we met the Jones family at the Natural History Museum in NYC. It was Charlie’s first time on the subway and he loved it.

The next weekend we were off to Cape Cod for a week of vacation with Grandma and Grandpa.

When we got back from vacation, we went to a birthday party for Lorenzo at Fishkill Farms and an end of summer party at Jay and Marie’s, then it was straight into Charlie’s first week of pre-K at a new school and Amanda running a work conference in Miami. It was a tough week, but Grandma stayed with us for the week to help out. Friday night we celebrated getting through the week by going to King Kone for dinner and ice cream.

This weekend we took Grandma to the airport, went shopping for some new shoes for Charlie, and hosted an impromptu play date at our house with some of Charlie’s friends from daycare that he was missing. Amanda got home later that night and we are all trying to catch our breath on this rainy Sunday before we get back in to our (new) regular schedules tomorrow.

In between the above, there was lots of outside time, bicycle riding, and ice cream. Soaking up the end of summer.

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In this busy month, I didn’t do any of my hobbies. When things are busy, you’ve got to focus on being a parent. By bedtime each day I was zapped, so all I had energy for was reading a bit before bed. Though perhaps I should be kinder to myself and reframe that reading is a hobby, too. I finished eight books:

• Orbital by Samantha Harvey (2023)
• Armageddon (Expeditionary Force Book 8) by Craig Alanson (2019)
• How We Got to Now by Steven Johnson (2015)
• All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries 1) by Martha Wells (2017)
• Artificial Condition (Murderbot Diaries 2) by Martha Wells (2018)
• Common Ground: A Naturalist’s Cape Cod by Robert Finch (1981)
• The Cape Cod Mystery by Phoebe Atwood Taylor (1931)
• Rogue Protocol (Murderbot Diaries 3) by Martha Wells (2018)

I’m currently reading:

• Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz
• Midnight Assassin by Skip Hollandsworth (though I think I’m not going to finish it right now… details about gruesome murders aren’t my vibe at the moment)
• Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I’m on the lookout for good audiobooks for morning and afternoon drives. Send me some recommendations, please!

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Bluesky is the only social media I’ve been on in a serious way this month. Removing Instagram from my phone has been good. Might need to remove Bluesky, too, and just read RSS feeds. My Bluesky feeds are full of our country’s slide into authoritarianism and, while true, that isn’t what I need to see when I’m taking a break. Instead, I probably should just go outside for a bit or tidy up around the house.

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I don’t like to comment on politics much now. I got that out of my system in high school, college, and the first couple years after that. But I do still think about it (how can one not right now!) and one thing is clear to me now: I used to have faith in the checks and balances of the three branches of government, but their fatal weakness is that they rely on good people to stand up for those checks and hold their ground. We can’t rely on the spineless people we’ve voted in and let be appointed.

This was a problem in previous administrations, too. In my time being politically conscious, I noticed the slide toward authoritarianism under Bush, Obama, and Biden as well, but there was also more checking and balancing being done during those times. Not only do we have the Trump administration stepping on the authoritarianism gas pedal and reaching unprecedented speeds, we also have a spineless congress and inept judiciary letting it happen. Disgraceful.

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Work has been challenging, and the state of US politics highly concerning and disheartening, but I’m proud of the sweet, smart little boy Charlie is growing up to be. I am grateful for our family and thankful we live in a relatively peaceful place during a relatively peaceful time.

Mostly photos with a little bit of commentary this week.

Trying to get outside when we can, though it has been a week of heat, humidity, and haze. More of all three on the way this coming week, too.

Daddy, I’m having fun playing catch!

Quotes like that, unprompted, will melt your heart.

Sometimes I wonder in the spring whether or not to go through the effort of putting in a garden that year, but later that year I’m always glad I did. Going out to pick tomatoes for our salads each night is so nourishing.

We gave up planting sunflowers a couple years ago because the groundhogs and rabbits ate every single one for multiple years in a row. This year, we got some surprise volunteer sunflowers, probably from birdseed, and nothing has bothered them!

Charlie cooked one of our favorite summer dishes, Corn, Tomato, and Basil Salad with Old Bay almost entirely by himself. Amanda cut the corn, he ripped the basil and cut the tomatoes, put everything in the pan, and stirred it while it cooked. He was pretty proud of it.

Nasturtiums are perfect for garnishing negronis.

Our veggie box finally started up! Lots of good stuff in here from a farm over in Orange county. They also included some great stonefruit (plums—my favorite!, and peaches).

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I’m surprised at how often framing something as a race will get an otherwise reluctant 4yo to commit wholeheartedly to the thing. I know this one will eventually wear out, but we are getting a lot of mileage out of it right now.

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I revisited some Black Sabbath this week after I heard about Ozzy passing away. Black Sabbath was formative for my musical interests and probably started my anti-authoritarian and anti-war inclinations, both of which persist today.

Of course, the next morning the gym was blasting various Ozzy hits and covers during the main workout. Must have been on the daily mix, because this particular trainer didn’t strike me as an Ozzy fan.

So I’ve listened to more Ozzy this week than I have in the last ten years. Sabotage came out in 1975, and I first listened to it in 2002, 27 years after it came out. Must have been a strange experience for my parents, seeing me listen to something that came out when they were 15. I wonder what Charlie will listen to in ~25 years that came out when I was a teen? Maybe Sum 41 or Blink 182? Green Day? Foo Fighters? System of a Down?

On a related but unrelated note, I think I’ve finally come to terms with Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned being my Prodigy album, despite wanting it to be Music for the Jilted Generation for a long time.

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Trying to model kindness and empathy to raise a kind and empathetic child while not getting completely swept up and overwhelmed by awful things going on right now (ICE, Gaza, etc) is like walking a tight rope without any padding on the ground to break your fall.

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I finished Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation this week and started Samantha Harvey’s Orbital.

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Where I’m currently at with social media:

Twitter is a dumpster fire and the “For You” tab recommends burning trash optimized for getting engagement for blue check payouts. I mostly avoid it now. Bluesky is my Twitter clone of choice. I occasionally log in to Mastodon, almost never Threads. I’m not even sure I know how to log in to Nostr anymore, and whenever I succeed it gives off a weird vibe.

