Cool photo I found this week: One of our neighbors put their house up for sale, and the listing included an aerial photo of our street. You can see our house and a great view of the town and the river. We feel very grateful to live here.

Three big projects occupied my time this week:

• Charlie’s play fort
• Leaky shower
• Siding replacement

Charlie’s play fort is coming along nicely. I finished the main structure on Monday, added a bucket + pulley on Tuesday, and added the slide, handles, and a pirate ship’s wheel on Wednesday. Tuesday and Wednesday nights the three of us had picnic dinners up on the play fort, and it was lovely.

The leaky shower was less fun. As I was showering Wednesday morning, Amanda came upstairs to let me know that she could hear water running into the kitchen ceiling, directly below the shower. I opened up the access panel, and sure enough, it was wet.

It looked like it was mostly coming from around the lip of the tub, so I recaulked where the tile meets the tub and around all the escutcheons. While that was drying, I decided to double down and fix some of the small tiles that had popped up by the tub. I glued them down and regrouted.

I was feeling accomplished until later that night when I tested the shower and found a new leak I hadn’t noticed before, this time coming from the water volume control knob. It took some architectural archeology to find the source and some internet sleuthing to find the solution. I ended up replacing the cartridge in the middle of the volume control and that solved the problem.

Side note tip: Kohler doesn’t publish PDFs of their parts diagrams like everyone else. It is locked inside a javascript app at scout.kohler.com and under the hood they are in SVG format. Kind of annoying, but at least they are available online.

Let me tell you, the 30 seconds between turning the water main back on in the basement and racing back up to the second floor to see if there were any leaks were sweat inducing for multiple reasons. Thankfully no leaks. Now I need to cover the access back up and put Charlie’s closet back together.

The siding project took less work on my part, but more coordination. We hired a siding company to do it for us. I don’t have much to say about the company, they are on par with other contractors we’ve worked with. We wanted to start the beginning of April, then that was pushed to this week, and they finally started Friday. Despite those delays, I think they completed about half of the work in a single day.

Unfortunately, we had a severe thunderstorm Saturday night, while our house was without gutters and only half the siding was on. Water started coming in around the sliding glass door. Not the contractors’ fault, just bad timing. Hoping to have the work wrapped tomorrow.

This week revealed to me just how much DIY work as been done on our 97 year old house. It has had many, many owners. Three different layers of siding, the sliding glass door was clearly added long after that back wall was built, cut off pipes abandoned under the tub, the access panel cut into and patched over multiple times, the shower valves screwed in from the now-tiled-over side instead of the access panel, etc.

And I’m certainly not making the problem any better. Just adding another layer, more holes, new screws, and fresh grout. I guess that’s just how houses evolve.

Charlie has found the siding project very exciting. He ran to grab his camera when the materials delivery showed up and he wanted to be outside when the crew started working. Sunday he helped me pick up nails with a magnet bar.

I fished one of the wild quality streams in the Croton watershed on Tuesday. I had some strikes, but didn’t land any fish. It was good to explore that new-to-me stream and take notes of the good holes for the future. I noticed a few Blue Quills hatching, so I tied some at home later that night, intending to try them out the following day, only to be waylaid by the leaking shower. So it goes.

I helped with another trout release on Thursday. I caught some large Dobsonfly larvae and Stonefly nymphs, as well as a blacknose dace in the kick net. Saw another water snake! This time the students were a bit younger, so I kept my waders on and stood in the river while they released the trout at the bank, just in case. I spotted some nice 8in trout coming out from under the far bank to feed, perhaps on the newly released fingerlings.

Friday night we had our friends Colin and Hayden over for dinner. We were all too engaged in conversation to take photos. Colin recommended An Immense World.

Saturday was a rainy day. We did some grocery shopping, got our sillies out on the pier between raindrops, and visited Transom Bookshop in Tarrytown.

Sunday Charlie and I went to a carnival with the Crisantes. Our very big 3.5-4 year olds rode a lot of rides themselves! Some we still had to ride with them, though. They are still little after all.

It is the official start of Hose Season.

This is Charlie’s “Stew Stick”.

I got a grommet kit and made a couple loops with grommets to go on my fishing belt for things to clip on to. I have a drawer full of things like webbing, different threads, a speed stitcher, and various other DIY materials. The grommet tool is a great addition. That drawer makes future projects possible.

This week was spring break for most of NY, so this week was all about hanging with Charlie.

Monday we traveled back from Georgia. Charlie was a great traveler, and to our surprise he slept for the whole plane ride.

Tuesday Charlie and I puttered around the yard doing lots of small tasks. We repotted some succulents and caudiciforms, moved dirt, planted some seeds, and got the car cleaned.

Wednesday Amanda spent the afternoon with Charlie, so I worked out in the workshop. I cleaned, made two more french cleat tool holders for lathe tools, and started a turning project on the lathe that I still need to finish.

Thursday I took Charlie to the Mid Hudson Children’s Discovery Museum in Poughkeepsie with another daycare family. We all had fun. It was a beautiful day, so we had lunch outside there by the river. Later we helped them move some mulch.

Friday Amanda, Charlie, and I met up at the Bronx Zoo with three other families. In hindsight, going to the zoo on a holiday weekend during spring break might not have been the best idea. It was very crowded and kind of chaotic. We had fun though. I was the designated wagon schlepper. We taught some other folks our pro move of stopping for Italian sandwiches on Arthur Ave before going to the zoo, which is infinitely better than the zoo food (and lines).

Saturday Charlie and I went to Home Depot to get some lumber to start a slide/play fort addition to his swingset, then Amanda and I spent a couple hours getting it started.

Charlie also told us he wanted to grow strawberries, so we took him to pick out a plant and a pot for them to go in. He is in charge of watering them.

