Small Talk: The Welcome Mat

[Netfoot]

Ok! Two bowls completed plus the five planters, the two phone/tablet stands and what ever was left back from last week. We're off to the market!

First bowl, with a very heavy base so as to avoid breakthrough:

Not the best because of the heavy base but you can at least put some peanuts in it and watch TV. If I'd broken through you wouldn't have been able to do that!

Second bowl:

Nothing really wrong with this one! 

After that I went and put a gill of fuel in the van, and stopped on the way home to buy some toffees, a liter of milk and a bag of chow to keep that klepto I live with fed for the next week. 

Then I went crazy. I bought some Bajan salt breads, some tomatoes and a block of New Zealand cheddar. That cost me just one dollar less than four tins of corned beef would have. 

Threw in two rolls of butt-fodder, and came home significantly poorer than I left. 

Like I said, crazy. But I wanted cheese & tomato cutters and I got a bottle of pepper sauce right here waiting. And after the week I've had I decided I could treat myself to some bread!

Anyway, I will go and give myself a vigorous scrubbing right now while the water is still flowing. If it isn't I will have to use the 50L that I managed to collect today. Was looking for my other 25L can and only just found it in the back of the van, for some reason.

The van is all packed and ready to go. I will bathe, eat, lay out my togs for the morning, and watch the final episode of S01 Reacher. Then hopefully bed, and this time I might even get to sleep!

Edited April 1, 2023 by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

Bed!

Voodoo Child (Slight Return) and Stepping Stone by Hendrix. The bracketed part should be all you need to know that this is the recording from Woodstock. 

Had cheese and tomato cutters for dinner, with a splooch of pepper sauce and a sprinkle of salt. Only mayo would have made for a better cutter (but I dare not hear let any Bajans hear me suggest that!). Even without, they were delicious. (The "slight return" is now threatening to blow the wriggly tin off my roof.) And best of all, there are more salt breads, more tomatoes and more cheese left for tomorrow. Last BS reading was 4.0 but after all the bread I will have to test again. Esp. if Toni is there tomorrow and forces me to eat one of her gob-smackingly delish pastries!

It's only just gone nine. Car packed, togs laid out. Wood shavings removed from beard and fine sawdust scrubbed from skin. Stained fingers still make me look like an axe murderer but nothing I can do about that. Auto-off set on the music, seven and a bit hours before the alarm goes. Been dropping to sleep all day but not feeling tired now. Please let me sleep!

Mo still pacing around outside after our early Garden Patrol. Oh, here he is now! He jumps into bed... He steals a tissue... He makes confetti. 

I will go lock up as soon as it looks like he won't race me to the door and go out again. 

To sleep, perchance to dream....

Edited April 1, 2023 by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

Slept well, despite being roused by the puppy several times. Finally, when he roused me at 3:20, I put him out and went back to bed. Even so, I woke at 4:20 before the alarm.

Off to Brighton. It was cloudy, but no rain fell until I was ready to leave. Alison told me to set up under the roof, which I was doing, when Toni came along and asked me to share her tent. But Alison didn't want to shake up the plans so I stayed where I was. Toni insists I share with her next week, and that would suit me fine. 

This week I was upstream of a religious group that are a pain in the ass. They have a 10' space, but they always encroach on the 10' space next to them. I was in the space next to them but I only get a half-space, and I set up in the half away from them. They expanded into the 5' space between us, and began expanding into my space as well. 

Most annoying, they do a roaring business and there is always a line waiting. And their line makes a wall of people that blocks other customers from visiting my table. I only get customers when their line shortens up. And even then, I had a lady at my table and we were discussing one of my pieces when the woman from next door came up to her and said "Are you waiting in line? No? Well perhaps you'd like to move away so my customers can line up?" I felt like sticking her head in her own deepp fryer! 

Anyway, no sales andcthfcdnd was nigh when I started to pack up. A lady ran up and said "Is this a phone stand?" Well, it was sat there with a phone in it, but... I said that it was. She tried it out and I pointed out that there was another different sized slot on the other side. She wanted to know if I had two, and I told her I only had one phone stand "left" but had a tablet stand remaining as well. Shectan off, and a few minutes later (I was still packing up) returned with the money. 

So, it cost me US$5 to get in and I made $55 in sales. However I did get a request that I hold a small tamarind bowl at $50 for someone, which I did. They are supposed to come and collect at my house this week. I've heard that sort of promise 1,001 times but I believe this chap will come through. I know him to be a reliable person and no bullshitter. 

So counting on him, I made a total of $105. 

As I was packing up, several people said "Ooo! I like the planters! I didn't see them before!" But I got no sales. Here is my display:

I'm not sure how to better display them that people will see them... Any road, when they were eventually seen I received complements, so maybe they will sell if I can make them more visible.

I really want to find a more efficient way if breaking down pallets. But the best way I can think of is either a Pallet Buster or a Demolition blade for reciprocating saw or circular saw. Neither of which I can afford right now.

Anyway, it is after midday so I had better feed the puppy.

[Netfoot]

All-fool's Day. It explains a lot.

Ate cheese & tomato cutters for lunch and corned beef & cheese cutters for dinner. I will be having a blood sugar test for breakfast, I guess.

So not a terribly good day at Brighton today. Largely I suppose because for some unknown reason, there was a very small turnout of customers. But they tell me that it will be huge next week, with the Easter bunny making an appearance. I can't think of any Easter-themed trinkets I could make in the week ahead. A friend suggested Easter eggs, but egg-shped turnings are quite tricky due to the problemd associated with holding an item that has no external features. It can be done, but it involves a lot of fidling about. Start with a wood blank and place it between centers. True up the diameter, shape a tenon on each end, and separate it into two halves. Holding one half by its tenon, hollow it out. Repeat with the other half. Endure the two hollowed ends match and fit together tightly. With the two pieces pushed tightly together, put them back between centers and shape the outside into the shape of an egg.  The two ends must be left untouched because they are being used to support the eg in the lathe. Separate the two halves and hold by the rim of the hollow (jam-chuck, Cole jaws, etc). Clean up the end and remove the tenon. Repeat with other half. Done. You now have an egg that comes into two halves to expose a hollow interior. An awful lot of fiddling & faddling about, waiting for something to go wrong and ruin the project. 

Are You Real? By Tubeway Army. Gary Numan's band started as part of the Punk generation but segued into a more electronic sound as they matured. And now, Dobie Gray's Drift Away.  What will my machine present with me next? Ants Marching by Dave Matthews Band (from the Under The Table And Dreaming album). Machine is in a somewhat eclectic mood this evening.

Tired again, despite taking a short nap this afternoon. Pleased to say that my right thumb seems to be working again. Don't know for how long. 

Love baby just joined me in bed and is giving me a bath as I write, which is challenging auto-correct. He's looking out the window now, so he will probably depart hurriedly in a moment. No, he's back bathing my legs now. And he had moved to take up a position behind me, curled up between my shoulder blades. I could douse the lights and go off to sleep most comfortably right now, but I have to  go lock up.

Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve. Urban Hymns is my favourite albums of theirs. I also have Richard Ashcroft's second solo album Human Conditions which has some good tracks on it too.

Ok, will try to lock up the house and get my head down. 

[Netfoot]

Ok, here is my miserable attempt at an Easter egg so far, incomplete. 

Made from a scrap of tamarind. Had to turn it between centers due to lack of Wormwood screw.

Not very egg-like, I reckon. Too much girth.  And how do I get the last foot off?

Thinking of taking puppy for a little drive this afternoon. If you never hear from us again it means we've killed each other on the journey. Or the car blew up and took us with it...

[Netfoot]

Van didn't blow up; back home safe. More later.

BS this morning was 5.4, no surprise after all that bread. And 5.4 is well within the "normal" range but I like it lower. So obviously...

Pasta for dinner!!

[Browncoat]

Not terribly egg-like, but it's a gorgeous piece of wood.  