So easy to scroll forever on Instagram, so I’ve kept it off my phone for a while.

Facebook proper has been dead to me for years.

Reddit is too easy to scroll, so I blocked it at my router level for my computer and phone. Hard enough to undo that I need a specific reason, which I probably won’t encounter.

My current take on Twitter and Reddit is that I think it is a mistake to have easy access to the opinions of millions of people that have almost no cost to sharing them. If I wouldn’t talk to these people in person, why am I reading their bullshit online?

Reading blogs is better—more curated, costly to post, bloggers for the most part use their real name. I would, and do, hang out with bloggers AFK!

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I haven’t made much progress on doing any hobby projects. I underestimated what it takes to start a workout and stretching routine (lots of energy and soreness), and we’ve been focused on getting ready for Charlie’s upcoming birthday party. We’ll see what August holds on that front.

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On my What I’m Reading page, I decided to add who recommended a book to me, if someone recommended it.

It has been a hot week and we are all pretty tired.

The main things to report on Monday and Tuesday are that I feel like we had a couple pretty good days with Charlie. Fun playing outside with the hose and on his slide fort, watching a movie together on the projector in the basement, playing with trains as soon we woke up, dancing in the living room, lots of snuggles. Good couple of days.

Wednesday after work we went to the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Feast in Verplanck with the Crisantes. We all ate some sausage & peppers, the kids went on some carnival rides, and we had some ice cream. We did take another family photo there like the last for years, but not sharing it because Charlie really didn’t want to take it, so I don’t think it is fair to him to post it.

This week Amanda and I did the Good Inside (Dr. Becky) Deeply Feeling Kids workshop. It gave us some tactics to help us handle and reframe some of the intense meltdowns Charlie has been having. We recommend it if you are dealing with them, too.

Thursday I went into the Automattic office in NoHo and worked with some coworkers who were in town. After work I had dinner with Chris at Shukette. Pretty much everything we ordered was good, but the stand-outs were the frena and kofte. I’d definitely go back.

Friday we finally got a reprieve from the heat and humidity, so we grilled hotdogs and played outside until bedtime.

Saturday we got up and out to go get Charlie a haircut, then we did a little bit of shopping before coming home for lunch. In the afternoon I took advantage of the cooler weather to mow and run the weed eater, then tidy up inside with Amanda. We got pizza for dinner and watched another movie together on the projector (Cars 3).

Sunday (today) we got the car washed and the inside cleaned, went grocery shopping, and cleaned more of the house. I unclogged our two Dysons and vacuumed (it is amazing how fast the various attachments can clog up), tidied my office, and schlepped some stuff down to the basement.

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This piece in the local paper broke my heart and made me angry:

Mother and Child Taken by HSI Agents Tuesday, Returned Same Night – Peekskill Herald

Amy Lituma said law enforcement was looking for her husband

peekskillherald.com

That night, Lituma said her four-year-old child did not sleep, wet the bed twice, and woke up repeatedly, terrified, looking for his mother.

How awful! It is going to be a long time before that little boy sleeps soundly again. Why did these thugs arrest the mother and a child when looking for someone else? Why force her to call the person they are looking for? Why take them away without a car seat (child endangerment!)? I don’t care what the husband/father did, this isn’t how you treat innocent parties.

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I finished Matt Ruff’s 88 Names and enjoyed it. Fast read, good twists. I started Jeff VanderMeer’s Area X series, and I am enjoying it, but it is kind of intense for my pre-bedtime reading. I might have to sub in some light Wodehouse occasionally (like tonight).

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Charlie likes to listen to Thomas and Friends Storytime in the car, and one episode mentions a calliope, which I hadn’t heard of, so I looked it up. Pretty interesting instrument. Here is a video of one: https://youtu.be/urInNOQz1u0

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Tomatillos and plum tomatoes are coming along nicely.

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I need a project outside of work to focus on. I paused fly tying because I had everything I wanted to fish with and no more time to fish, and I’m waiting on a replacement part for my lathe to start turning bowls again. I want very little to do with my computer after work, I prefer to do something with my hands.

Maybe I start tying hoppers or bass flies? Not sure, but feeling a little unmoored lately, and I notice I get that when I set my hobbies aside for a while.

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That is all I have this week. Going to read for a bit before bed. Good night!

I am settling back into our regular work & school, dinner, and bedtime weekday routine, so these updates are less interesting than the last couple months.

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We got our car back on Wednesday. The problem was the coolant valve, which needed to be replaced. Thankfully it was covered under warranty.

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It was a hot, humid, sticky week here. My least favorite time of year. Thankfully once the sun is behind the trees after dinner, we can usually get Charlie outside to play again and move around (burn some energy, get the sillies out, etc) before bedtime.

Today we got up and did some yard work in the morning (mowing, pulling weeds), but by around 1pm it was just too much. The sun was intense and the air was soupy. I finished mowing and pushed Charlie on the swing for a while, which is about all you can do.

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I finally have my heart monitor off! I’m glad to be rid of it after a month of annoyance. I won’t know the results for a couple more weeks. I’m hoping to have an all-clear and get off of blood thinners.

I mostly feel back to normal after the clot issue, with one notable, frustrating exception: My energy levels are lower, and I’m tired by 7-8pm now. During my sabbatical that wasn’t much of a problem because I did my hobbies during the day, but now that I’m back to work it is a drag. I used to tie flies or being in the workshop for a couple hours after Charlie goes to bed, but now at best I read for a little while and then fall asleep. I don’t know if it is the blood thinners, the result of part of my kidney atrophying, or what, but it is frustrating. I’m trying to be patient with my recovery, but my patience is wearing thing.

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I hit the tipping point some time last week to start an active fitness routine again, after not having one for the last seven years. I was chatting with a coworker who does Crossfit, and I mentioned how I hate exercising, even though I know I should. He said he hates it too, but doing a class like Crossfit works because all he has to do is show up and someone tells you what to do and when to do it. An hour later, you are back home.

That resonated a lot with me, because I’ve tried bodyweight workouts in the backyard, but inevitably fall off after a couple sessions because the mental overhead of deciding the routine is too much. A class also has the added benefit of social accountability because you don’t want to be the one person who stops halfway though.