Sunday we started with a 7am Easter Egg hunt in the backyard (Charlie spotted them from the upstairs window as soon as he woke up). Mid-morning we went down to the waterfront to fly a kite and play on the playground. After lunch we worked on the swingset addition some more.

Most of the week was chilly, but the weekend really warmed up and spring is now in full bloom. The weather station recorded a high of 86.9°F on Saturday! We all got some much needed sun.

A book I was a recipe tester for is now out! Emma Christiansen takes all of the guesswork out of these recipes and they are excellent. If you are interested in fermenting drinks, pick up this book.

At the beginning of this week, I helped with another trout release and macroinvertebrate sampling, which I wrote about here:

I also finished an oak bowl on the lathe, which I wrote about here:

Puttered around in the backyard and the workshop in the rain with Charlie. He checked on the radishes, organized his workbench, and drew a picture for me.

One of the things I love about Charlie is how inquisitive he is and how much he notices. While putting some air in our tires, he noticed the shocks and asked why there is a spring connected to our tires. We talked about it, then he checked behind the other tires, too.

We spent the rest of the week in northern Georgia visiting family. My cousin finished his Master’s degree and my grandfather turned 90, so my aunt threw a dual grad/birthday party for them and a lot of family came to town to celebrate.

Charlie did great on the plane again.

Amanda and I lived in Atlanta for a summer before we got married, and traveled back a few times for work after that. So the first spot we stopped for dinner after getting our rental car was Fox Bros BBQ. We needed some chicken fried ribs with white sauce (tip: you can get them as an entree!) and brisket. This is the second time Charlie has chowed down on brisket, so I think we’ll need to hit more BBQ places in the near future.

The party was nice and it was great to get some family time. Charlie had a blast running around with his cousins. Last August when we visited they mostly played independently, but now they played together a lot more, had their own conversations, and got up to shenanigans.

Charlie’s grandparent time is wonderful to watch. The three of them are so sweet together.

It is also great to see Charlie becoming more comfortable with and opening up around the rest of the family.

Charlie on the porch with Pawpaw.

We stayed with my parents at a place in the mountains.

North GA is about a month ahead of NY. The dogwoods are blooming, violets and wisteria are everywhere, and the trees are leafing out.

I showed Charlie some fiddlehead ferns while out on a walk. He said, “I call them lizard tails.” And you know what? They look as much like chameleon tails as they do fiddle heads. So now we call them lizard tails, too.

My uncle and cousin took me out fishing one afternoon. We had a couple hours free, so we drove to a stream in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest.

Uncle Kevin caught one rainbow, I hooked one but it jumped off the barbless hook before I landed it, and Wyatt got a bite. My uncle and I both used a futsu-style kebari with our tenkara rods, Wyatt used a bead head nymph with his rod and reel.

It was my first time using the DragonTail TinyTalon 245, which just arrived on Tuesday. I’m still getting used to it, but the short length was great for this mountain stream with a tight canopy. Easy to pack, too.

Uncle Kevin is the one who got my started on tenkara, so it was nice to chat with him for a while about how we each rig our rods, what flies we use, the various mods and gear we’ve made. And nice to get out on the stream together, even if we only had about 90 minutes of fishing time.

Kevin and Wyatt made some nice leather net holders for their belts, and passed along a tip: Get a cheap bag of leather remnants, which are perfect for small projects like this.

On the first week of my sabbatical:

• I went fishing
• I helped a friend level part of his backyard
• Automattic laid off 16% of their employees
• I helped with a trout release and macroinvertebrate identification for a school field tripe with Trout Unlimited
• I checked some things off my to-do list around the house
• I cleaned up my workshop and started turning a bowl with my new old Speed Reducer
• I spent lots of time outside

The fishing was a bit slow. The water temp is still pretty cold in most places around here (mid 40s), so the trout are fairly sluggish. I did get to check out some new locations, and I landed three, hooked but lost four more, and had more strikes without hookups.

A few highlights:

• I caught an early black stonefly hatch Thursday afternoon when it warmed up to 70F. I was surprised by how much more effective my tenkara rod was during this brief window. I got 2-3x as many drifts in as the guy with the western rod downstream of me, and also had 2-3x as many takes for the hour of the active hatch.
  • During the hatch, a large creek chub took my pheasant tail parachute! I didn’t know they’d rise just like trout.
• I saw some nice sized fish in the water.
• I saw a fisher! It is the first time I’ve seen one. It was darting in and out between rocks across the stream from me. Probably trying to catch a trout, too.
• A watersnake swam by me in the river. We left each other alone.

Lowlights:

• I forgot Tuesday was the first day of the regular “take” fishing season, so there were a ton of spin fishermen out. That is fine, they are out having fun, too. Unfortunately, I ran into some pretty rude folks who walked up and started casting right next to me, giving me zero space, and a guy who stomped right through the water I was actively fishing. I packed up, ate lunch, and drove to a different spot.
  • Tips for avoiding them in the future:
    • They usually stick to the deep pools. They can’t fish the riffles and pocket water very effectively with their spoons and rapalas, so fish those instead of the pools.
    • They don’t usually wade, and they move spots quickly. Be patient.
    • They often stick to the stocking points, so either go to wild streams or hike a little bit away from the stocking points (usually road overpasses).

While helping my friend Dave level out a part of his backyard by hand, my phone started dinging like crazy. I had a dozen text messages in the span of 5 minutes. My coworkers were texting me that Automattic laid off 16% of the company.

I’m a bit shocked. I had no idea, and five great people who report to me were let go.

I am thankful to still have a job, but it is going to be strange coming back to a company and team that looks very different in three months.

The market isn’t looking good this week. I am feeling grateful that I pulled out the money for our imminent siding project early Wednesday morning before the worst of it.