[Netfoot]

Just got back from Garden Patrol and straight to bed. Track: Walking Wounded from the album of the same name. A duet from Leeds, they took their name from a bankrupt and abandoned dress shop. Everything But The Girl. This is the first album of theirs I bought. (Segue into Mirrorball.) With Tracey Thorn on vocals and Ben Watt playing the instruments and twiddling the knobs, I like the sound. I currently have 12 of their albums. I'm not sure but I think Thorn & Watt eventually tied the knot....

So after a lunch of corned beef with rice, potato, carrots and cucumber, I saw a message from Austin saying he was going to the cliff. I have not been anywhere recreational for months. I'm getting to enjoy the trips to Brighton on a Saturday morning, but nothing recreational starts with getting out of bed at 4:30! So, I've been going stir-crazy. And Mo is worse.

So I thought "Bugrit! I've already opened my last tin of corned beef, but let's unnecessarily burn some expensive gasoline anyway!" I was a little worried about the Check Engine light that appears these days, if I stress the van at all. But I loaded Mo into the vehicle, and set off for the cliff.

Driving like an old Crumbly to avoid that light on the dashboard, we got all the way to Three Houses Park without issue. But right after that where you turn left and go over that short but steep rise? Yep, Check Engine. Continued very slowly the last mile until we reached the top of the hill by St. Luke's and at that point put the van in neutral and coasted downhill all the way to the sea.

Mo went absolutely nutz, running about like it was his last opportunity and went far afield and got into 19 types of mischief. When he approached a brown cow, I ran over to make him behave but she had already chased him off, and he had switched his attention to the black & white cow bull who was not amused. I spoke very severely to him and he came away, so all is good except he will probably develop ticks, now. 

Soon, Austin arrived, followed by Wayne, Kev, Tony and Maurice. The wind was good, generating a lot of lift, and at one point (in fact, quite often) there were four gliders flying at once.

Occasionally a fifth pilot joined in, but he was a professional and somewhat of a predator, to boot!

Slope soaring is such a great way to fly! It really improves your piloting, even flat-field/powered flying. When a powered flyer shouts "Dead stick!" It's easy to tell whether he is a Glider Guider or not. If he has a huge smile on his face, he is. Otherwise, he will adopt the appearance of someone who just crapped in their pants.

But one of the nice things about flying at the slope is how personal it can be. You can climb up to several hundred feet, dive vertically, pull up level and (assuming the wings didn't come off in the dive) shoot across the face of the cliff like a bullet, and impress all observers by doing an axial roll in towards the cliff. (Never roll out unless you know exactly what you're doing.) But you can also dawdle along the edge of the cliff at eye height and at walking pace, pilot her to a point three feet from your head, pull the nose up and balance her on the slope-lift and come to a dead stop in midair, at arms length. The general public go gaa-gaa at this but it really makes you feel closely connected to your model when you're flying it literally only inches from your face, and moving it back and forth at an actual snail's pace.

But when you do this you'd better know what you're doing. Otherwise you will be spitting out chips of balsa. Or asking me to borrow my rope so you can go down the cliff to retrieve the wreckage.

Anyway, a great deal of fun was had by all, esp. Mozie who ran out of sight in three directions (he wisely chose not to go down the cliff) one glider broke it's back and will have to be repaired. Kev's pod & boom number sheared the wing bolt on its first landing. It uses a 5mm nylon bolt rather than the more usual ¼“-20 wing bolts. He was bitching about that and I suspect he will drill out and retap for quarter-twenty very soon.

But then it was time to go home. I packed Mo into the car. And with one eye on the  instrument binnacle for warning lights, we putt-putted our way home with no trouble at all. 

Mo immediately demolished his dinner, I cooked macaroni, and now, I have to go outside and run some stain through a coffee filter before locking up. For use tomorrow. Maybe Mo will sleep tonight, instead of prowling about at all hours.

Anyway, let me go do that now!

Edited April 3, 2023 by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

To unlock my phone, I draw a simple pattern over a series of dots. The only reason I have that enabled is because I want to forestall butt-dialing, although I suppose it would help in the event the phone gets stolen.

Except this morning, it would not recognize my pattern. And it is a simple pattern the same I've used for the 15-ish years, so it isn't that I've forgotten. But I did shatter the glass on the phone several weeks ago. It didn't make the phone reject the pattern then, but this morning, I tried and tried and the phone completely refuses to accept the pattern.

Unfortunately, I tried so many times, the phone suddenly said:

Quote

There have been too many unsuccessful attempts to unlock this phone. To protect your security, we've locked it permanently. Contact Samsung Customer Service to reset your phone.

Now, everywhere I search online, I am warned that I will lose everything on the phone if a factory reset is performed, so I must backup first. But if you can't unlock the phone, how do you backup? Samsung says the first thing I have to give them is the IMEI of the phone. This is a 15-digit ID that allows them to identify the exact phone. Where do you get the IMEI? First you go to Settings, then..... But if you can't unlock the phone, how do you go to Settings to do anything?

The phone appears to be running, because alarms still go off (I will confirm that when t's time for lunchtime meds) and it seems to be operating Wifi and  WhatsApp because I can still use web.WhatsApp.com on my computer, which requires the phone to be on the local network and running WhatsApp. 

Now, I am a little concerned about taking it back to  the people I bought it from. They might try this & that, and in so doing either shut the phone down (which would terminate WhatsApp) and possibly kill the phone completely (which would kill my alarms). And with no phone, WhatsApp is my main mode of comms. And without my alarms, I miss everything from meds, to waking up in the morning, to getting up early to visit Brighton on a Saturday.....

Anyway, I sold two planters and I am in the process of staining/waxing them for the new owner. He wanted them waxed so the wyf can't make him paint them! And I sold six High Voltage, Metal Geared, Digital servos I found last evening when looking for coffee filters to filter the stain. Only, I have not collected the cash for them as yet. And the buyer says he has some mahogany I can have.....

But what to do without a phone?!?? Which has a crappy camera, but it's my only camera, right now! How do I take pictures of little Muttly?

[b4pjoe]

Have you tried powering the phone off and back on? When my old Pixel phone would not let me login with my pass code that always fixed it. If you haven't it might be too late now since Samsung says they have locked it permanently which is kind of weird they would do that with no possibility to ever recover anything from it.

 

I found this online which you might want to try:

Quote

Please note: unlocking issues can sometimes be solved with a soft reset. To perform a soft reset, press and hold down the power and volume down keys until the screen turn black and the Samsung logo appears. Your phone will restart and you can try unlocking it again.

 

[Netfoot]

42 minutes ago, b4pjoe said:

Have you tried powering the phone off and back on?

I tried that and any number of other suggestions I found online. But when i tried to reboot (for example) it told me to draw my pattern for the reboot to go through.

Every suggestion I've tried either wants me to enter my pattern to achieve it, or wants me to do something that requires me to have signed in (requiring the pattern) first.

Now, I have to consider that anything I do that might force the phone to reboot or power down, will kill WhatsApp, and if the attempt to fix the problem fails, I will lose my last means of communicating with my group, friends, family, etc. I'll be back to landline phone and e-mail.

[andidante]

5 hours ago, Netfoot said:

I tried that and any number of other suggestions I found online. But when i tried to reboot (for example) it told me to draw my pattern for the reboot to go through.

Every suggestion I've tried either wants me to enter my pattern to achieve it, or wants me to do something that requires me to have signed in (requiring the pattern) first.

Now, I have to consider that anything I do that might force the phone to reboot or power down, will kill WhatsApp, and if the attempt to fix the problem fails, I will lose my last means of communicating with my group, friends, family, etc. I'll be back to landline phone and e-mail.

How long have you had the phone? Maybe it's just too old to fix? I know how you feel about the alarms. I have one for everything!

[Netfoot]

4 hours ago, andidante said:

How long have you had the phone?

Couple of years maybe?

I know it was a piece of junk to start with and with the cracked screen it was an even bigger piece of junk. But it was my only phone and I really didn't need it to suddenly decide this morning that my pattern wasn't my pattern...

[Netfoot]

Life without a smart phone is proving to be difficult.

