That Was The Weekend That Was
We're starting to think this may be the final summer for our dog. He's showing signs of advanced old age. He's not in pain, but moves slowly and for the past few weeks won't eat anything but fast food hamburgers and baby food.
Saturday morning we gave him a bath and then took him with us to Hak's BBQ. This is always a major blowout that fills the house to overflowing with fascinating people I could talk to for hours on end. We were hoping the children would make a fuss over the dog and get him to eat more. They managed to feed him one hot dog, which is more than we could do. It turned, as it always does, into a late night bull session and we finally left in the wee hours of the morning to crash at my mother's house nearby.
Sunday morning dawned bright and early and hot and humid. I left Karen with my wife and drove a short distance to attend a meeting of the WNY Designers Blacksmiths. This month's project was creating a pot trammel. It looks simple, but it's tricky. The proportions have to be right or it doesn't adjust smoothly. And since this is a blacksmithing lesson, all of the holes are punched, not drilled which makes it harder. We held the meeting outside because it was a sauna indoors even without the forges going. Problems with an outdoor forge include controlling your fire since every breeze can stir it up and properly judging your heat in direct sunlight. The latter was solved with old coffee cans lined up on their sides in a row on top of crates. You took an item off the heat and stuck it in a coffee can to see the heat in the shade. The heat made people lethargic and very few people actually finished one. I didn't.
After blacksmithing, dinner at my mothers and then we drove home. We discovered that raccoons had forced open the kitty door and trashed the kitchen. We're not happy.
Saturday morning we gave him a bath and then took him with us to Hak's BBQ. This is always a major blowout that fills the house to overflowing with fascinating people I could talk to for hours on end. We were hoping the children would make a fuss over the dog and get him to eat more. They managed to feed him one hot dog, which is more than we could do. It turned, as it always does, into a late night bull session and we finally left in the wee hours of the morning to crash at my mother's house nearby.
Sunday morning dawned bright and early and hot and humid. I left Karen with my wife and drove a short distance to attend a meeting of the WNY Designers Blacksmiths. This month's project was creating a pot trammel. It looks simple, but it's tricky. The proportions have to be right or it doesn't adjust smoothly. And since this is a blacksmithing lesson, all of the holes are punched, not drilled which makes it harder. We held the meeting outside because it was a sauna indoors even without the forges going. Problems with an outdoor forge include controlling your fire since every breeze can stir it up and properly judging your heat in direct sunlight. The latter was solved with old coffee cans lined up on their sides in a row on top of crates. You took an item off the heat and stuck it in a coffee can to see the heat in the shade. The heat made people lethargic and very few people actually finished one. I didn't.
After blacksmithing, dinner at my mothers and then we drove home. We discovered that raccoons had forced open the kitty door and trashed the kitchen. We're not happy.