Thursday I helped the local Trout Unlimited chapter do a trout release and macroinvertebrate sampling with a school field trip. It was a lot of fun! Longer post on it soon, but we found:

• Stoneflies
• Rock caddis
• Stick caddis
• Scuds
• Cranefly larvae
• Crayfish (lots!)
• Mayflies
• Hellgrammites

I’m helping with another one tomorrow morning.

Lots of fun outside in the warmer weather with Charlie.

First time using the Shopsmith Speed Reducer to turn below 700 RPM. Took me six months to find one for a reasonable price. It reduces the speed by a factor of 7, so the new base speed with it on is 100RPM. Very handy for roughing out big stock without the machine jumping all over the place.

Made good progress, but need to stop for the night. Probably will finish it off on Monday.

The forsythia is blooming, our radishes and cilantro are sprouting, violets are coming up in our yard, and the bumblebees are loving the daffodils.

Light fly tying this week. Just some Killer Bugs (the only takes I had on Monday were on Killer Bugs… I tried multiple flies and got takes when I switched back to Killer Bugs, but nothing on the other things I tried) and some elk hair caddis to finish out a gift box.

A bird finally took up residence in our birdhouse after no interest the last two years.

Charlie is very excited about it. We are, too. Can’t wait to see the baby birds.

Some small house projects I got done this week:

• Fixed the door closer on our front screen door.
• Added a handle at Charlie’s height on our back screen door. He can reach the one inside, but there is a step down outside and he can’t reach the outside handle. Now he has his own.
• Hung a pot rack on Charlie’s play kitchen.
• Re-hung a towel hook that got pulled out of the wall in the bathroom. Now it is screwed in to the stud.
• Epoxied my cracking wading staff.
• Relocated some rose campion that migrated out into the yard to the flowerbed out by the shed.
• Sowed dill, lemon balm, and seeded some bare spots in the yard with clover seed.

This was my week at work to wrap up and hand things off before starting my sabbatical. I ended up getting a surprise project on Wednesday. It was fun but challenging, and I worked on it for three full days, and delivered what I had at the end of the day Friday. Now I’m winding down and trying to get work out of my head.

I’ve heard it takes about two weeks to mentally disconnect from work. I know I had parental leave, but that was completely different. A newborn and sleep deprivation makes everything else disappear effectively.

This time around I’m planning on doing a lot of fishing this first week. My gear is packed and ready to go.

How did I spend my first weekend?

The first night I made a celebratory drink, an Angostura Colada. A side note: I’ve always wanted one of those large format (16oz) Angostura bottles, so I finally bought one. This drink takes a lot of bitters!

Saturday we all worked outside together. We:

• Cleaned out the flower beds
• Cut back dead plants
• Seeded bare spots in the grass
• Moved the compost bin and partially buried it to keep animals out. It got moved when we put the fence in, so we needed to put it back.
• Direct sowed some seeds:
  • Champion radishes
  • Breakfast radishes
  • Cilantro
  • Amaranth
  • Borage
  • Nasturtium
  • Bachelor’s buttons
• Put up a new swing for Charlie, replacing the baby swing that he has outgrown. We got him a circular saucer-style swing. It was three times as difficult to put together as I expected. The QC on the pieces is not great…I had to re-drill some of the holes because they were at the wrong angle to get the bolts through.
• Ate lunch and snacks outside

My weather station reported that it reached 79.2F (26.2C) that day!

Later that night I also did our taxes. Not fun, but I also didn’t want to waste my valuable daylight time on that.

Burying the compost bin was a success. It rained that night and the next morning we saw little muddy raccoon prints on the outside trying to get in.

I got an out-of-the-blue message from Matt with some kind words about an old blog post of mine that came up for him in a Google search. (Yes, that Matt.) What a delight to receive such high praise!

What would young me, just beginning to blog in 2008, think about that?

Working at a coffee shop with my love.

Charlie loves to dig.

Updates on medical stuff:

I visited a vascular surgeon, who was consulted while I was in the hospital. He reviewed my most recent CT scans and concluded that my vascular system looks completely normal (aside from the kidney blood clots). No cholesterol build-up, no blockages, good blood flow, no structural abnormalities. So that is ruled out as a cause. Good news overall, but still no clear answer on the clots. Next step is cardiology.

“Charlie, do you have dreams when you sleep? What do you dream about?”

“I dreamed about fishing. And daddy was there!”

My heart. I think we’ll spend more time over at the local pond catching bluegill soon! I didn’t realize his first fish made such a big impression.

Fly tying corner

I wanted to tie some Hare’s Ear and Plover, but plover is a bit hard to come by these days. I think the barring on hen pheasant makes a good substitute.

I got a couple hen capes in different colors, so I tied some flymphs, too. More of those to come.

Win: At the secondhand store I found some Belding Corticelli Buttonhole Twist silk thread, which Leisenring mentions in The Art of Tying the Wet Fly. It isn’t Pearsall’s Gossamer, but for $1 each I couldn’t pass it up.

I found a photo from the Trout Unlimited chapter’s fly tying night last month:

I fell down an internet research rabbit hole last week after noticing a cool book plate on a book about fly fishing and fly tying at the Internet Archive. You can follow along here as I go deeper down the hole next week:

I took it slow at work this week, focusing on handoffs since my sabbatical starts March 31. The brain fog got better as the week went on, but my energy levels still aren’t back to normal. I even took a nap on Saturday, which is very out of the norm for me.

Follow up with the hematologist was unremarkable. Still don’t know what caused my blood clots and whether or not I need to be concerned going forward. So, seven more vials of blood sent away for more tests. The tests are to rule out genetic factors since I don’t have lifestyle factors of concern (young, don’t smoke, active, not obese, general blood markers are in normal range), and I haven’t had injuries that could cause clots in recent memory.

This coming week is it the vascular specialist, the following week my primary care doctor.