No music in bed last night or any night in the foreseeable future. No Kindle app - I had to start a paper novel. (This is not actually distressing because I essentially hate Kindle and prefer crinkly, russly paper in my hands while reading.) No camera to snap photos of Mr. Mozie. Or the haul of boards from deconstructing four super-pallets the hard way so as to get 36" long boards rather than 18" boards. Two whole days to break down four pallets and remove the nails. It was slower because I wanted the long boards. If I had just cut them in half the deconstruction would have been much faster. Also, got home from the shops today to discover the house in darkness. An island-wide power failure. last time this happened it turned out that a monkey had climbed up and messed with some very high voltage switch-gear. He got fried and so did the switch-gear. No idea what caused today's outage but they were saying they didn't know how long it would be off. With no power, I had to suspend pallet breaking, and I went into bed to read my glue & paper book. I turned on the light so when power returned it would signal the fact to me. But I nodded off, and lost a sizable chunk of the afternoon.

Earlier, For the first time in several months, I took Mo to see the ladies of the Book-Tent. They billed and cooed over him, of course. We parked right next to their tent, and I told them they could charge people a buck to pat him. As I went into the store, he was barking hugely loudly but on my return they told me he had been perfectly well behaved the whole time I had been away. All the ruckus is to say "Don't go!" or possibly "Take me with you!" And I would, but there are far too many stupid people in the world who would not instantly recognize how blessed they were if he came to visit their store.

Shopping. I bought sugar and milk, although I was not out of either. But I wanted to assure myself of the ability to have a cup of tea when I felt like one. I also bought corned beef, potatoes, onions, cucumbers and white cabbage (no pak choy to be had). I got a lb. of red butter. A small piece of NZ cheddar. Then I bought myself a bag of macaroni elbows, because sometimes you want short pasta, even if lb. for lb. it does cost twice as much. Two more things on the list: Two 12 oz. coca-colas and a liter of white vinegar.  The cokes because I like cokes and every now and again you have to tell the medical fraternity to bugger off. Even my dear Dr. Kristi.

The white vinegar combines with rusty nails to create the stain I've been using on my planters. It's very simple. The 5% acid in the vinegar dissolves some of the iron from the nails. (Rust dissolves more easily.) When painted onto wood, the vinegar soaks into the fibers and takes dissolved iron with it. The iron reacts with the tannins in the wood to bring about darkening of the fibers. This bottle of Matouk's white vinegar will give me a good quantity of stain, and it doesn't take much to do the job. You only need enough to wet the surface of the piece. 

Wanted to buy a pack of wax candles but they didn't have any. I will have to pick them up later from another store. I only have one left, and while it should be enough to wax several planters, I would like to lay in a few more.

No lunch today, because of the power outage. And gruuuel for dinner. It's hot and I am sweaty. I will have to have a rinse-down after tonight's Garden Patrol. Right now I am contemplating watching something on the box. Tomorrow I have a lot of wood to mill. I am supposed to be building two to four new planters. Two of the five I made last week have been sold, the original two have been requested by two separate people and a girl at Brighton said she wanted one for he mother's birthday on the 14th (I think she said). I've also got a request for some more phone stands, so I will look into making some more of them as well. But by time I mill all that lumber tomorrow I won't be good for anything else. And there will only be two days remaining in the week.

Ok, better stop this here and go find something entertaining to watch for the next hour or so. Then Garden Patrol, a shower, and bed. In silence. Aaarrrggghhh!!!

[Netfoot]

A guy wanted my original rope-handled planters. He said "I can cut those handles off!" Whoa! Better I make you two new ones without handles, so the other guy who wanted them with handles can have the original two. So I've milled up enough staves (only rough cut so far) for four planters, two with handles and two with legs. They are roughly 8" tall not counting legs/handles, and 8" in diameter. I also milled up enough pieces at 7/16" thick,. for the four bottoms. I will glue up the bottoms into panels and then mill the panels down to the final thickness of 3/8" to match my 3/8" slot-cutting blade. 

No photographs, unfortunately.

Now I have to lay out the staves and trim/sand the corners so the planters come out looking right. Then I will glue up the bottom panels. No, I should do that first so the glue can cure a bit while I do the other thing.

But first a cup of tea.

[Netfoot]

I'm dirty, and I'm to tired to take a shower. I am going to bed dirty and will consider a bath tomorrow morning. I have to go out after nine, so that might be a good time to clean up. 

I was selling some servos, and one guy I know said he wanted them. That was Monday. He said he couldn't get to my house on Monday, and would Tuesday be OK? Sure. I guess... Tuesday: Busy; lets make it Wednesday. Ok. Wednesday: I will be there as soon as I get my truck back! And later: No truck yet. What about Thursday? Ooookay... Fine come to my office any time after nine!

So instead of finalizing the deal Monday, he puts it off until Thursday, and now I have to go and look for him!

Started work on four planters this morning at 6:30. Ripped all the strips to width, then to length, rounded the corners where that was required, chamfered the sides, cut slots for the bases, sanded and stained. Also glued up panels for the bases. Finished at 9:30 PM and really enjoyed my dinner, which I washed down with a small coke over a load of ice cubes.

The  scraps allowed me to construct three 4" wide, 8" tall vessels. Or I could cut them down to 6½" tall (the golden ratio) and maybe just throw away the scraps. Dunno. Too tired to think clearly.

Milled up a board. Will see about turning it into a phone/tablet stand(s) tomorrow. If I am to use boiled linseed oil, I need to have them finished by tomorrow evening because the linseed oil takes 12-18 hours to dry. 

When your microwave doesn't work, it is suddenly much more difficult to cook plantains. And when you don't have a phone with a timer app, rice and pasta become problematic, too.

My hands are stained. Just got a final demand from the power company. My back hurts. Mo has been a delightful gem all day. I hope he continues along this vein throughout the night. Stomach hurts. back hurts. will go lie down and see how fast I fall asleep.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

Went out today and bought some masking tape, some glue, some candles and some rope. Also bought a treat for Mo and myself.

While I was out, I took my old phone in to a phone store place and asked them what they could do with it, if anything. All I was able to do was get it to come up in some weird service mode. But this lady took a look and in no time she had worked out that it was due to a sticky volume key. By fiddling with it she got it to boot up in "Safe" mode, with no SIM card, which is still in my other locked phone.

In Safe mode the old phone (a Google Pixel 3 with amazing camera and fantastic sounds) won't run anything that didn't come with the original phone. So, no WhatsApp. Therefore, I have to leave my SIM card in the locked Samsung to be able to use WhatsApp Web.

But I can use the Chrome browser, and the camera, so herein are some photos.

The lady told me that when "The Technician" came to work on Saturday, she would be able to examine the phone and see if the problem could be sorted by just cleaning the key or whether she would have to order parts, and what it would cost to fix, either way. Since the cheapest, nastiest phone you can buy here is $499, I may have to consider doing that. The old Pixel 3 was a grand phone and I would be thrilled to have it going again!

While discussing the lazy technician who wasn't coming back to work until Saturday, I discovered that tomorrow is Good Friday, a Bank holiday. And Monday is a holiday too. I don't know why I had to be told this, because I am well aware that this is Easter weekend because there will be an Easter bunny at Brighton on Saturday. But the grey matter didn't put it all together without external help.

I spent the day cutting, shaping and staining the bottoms of the four latest planters. The bottoms are now drying, and in the morning I will assemble the planters around the bottoms, and leave the glue to dry. Tomorrow afternoon the planters should be ready for waxing.

You can see two planters with ½" holes drilled for the ½" rope I bought. The other two don't have any handles. They have four feet instead. That might be a little hard to see. One of the footed planters has it's hand-fitted base sitting on top of it. The bases are cut out and them each of the twelve sides of the base is gradually sanded back until it is a perfect fit for the planter. To prevent the wrong bottom going into the wrong planter, they are marked inside the slot so when they do go together the marks vanish.

For the handled planters, the rope is knotted to prevent it from pulling through  the hole in the staves. According to ABOK #686, "Deck bucket bails or beckets were of three-strand rope and had two Matthew Walker knots..." so ever a traditionalist...