So, I started Crossfit this week. I went on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and those days are going to be my weekly routine to start. I’m sore, but not as sore as I thought I’d be, and I finished both workouts. On Thursday, I wasn’t last in the row or the mile run. I’m proud of myself for going, and proud of myself for being in slightly better shape than I thought.

I did Crossfit for a little while 13 years ago, but what is different now is that I have a family I need to be around for and I recently had a health scare which brought that into stark relief.

I also started a stretching routine before bed, which I did 6 out of the last 7 days. I took a similar approach to Crossfit: Signing up for a service (Pliability) so I don’t have to think about what to do, I just follow the video for 20 minutes. So far, so good. My main driver here is that I want to keep up with Charlie. I don’t want to be stiff and have trouble with mobility. I’m still young, so I’m not there yet, but I’m far from flexible, so the time to work on that is now. It is also helping combat the Crossfit soreness.

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Some family highlights from the week:

We went to live music after work at the Yorktown Library with friends on Wednesday. We brought a picnic. It was fun! We’ll probably go again before summer is over.

Charlie and I picked wineberries in the woods. They are invasive, but fun to pick and eat. We picked about the amount of a regular raspberry clamshell container, and Charlie ate them all for a pre-bedtime snack. It is very rewarding to be able to taste the fruits of your own labor.

On Saturday, I needed to get Charlie out of the house for a little while, so we went over to the Sylvan Glen preserve for the first time. It was hot, so we didn’t hike very far, but we did get an idea of the place and will definitely go back when it is cooler. We mostly climbed on some nice rocks. There is an old granite quarry there we can explore in the future.

Charlie got out his scooter two nights in a row and rode it to the end of the street and back. This was big because he hasn’t touched the scooter for months, and until now didn’t really have the hang of riding it. Now he looks like a natural.

We met up with some friends at the TaSH farmers market, which is the best in the area. It is about 25 minutes away from us, but worth the drive. Great vendors, sometimes live music, set in a nice park with a loop path and a great playground on one side. Charlie wanted to take his bike, so he rode that while we walked.

I’m officially back to work after my sabbatical.

On Monday, my final day of sabbatical, Jeremy Wall and I paddled up the Croton River from the Echo launch at the train station up to Fireman’s Island, which is about the farthest you can get without carrying your boat. Beautiful day and the water was ice cold.

We were off the river by noon when it started getting hot, then Amanda and I went out to lunch. Late afternoon I put the AC in my office and cleaned up the space so I could start work the next day.

Later that night Charlie had fun playing in the kayak. I can’t wait to make him one when he is a little older!

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were a whirlwind of calls, trying to get caught up on what happened at work while I was out, learning new systems, and reading P2 posts.

I am moving into a new role, leading the operations team instead of the engineering teams in the Special Projects org. This will definitely be a change for me and will take some time to adjust to.

It is also taking me some time to readjust to my working schedule, being inside most of the day, and scheduling errands, tasks, and hobbies for evenings and weekends rather than just whenever. It is harder than I thought it would be. (Cry me a river, right? I was just off work for three months!) Anyway, I’m settling back in.

Wednesday night we picked up woodfired pizza from Baci and ate it at the Verplanck waterfront, so Charlie could play on the playground for a while.

Friday, July 4, we went over to Erica and Trevor’s house in Lake Peekskill for a late breakfast and to row around on the lake for a bit. The community has a little party at the north beach and people from all around the lake paddle their boats over to hang out. There is a boat decorating contest that the community votes on. It was fun!

We originally planned to go down to the Peekskill waterfront that night to listen to the live music and watch the fireworks, but when we realized that Charlie would be overtired by that point, we opted to stay home, do some sidewalk chalk, go for a walk in the woods, and go to bed at a regular time.

Saturday we drove up to Rhinebeck for an airshow at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome. We all had fun! Their Saturday “History of Flight” program highlights the Pioneer era before WWI, a WWI Show teaser, and the Golden Age of Aviation in the ’20s and ’30s. They did stunts like tossing a toilet paper roll out of the plane and seeing how many times they could cut it by flying through it before it hit the ground and trying to pop balloons released from the ground.

One of the visiting pilots, Mark Meredith, didn’t learn how to fly until he was 47. Never too late to pick up a new hobby!

Afterward we had dinner and milkshakes at Del’s Roadside.

Unfortunately, on the way back we had some car trouble on the way home. About 30 minutes out the Check Engine light came on, the car started automatically braking, and we had to quickly pull over. I turned the engine off, but couldn’t get it to turn back on. It would try, then just start to shake the whole car, and then stop.

So, this was my first time actually using the AAA service we’ve subscribed to for 9 years. Thankfully the tow truck was there in about 40 minutes. And thank goodness that Uber was available in the area, so Amanda and Charlie could get home quickly while I dealt with the tow.

I thought we were out of luck, given that it was a holiday weekend, but we were able to get a rental car the next morning so we can still get around until the dealership can look at our car.

The time may have finally come for us to get a second car.

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I finally read James by Percival Everett. It is as good as people said it was with some interesting twists, though some definite heart wrenching parts.

Next I think I’m going to read 88 Names by Matt Ruff, since I think a cyber thriller will be a good change of pace, then possibly David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, which I’ve wanted to read for years.

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We harvested our garlic! Charlie helped me plant it last fall and he helped me harvest it today.

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Pretty sure a faerie has tea here.

Until next week, ✌️

As I write this, I’m sitting on the deck sipping a grapefruit IPA from Captain Lawrence, as the sun sets, the fireflies come out, and cooler air floats in. Charlie fell asleep early tonight, while I was out on the round platform swing, and we were able to carry him in and successfully transfer him to bed, which is rare. Little guy was exhausted.

We think he is going through both a physical growth spurt and a developmental one as well (perhaps the limbic leap?). Poor guy is having some intense emotional mood swings and outbursts right now. Is he starting to glimpse a sense of self and is pushing back against his lack of autonomy? We try to give him as much autonomy as we can, but four year olds still make some pretty suspect choices, which are more impulses than actual choices…letting those intrusive thoughts win. We know this will pass (equilibrium, disequilibrium, equilibrium, etc), but it has been a challenging two weeks on the parenting front.