Perhaps the tiredness is from the extra mental overhead of dealing with this, the uncertainty, and feeling kind of crappy about handing off things at work that I had hoped to have buttoned up and/or shipped before sabbatical.

I found a new vegetable CSA! The one we were a part of for the past five years abruptly ended at the end of the last season, which left us scrambling. I noticed a small sign while driving one day, went back the next day to copy down the phone number, and gave them a call. Looking forward to giving it a try.

A brief list of things to start off my sabbatical:

• Fly fishing! On day one, I plan to put my gear in the car the night before, pack a lunch for Charlie and one for me, drop him off at school, and drive directly over to a stream and not come back until the afternoon.
• Helping the local Trout Unlimited chapter with trout releases for their “Trout in the Classroom” program. I signed up for a couple half-day sessions.
• Bowl turning
• Carving some small troughs
• Adding a platform and a slide to Charlie’s swingset

I got a new weather station set up finally. My main hold up was that I wanted it on the roof, but it is a real pain getting up there, which I’d have to do to clean the station. Instead, I decided to attach a pole to my fence. Not the ideal location because there is a building and some trees nearby that interfere with the wind, but still better than the last location and better than having to get on our steep roof regularly.

Check out my Weather page for more.

I have the data syndicating to Weather Underground and PWS Weather, and I plan to set up more later this week.

Hoping to pick up an outdoor air quality monitor next.

Charlie did not want to be at Trader Joe’s and wasn’t shy about it. Our cashier saved the day by suggesting that he decorate a “special bag” with stickers that she’d use for our groceries while she scanned our items. Worked like a charm.

Later, at BJ’s he was being a ham. “Daddy, take a picture of me over here!”

While showing Charlie how to hold a pencil:

“I have another way to do it. Just grab it!!”

That’s definitely my kid. Those words could have come out of my mouth.

Thursday, after picking Charlie up from school, we drove through town instead of our normal way home. He spotted the library, pointed it out to me, and asked to go in a look for a Peppa Pig book. Sounds great to me! We had some time to kill, and going to the library is something we’ve been encouraging.

Then, once we went in, he actually told the librarian what he was looking for, which is big. Every other time he was too shy.

Unfortunately, all Peppa Pig books were checked out, so we picked out some others. Then he got to learn about how to place a hold on a book and get an email when it comes in.

Later, when another kid wasn’t playing nicely in the library play area, he handled it very well. And when it was time to leave, he helped clean up the blocks and kitchen set he was playing with.

Overall very mature afternoon for a little guy.

Two more sweet moments with Charlie this week:

1. Amanda needed to take an early train into the city, and Charlie wanted to get a muffin from the coffee shop by the train station. It was a bit chilly in there, so he wanted to sit on my lap while he ate.
2. Later that day Charlie wanted to work in the workshop. I wasn’t feeling great and I was tired, but I took him anyway because sometimes a little guy needs a win.

Spring update:

Even more crocuses bloomed, the daffodils are blooming (Charlie loves them), and woods walks are popular again because it isn’t too cold.

I’ve been a little stressed about my garden because we are going to be gone for a week right in the middle of when we’d need to tend seedlings inside. Last year when we were gone for a week almost all of my seedlings died and I had to start them over. My heart can’t take that again, so I think I’m going to get tomato and pepper seedlings from a greenhouse after we come back and tend to them until Mother’s Day. Hudson Valley Seed Co is about 90 minutes away, which will make for a good day trip. Everything else I’ll direct sow.

Fly tying corner

Wet flies, nymphs, and flymphs this week.

I’ve been reading a lot about wet flies and flymphs recently, so I ordered some hen capes to tie some flymphs (the black flies above are the first of those). I’m also on the hunt for a copy of The Art of Tying the Wet Fly & Fishing the Flymph by Leisenring and Hidy.

Update: After typing that, one popped up on eBay for less than half the cost of other copies I’ve seen. I bought it right away.

The black flymphs are size 16 and I’ll use them next week since the early stoneflies are appearing.

I really like that I’ve tied all of these with dubbing I’ve made myself. I really like the spiky squirrel dubbing and plan to tie more flymphs with it this week.

The big thing this week: I was in the hospital Monday through Thursday. I woke up with severe pain in my left side around 3:30am Monday, which I thought might be a kidney stone given family history. The pain escalated to the point of making me vomit and writhe, so I went to the ER. Lots of tests and consultations later, I learned that I have blood clots in my kidney and no one is quite sure why they are there. So I have lots of follow up appointments with specialists coming up and I’m on blood thinners.

The pain is almost gone, though I still occasionally have a dull ache that comes and goes. I had no idea blood clots were painful.

Unfortunately I have lots of brain fog right now and find it difficult to focus, think clearly, recall things, etc. I don’t feel sharp, and it is incredibly frustrating.

That’s where I’m at. I’m hoping to learn this week, when I visit a hemotologist who ordered a lot of special blood tests, what likely caused the clot, whether or not I need to be worried going forward, and whether or not I need to take blood thinners for the rest of my life.

This was first time being hospitalized, getting CT scans, EKGs, IV medications, etc. Not a fun week. I feel like I’ve been jolted into middle age.

A few things come to mind last about week (with assistance from looking through my photos):

In Peekskill, Bucko! shut down and the Bantam Tools folks (Bre Pettis) opened a machine art gallery.

For the first time I remembered to order a King Cake before they were all sold out or too late. It came on Fat Tuesday and it was delicious. Charlie was fascinated with the baby. I intended to make red beans and rice for dinner, but work got away from me and I didn’t plan well enough, so I didn’t. Maybe next year.

My parents came to visit last weekend (pre hospital) and we had a nice visit. We ate at Slainté in Peekskill, Meyer’s Olde Dutch in Beacon, and Chipotle to support the local library. We also went and checked out the Amawalk Outlet, the pier, and played outside and inside.