A Matthew Walker knot tied by unwinding the three strands and fashioning  the knot out of them. The end strands (uppermost) to be trimmed back and frayed into a sort of tassel. The first of the two knots is easy enough but the second has to be done with the rope already in the bucket (or planter, as the case may be). The fuzzies can be removed by rubbing with a metal scouring pad or by careful application of flame.

Also today, I laminated up three strips of purpleheart and a piece of reclaimed wood (pine, I think) and planed and sanded the entire thing. Using my ⅜" slot-cutting blade I put two slots, one on each side, varying the size by moving the fence a hair to widen the slot until it suited me. I accepted the slots when one held my (broken) tablet and the other held my (broken) phone. After some additional sanding, I used the cross-cut sled to cut the laminated board into two phone and two tablet stands. 

Note the phone-sized ones can support a tablet, and the tablet-sized ones can accommodate a phone. A little fraction of the board remained at the end, and will be discarded. After this photo was taken, there was some additional hand-sanding to get it right and then I slathered with Boiled Linseed Oil. When I'm finished with this post I will go out and slather it again. And last thing before bed, I will go out and wipe off any excess oil that has not soaked into the wood. 

The variety of BLO I'm using takes 12-18 hours to dry. If I get it wiped off by 10 PM (say)  it will have had more than enough time to dry by time set up my table at Brighton.

Throughout the day, I've enjoyed the company of a very sweet boy who has been extra loving and attentive. Especially when I was eating Teatime biscuits with my cuppa. (He got 1½ biscuits out of 4 and then persuaded me to split my last bite with him.)

Now, he has eaten his dinner and is waiting impatiently for me to go cook my dinner so he can get his share of it!

So I guess I'd better do that now! After slathering more oil on the phone/tablet stands...

[Netfoot]

In bed, with No Mo at my feet. Listening to This Year's Girl #2 by Pizzicato Five. P5 was a jazz/synth-pop band out of Tokyo consisting of two male instrumentalists (who sing a little, sometimes) and a female vocalist. Their lyrics are sometimes in English and sometimes in Japanese. I like them. Godnozewhy, but I do. 

Ok, so I'm using the Pixel 3 which has no SIM but is connected to house Wi-Fi. The camera works but I can't figure out how to scale the images so they meet Primetimer's size restrictions. Therefore images must be Gmailed to myself so I can download them and tweak them in GIMP. Then I can use Chrome on the desktop to compose posts and include the photo(s). But alas, posts made from the Pixel must be without images.

The more I use this phone the more I remember how great it was! I just hope the "lazy" technician tells me she can repair it and that the price is something I can aspire to. Under better circumstances I would retire this Pixel 3 and buy a new Pixel 7 but since I can't afford a small jar of mayonnaise, it stands to reason that the $449 7 and especially the $749 7 Pro are about as accessible as the surface of the moon. Especially since that is in US dollars which effectively doubles the price to me.

We had a good Garden Patrol with Mo sniffing at some scent he detected on the grass. No sooner were we back inside than a heavy downpour began. It has finally petered out, but for a while the breeze was sprinkling me with fine droplets through the window.

Ok, excess oil rubbed from phone & tablet stands and I will do it again in the morning. I will also scrub the planter bottoms and do a glue-up of each planter in turn. The glue will set up in an hour or so, but I will wait until later in the day when it's had a chance to cure a little. Then I will wax them and they will be done. Well, the two will need their rope handles attaching, 

Will read my paper book now, as Mo leans up against me. And soon, off to sleep.

Edited April 7, 2023 by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

As I lay in my bed half asleep this morning, around 5:30, the fan suddenly span down. I reached up and tried the light over my bed -- yes, another power cut. The third so far this week. 

By 6:30, the power was not back on yet, but Mo was making such a racket outside I had to go and see what he was barking at. Nothing, apparently. But since I was up, I started gluing up planters. They are all done and waiting for the glue to set up and even cure a bit. Before lunch, I will inspect them and if the vertices of the staves are sharp to the touch, I will briefly sand them, and reapply a bit of stain if any of the unstained wood starts to show through. Later in the afternoon I will wax them, and as they will finish curing overnight, they will be ready for tomorrow morning.  

I actually only have an ounce or so of stain remaining, so I clung flung a bunch of rusty nails in a big jar and topped up with 500cc of white vinegar. That should be good for use by Sunday morning, although it will have to be run through several coffee filters to remove unwanted iron particles.

The weak acid of the vinegar dissolves some of the iron in the rust. This gives us a solution of iron in vinegar. The strength of the vinegar which starts at 5% will be considerably reduced by the process of dissolving the iron. Unfortunately, while this process is taking place, the rust will also flake of in microscopically small particles which don't dissolve, but instead are suspended in the liquid. The resulting stain is a solution of and a suspension of iron. When you apply the stain, the liquid soaks into the wood taking the dissolved iron with it, where it reacts with the tannin in the wood. Unfortunately the suspended iron particles remain on the surface of the wood. When the stain is completely dry, you find the surface covered with a very fine, brown dust which must be wiped away. The coffee filters remove much of the suspended particles. Not all by any means, but it is best to filter as much as possible because it reduces the post-drying cleanup that has t be done.

The linseed oil on the phone stands has pretty much completely dried but I buffed them off anyway. They actually look quite good. 

I should go out and try to make something else! But right now, my back hurts. So I will sit here listening to Govinda by Kula Shaker (from their #1 album "K"), and share some Teatime biscuits with Mr. Moustache. 

Edited April 7, 2023 by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

Time: Early. Car: Fueled and packed. Clothes: Laid out. All ready for 4:30 alarm, except was not able to bathe. Once again the water pressure is too low, so I can't get any hot water out of the tap. And I certainly will not be showering in cold.

Isn't it funny? When I was a nipper in Trinidad we moved from a house in Cascade that had no hot water. Dad bought and rebuilt a much larger home on a large piece of land in Maraval. It had no hot water either. When I was 8-9 years old we moved to Barbados and took up residence in the house in Fontabelle where my my mother was born. It had no hot water. Later, Dad built a new house down in Hometown. It had no hot water. Meanwhile, I was at boarding school in St. John for months at a time. It had no hot water. 

Eventually, just before my 19th birthday, I moved to the south of England to pursue my studies. For the first time in my life, I lived in a house which was supplied with hot water. Essential, I suppose, given the climate. But a new experience for me.

You'd think with an early upbringing that excluded hot water, I would be fine with a cold shower. Not for hell! Nowadays I demand 2nd degree level heat from the solar system on my roof. And that system will happily deliver. But only if the water main delivers enough water pressure to keep water flowing through the solar collector.

So it looks like I will be taking a shower at 4:30 tomorrow morning, and hoping there is water pressure to make that work. 

For some reason all my typing has suddenly turned red. Can't figure out why.

Mo snoozing on the doorstep, but I want to go off for an early sleep. Maybe I will go fetch him inside. 

Could use a few sales tomorrow. A couple of bucks would be very welcome. I am going with exactly $50 plus US$5 for Alison for the entrance fee.

I had a plan to go to the pharmacy today so as not to run out of meds during the weekend. But today turned out to be a holiday and the weekend is a day longer than expected. I will try the poly-clinic tomorrow, but I think it is unlikely that I will find government employees at work on a Saturday at all, far less in the middle of a 4-day holiday!

Sleep time!

[Netfoot]

Wi-fi at Brighton! 

Unfortunately, still can't resize photos, so nothing to show you until I get back home.

😐 No sales so far. Fingers crossed!

[Netfoot]

Home again! And just in time for lunch. I had cheese & bully beef cutters with pepper sauce and cucumber slices. I had the same yesterday, I think, and I enjoyed them. Mo (bless his selfish little heart) not only demanded titbits of bully, but also of cheese and cucumber. Plus, he had to have several bites of each sandwich. I did the biting though, because as the saying goes, "I'd rather give him a tot-full than a mouthful!"

With my sandwiches, I had a Sprite over ice. yes, I stopped on the way home to buy a bag of chow for Mozie-posey, and also bought cucumbers, carrots, a piece of pumpkin (in case I decide to make more soup) a bag of sugar, and a tin of pigeon peas to add to some rice maybe for dinner. 