Yet, between the outbursts and meltdowns, there have still been very sweet, tender, loving, creative, helpful moments full of kindness and good choices. It’s those moments that help us recharge and keep going.

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This was my last full week on sabbatical. Back to work the coming week.

We were submerged under a sticky, humid heat wave M-W. My weather station recorded 99.9F! I spent a little bit of time on Monday and Wednesday working in the shed. I turned a bowl out of a chunk of cherry, though it had a lot of tear out, which I attribute to the chatter from my worn out quill bearings. I have a replacement coming, but I’ve been waiting on it for over a month now. This one will probably just be a shop bowl. I also split a beautiful walnut log to carve into a trough. Despite a fan and lots of electrolytes, the heat got to me and I couldn’t work out there as long as I wanted to.

Tuesday I spent inside trying to fix another problem with a diverter valve on our shower head, then reading during the hottest part of the day.

Tuesday evening I took Charlie down to the riverfront to ride his bike, it was hot, but we both needed to get outside and move our bodies.

Thursday it cooled down enough to get out fly fishing again. Unfortunately, I had to go to four different streams to find one at a fishable temperature after the heat wave. The first three locations were 70F, 75F, and 70F. Wild! These spots were running cold just a couple weeks ago. The fourth stream was running at 58F, which is why it is one of the few unstocked wild trout streams in the Croton system. I caught a few small trout.

That might have been my last time fishing for trout in the Croton watershed for the next couple months until the water can cool back down. Without cold water releases from the reservoirs (not happening in the Croton system due to the Delaware Aqueduct Project, you can see current releases here), I don’t see that happening until autumn. That and going back to work significantly cuts into my free time.

Time to paddle instead.

Friday I called my friend Jeremy and we did just that. We decided to launch from Cold Spring and we noticed that the water levels were right to get under the train trestle into Constitution Marsh, which neither of us had paddled. Beautiful place! We also tried to paddle up Indian Brook and see the falls, but the water level was too low, to make it very far up the brook.

I thought the train trestle on the south end of the marsh was passable most of the time, and I figured we’d get out there and paddle back around the point with the flood. Unfortunately I had that mixed up and that trestle is almost never passable, even at low tide. Whoops! We hightailed it back through the marsh and just made it back out under the north trestle before high tide. We had to scoot far down in our kayaks and pull ourselves under the trestle with our hands, fighting against the flood current. Getting stuck there isn’t terrible, it usually means waiting 3-4 hours for the water level to change (and we did pack a lunch), but I’m glad we were able to get out.

Monday we plan to do a morning paddle up the Croton River. It is usually cooler in the gorge, even on sweltering days.

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Thursday night Charlie wanted to get out the old manual reel mower that a few previous owners have left with the house. Apparently most of the neighbors had one ~20 years ago. Together he and I used it to mow about 3/4 of our yard, and it did a good job! I did tune it up and sharpen it in 2020, but have mostly been using an electric mower since. I’ll have to sub in the reel mower more often when I want more of a workout.

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Time to move back inside, it is dark and my screen is attracting bugs.

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Saturday we got up and went to Fishkill Farms to pick currants. Charlie loved it, especially the relative freedom of wandering off through the rows of bushes and picking on his own. He picked almost a whole pint by himself!

We are going to try a clafoutis with some first. Then maybe some jam and some scones. Send me your favorite black currant recipes, please!

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In the heat we’ve been making simple meals. Salads with grilled chicken (quesadillas for the little guy), chicken caesar salad wraps with the leftover chicken, hotdogs, hamburgers. Nothing complex, and preferably nothing that heats up the house. Also simple because mealtimes have been a challenge. See above.

Send me your favorite kid-friendly hot weather meal ideas, please!

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I finished two books this week.

The first, Neal Stephenson’s Anathem. I’ve read almost all of Stephenson’s novels now and this was the first I didn’t like. I finished it hoping for some incredible payoff at the end given all of the awards and acclaim the book has, but apparently this book just isn’t my thing.

The second, Ivan Doig’s Ride with me, Mariah Montana, the third in his Montana trilogy, was a fitting conclusion to that trilogy. I enjoyed it and I enjoyed the whole trilogy.

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Ugh, my heart monitor is rapidly blinking and I can see it through my shirt. Time to charge the receiver for the second time today.

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Added some more books to my “to read” list this week:

• The Terror by Dan Simmons
• North Woods Daniel Mason
• Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality by Renee DiResta
• Riverman: An American Odyssey by Ben McGrath

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Lots of chatter about declining insect populations recently. I have a thought an an anecdote:

1. Regarding the “there are fewer bugs on my bumper and windshield than 30 years ago” – True, but modern cars are also more aerodynamic! Also, once you get out of the suburbs and modern farmland, you’ll notice a definite increase. Yes, still probably much fewer than 30 years ago, but I noticed significantly more bugs on my windshield while driving around the Catskills and the PA Wilds the last two months than around my house.
2. The first summer we lived in this house, I put down some grub killer on the lawn (and I am sure the previous owners had, too). When there were no lightning bugs in our yard that summer, I realized I made a huge mistake and vowed never to do that again. The past three years, I am happy to report there have been a lot of lightning bugs.
   • Planting pollinator friendly flowers has attracted a lot of pollinators to our yard, too.

You can make a difference. Stop using pesticides and plant more flowers.

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I’ve been curious about the elephant on the signs for Somers, NY, so I finally looked it up. Around 1800, Hachaliah Bailey (of Barnum & Bailey / Ringling Bros circus fame) bought an elephant named Old Bet while he was living in Somers. After she was shot by a farmer in Maine, Bailey erected a statue of Old Bet in front of his Elephant Hotel in Somers, both of which are still there today. Driving past it on the way to go fishing is what prompted me to look it up.

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Following a new old blog, thanks to Manu Moreale’s People and Blogs interview series: David Wertheimer’s Ideapad.

Posting a double header edition because I was sick from Friday-Wednesday last week with what I originally thought was food poisoning, but as it prolonged and got worse I decided was probably norovirus. It was rough. Thankfully Amanda and Charlie didn’t get it.

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Today is our twelfth wedding anniversary! 💍 🍾

I’m not sure I’ve ever posted one of our wedding photos on the blog, so today is a good time to post one.