One evening Dad and I figured out how to refill SodaStream CO₂ canisters from a larger tank. The trick (besides for the right adaptor) is to freeze the receiving tank for a temperature differential and flip the main tank upside down. Also to open the valve very slowly to avoid blowing the pressure pin. Weigh the small tank before and after.

We also recharged the freon on a small cooler/fridge in my basement, and cloned two old Mac laptops.

I did some good fly tying last week pre-hospital, and some frustratingly slow and crappy fly tying this week post-hospital.

Pre:

I’m proud of the hotspot gnats, peacock and purple wet flies, and the hot glue ants. The pink squirrel variations and different nymphs were experiments to see what I want to double down on and tie more of.

Post:

The basic worms, zebra midges, and leeches took me all day Friday to tie (usually 2 hours max), and the Sexy Walt’s with the fur hackle took me a couple hours (usually under an hour). Bleh.

That’s all I’ve got. Here’s to feeling better and sharper this coming week.

post-publishing addendum:

The world outside seems to have woken up this week. Swamp cabbages, garlic, tulips, and peonies have all emerged out of the ground. Crocuses bloomed and the daffodils look close.

My birthday was this week! I wrote a birthday post and later that night we went to Bridgeview Tavern in Tarrytown, one of our favorite places for a burger. They also are one of the few places around there that always has Hill Farmstead on tap, which I think is the best brewery in the US.

On Friday we had a birthday party at our house with our friends, and we mixed up tiki drinks for everyone and catered some asian fusion from Ramenesque.

I was too caught up in hosting and hanging out with friends to take photos during the party.

Meg Walter took a photo of the cocktails. Amanda made stirrers with my face on them:

Amanda also made a cool menu with the cocktails I mixed up:

I batched them a couple hours before so they were easy to serve.

For you rum connoisseurs, the various Jamaican rums I used were Smith & Cross and Appleton Signature for the Quarantine Order, and Hamilton Pot Still Black for the Banana Mai Tai.

The next morning Charlie wanted to open a couple of the coconuts we bought for decoration. We saved the water and coconut meat to cook with this week. Probably “The Stew“.

Saturday was very windy. Charlie wanted to walk out on the pier, and we had trouble walking at times!

Saturday evening Charlie and I hung out with the Lake Peekskill Dudes and kids while the Lake Peekskill Ladies hung out at a neighbor’s house for a Ladies Night. We had pizza, the musically inclined played music (including Charlie!), and chilled.

Spring is finally on its way.

Flowers are emerging about two weeks later than the past couple years. Daffodils and crocuses only started peeking through the ground this week. In 2023 the daffodils popped out of the ground on Feb 14 and by then the crocuses were already blooming! In 2022 I noticed the daffodils on Feb 18.

Robins are out in full force pulling up worms from the thawed ground.

We finally have enough daylight after work/school to play outside for a bit before dinner! Very much needed and appreciated.

Amanda had a migrane early last week. Charlie was concerned, and looked at her head closely for a moment and said, “Momma, I think your head just had a bad day.”

On the fly tying front this week, I tied some soft hackle wet flies with my homemade dubbing, some Japanese Lantern sakasa kebari, and my take on “what if a Pink Squirrel were a sakasa kebari?”.

I also submitted an article to Tenkara Angler, which got accepted and published.

Sunday we hung out at home and did some grocery shopping. Charlie was feeling extra snuggly and Amanda and I both read a bunch of books to him today. Charlie and Amanda did a little puppet show. We played at the FDR State Park playground. I made pasta e fagioli for dinner. (Charlie isn’t into soup yet, so I made “cheesy pasta” with butter and parmesan out of the noodles, which he happily ate.)

That’s all I have for this week. Lots of party prep. I’ve been reading a couple books on wet fly fishing. No workshop time this past week, but I’d love to get out in the shop one night this week as long as work isn’t too taxing. I’d like to turn a couple tool handles or another bowl. I got some carbide lathe tools for my birthday that I am eager to try out!

See you next week 👋

I spent M-F this week in Southport, NC, at a team meetup for work. We stayed in the beautiful Cape Fear House on the Cape Fear River. Unfortunately, it was unseasonably cold and we canceled our planned outing of taking a ferry to explore a local island. We did check out two local museums and squeezed in a visit to the USS North Carolina battleship on the way back to the airport. We mostly hung around the house and worked.

At the USS North Carolina, the analog computers fascinated me. All of those gears doing complex calculations!

This reminds me that I want to read George Dyson’s Analogia, Paul Nahin’s The Logician and the Engineer, G. Pascal Zachary’s Endless Frontier, Vannevar Bush’s Pieces of the Action, and Simon Winchester’s Exactly.

I dusted off my Canon 6D, and even though we didn’t get out, I snapped a few shots inside. Here are Mark, Klaus, and Eoin:

It was good to get my SLR back out. I need to do that more.

We ate a lot of good meals, but the best was this plate of grits with red peas, tomatoes, and zucchini from Southern.

I video chatted with Charlie and Amanda while I was gone. My favorite part was Charlie grabbing the phone and saying, “Daddy, come on!” and carrying me around to show me stuff. I got some great screenshots.

Saturday Charlie and I got out of the house for the afternoon and visited Anglers Den to pick up some fly tying materials, then went and checked out the east and west branches of the Croton River.

Later that night I tied some black jun kebari and tried out a few techniques for using oversized soft hackle on smaller hooks.

This morning Charlie helped me make waffles.

Then Charlie and I went grocery shopping and visited a bookstore in Ossining we hadn’t been to before, Hudson Valley Books for Humanity. A lovely store!

I picked up Nineteen Reservoirs by Lucy Sante, about the reservoirs that supply NYC with fresh water. Charlie picked up a 25 piece Hungry Caterpillar puzzle.

That’s all for now. I am going to read a little bit then go to sleep.