For dessert, I had a cinnamon roll, thanks to this evil temptress

who keeps pushing delicious pastries on me. See that container with the blue lid her hand is on? It's filled to bursting with little chocolate chip cookies. She kept giving them to the kiddies and she kept giving them to me! That's Toni, who I shared a tent with today. I am so weak. I wish I could resist her charms! When you set up on that side of the walkway, the rising sun just gets right in your eyes, so you tend to step back until your face is shaded by the awning. This makes photos hard to take due to the difference in lighting between face/body.

Anyway, if you think I should avoid all those sweet things, you are correct! But I tested my blood sugar before leaving home and it was 3.9 mmol/L which is 70.2 mg/dL in American.

In the background of that photo, by the way, you can see about 20% of the parking for the market. And that's for visitors. There is a separate area for vendors.

Sales! Sold a phone stand and a tablet stand. Sold a very small mahogany bowl. And sold two planters. They were the original two that I made, with eight staves per, and rope handles. I've pretty much settled on 12 staves from now on, so I'm glad to see those two go because now they are not at odds with what remains.

The reason I probably didn't sell as many is because I am apparently incapable of smiling. This photo

shows a face that could be used to scare little children! (As my mum used to say.) But anyway, I left home with $50 in my pocket and came home wit $215 so if I set aside $10 for next week's entrance fee, I made $155 which is better than a kick in the nuts!

And I got out of the supermarket on the way home, for only $48, so a few groceries and over $100 remaining.

Speaking of going home, I forgot yesterday was a bank holiday and my meds run out before Tuesday, so I thought I'd try the Poly-clinic. No such luck. Actually I have just enough to last until Tuesday except for Digoxin, which runs out today. So, at the supermarket there is a pharmacy. And I went an explained and asked them to sell me two whole tablets. to get me to Tuesday... and of course, they said no.

Then as I approached the house, just to warm my blood a bit, I noticed how my two asshole neighbors had gone and parked:

They are obviously Bajans because Bajans don't believe in parking on their own property. (They also believe that the road was put there for them to mix cement on, but that's another story.)

I got in, as you can see, but I had to drive across the grass-piece, and reverse between the front of the white van and the rear of the pickup. And because there is a curb right there, I kept getting stuck with one wheel in the air and having to go forward and try again. After three failed attempts I just lined up carefully, and reversed back at high speed to get passed the curb, missing the two vehicles by inches. Then slam the brakes on so as not to remove the salmon pink gatepost. Then some maneuvering to get the van into the garage. And just soze you know, the driver of the van was standing near the staircase, and the driver of the Isuzu was sitting in the vehicle, but none of them made any effort to assist by, I don't know, moving their vehicle to somewhere else?

Of course, when they saw me reversing rapidly across the grass-piece, they both came running out for fear their vehicles might be damaged. But when they saw my face (refer to photo above) they realized it would probably not be wise to complain about how I navigated the tiny gap they left for me to squeeze through.

Anyway, I might take a nap this afternoon and hopefully get some cuddles, because Mo insisted on sleeping outside last night, on a pile of shavings under the lathe. (And came flying in the door this morning at 4:30, looking like a mobile haystack!) So, yeh! I'm thinking a nap.

[Spunkygal]

Cinnamon rolls and decent sales! That’s a good day! BTW, you have a very nice face and would not scare anyone. 

[Netfoot]

28 minutes ago, Spunkygal said:

BTW, you have a very nice face and would not scare anyone. 

I don't have any mirrors in the house because sometimes I scare me!

The bad news is, my Pixel 3 that had a working camera and browser received an Android update. I told it to proceed, bt when the phone rebooted, it came up in "Fastboot Mode" with Device State "Locked" and Reason "Combo Key". The options open to me are Start, Power off, BarCode, Rescue mode, Recovery Mode and Restart Bootloader. But it won't actually accept any of those options. So once again, no camera, no browser at bedtime, and no actual phone. But the other phone, the Samsung with the shattered glass is still running WhatsApp so I can still use that app via the web portal on my desktop.

Mo had a monster dinner and his tummy was so full when he was done, I was able to cook pumpkin, cucumber, carrot and pigeon peas into some rice with bully beef, and he didn't demand any of the ingredients as I was preparing them, and didn't ask for any of the rice when it was finished. Hopefully, he will sleep soundly tonight. And hopefully that will be inside, snuggling with me rather than outside in a pile of sawdust.

[Netfoot]

Had a good night, snuggling with a puppy. At 4:30 he insisted I open the house, which I did. I went back to bed and a few minutes later he rejoined me for more snuggles until about 6:30 when I decided to get up.

I am hungry as hell, for some reason. I had a good meal of rice last night, so I can't think why I would feel hungry this early today. It's an hour before noon and I've been feeling for a meal for several hours already!

Been digging around in piles of wood scraps trying to see what I could make from what I already have on hand, that might fetch a few bucks. Nothing terribly exciting comes to mind, but almost everything requires the use of the planer and I don't want to run that noisy thing on a bank-holiday Sunday.

Roll on, lunchtime! I don't know what I will cook, but it will be plentiful, and easy. Because I'm feeling almost as lazy as I'm feeling hungry.

[andidante]

Happy Easter to those that celebrate!

[Netfoot]

A day spent doing nothing of value. I ate a large bowl of rice for lunch and had porridge for dinner to compensate. I will test the BS tomorrow. Also got to go to the poly-clinic and renew my meds, because I am out f most of it by tomorrow. Will probably pop into the bank and deposit what ever I made on Saturday. Just around the corner from the bank is the cellphone place, so I may take my Pixel and see if they can unstick the buttons that prevent it from coming out of SAFE mode. Or at least inquire as to the price of having that done.

Lay in bed this afternoon and thought about having a nap. Mo alternated from snuggling up with me, and going outside to further his own ends. In the end I didn't nap but I did finish my book. Will have to find something else to read, now.

Mo came and demanded we go on Patrol very early this evening, almost two hours before we usually go. When we got back, I spent some time decanting homemade stain from one jar to another and filtering it in the process. The filter helps remove much of the particles in suspension as well as the sludge that accumulates at the bottom of the jar. If only I had some sort of centrifuge! I have another 500cc of vinegar sitting on a new batch of rusty nails, and that will be ready for filtering in another day or so.

But Mo has taken to barging past me when I go to do anything. If I go outside, he has to get there first, so he barges past me - sometimes between my legs -  on the steps. He will cause me to fall sooner or later, and I just might have a couple of glass jars in hand when I do. 

But he has been very loving this last few days, and has come to play Tummy Trampoline several times, but plays relatively gently. He is also pushing fairly hard to get his share of the pillow when we are abed. I usually leve half the pillow for him and sometimes he curls up against the back of my neck and upper back and makes full use of as much of the pillow he can get. Sometimes he curls up in the angle behind my knees and uses my foot as a pillow.

Anyway, it might be a good idea to get to bed early this evening, so I will go and check my stain filter and then go to bed.

[Netfoot]

Helluva day.

To set the scene: A few days ago over the weekend, during one of our Garden Patrols, I noticed Mo trying to do a poo and failing. "Poor baby," I thought. "Hopefully that will clear up soon!"

Now you know Mo. I can't slice up a carrot or dice a cucumber without paying Mo his tax. And when the dish is cooked I usually have to eat it with a fuzzy face in my lap to remind me to leave some for canine cleanup. But for a couple of days, Mo was off his food. Not accompanying me into the kitchen, not demanding a taste of my meals, and not eating his own meals either. So this morning, I took him to the vet. X-rays showed he was completely bunged up. And plenty of trapped gas too. The doc said she would give him an enema and make sure he was OK. (Thank goodness she didn't ask me to do that at home!)

