Week of November 25, 2024

Thanksgiving itself is probably my third favorite holiday, but I always get a lot done on personal projects and a lot of quality family and friend time during the week, which bump it up in my overall admiration.

Thanksgiving Day we hosted another couple who are NY transplants and also have a 3yo who gets along very well with Charlie. We cooked a turkey from Hemlock Hill Farm (local), our guests made some of the sides (their sausage stuffing was particularly good), and we all had a great time. The kids played together most of the afternoon and evening, so the adults got to hang out and chat.

Amanda decorated the table with a flower arrangement of her own design in a vase by our friend Natalie at Resist Ceramics and a table runner by our friend Erin at Red Cottage Fiber Studio. Amanda also made the apple pie.

For 11 years Amanda has been slowly chipping away at my Grinchy heart and inching back the Christmas decorating from December 15. This year we started decorating on December 1.

We drove up to Ashfield, MA, to get a coppiced balsam fir from my friend Emmet van Driesche at Pieropan Christmas Tree Farm. It might be the only coppiced Christmas tree farm in the US! Amanda and I drove up there in 2020, pre-Charlie, and this is the first year that nap schedules allowed us to visit as a family of three. Charlie loved it.

I tied some soft hackle flies this week. Sizes 16 and 18.

I like the look of those orange body/brown hackle ones with the cahill thorax. I don’t know what they are called, but I saw some in a friend’s fly box and had to tie some.

I really like the look of those slightly angled hooks, too. They are Gamakatsu R18-B. I’m going to get some in more sizes. R17-B and R19-B have similar profiles with different wire weighs. R18 is a heavy hook, R19 is a standard hook, and R17 is a fine hook.

I also tied some Thanksgiving-appropriate flies.

Happy Thanksgiving

All the setup and tear down time required to tie flies at the dining room table was getting to me, so I set up a small fly tying station in the corner of my office with a desk we were going to get rid of.

Nice to have the thread, yarn, and wire out so I can draw inspiration from it and not have to dig.

The desk is small, but definitely workable. It is in front of a door we never use (really, opened maybe 4 times since we moved in 5 years ago), so I don’t mind blocking it.

Charlie and I fixed the broken excavator toys at the playground near our house today. They are Charlie’s favorite things to play with there and they’ve been broken for a month, so we got some bolts and fixed them.

I wrote last week about getting serious about sharpening my lathe tools. I made that happen this week. I got a slow speed grinder, CBN wheels with 80 and 160 grit, and a pro-grind jig. I reground the profiles on all of my lathe tools this week so I can sharpen them in a repeatable way with the jig, and it made a world of difference when I used them.

This helped me realize a goal I’ve had for the past 5 years: Turn a wooden bowl on the lathe. I’ve been chipping away at it for the past two weeks and finished my first one tonight. I turned it out of pine from a 2×6, and I have 4 more of these dimensional blanks to turn as practice before I turn a nicer piece of wood.

I’m sure there is more, but that is all I can remember