I make all of my chicken-based soups with ground chicken + stock now. It is much faster and doesn’t dry out. Tonight’s edition is chicken and wild rice, my take on the Panera one.

More snow! More sleet! More ice! We’ve had more precipitation this winter than the last five we’ve been in Peekskill. Ready for spring.

If this isn’t the most 3 year old parent thing:

“Charlie why does your hair smell like cinnamon toast?”

Giggle giggle giggle

Charlie has been really engaged with the Duplos and Magnatiles lately. He builds all kinds of different vehicles and buildings. He usually won’t let me take photos of them, but he did let me take photos of two this week.

The coolest one I’ve seen him build so far was two towers, each with a set of wheels on the bottom and a cab on top, connected about 3/4 of the way up with some long flat pieces. Imagine Tower Bridge on wheels. I loved it.

Amanda noticed Charlie singing a song to himself while playing with Duplos. He likes to make up short songs. This one got me, though:

Put your tears away, Daddy will fix it for you

🥹

Amanda made an art wall for Charlie’s art in the basement play area. Easy to swap out pieces as the makes them!

After years of battling crappy inkjet printers, I bought a wireless duplex color laser printer. I feel like I’ve finally made it.

Charlie, of course, liked the box.

We had another great swim class this weekend. Charlie was very brave and practiced jumping in, followed directions really well, and wore goggles for the first time.

Notion put out a fun face generator this week. Here is the one I made and the one Amanda made:

The only critique we had is that they need more face shape options. These are both too round for our actual faces.

Fly tying corner

What I tied this week:

• Simi Seal leeches, size 14
• Improved Montana Stonefly, size 10
• Little Black soft hackles, sizes 12 and 16

Wednesday night I went to the local Trout Unlimited Croton Watershed chapter’s monthly fly tying night, which they started again after a couple year hiatus. There is where I tied the black soft hackles (using starling). I got a few tips from the old timers, one of whom knocked out 18 (!) emergers in just under two hours. Incredible. I’ll be back next month to learn more.

Amanda, Charlie, and I went to Retake Remake, a local art supply thift shop, to look for some project materials. Amanda picked up some felt and embroidery thread, Charlie was thrilled to fill a bag with crayons and get a tiny stapler, and I was surprised to find some old fly tying materials. It was split up into the different material bins, so I’ll have to go back and see what else I can find. I also picked up a $4 grab bag of wool yarn and blended a little bit of it into dubbing.

One thing I’m excited to try: I read about two methods for tying in large/oversized soft hackle feathers in a way that will fit them appropriately on a smaller hook. More on that soon.

No workshop time this week.

Work continued to be demanding and stressful this week. I’m working on it in earnest while simultaneously very much looking forward to my upcoming sabbatical.

Long week. Charlie was home 3/5 days of the work week (sick, then doctor, then snow storm), and work was very busy with a lot of people out sick or with kids home with school closed.

I feel like all I’ve been doing at work this week is reacting and adapting to unplanned things. Multiple late nights. This happens from time to time. Hoping for a normal week ahead.

Even with the late nights at work, I got in a little bit of woodworking and fly tying to wind down after Charlie went to bed.

I tied:

• Some futsu kebari with the dubbing I made
• A pheasant tail futsu
• Some large sakasa kebari for murky spring runoff

Next up on the fly tying front:

• Some more bead head nymphs
• Some Japanese lanterns
• Some jun kebari (soft hackle, not reversed)
• Dyeing some marabou feathers (olive) and coyote fur (ginger).

I also turned an oak platter, which I wrote about here:

The day Charlie had to go to the doctor, Amanda and I switched off working and childcare like usual. I took Charlie to the post office and then to the local bookstore, where he found some train books and magazines. We bought one and it is popular! Big into trains right now.

Friday night I went to dinner with my friend Dave. The wings and drinks at the new Copperhead Club are pretty good!

Beforehand Charlie and I picked up Five Guys for Charlie and Amanda. While we were there:

“Daddy, do you want to eat some peanuts? I got these for you!”

Saturday Amanda had a friend over for some crafting and hanging out, so Charlie and I got out of the house for a while. We went to the Mid Hudson Discovery Museum in Poughkeepsie and had a great time!

Afterward we picked up some Detroit-style pizza at Hudson & Packard (which I’ve wanted to try for the last two years). I was underwhelmed. Baci’s Detroit is so much better! The dough has more depth and the sauce has more flavor.

The Hudson River up in Poughkeepsie had a lot of ice.

Between 8pm and midnight Saturday night it snowed about four inches. Charlie and I went out and made a big snow mound Sunday morning. Amanda joined us later for some more fun. Then Amanda and Charlie made a snow slushie!

We have ice on the Hudson again, which is refreshing after having no ice last winter. Today the eagles were out hunting on the ice.

I’ve enjoyed seeing photos of the Hudson River Ice Yachts. I’d love to try one some time!

We are going through a phase where dinnertime has been a struggle most nights, but we’ve had two high points this week: Two nights where Charlie has eaten dinner without a struggle, he also initiated family storytelling, where he picks a theme and tells us a story, then Amanda and I have to tell a story that fits with the theme. Sometimes two people tell a story together, sometimes all three of us. It lasts at least 20 minutes and is a lot of fun! Looking forward to more of that.

Speaking of dinner, last week’s meal plan was helpful, even though we did it out of order. Here is this week’s:

• Leftover fajitas
• Pork tenderloin with green beans
• Pasta with garlic, olive oil, broccoli, and chicken meatballs
• Chicken shawarma bowls

Charlie’s…gastrointestinal distress is ongoing. That plus the cold means that we’ve been spending a lot of time at home inside. Charlie usually loves being outside, but he does not like being cold, and no matter how much we bundle up, temperatures in the teens are just too cold for a little guy. We’re all feeling a bit cooped up.