Now, as you know, my old Samsung decided it didn't want to be unlocked. And after one too many attempts, it locked itself permanently. But with WhatsApp still running, I could stay in touch via the web portal on my desktop. I looked around and found my older Pixel, which had a strange "FastBoot Menu" displayed when ever you turned it on. I took it to the store and the lady advised me that the volume key was sticky, which was causing the problem, but she was able to get it to power up in SAFE mode. I couldn't use any apps other than what came with the phone, but I could use the camera and the browser. WhatsApp? No. So I had top leave the SIM card in the permalocked Samsung, to maintain WhatsApp connectivity via the desktop and my house Wifi. Later, the Pixel did an OS update and rebooted. When it powered back up, it was no longer in SAFE mode, but back at the Fastboot Menu.

This morning, there was no internet and my landline phone was dead. The bill was paid, but I couldn't call to find out whjat was going on, because both cellphones and the landline were non-functional. So, I wandered over to the mall and took the Pixel with me. I went to visit the lady to see if she could get it back from FastBoot to SAFE mode, but The Technician had returned from sick-leave and she fiddled with it and got it to boot up normally!!

Next, I went to the phone company and the lady there told me she would enable my internet but I had to go home and send her the details of the payment, including the reference number. I did this, and the phone and internet are back on.

I transferred the SIM from the Samsung to the Pixel. So now I have a working mobile phone, BUT the volume keeps setting itself to the lowest (off). Fortunately, call volume, notifications and alarms are not affected and I can play music via the bluetooth speakers in the bedroom and that is not affected either. 

Then I went to pick Mo up from the vet. $123.78 in total. Just when you think you've got your head above water... But the baby is home and appears to be fine again. He has some medication to take over the next 10 days to soothe his tummy and bowels, and he is a little fragile looking after the experience. I'm guessing his butt hurts a bit after the enema and passing a series of large turds. He most likely  didn't enjoy the experience and is worried it might happen again. (And if he doesn't stop eating pieces of wood and cardboard boxes, it just might!) But Unka Aussie promised to come tomorrow and bring me some small pieces of mango to try on the lathe so Mo will have fun chatting with Austin for a while. And I have to go collect something from Dr. Kristi before the end of the week, so he might get to see her, and this will certainly get him back on an even keel!

I have to go see a doctor on Monday morning to discuss scheduling a biopsy. Don't know when (or even if) the actual biopsy might occur, but I guess I will find out on Monday.

Last night Mo was very cuddly & snuggly. Particularly early this morning, when he squeezed between me and the wall and curled up against my back. He prefers curling up against my back when he is actually sleeping. But for playtime he lies against my tummy with four feet in the air and an inviting tummy exposed for a rub. Or he wants to play Tummy Trampoline...

Not got a lot accomplished this week. Wet-turned two mahogany bowls, and worked on two extra large pencil holders. The former will be ready for re-turning in 6-8 months when the wet wood has dried and the bowls can be finished. Assuming they don't crack, split, check or warp themselves to destruction while drying. I will try to get photos and post them later. No idea how the large pencil holders will turn out, but they are stained and should be ready for assembly tomorrow. I plan to then cut an angle into the rim, requiring a re-stain of the cut edge, but that is what I see in my minds eye so that's what I will try to do. 

I also stained the rope I purchased to make handles for two of my planters. it appears quite dry already but I will leave it in the breeze until tomorrow morning before I attempt to tie the handles in place. One of the retaining Matthew Walker knots is tied for each planter. Next I have to feed the un-knotted end through both supports in the planter and tie the second retaining knot in situ.

Any way, I think I will watch a few TV shows and go to bed early. I feel like skipping dinner but I know I will regret the decision later. 

Question for any of you who bake: If I make up a large ball of dough and divide it into several parts, can I freeze the individual parts and defrost them as and when i feel like using them? If it matters, I don't use yeast, I use baking soda/powder.

 

Edited April 13, 2023 by Netfoot

[Notabug]

Quote

Question for any of you who bake: If I make up a large ball of dough and divide it into several parts, can I freeze the individual parts and defrost them as and when i feel like using them?

Sure can.  Wrap them well to prevent freezer burn, and they should last up to 6 months in the freezer. 

Edited April 13, 2023 by Notabug

[Netfoot]

13 hours ago, Notabug said:

Sure can.  Wrap them well to prevent freezer burn, and they should last up to 6 months in the freezer. 

Thanks for the info. I doubt they would last anything like 6 months in my fridge because I like eating frybread or dumplings or whatever, far too much! But I don't much like making the dough, so if I made a large batch and broke it up into small  pieces, I could defrost however much I wanted and leave the rest in the fridge. 

I gave Mo food as soon as he came home because they had not fed him. And I gave him his dinner as usual, but he only ate some. Later, I heard crunching at his feeding station and turned around. To my surprise, it was not Mo, but a multi-coloured cat! I gave a bellow, it took off, and seconds later Mo arrived to see what the fuss was about. Since then he has been sniffing the ground like a bloodhound, 

I brought his bowl from the feeding station and put it on the floor of the bedroom. He promptly came along and chowed down on some of the contents. I very much doubt the kitty will try to get to Mo's food where it is.

We completed the Garden Patrol in our usual fashion and I came to bed. No music tonight after all. When I connect to my Bluetooth speakers the volume is immediately reduced to zero by the stuck Volume-Down key.

Anyway, my eyes are closing. Mo is curled up at the foot of the bed but he is making strange querulous noises and will probably go out in a minute. I will read my book a little before locking up the house and going to sleep. 

Speaking of books, I found a small number of books from the Ark selling at the vet. Far less money than the prices at their tent, but despite the very small number of books I was able to find one I wanted to read for only one buck. However, I've already started a different book, so the new one will have to keep. 

Mo is out by the front gate barking furiously. If he knew how restful it was with him not here all day, he might behave a little better! I didn't have to keep my gate locked. Nobody disturbed me when I was cutting up veggies for my rice at lunchtime. No fuzzy head lay in my lap while I ate. And I was able to eat all of my lunch for the first time in I don't know when. Nobody stole my tools when I put them on the steps, nobody barged past me or between my legs,  ... Don't believe a word of it! I missed him terribly all afternoon long!

Here are the two wet-turned mahogany bowl I told you about:

Edited April 13, 2023 by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

A riot of barking drew me out of my book to find that Mo had the cat cornered in a shelf-unit in the garage. I distracted him long enough for it to make it's escape. He is angrily scouring the garden for a kitty that (I hope) is two parishes away by now.

Stopped at the fridge on the way back to grab a small sack of raisins. I am hungry!

[Netfoot]

Got up this morning and the phone said "Update complete! Reboot phone!" Damnit! Technician lady said don't reboot the phone! But I had no choice so I rebooted and found myself back at the FastBoot menu. Following her instructions from yesterday, I got it to boot up, but in SAFE mode. 

Had to buy cheese because Mo must that two tablets a day, each the size of a tombstone, and cheese is the only possible way that can happen. 

Went to Dr. Kristi and picked up a letter for the kidney guy. Didn't see Dr. K, but Clauda came out to see Mo for a minute. Meanwhile I bought milk, teabags (was down to only three), carrots, two packs of Eclipse biscuits (crackers, really), plus the cheese. 

Thought it would make sense to put gas in the van now, instead of waiting until tomorrow. And go to an ATM so I could get some money to make change on Saturday. Since the ATM was close to the cellphone place, I popped in. The technician worked her magic and got the phone back into normal mode so I could use WhatsApp.

Got home and soon had a visit from David and Austin who Mo was pleased to see. David brought some big chunks of mahogany and Austin brought some mango.

Boiled up some veggies for lunch. Now got to go finish these pencil holders.

[Netfoot]

Just completed one planter handle by tying on the rope. It is a much better example of the Matthew Walker than is on the other end!

As you know, I carry a selection of sweets to Brighton and offer them to passers by. Don't know if it helps in any way, but...

From left to right: a Paradise Plum, a toffee, a large mint, and a smaller dinner-mint. When I was a kid, you would scrape together a penny (two cents) and go down to the little shop (known as a parlor) to buy sweets. The Paradise Plum was the Rolls-Royce of sweets! I'm glad they can still be found.

