Week of January 27, 2025

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.

11 Pheasant Tail Fly Patterns

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.

Making natural dubbing blends with squirrel, coyote, and raccoon fur

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.