Fly tying this week:

Monday night I finished my Pheasant tail project.

Wednesday night I tied some peacock herl soft hackle flies. I plan on tying more of these, but adding a floss rib. I’ll tie some with stiff hackle, too.

The method I like for reinforcing the fragile peacock herl:

• Swipe some superglue on the hook shank
• Wrap the herl around tying thread and wrap together
• Reinforce on the outside by wrapping in the opposite direction with wire or floss

Thursday night I tied some Cutcliffe-style flies. These take stuff hackle and curl it back so it kind of looks like soft hackle, but keeps its shape better. I went down the Cutcliffe rabbit hole, starting with an article on Tenkara Angler, then a video from Adam Reiger, then eventually I found Cutcliffe’s actual book on the Internet Archive and started reading it.

The next day I called up David at Feather Emporium to chat about feathers, because I found the coq de leon tailing feathers to be too long for these flies. He agreed, and is going to put together a variety pack of shorter spade hackle feathers in different colors. I never would have gotten there online… sometimes picking up the phone is the best solution!

Friday night I only managed to tie a few killer bugs while watching a show. I was tired from a busy work week and picking up Charlie earlier than usual that day on account of the stomach bug.

Saturday I heated up the workshop, found my old beard trimmer, and made my own dubbing blends.

Not a very productive week on the woodworking front. Tuesday night I intended to turn another platter, but I broke three different screws in the bowl blank. That hasn’t happened to me before! I turned a small bowl that night instead.

I spent a couple hours planing down that blank and cutting it out of a slab, so I didn’t want to toss it on the burn pile. Home Depot didn’t have screw extraction bits small enough, so I ordered a set online. When they came in, they didn’t really work for these screws, so I decided to just drill out the screws and hope that the hollowing is deep enough for it to not be a problem.

I switched to using exterior deck screws with torx heads.

Hopefully I’ll turn it one night this week.

AWS has been charging me ~$2/mo for the past year for some reason I don’t fully understand, and I’ve been locked out of that account. I finally got access again and am trying to navigate the labyrinth to disable whatever is still running there. Something is feeding metrics to CloudWatch to the tune of ~$2/mo, which of course you can’t just disable in CloudWatch. Wish me luck.

We woke up to a total of ~7 inches of snow on Monday and a couple hour school delay, so Charlie and I suited up and went out to shovel, clean off the car, and play.

The past two weeks have been in the teens and single digits (fahrenheit). It finally broke freezing this afternoon. So cold that the snow we got on Monday is still powdery! I’m glad we got a proper freeze for a while.

From a mid-week woods walk:

Whatever seasonal sickness(es?) going around visited our house this week. Charlie was home a couple days, Amanda felt crummy a couple days at the same time as Charlie, then I felt crummy Friday night and Saturday.

Amanda and I switched off working and hanging out with Charlie, so we both had a stressful week trying to meet our deadlines at work. On my team, we also had a lot of time sensitive work come in over the two days where Charlie was back at school, so no reprieve there.

We are all looking forward to a regular week with hopefully no surprises.

Speaking of being at home with a sick kid, Charlie has figured out how to navigate the Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+ apps by himself, so we’ve had to start figuring out the parental controls and content blockers. Fairly new development because he never really switched shows or apps by himself before. Fun times.

One tactic that we used this week is setting up movie time in the basement with a projector and the big cushions from our deck furniture. Charlie doesn’t have the attention span for a full movie yet, but we did get a solid hour each time we tried it. I know that tactic will stop working soon, but for now it is still novel.

Lest you think all we do is distract our kid, let me remind you that him being home sick while we have to work is atypical. His pre-K3 is a fun, constructive environment and we have a hard time matching that while we have to work. Weekends while everyone is healthy are a different story.

Charlie has longer and longer stretches of imaginative, constructive solo play now, which is fun to watch. He’s been building lots of things out of blocks by himself this week, and involving his various trucks, excavators, and dump trucks in the process. He engages with his blocks longer than he’ll watch a movie! We love to see it.

One night Charlie wanted more connection, and kept bringing books for us to read to him at the dining room table after dinner. It was lovely.

Pre-Charlie, Amanda and I were never meal planners. We almost always winged it.

Now, we almost always find that if we don’t put in the effort on the weekend for the following week, we end up stressed and eating crap.

So, today Charlie and I went grocery shopping at Stew Leonard’s and I made a plan for the week.

• Today: Steak, potatoes, salad (sub mac and cheese for seat 2)
• Monday: Chicken and wild rice soup
  • One of the ways to cut the cooking time in half on this is to use ground chicken
• Tuesday: Black pepper turmeric chicken with asparagus
• Wednesday: Pork tenderloin with veggie and rice
• Thursday: Flank steak fajitas
• Friday: Takeout, either pizza or Chipotle

Charlie loves the animatronics at Stew’s:

My friend Jeremy Wall told me last week that he got a band together a couple years ago and recorded some instrumental jazz tracks, put it up on Spotify, but then never really told anyone about it.

It is really good! I’ve been listening to it this past week while I work. Thought I’d share:

I didn’t get out to the workshop at all last week, but hope to this week. I’d like to turn another platter and more bowls. I have the blanks ready to go.

My pheasant tail fly tying project is almost done. I have one pattern left to go, and the blog post 95% written with a space to drop in the last pattern. I’ve learned a lot and tied some nice flies, but now I’m ready to tie something else other than patterns with pheasant tails.

Next up are some more tenkara kebari, probably some Japanese Lanterns, pearl sakasa, peacock futsu, and some little black jun kebari with starling feathers. Then I’d like to try squirrel tail again, and I might do a project with just squirrel tail after I get my box full of kebari that I can use once the weather warms up.

