Week of January 6, 2025

Would these posts be better if I didn’t try to write them on Sunday nights, when I’m usually exhausted from the weekend? Probably, but I’m not sure there is a better time to write them. So it goes.

Speaking of, I’m tired tonight. Long week with Charlie home sick half of it and a busy, call-heavy week at work. Also, Charlie must be going through another developmental growth spurt because he has been much more temperamental than usual this week. Challenging on the parenting front.

Still, there were good times, laughs, and sweet moments.

Scenes from a Saturday morning woods walk:

Charlie correctly pointed out that a woodpecker made the hole in the tree! I picked him up to examine it, since I was fascinated by the frozen sap.

He decided we should climb a steep hill together, so we did. He did it mostly by himself, and later that day he mentioned he was proud of himself for climbing that hill

Wow, Daddy! We can see the WHOLE woods from here!

We could, and we could even see the river from there.

I’m so glad we live close to the woods. Charlie is now interested in tromping off-trail, which I like to do, too. He is observant and curious, and I love teaching him about what he finds and sees.

Later that day I took him to swim class and we had fun again. I love doing that with him!

We painted Valentine’s hearts one night this week, at Charlie’s request. He calls them Holiday Hearts. It is fun to make our own decorations!

There is so much in our own communities that we ignore/miss/tune out/don’t notice. One of my goals this year is to explore and experience where I live in new ways.

Today we stopped by a bakery we’ve driven by for a year but hadn’t been to. Then when we went to a park we’ve been to dozens of times, I checked out the tiny nature center I’ve never noticed before. It had some cool Native American artifacts!

This is an extension of trying to lean into the seasonality of this region. Noticing how the brook in the woods changes from season to season. Keeping an eye on the wineberries so I can pick them at peak ripeness. Noticing when certain wildflowers emerge. Which birds are around when.

Taking it a step further, I’d like to see the same place from a new perspective. I’d like to walk or ride my bike some places we normally drive and experience it at a slower pace. Fish a spot we’ve only driven by. Try catching some striped bass where I normally row my boat. Have coffee in a new park. Go to different playgrounds with Charlie.

I bet that most consumer mods on cars perform worse than the stock models. This probably wasn’t true in the 70s and 80s, but is today. All these lowered Subarus and Hondas that sound like leaf blowers are louder and burn more gas then their stock counterparts off the lot, and mostly get driven in stop-and-go traffic.

The anti-woke backlash hash over corrected. A good chunk of what gets labeled as woke is just people being polite, welcoming, and non-antagonistic.

I’ve been using Openvibe for the past couple days to cross post to and consume Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, and Nostr. It has an easy onboarding flow to get all of the platforms signed in, and it works better than I expected. (I expected it to be hacky and janky, it isn’t!)

I’ve been taking magnesium to help me sleep for about a month now, and it helps! Glycinate seems to work better than citrate for me. I didn’t take it for a week, and I noticed a difference. I’ve also experimented with 200mg vs 400mg, and notice a difference there, too. Most nights I stick with 200mg. If I don’t take it by 10pm, I skip it so I’m not groggy in the morning.

I spent an afternoon helping the Yorktown Library with their WordPress site.

My current fly tying project is exploring different patterns using pheasant tail, since Chas Deremer gave me some over the holidays. I’ll do a full recap post once I’ve tied more, but this week I tied pheasant tail nymphs, dry pheasant tail midges, and Teeny nymphs. Many more to go on my list!

In the workshop on Saturday afternoon I turned a small oak dish and got started making a pedestal for my fly tying vise, which currently attaches with a clamp.

From firewood to oak dish

I finally got this dust hood mounted on the lathe while having it be easily removable. It occurred to me yesterday that instead of making something that will sit on the bench tubes and hold the hood, I could just screw a dowel on it and stick the dowel through a hole in the carriage that I don’t use while running the lathe. Works great, and if I need to push it back I just unscrew the dowel and screw it into a different spot. Takes 30s.

I can also clamp a light to it.

Hoping to get out there again this week and make more!