We went out to breakfast to celebrate.

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I started this blog seventeen years ago today!

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I ended up getting my FreedomBox upgraded successfully to Debian 13 (trixie) and am now running my own Miniflux feed reader instance on it. Thanks to the power of the greader/FreshRSS API, it also syncs with NetNewsWire on desktop and mobile.

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Amanda had to go to Miami for two days last week, so Charlie and I went on an adventure the first night. We went to King Kone for the first time for dinner and ice cream (Charlie opted for a milkshake), then we went over to Croton Gorge, which was really flowing! King Kone’s food was good. The platters all come with a side of homemade coleslaw wish scallions in it.

The next evening we hung around the house and played outside, went on a bike ride through the woods, where we caught a glimpse of a fox.

Thursday my friend Jay came over, fresh on his summer break (school teacher), and we hiked up to the top of Blue Mountain. Despite walking in the park multiple times a week for the past five years, I never actually went up to the summit of Blue Mountain, so we decided to go check it out. “Mountain” is generous, as the elevation is 680ft. Still, it is the highest point in the local area. It was about a 45 minute walk from our house to the summit. There is an old shelter foundation up there, as well as a little pond.

On the way back down, Jay and I amused ourselves by making up the beginnings of a story about The Blue Mountain Troll. Proportional to its surroundings, it is small, only 3ft tall. It lives in the rock formations up there. No one has seen it, but there are reports of hikers getting hit by acorns and small rocks while going up the trail.

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I got out fishing three times in the past two weeks. Cross River, East branch of the Croton, and upper West branch of the Croton.

It is interesting how three rivers, all part of the same watershed and so geographically close together, are so different. All three have to be approached and fished completely differently if you are to expect any bend in your rod.

At a local bookstore I found a copy of a book from 1985 that details the streams in the area and has some better maps than the current guide from the local Trout Unlimited chapter. It mentions names for pools/holes that I knew were there, but didn’t know the names of. For example, here is the one for the Amawalk:

It is also interesting to compare what has changed and what remains the same. For instance, everyone knows that the Upper West branch is full of small 6-8″ brown trout, and that is about all you’ll catch. Apparently it was that way in the 80s, too!

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Right now I’m reading Ride with me, Mariah Montana by Ivan Doig, the final book in his Montana Trilogy. I’ve read roughly one per year. I recently learned that there are even more books by Doig set in the same Two Medicine country, but not about the McCaskill family. I’m looking forward to reading another next year.

The past couple years Charlie has made bookmarks for me for Father’s Day. The one pictured is from last year, but I switched to this year, which was made out of orange paper (he picked orange because that is my favorite color). I treasure these bookmarks more than gold.

Related, a text from Amanda:

I started the creative discussions for your annual bookmark and I asked if he wanted to paint something or draw something or take one of the photos from his camera and make that the bookmark and he said “No I don’t want to do that. What about a heart because I love daddy.”

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This has been a challenging weekend for parenting. This little guy can do something that surprises us and makes us so proud of him, then go completely feral a few hours later. We’ve learned if that happens after ~3pm, the rest of the day is pretty much shot. The only thing that reliably works to reset the mood is sleep, so you need to cancel plans, throw out expectations, order takeout, and just strap in until bedtime. Switch off every 30-60 mins so you both get a chance to catch your breath.

Keep reminding yourself that he is a good kid having a hard time and that tomorrow’s another day.

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Small update on the blood clot front: I’m now wearing a heart monitor for 30 days to see if I have any signs of arrhythmia, which could throw clots.

I have to be honest, I hate wearing it. It is small and wireless, but an oversized hassle.

• It is giving me a rash.
• It woke me up beeping in the middle of the night because of a “low battery” (20% was the threshold, which would last for well over 24 hours) and wouldn’t stop beeping until I changed it.
• I can see the light flashing through most of my shirts.
• I can’t swim with it.
• The receiver is a locked down cell phone that has a terrible battery life. I have to carry two phones around all day and charge the receiver more frequently than just at night.
• I’m aware of it at all times.

I can’t wait to be rid of this. I hope it something comes of it.

Related: Nothing makes you want to take your health more seriously like the waiting room at a cardiologist’s office.

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Charlie’s strawberry plant is producing nicely. He’s been able to pick and eat three or four strawberries off of it so far and he is so excited every time.

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Garden update: Lots of borage, which we are freezing in ice cubes and eating on salads.

Heat wave this coming week, with temps nearing 100F. Thankfully we got the window ACs in a couple nights ago. This always seems to be the week it gets hot enough for us to put them in. I need to add that to my Small Seasons calendar.

I made some iced coffee, iced tea, and a bag of pebble ice to keep us cool.

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This upcoming week is the final week of my sabbatical. I’m hoping to make the most of it, despite the scorching temperatures. Probably some woodworking in the early part of the week, then some more fly fishing later in the week once it cools down a little.

Charlie and I spent M-F camping with my parents at Bald Eagle State Park in PA.

We cruised around the lake and went swimming in the chilly water. Charlie loves playing in water!

We sat around the campfire and ate s’mores.

We drove all over the PA Wilds searching for elk. Did you know PA has a wild elk population? The Elk Country Visitor Center is worth a visit if you are in the area.

We visited Penn’s Cave. Pretty neat place, almost in the middle of a field. Not exactly where you’d expect a huge cave. 52F all year, which felt great on the 90F day.

We baked cinnamon rolls in a dutch oven over coals for the first time. Lodge has a booklet that lays out how many coals you need on top and bottom for reaching a specific temperature for a given sized dutch oven. Much better than winging it! I’d like to try cooking more things in a dutch oven.

We swatted off the cicadas that landed on us. Big hatch this year!

No fly fishing this week, though I took note of a few streams that looked promising for the future. I did cast a spinning rod out on the boat for a bit and caught a smallmouth bass and a large bluegill. Both on a Yo-Zuri Snap Bean that I’ve had for at least 20 years and have caught a lot of fish on.

I was curious why almost every small stream, and even some larger ones, were named “_____ Run” instead of brook, stream, or creek. Around me they are mostly Creek or Brook. I looked it up.