Here is what I tied this week:

Pheasant tail glass bead midges, size 18

Pheasant tail parachutes, size 14

The first batch was frustrating and slow, but the second batch was faster, easier, and turned out better after I switched to finer thread and doubled the amount of para post, based on some helpful tips from folks on Bluesky. Nice community over there.

I wouldn’t characterize myself as a capital P Prepper, but the rising occurrence of severe storms and natural disasters brings our own emergency preparedness to mind. I started thinking about this last year and put together an emergency box, but I asked myself last week where I think we are most vulnerable, and three things came to mind:

1. Heat
2. Water
3. Food

I already had some preparation in these areas, so I doubled down on it this week and am feeling better. I picked up some Sawyer filters for water, more propane for the generator, and extra dry goods. Nothing crazy. We have limited space.

As a side note, what I think differentiates lowercase p preparedness and capital P Preppers is preparing for widescale war/societal breakdown/apocalypse scenarios where you have to be self sufficient long-term and defend yourself. I’m not worried about that. I want to be secure and be able to help out neighbors if we have a natural disaster. We know from our prolonged power outage a couple years ago that northern Westchester is one of the last ConEd customers to get power back because NYC and lower Westchester always get priority.

This kind of prep is an asymmetric calculation for me. It is low cost (besides for the generator, we’ve spent less than $1K on supplies) with a very large upside if we have a disaster.

Snow is coming down heavily as I write this. We have about 4″ now, and it is supposed to continue until around 4am. We picked up a snow shovel that is “just my size” for Charlie, so after dinner he wanted to go out and shovel, even though it was still coming down. I’ll never say no to playing in the snow, so we went out. We had fun, even though the sidewalk and driveway were covered again by the time we came back in.

It is tough to be a 3yo and figuring out the world, but not really in charge of anything. Charlie is having a hard time right now, lots of tantrums and struggles, especially around meals. To top it off, he hasn’t been feeling great (cough, runny nose, upset stomach). Tough times for a little guy. To quote Dr. Becky, he is a good kid having a hard time.

What never fails to improve his mood is getting outside. He often protests, so we start out walking with him on my shoulders, but after five minutes or so he gets interested in something and wants to get down to check it out. After that, it is usually “easy peasy lemon squeezy” as Charlie likes to say. (Picked up from Hank on Trash Truck, I think.)

Thankfully the weather was a bit warmer and calm before the snow storm blew in, so Charlie and I got out and went for a walk at Croton Point. The thing that got him down was wanting to check out some rocks, which we then walked along for quite a ways! After that, smooth sailing. I loved listening to him talk about the rocks and the things he noticed.

We hadn’t been to this part of Croton Point Park before, so count this walk as part of my “explore the local area more” goal.

We can tell he is trying hard and learning a lot, even day-to-day, and we are so proud of him. (Charlie, if you are reading this in ten years, we love you and are proud of you!) One thing in particular that comes to mind is that he opted to not eat all of a cookie he was having “so that I don’t frow up.” Good job listening to your body, bud.

Charlie, going through the glovebox in the car and picking up a packet of Shout wipes we keep in there:

These are coffee wipes ’cause Momma wipes her shirt when she gets coffee on it.

😆

One of Charlie’s favorite things after a walk is “warming up in the car” (even when it isn’t cold out). We essentially play in the car and listen to music for 10 minutes before we leave. He gets to be in the front seat, sometimes the driver’s seat, since we aren’t driving. He loves it, and it has becoming our thing. I love it, too.

Tuesday night we made some peanut butter birdseed pinecones.

I got coffee with friends twice this week. I need to make it a regular thing.

I was down by the coffee shop this week, so I checked out the Little Free Library. It had 100% book turnover from when I checked it out in October, and there are a good mix of Spanish and English titles in there. Warms the heart.

I SnoSeal’d our boots and leather shoes ahead of the big snow storm. Great packaging, and great product.

I turned my first platter this week on the lathe, out of a piece of oak slab. I learned a few things from my first attempt that I’ll apply to the next one this week. Namely, I should plane down the warped slab before trying to turn it, because a 12″ x 2″ off-balance piece of wood is scary at 800 RPM. Also, using an angled scraper to scrape the middle flat leads to tear-out, so I need to shear scrape with my bowl gouge instead. The next one will be faster and better!

I already started on the next one by running the slab through the planer and cutting it out into a circle. I love the look of oak.

I made a fabulous discovery about my planer! It throws an incredible amount of woodchips, which is a pain to clean. I wished that it had a dust collection port, and the obvious place to put one is on top. I took a closer look and noticed that the logo had a screw in it, so I got curious and removed it. There was a hole the standard size of a dust collection port under it! I screwed in an adaptor and was off to the races. It cut the amount of mess by ~90%.

I cleaned up an old railroad track anvil that came from someone in the family who passed away recently (an uncle’s father). Next step is to sand the top and the horn down outside because I don’t like grinding or sanding metal inside. Metal dust is a pain. I’ll probably do that in the spring when the weather is nicer.

I made a base for my fly tying vise out of a live edge slab! Check out the post:

I also tied some Arakawa River Kebari (sometimes called Asahi Kebari), bead head pheasant tails, and some soft hackle pheasant tails. For the past two weeks I’ve been tying exclusively flies with pheasant tails, which I’ll post more about soon when I wrap up this exploration.

For the soft hackle PTs, I tried using a single kind of thread, GSP, colored with alcohol-based markers when I need a color. This technique is described by Barry Ord Clark in The Feather Bender’s Flytying Techniques, which I’m reading. GSP, or Dyneema, is super thin, but incredibly high strength. So far it has been pretty easy to work with, as long as I wax it at the beginning so it doesn’t slip around on the hook. It is nice not having to switch threads when you need different colors, just get out a different marker. I cut it with an Xacto instead of my tying scissors to save them the wear and tear.

Man, I like that live edge base. It will bring my joy every time I use it.