Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Monday evening, in the studio. The way the weather has been lately I don’t think it will be long before it will be “Dan here, by the fire”. The snow, the little that we had, is disappearing fast. We are beginning to get an idea where the water’s edge is, although I’m sure that the water will rise with the coming Spring rains. All I can think of is a song from long ago with the line, “how high’s the water Papa? Six feet high and rising.” Hopefully it won’t be that bad, the lack of snow this winter has eased my mind considerably. Carol and I walked up on the ridge and there was no snow with little to be seen anywhere.

It is interesting to watch the ice and the pond as it transitions from winter to spring. With the rain over the weekend, Sunday morning the entire pond had water standing on it. A hole had developed 15’ or so from shore in front of us. When I first saw it I went out and probed with a stick and the hole went completely into the pond. 

As we watched on Sunday the wind moved the water on the surface and emptied it into the hole in front of the house. This enlarged the hole and much of the small debris was left behind causing the brown area.

With the snow disappearing so fast I suppose I will need to get out and clean up some of the debris the wind has created before too long. This will create many days of fires to get rid of it all. I remember thinking last year it was bad, but it was nothing compared to this year. It will not be a matter of whether I can clean it up to my satisfaction, but at what point can I live with it. There is also more big wood around along the road sides etc. 

I have an idea that quite a bit will depend on the population of ticks. I am pretty sure I have more wood than I can burn this season already. You also need to know that almost none of this wood I’m talking about cleaning up is “mine”. It is all on different neighbor’s property. They don’t care if I clean it up, but they probably wouldn’t clean it up themselves. Mostly because of time constraints and probably they don’t see it as the eyesore and fire hazard I do. I’m sure if I had much else to do I would feel the same way. I’m sure that once the ice is gone I will again be blessed with the constant job of beach clean up. Maybe I’ll just stay in the studio, no ticks up here.

I’m still pounding away on #8 for 2024. Those diamond like squares are very time consuming. Of course, the pattern I choose to use them in requires 240 of them to meet the required amount. 120 with light sides and 120 with dark sides. Here are two blocks with a sample sashing between them. 

The sashing will vary as I use the enhanced V-blocks and the different slants of the Split Rects to try to find an interesting way to fill this 1-1/2” finished void. The block centers and the sashing all are coming from the “waste” I obtained as I cut the V-block centers from scrap oversized squares, and the trimming of the 3” Diamond blocks as I created them. As usual Carol thinks I’m crazy, she’s just glad when they take longer to get done.

Enjoy your week, the weather here will be hit or miss with two or three storms in the forecast. Hopefully it will be all rain. The ground is too soft to handle removing snow now but at least it shouldn’t last long. So as long as we can get in and out we’ll survive. The dirt road out of here is getting quite bad as pot holes get larger and the ground softens as the frost melts. The Town does a lousy job keeping the road passable. There were days last year the mail person would not come down the road. We’ll see how bad it gets this year.

Until next time, stay safe. Who knows, maybe something will happen for next time. Time will tell.