• “Run” is an old English and Scots word meaning “a small stream or brook.”
• Settlers of Scots-Irish descent made up a large proportion of early migrants to western and central Pennsylvania in the 18th century.

We all had fun, and Charlie was a good sport driving four hours with me. Amanda usually keeps him company in the back seat, but we listened to a lot of Twenty Trucks and Thomas and Friends Storytime, which helped keep our minds off of her absence this trip.

The above is mostly highlights, but to bring us back down to earth, I’d like to acknowledge that did have a hard time being away from his Momma for a week. We had our ups and downs, but we got through with a little help from video calls with Momma and extra snuggles with Grandma and Grandpa.

After we got home, we had a mostly quiet weekend. It rained most of the day Saturday and we hung around the house. Sunday we went to a birthday party and to the playground.

At home our Mock Orange is in full bloom!

From a walk in the woods:

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After months of downtime because I decided to try to switch to an unstable Debian branch and botched it, I finally reflashed my FreedomBox and started fresh. I got that working last night, and as I write this am attempting to upgrade from Debian 12 to 13. Next I need to re-add my external storage and re-install the apps I had running. Say an incantation to St IGNUtius for me if you are familiar with the ways of GNU/Linux.

It is a slow process of consulting the canon (wikis) and trying different things. I am taking notes in my digital garden, which maybe one day will be linked to and become a part of the record. This is the way.

This post format is feeling a bit stale, but not sure what to do about it. Comment or email me if you have suggestions!

Since we had friends over for a cookout the day before, we took it easy on Memorial Day and hung around the house, mostly playing in the yard with Charlie. We washed the car together and watered the garden (he absolutely loves spraying the hose), then played a lot on the swing set.

I had a couple good fishing days this week and one bad fishing day.

Tuesday I caught 13 brown trout on a new stretch of the upper west branch of the Croton river that I hadn’t fished before. Used my TenkaraBum 36. Elk hair caddis, sulfur comparadun, and stimulators were the producers.

Wednesday I fished a river on the east side of the county that I had fished once before and caught two brook trout and seven brown trout. The two brook trout were larger than any I caught in the Catskills earlier this month. The browns were 8-9 inches and nice looking fish, decent size for that small water. Lots of watersnakes here.

I am excited to have caught some brook trout in Westchester! The first one was caught on my very first cast. That day I fished with the same size 14 Haystack (Fran Betters’ pattern) the whole day.

This is the place I helped with the trout releases. I was surprised to see a hatch of those huge hellgrammites (dobson flies) we sampled going on while I was fishing. Here is one of the hellgrammites and one of the adult flies I snapped a photo of:

Friday I fished two different streams. I heard of a supposed wild brook trout stream on public land and went to check it out, but all I caught was one tiny blacknose dace. The water was extremely low. Later that afternoon I fished the Amawalk, and while I had a couple strikes, I didn’t have any hookups. I’ve not had much luck on the Amawalk. It was a frustrating day where I spent more time bushwacking through invasive barberry and multiflora rose than fishing. At least I saw some wild irises and forget-me-nots.

I did a couple small things in the workshop this week:

• I turned a new handle for a fish hook remover, since I lost my previous one in the Catskills.
• Tried dyeing some polyester craft fur for fly tying, which didn’t go well. It didn’t take at all. I think I am just going to buy some pre-dyed since I find the dyeing process tedious and $5 will get me enough to last a couple years.
• Mixed up some grey squirrel dubbing.
• Fixed my net holder with pop rivets in the corners where the stitches ripped out. I rummaged around and found a washer that just fit the rivet so it wouldn’t pull through. After it popped, I flattened it on the railroad anvil.
  • It has been nice this past year to finally get my workshop set up so that I can go out and work on something for ten minutes without it having to be a whole thing.
  • The leather punch and washers were from estate sales. The pop rivet gun is an old one from my dad. I think the peen hammer was my grandfather’s. The anvil is from my uncle’s dad. It all came together here to fix this, and I’m sure I’ll pass this stuff on, too, after I’ve used it.

Fly tying this week:

• More CDC & Elk (caddis) in 14 and 16
• Different colors of Fran Betters’ Haystack, mostly size 14 (maybe a couple 16s)
• A few size 16 bead head squirrel hair nymphs for droppers.
• Some futsu kebari
• A couple generic soft hackles

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We went out to eat in Beacon in the middle of the week and Charlie noticed people walking on the abandoned railroad tracks across the street and really wanted to explore them, too.

The highlight of Charlie’s week was going for a walk down by the river and noticing that there was railroad construction equipment lined up on the side track. We walked the full length two days in a row looking at them. I’m not an expert, but I could identify tie pullers, tie inserters, spike pullers, spike collectors, plate layers, and plate screw impact drivers (it looks like the old style plates and spikes are being replaced with new style plates that use screws instead of spikes). Also something that looks like it aligns rails.

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It has been a rainy month. 6.75in of rain here in May, according to my weather station. I looked up some official data and this is the rainiest May in at least the last five years.

I know that fish are more active and let their guard down more in the rain, but I’ve tried fly fishing in the rain and don’t particularly like it. It just isn’t fun and relaxing, which is the goal of fly fishing for me.

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I finally looked back at the birdhouse cam. For two months it was covered by next material, but last week it was clear again and there were some large baby birds! House finches.

Monday I cleaned and sorted through the Shopsmith parts I picked up from the estate sale two weeks ago. I found the right combination of parts to finally have a safe table saw setup and use a standard 5/8″ arbor instead of the Shopsmith 1″ arbor. I am pretty stoked about that! I also hung the accessory shelf on a cleat. the Shopsmith corner is coming along nicely.

Tuesday I went fly fishing on the upper west branch of the Croton River. This time I worked my way upstream. This section of the Croton River is a wild quality brown trout stream, so it is unstocked. I caught 15 wild browns, a couple in a big pool and most in pocket water. Elk Hair Caddis and Olive Bubble Kebari were the two standout flies. I caught 9 bluegill in the big pool, too. The bluegill wouldn’t take a dry fly, but they absolutely loved the subsurface olive bubble kebari.

When the wind blew there were rises like crazy in one of the big pools. Took me a few times to figure it out, but little green inchworms and spongy moth caterpillars were falling out of the trees! I had to tie some of these up to try again there next week.

