For One Brief and Wonderful Day…

Thursday was beautiful. Temperatures in the mid-60s. Sunshine. Very light winds. It was great. And I got to spend three hours working on Gardens! Yes, working - not just puttering around tidying up - on Gardens.

The deck was prepped (sanded, wiped down) for another coat of epoxy.

The mast block/coaming anchor was cut to size and fitted but not installed (not quite ready for that).

Photo

Photo shows the block in an early stage of development.

The template for the coaming was finalized. It may need a bit more tweaking but it is close enough to the proper size that I can lay it out on the plywood to determine if I need another piece of 9mm ply.

Photo

Again, the photo is from early work on the coaming and doesn't show the transition to the foredeck. (Didn’t have my phone with me Thursday afternoon.)

So, on Thursday I felt great. I was pleased that I could work on Gardens without any ill effects to my shoulder. I was pleased that, after four months, I was able to make progress on Gardens. I was looking forward to getting more done this weekend.

And then, the weekend arrived: Friday was cloudy, windier and 20 degrees cooler than Thursday. Things got worse on Saturday: A Winter Storm Warning was issued. Temperatures hovered around freezing. Winds of 25+mph made the temps feel colder. Rain, sleet and snow took turns making life miserable. Saturday night and Sunday produced more rain, sleet, freezing rain (the kind that coats everything with ice) and snow. For the time being it looks and feels more like mid-January than mid-April.

But for that one brief and wonderful day I was back at work on Gardens. I'm looking forward to getting more done as the weather improves.

Soon...

Nine-plus weeks out from surgery and the shoulder is improving rapidly. Not improved enough for boat-work but improving nonetheless.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading over the last nine weeks - nothing too serious, mostly just light, fluff reading for entertainment. I also enjoy watching videos on a number of topics: woodworking (Matt Cremora, Paul Sellers, Samurai Carpenter), blacksmithing (Alec Steele), and various tutorials (Sketchup).

Recently, Alec Steele has been returning to basics, focusing on Fundamentals, Hand Tools and Practice. I find this is as applicable to woodworking (or any other endeavor) as it is to Alec’s blacksmithing, so I plan to further develop my skills with hand tools - not to the exclusion of power tools, but to improve my overall skill set. I plan to incorporate hand tool work more into the completion of Gardens and other projects. My primary focus is, however, finishing Gardens.

So, the projects listed in my most recent post have not been worked on at all, but the calendar is calling… sailing season will be here soon (no, really!) with events to attend (preferably with a boat!) and races to be sailed (again, with a boat!). I need to get back to work on Gardens - and Karen Ann, my GIS. Soon, my friends, soon…