The little jar contains tamarind balls. The tamarind tree from which pretty bowls can be made also bears fruit. Inside a crumbly, brown, eggshell-thin outer layer the hard, black seeds can be found encased in a brown, mushy paste that is sticky and extremely sour. Scraped from the seeds and mixed with brown sugar, the resulting goo is rolled into balls, often with a seed or two in the middle. They are the ultimate sweet & sour confection. Naturally, the Trinidadian version is enhanced with as much blazing hot pepper as possible.  This batch are described as "spicy" but I've not tried these as yet, so exactly how much of the Trini experience they contain is still a mystery.

There used to be another confection made from tamarinds. It was called tamarind stew. Essentially, you boil the tamarind gunk with sugar and syrup. The result was like a very watery jam. I don't recall any tamarind stew ever being peppery but that might just be my memory. I do remember that it made a fantastic topping for vanilla iced cream! Have not seen that stuff for years and years and years.

Little Mo got a big tablet concealed in a block of cheese. 30 minutes before his lunch. He is more himself today, and was pleased to have unka Austin & unka David come to see him. 

Sometimes he looks like a Monster of a dog.

Sometimes he looks like a tiny little Mouse of a puppy.

Edited April 13, 2023 by Netfoot

[andidante]

2 hours ago, Netfoot said:

The little jar contains tamarind balls. The tamarind tree from which pretty bowls can be made also bears fruit. Inside a crumbly, brown, eggshell-thin outer layer the hard, black seeds can be found encased in a brown, mushy paste that is sticky and extremely sour. Scraped from the seeds and mixed with brown sugar, the resulting goo is rolled into balls, often with a seed or two in the middle. They are the ultimate sweet & sour confection. Naturally, the Trinidadian version is enhanced with as much blazing hot pepper as possible.  This batch are described as "spicy" but I've not tried these as yet, so exactly how much of the Trini experience they contain is still a mystery.

 

I think my son would love those! 

[Netfoot]

41 minutes ago, andidante said:

I think my son would love those! 

I don't know where you live, but see if there is a West Indian market or store or something. They are very popular in the islands. Never know -- you might be able to buy them close to home. 

They come either plain or hot. How hot is hot will depend on who the cook is. They also come in a variety of sizes. Little ones like I showed, bigger ones maybe an inch or so across, or really big ones, bigger than a golf ball. Smaller ones may be easier to share but big ones can be shared too.

The consistency is like a ball of sticky brown sugar. You don't usually pop an entire one into your mouth. You pinch off a piece or nibble off a piece at a time. You may find hard, black tamarind seeds inside. They generally have a papery skin around them that you can chew on for ages after you have gotten it off the seed. A seed or two is OK, but too many seeds means you're being ripped off, as they take up too much room in the ball and you get less soury/sugary part.

Seek and ye may find! If you do find, let me know what you think. 

[Notabug]

16 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

I don't know where you live, but see if there is a West Indian market or store or something. They are very popular in the islands. Never know -- you might be able to buy them close to home. 

They come either plain or hot. How hot is hot will depend on who the cook is. They also come in a variety of sizes. Little ones like I showed, bigger ones maybe an inch or so across, or really big ones, bigger than a golf ball. Smaller ones may be easier to share but big ones can be shared too.

The consistency is like a ball of sticky brown sugar. You don't usually pop an entire one into your mouth. You pinch off a piece or nibble off a piece at a time. You may find hard, black tamarind seeds inside. They generally have a papery skin around them that you can chew on for ages after you have gotten it off the seed. A seed or two is OK, but too many seeds means you're being ripped off, as they take up too much room in the ball and you get less soury/sugary part.

Seek and ye may find! If you do find, let me know what you think. 

Amazon carries them.

[andidante]

1 hour ago, Netfoot said:

I don't know where you live, but see if there is a West Indian market or store or something. They are very popular in the islands. Never know -- you might be able to buy them close to home. 

They come either plain or hot. How hot is hot will depend on who the cook is. They also come in a variety of sizes. Little ones like I showed, bigger ones maybe an inch or so across, or really big ones, bigger than a golf ball. Smaller ones may be easier to share but big ones can be shared too.

The consistency is like a ball of sticky brown sugar. You don't usually pop an entire one into your mouth. You pinch off a piece or nibble off a piece at a time. You may find hard, black tamarind seeds inside. They generally have a papery skin around them that you can chew on for ages after you have gotten it off the seed. A seed or two is OK, but too many seeds means you're being ripped off, as they take up too much room in the ball and you get less soury/sugary part.

Seek and ye may find! If you do find, let me know what you think. 

Thanks I will see if there is a store near me. I live in California so not sure. 

Edited April 14, 2023 by andidante
I did find some on Amazon so will order some and report back!

[Netfoot]

21 hours ago, Notabug said:

Amazon carries them.

Wow! So it does. Didn't expect that.

They've gone and genetically modified tamarind so it is sweet instead of sour. I refuse to touch that stuff! Sour tamarind with sweet brown sugar and hot bonny peppers is the ticket! Or skip the pepper if you aren't into spicy, and enjoy them all the same.

Next week: Salt Prunes! Same Time, same Bat Channel....

Edited April 14, 2023 by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

56 minutes ago, andidante said:

will order some and report back!

Very interested to hear what you think.

Well, off to bed with a glass of water and a puppy. He came home yesterday from the vet with a sort of nervous air to him. He probably didn't enjoy the experience and was worried that there might be ax repeat. But he seems to be rapidly regaining his confidence in life, and was very active on Patrol tonight, scampering hither and yon and examining every leaf and blade of grass. He's cleaning his feet now. No doubt he will make several trips to the window and then outside, before I get up.and lock the door.

Tried to conduct all my business today So I wouldn't have to go out tomorrow. Put gas in the car, got the phone "fixed", got a little cash for making change, collected paperwork re. future biopsy from Dr. Kristi, even bought tamarind balls! But at 7:18PM I got an email which forces me to go out tomorrow. It's something I've been looking forward to for a while so I'm glad it's happened. But why, oh why, couldn't that email have arrived last night? So I could have dealt with that today along with everything else? Anyway, more details tomorrow. 

Mo has gone out. I'm OK with that. I went in a bit early so I could read. I'm not feeling tired tonight. (Having said that I will probably fall asleep within the next 3 minutes.)

One of the things I went out for today was to buy a fence picket. They were selling 1x6" x 6' for $11.99 which is pretty cheap. Unfortunately, they only had three left, all of which were broken. The next shipment will probably go for $347.99 each. But hopefully they will not increase the price significantly.

I wanted to do some careful measurements and calculate what sized planter I could make out of one. At 6' long, split down the middle I'd get 12 pieces 3" wide and a foot long, which would make a planter 11½" wide and a foot tall. But wait! It would have no bottom. So, I need two pieces 6x12" to make a bottom. That would only leave enough for 12 staves around 8" tall. Is 11½” wide by 8" tall an attractive proportion?

This is why I need to buy one. To get exact dimensions so I can calculate the size of the best proportioned planter I can build from $11.99 in wood.

Mo came and left again. And I have got the volume of the Bluetooth audio up so I can listen to After The Love Is Gone by Earth Wind & Fire. Just nobody sneeze on that phone or the volume will plummet again. I've always rather liked EW&F although I really know little about the band and it's members. I only have two of their albums, but an old work colleague called Kevin (not the same Kev you hear me talk of from time to time) was absolutely potty about them and not only had every single recording they ever produced but knew everything there was to know about the band and each individual member in it.

Anyway, I came to bed early to read a chapter before succumbing to the call of Morpheus. So with Ai Du by Ali Farka Touré playing, I will sign off and break out the paperback. 

[b4pjoe]

9 hours ago, Netfoot said:

Just nobody sneeze on that phone or the volume will plummet again.

Have you tried adjusting the volume with your voice via Google Assistant?

[Netfoot]

1 minute ago, b4pjoe said:

Have you tried adjusting the volume with your voice via Google Assistant?

What a good idea! I will try that as soon as I get a chance, and let you know how it goes.

ETA: Wow! With an "Ok!" from Miss FancyPants, the media volume was at max! Hope the stuck switch doesn't return it to zero, but at the moment it's holding.