I saw this excellent tree, where I imagine the neighborhood scholarly owl lives.

Wednesday I explored the streams over in Harriman State Park, which were beautiful, high gradient pocket water streams. Unfortunately I didn’t get a single take or even see a fish that I’d spooked on either of the streams I fished. The water was fairly warm for a chilly day, so I’m wondering if it just isn’t good trout habitat anymore. The most recent sampling info I found was from 2021, so it is possible the habitat is no longer viable. I’ll try again perhaps in the fall, but I’m not holding my breath. It is really too bad because the streams are gorgeous.

Thursday I went to a small going away party for the Trout in the Classroom coordinator for NYC, who is moving out to California.

Friday Charlie and I ran errands in the rain for most of the afternoon and got him a haircut, then we played at George’s Island Park after dinner. There used to be brick kilns there, and the causeway to the mainland formed over time from discarded bricks. You can still see them in the water!

Saturday we worked in the yard, cleaning up a brushpile that we’ve wanted to clean up for past last three years. Amanda did the bulk of the clean up. I helped with relocating the wood piles and logs, then I mowed and planted potatoes, and took Charlie to pick up some grass seed, which we them sowed where the brush pile used to be. We moved the logs into a climbing/jumping/hopping area for Charlie, which he climbed on immediately.

Charlie helping with the potatoes:

Sunday we had the Meg, Jeremy, Miles, Ben, and Henry over for a cookout (chicken kabobs). The kids had lots of fun on the slide and running around the backyard. That’s exactly why we wanted a big yard!

Some more fly tying: A brown bivisible and some smaller elk hair caddis using multiple hair colors for a variegated look.

We’re starting to cook from our garden: Grilled radishes, chimichurri from our parsley, cilantro on tacos. Next up will be the mint, dill, garlic scapes, and borage.

Any night it doesn’t rain we are out in the backyard.

We put up our old mailbox in Charlie’s slide fort. It is primarily monster truck storage now.

I spent M-F this week fly fishing in the Catskills. I primarily fished small streams in search of native brook trout, Salvelinus fontinalis. I’m happy to report that I found some great spots and caught 61 brook trout over the course of the week, along with 7 wild brown trout and 1 rainbow. I caught fish all five days.

One of these streams yielded 43 native brook trout in a single day, plus dozens more that I missed. On that day I packed a sandwich in my backpack and spent from 9:30am-7pm hiking and fishing the stream. Another yielded 16.

Despite it being peak fishing season in the Catskills and every parking area and pool on the Willowemoc, Beaver Kill, and Esopus was full of anglers, I didn’t see a single person the entire week on the small streams I fished. Bliss!

Some photos of the streams:

I love these state forest signs:

Some of the beautiful speckled brook trout I caught:

And a nice sized wild brown for the small stream it was in:

It was incredibly gratifying to catch these beautiful fish on flies that I tied. The elk hair caddis and the peacock herl futsu kebari were the two main producers, with a soft hackle pheasant tail, bead head futsu kebari, and a frenchie catching a couple fish as well.

After this trip I’m considering simplifying my fly tying lineup to include fewer flies with a wider range of sizes rather than a wide variety of patterns in mostly 2-3 sizes.

I primarily fished my Dragontail Mizuchi tenkara rod at the 11ft length with an 8ft level line and 2-3ft of 5x tippet. This was a great length combo for fishing tight cover and deadfalls for fish that spooked easily. The long rod gave me good reach, but the shorter line casted better without getting hung up on tree limbs.

Focusing for five days on fishing with the tenkara rod allowed me to greatly improve my casting, as well as improve my water reading and stealth. I’m looking forward to revisiting some of my local streams with renewed focus. I’m also eager to find some brook trout streams closer to home!

Thursday around lunchtime I lost my hook remover. I know roughly where I lost it, but couldn’t find it. The walnut handle was beautiful, but it blends right in with leaves. I should have kept it on a zinger. I’ll make another one this week.

I stayed in a little A-frame in the Roscoe area for two nights and a cabin the Phoenicia area for two nights. Outside of fishing, I also visited the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum, perused books in the Jerry Bartlett Memorial Angling Collection in the Phoenicia library, ate at the Phoenicia Diner, the Beaver Kill Covered Bridge, stocked up on fly tying materials at Dette Flies, and visited the Catskill Hatchery.

Amanda and I visited the fly fishing museum 8 or 10 years ago, but I viewed it with fresh eyes now that I tie flies. It was neat to see the tools and jigs people made to help them tie. It was also neat to see some of the original patterns in person that I’ve only seen in books. In the rod building shop at the museum, I ran into Mark Sturtevant, whose blog I subscribe to. He kindly showed me around the shop and showed me the lo o bamboo cane rod he was building. I’d love to make my own bamboo fly rod one day.

Throughout the trip I listened to Ed van Put’s Trout Fishing in the Catskills, which provided some great historical context.

I saw some neat creatures: Red efts, speckled salamanders, a rosy maple moth, deer, turkeys, and eagles. One eagle was perched above the raceways at the fish hatchery, snatching easy meals. And some beautiful trilliums (red trilliums, white trilliums, and painted trilliums)!

The bugs were atrocious. I wore a hat, a buff, long sleeves, and used bug spray, but still had a dozen mosquito bites on my forehead and hands.

I came back home Friday afternoon and had dinner with Charlie and Amanda at River Outpost. It was great to spend a week fly fishing, but I missed them. I love coming home to them!

Saturday we played outside in the morning, went to Charlie’s swim class where he did really well learning to float on his back, and then I took him grocery shopping at Stew Leonard’s for a couple hours, then mowed the grass after dinner.

Sunday we got up and walked in the woods, went to the playground, and then had some friends over for an afternoon cookout.

The tulip poplars are blooming!

The black locusts are blooming, too. This is such a beautiful time of year, even if my allergies are killing me. This is the most I’ve seen the one in our yard bloom:

Happy Mother’s Day!

Monday I kept Charlie home from pre-k and took him to tour the Clearwater. They had a special event for 2-4 year olds! It was fun, despite the rain. Charlie got to help push the tiller, see some real catfish and hog chokers, and explore the deck. We also stopped at Rossi Deli for lunch (A must stop!)

I took a great photo of the Clearwater ten years ago in front of our Yonkers apartment and we have the photo hanging in our living room. It was cool to go on it!

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A post shared by Chuck Grimmett (@cagrimmett)

Tuesday I went fishing in the rain. I didn’t catch anything, but I did explore a new section of a stream I’ve fished before, saw some neat creatures, plants, and harvested some ramps for dinner. I chopped them up, roasted them with butter, and poured them over baked potatoes. Delicious.

Wednesday painters came and finished the last part of our house’s facelifts: Painting the foundation, porticos, front porch, garage door, and front door. We also cleaned the house.

Next up I want to replace the purple glass in the front door, but that requires some decisions and sourcing.

Thursday I tied some flies (rusty spinners and futsu kebari), installed a new mailbox, made a new net holder, planted our tomatoes and hot peppers, and went grocery shopping. Rainy afternoon.

Friday I went to an estate sale and dug through cabinets, drawers, and boxes for Shopsmith parts. I went back twice after coming home, sorting through things, and realizing that I was missing a couple parts to pieces I picked up. This is the sale I’ve been waiting for: Local, lots of parts, and sellers who didn’t know anything about the machine or the parts. I got:

• Front table extension
• Another set of tables
• A newer table saw upper and lower guard that actually fits (the one I have doesn’t fit, so I don’t use the table saw on the Shopsmith. I’m excited to start using it!)
• A universal accessory table that I plan to put a french cleat on and hang on the wall behind the machine.
• Tailstock, lathe chisels, and various centers and chucks
• Tenon cutter jig
• Various spindle adaptors
• A spindle sander with new-in-box sandpaper tubes for it, and the table insert for it
• Push blocks
• A few small tools for Charlie
• A large roll of Fleishmann Yeast wax paper

I am very pleased! I have lots of clean up work to do, but it was well worth the time. I am glad to have some spare parts and new-to-me accessories (that are ~40 years old).

Saturday we spent the afternoon at Zoe’s birthday party, which was an art-themed party. We had fun and Charlie played nicely with the other kids.

Sunday was Mother’s day, so we spent the morning with Amanda, went grocery shopping while she was at her horseback riding lessons, spent the afternoon playing in the yard with her, and cooked her a steak dinner, including a side of garden radishes cooked in za’atar and butter. All in all a good day.

A few other random notes:

• Spongy Moth caterpillars are bad again this year.
• It is mowing season. Sunday mornings seem to be this year’s mowing time.
• I want to get some water testing kits and test the water in the stream running through the nature preserve at the end of our street.
• I’d love to find a copy of the Borger Color System book.

Good week!

Monday I put the roof on Charlie’s slide play fort and finished it:

Adding a Slide Platform to an A-Frame Swing Set

That night I made a leather net holster for my fishing belt. It turned out okay for my first leather working project, but I need to make a new one out of thicker, sturdier leather because this one flops around too much. I’ll try to find a better piece and make another one this week.

Leather holster for a landing net

Tuesday the siding crew finished our siding and I closed up the shower pipe access in Charlie’s closet. Then Amanda and I went out to lunch.

Lunch is my favorite meal, and there is nothing more luxurious than going out for lunch in the middle of the day. A long lunch outside on a sunny day beats dinner reservations every time, IMO.

Later, I started the oak bowl turning project, which I continued working on Wednesday and finished Friday:

Two Rustic Oak Bowls From a Log

Wednesday the gutter crew finished putting up our new gutters, then I put up our new house numbers and continued working on the bowls. Amanda and I took an hour and got our back porch set up for the season.

Our house is looking great! Next step is painting the foundation, garage door, front door, front porch, and porticos.

Thursday I visited the local fly shop (Angler’s Den) to pick up a couple things, then went fishing:

Fallfish on the fly

I guess I blogged a lot this week, too!

Thursday night we had dinner on the back porch (carnitas tacos) and made s’mores on the chiminea.

Friday I finished the bowls and spent the afternoon running errands.

Saturday we took a road trip up to Accord to pick up some seedlings from the Hudson Valley Seed Co. We also stopped at the Mohonk Preserve Visitor’s Center (worth a stop if you have kids!). They had a good animal exhibit in the basement that Charlie enjoyed. I liked seeing the stuffed Fisher, since I saw a live one a month ago in the wild.

We also stopped Tuthilltown Distillery (which I guess they now call Hudson Whiskey since they were bought) for some of our favorite gin, which they no longer distribute. At least they still make and sell it on-site. It is worth the hour drive. It used to be called Half Moon Gin, but has been renamed to Citrus Moon Gin for some nebulous legal reasons. The staff reassured us that the recipe remains unchanged.

Saturday night we went to Kristin Richer’s birthday party. Jon wanted to make pizzas on his Ooni, so I took my Ooni over there too and helped him sling pizzas. We ended up making ~25 pizzas over the course of an hour and a half.

Jon showed me a trick I hadn’t used before: Instead of flouring your work area and putting lots of corn meal on your peel, drop the whole dough ball in a bowl of flour before shaping it. That worked really well.

I didn’t take many photos because I was focused on making pizzas, but I took a couple:

A thunderstorm passed through during the party, and Charlie had a great time running around in the rain.

Sunday Charlie and I mowed the lawn, screwed down some loose boards on the front porch, and went for a walk in the woods to try to find the owl we heard. Charlie likes pushing the down sloped part of the yard by himself. Then lots of indoor play time, snuggling, and grocery shopping for the rest of the day while it rained.

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I’m just over a month into my sabbatical, with two months left.

I had less free time in April that I would have liked, due to some family travel, Charlie’s spring break, and the house projects. I didn’t fish as much as I wanted, but I got a lot done. Still, it was incredibly nice to not have to work during that time, so I’m not complaining! I was able to pretty much stop thinking about work after about two weeks.

Plans for May and June include more fishing, some time out in the kayaks and guideboat on the water, and making more things out of wood in the workshop. Also some camping, day trips with Charlie, coffee with friends, spending a day or two in NYC, and more lunch dates with Amanda.

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Our backyard in December 2019 (when we moved in) vs April 2020 vs April 2025.

This progression gives me some feelings. A lot of life packed into five years.