Media volume is the least of my worries, so long as notifications, alarms and phone volume are high. But your suggestion might be the greatest thing since sliced bread!

Mmmm. Bread... Yes, I'm hungry again.

Edited April 14, 2023 by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

Because the wood I turn is not specifically harvested for use, it is of all odd shapes and sizes. Cutting bowl blanks often results in small offcuts which might make a tiny, but pretty bowl. An example of such a small piece of "scrap" is shown here, with Mo, who wants to steal that little piece of bark which fell off the side.

So not huge, but it has potential! Except...

I normally start by screwing the bowl blank to a faceplate. But even my smallest faceplate dwarfs this scrap.

You could indeed drive four screws down into the block, but later when the piece is turned and the center is being hollowed, look how close those screw holes would be to the outside surface! It would be virtually impossible to turn the center hollow so as to eliminate the four screw holes and leave enough meat on the bowl to have a sensible thickness of side. So unfortunately, this piece of wood is of no use...

But wait! What's this?!??

Why, it looks like a Woodworm Screw! Specifically made for holding wood onto the lathe without leaving holes scattered all over the place that must later be removed!

You know, with such a device, I might be able to...

Edited April 14, 2023 by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

Let's see...

Yep, it fits my chuck, and will work with these small jaws as well as the larger jaws.

So now we drill a ⁷/¹⁶" hole in the dead center of the piece...

...twist the block on to the screw...

...and start turning!

Obviously, you still end up with a hole in the block that must be removed during the hollowing process. But it is one hole, and although it borders on ½" diameter, what sort of bowl could you be making that does not require at least ½" of hollowing?

As I was setting this up on the lathe, a large zandolie ran in, passed me and vanished into the garage. A few seconds later, came Mo in hot pursuit. But the zandolie was well away by then, so Mo lay down next to the lathe for a snooze.

A couple minutes later, the zandolie came running back out of the garage. He saw Mo lying there, paused, and then ran right over Mo and was gone. Mo was highly perturbed by this disrespectful behaviour and is still wandering around looking angry, hoping to catch up with the zandolie!

Poor baby! How about a cheesey treat? With extra medicinal goodness concealed within?

[Netfoot]

A bit of turning, and we end up with this small bowl, about 2¾" across and 1¾" tall. Of course, it is still on the woodworm screw and needs to be hollowed.

So after sanding and waxing, I unscrewed it and removed the screw from the chuck, then used the chuck itself to grip the piece by the tenon/foot I made in the bottom.

Hollowing then began, making the hole left by the screw deeper and wider, one little shaving at a time.

Eventually, this cute little bowl was released from inside that piece of "scrap". So pleasing to think that this didn't have to be thrown away, trapped inside a scrap too small for my faceplates!

[Spunkygal]

I’m thrilled that the wormwood screw fits and does the trick! That’s such a lovely bowl! Have you gifted Dr K with one of your handcrafted pieces?

[Netfoot]

31 minutes ago, Spunkygal said:

Have you gifted Dr K with one of your handcrafted pieces?

I did. I gave her one for Christmas. I had two nice ones at the time, and although the one I gave her was slightly smaller than the other, I thought the grain patterns were better. I saw it only yesterday. She has it on display at her clinic. She usually has a few things from home arranged together decoratively at the clinic and they change out every so often as the stuff on display goes back home and something new comes out.

Once again, I thank you for your help in facilitating the purchase of this small but useful accessory. You using their 800 number to obtain the info I needed, allowed me to place an order rapidly and save two or three times the cost of the actual part by keeping my long-distance call short. A tip of the hat to you!

[Spunkygal]

It was truly my pleasure to be able to help. And it took maybe 5 minutes of my time! 

[Netfoot]

Ok!

Nine thirty, lying in bed, wondering where Mo got to. 

Tried to have a hot shower at 5:30 but the water pressure was too low to reach the solar system on the roof. Tried again around 8:00 and was able to have a thorough scrub and a shampoo and shave.  EDC moved into grown-up pants, clothes laid out, car loaded and locked and ready to go.

Here's Mozie now! He's been particularly physical these last few days. He's always been affectionate, but seems particularly so recently. I'm not sure what will be done with him when I go for the biopsy and especially not when I go for the surgery, assuming that happens. Last time I went for an out-patient procedure and was to be home by that afternoon, I was stuck in the hospital for four days and I had to beg someone to go feed and water old Dotty every day, because no provision had been made for him.

Got $77 in my pocket to make change, plus $10 for Alison. I have no idea who I will be sharing with tomorrow. Jacob & Sophie don't appear ready to resume selling there yet, although they do come along as visitors. (Sophie looks fantastic! Ready to rule the world! But she was 7-8 months pregnant when I first met her so maybe I'm only now getting to see the real Sophie?)

Marva the coconut (and carrot and banana and pumpkin) bread lady is pretty cool, but she shares her tent with another lady who makes bags, purses and wallets, so I only get to share with Marva when that other lady doesn't come. Toni asked me to share with her on a regular basis, but she only comes every other week and won't be there tomorrow.... I just hope Alison doesn't put me under the roofed section. Not because it's $15 instead of $10, but because then I have to deal with that pack of rassholes who are the Living Waters church group. I will admit when my buddy and fellow woodworker Mark is there it helps, but he doesn't come every week. (Mark's big brother Alan is Dr. Kristi's husband, and his big sister Liz is the first girl I ever kissed.)

Anyway, Alison said to come and I'm sure she will slot me in somewhere. Meanwhile Mo has curled up against my back, put his head on my pillow and looks like he would happily go to sleep. But I have to lock up the house first.

Some Stone Roses playing and I will try to set an off-timer then lock up and go to sleep. Fingers crossed I could use some sales to compensate for Mo's vet bills! So let me see if I can go shut the door before Mo barges past and goes out again.

[Netfoot]

Morning!

Went to bed at 10:00, Mo woke me at 12:00 and again at 2:00 and once more at 3:45 so I didn't get much sleep.

Decided to take this photo myself. That way my physiog doesn't ruin it. Should have waylaid a pretty girl to pose behind the table but I couldn't find one that didn't look a little PO'd not to be home in bed. 

Phone playing the arse. Refused to bring up Bluetooth on the way up here and refused to connect to the net, but got it back working again. It seems to want to "update" every morning which drops it back into FastBoot but I was able to get it out of FastBoot and fully awake. For now. And thanks to Brighton Market now having open wi-fi, you get to see my display!

I'm under the roof but thankfully further away from the Living Waters dickheads than usual.

Already sold an $80 tamarind bowl, so if nothing else, that at least pays for the entry fee and a couple weeks of feeding Mo.

[Netfoot]

Home again!

Rather pleased. Went with $77 and came home with $297 plus US$55 which is equivalent to $110 in real money. So $297 + $110 = $407!! That would mean $407 total, less the original $77 means a total of $330 for the day.

If I could guarantee $330 each week, I'd be very happy indeed! Unfortunately, 330-dollar days must be considered in the light of 25-dollar days and sometimes Zero-dollar days as well.

Also, I had a lady admire the three unstained planters that go for $45, $55 & $65 and I told her I would sell them individually but if anyone bought the set of three, I would reduce the price to $140 for the set. She sounded very excited and swore that she would be back next week, but I've heard that a lot and they are rarely back again as promised.

As for the smaller planters, two with little feet to stand up on and two with the rope handles, I have had tentative offers on the handled pair and also on the pair with feet. But it remains to be seen if those sales come through or not.

Anyway, the good news is that Mo's vet visit got paid for plus a bag of chow for him to munch on. Hey! There might even be some grub for me to enjoy!

Mo has had his midday cheesey medication and will get lunch in 10 minutes and I will cook something up for myself as well. Seeing as I was up early I think a good nap after lunch might be in order.

Oh, I was placed next to a young woman who sold home made popsicles in various flavours. She asked me if I could make her a large wooden popsicle and I told her I would see if I could make one for her, but I made no promises.

Anyway, time for Mo's lunch, so I will end off now.

Edited April 15, 2023 by Netfoot