Ocean & Beach Mobile

This spring our pregnant daughter asked me to carve a wood mobile for her new little one because commercial ones were primarily made of plastic and fabric. At the time I was learning how to carve birds out of wood and welcomed the challenge. My target for completing the figures was our older daughter's May birthday because she is a wonderful realistic life painter and I'm not. So we shipped 15 figures in early May to give her a few months to paint and ship them to California when the baby arrives.

An Eagle and Owl with Wire Legs and Talons

The Set of Wood Figures Sent for Painting

Closeup of Isa, a Cattle Dog, Our Daughter's Long Time Companion

My first choice was to dangle the figures under a large octopus but both my wife and our new grandson's mom thought this too scary. So we settled on using a tree branch that worked out quite well.

The Octopus I Was Going to Hang the Figures From

Penguin and Clown Fish, Painted

The Owl

A Snow Goose

An Orca

A Bald Eagle

A Seal and Isa

Turtle, Seahorse and Starfish

A Beagle: Added for Wordplay with toddlers (mistaking it for a seagull or eagle)

 The above photos show straightened fishhooks used to hold the figures while painting. A few of the birds kept these so they maintained their orientation. The rest of the fishhooks were removed and replaced with swivels that are easy to attach to fishing tackle snaps with an additional swivel so the figures can be oriented in specific directions. The figures are robust and can be readily handled and their positions switched, then pointed in an appropriate direction.

Outdoor View of Completed Mobile

Mobile Over Crib

Posing

Added Shark and Two Salmon Showing That Figures Are Mounted on Barrel Swivel with Snap so They Can Be Removed for Play and Reoriented Appropriately

Garlic Harvest: 2017

When green garlic leaves fade to brown, it's time to harvest them. It's important to get them out of the ground before tops get too weak to help pull the roots out. Also, as the leaves fade, organisms start eating away the membranes that cover the cloves, exposing these gems to soil. Although dirt readily washes off, bulbs are much fancier wrapped in colorful membrane layers. Also, it's only possible to braid garlic together if the leaves are strongly attached.

Garlic Bed with Parsley Growing Between Rows

Another View Showing Green Garlic Leaves Turning Brown

This year it took six hours to collect about 200 pounds of garlic and stack them exposed to air to cure them. The bulbs must be oriented separately from the leaves so they dry quickly without starting to make "compost". Our new wagon seems to be an ideal tool for curing because the mesh bed allows air to circulate.

Wagon Full of Garlic, Stacked So Bulbs Are Exposed to Air

Knowing that garlic is harvested before the end of July, in early June I broadcast parsley seeds all over the garlic patch. It's now growing very well and by September will be ready for freezing packets of parsley pesto. Last fall the garlic was planted through inches of leaves and other mulch. This spring, some garlic sprouts needed help getting through the larger leaves. Today the mulch has disappeared, processed away primarily by worms, but there was enough left in June to successfully germinate parsley seeds.

Parsley Now Without Competition from Garlic

This year has been cool and wet so garlic scapes didn't appear until later in June. We picked them as soon as they appeared so that the plants' energy goes into the cloves.

Fifteen Pounds of Scapes from the Above Garlic Bed

Summer Starting Well

One spring planting goal is to get major crops in the ground by the first day of summer. We have three staggered plantings of sweet corn, more than 100 each of tomatoes and peppers, Swiss chard, onions, basil, cucumbers, beans, winter and summer squash, kale sugar snap peas, cabbage, broccoli, eggplant, okra and salad items. So far only one tragedy: over 100 basil plants were eaten by some critter the day after they were transplanted! Luckily we have two additional beds with better fences that are growing well. Deer browse our tomatoes and peas, but we have more than enough for sharing.

Asparagus Sprouting

Asparagus are our first vegetable harvest in spring and lasts through early June. Our next harvest is rhubarb that we make into pies. At this time our Guinea fowl also start to lay eggs so we have lots to for custard to incorporate the rhubarb chunks. 

Rhubarb Pie

One trick I use to prompt judicious planting is to soak seeds for 24 hours and then moisten them a few times a day until they sprout. This gives them leg up since they don't have to absorb moisture from the soil. It also insures that only viable seeds get planted. And planted in the order they sprout! Keeping the array of cups with a moistened seeds by the coffee machine, prompts me to check them at least three times a day when I brew cups. Most of our favorite Zucchino Rampicante seeds we saved from last summer's crop didn't sprout. Luckily we still had a few mature fruit in the cellar so we processed the largest one and its seeds grew! We also had to make lots of pies and squash meals.

Cups of Seeds Waiting to Sprout

The Seed Cavity of the Above Squash

One Zucchini Pie

Another sign of spring: when it gets hot, our dog melts and hides deep in the garage, lying on the cool concrete floor. We then know it's time to shave her. Though she reluctantly puts up with the noise of the clipper, she's overjoyed when it's over and she zips around, rolling over and over in the cool grass. She now follows me around but takes advantage of shade when I work in sunny gardens.

Belle, Half-shaved

Our Dog, Belle, Happily Sporting Her "Lion" Cut

Some of Belle's Hair to be Made into Yarn One Day

Shiitake mushrooms are another sign of spring: after a heavy rain, they bolt out of the oak logs we inoculated the year before.

Shiitake Mushrooms Growing out of Oak Logs

Many Pounds of Harvested Shiitake Mushrooms

A few weeks later, oyster mushrooms begin sprouting out of their ash-leaved maple logs.

Oyster Mushrooms 1

Oyster Mushrooms 2

As soon as summer begins, garlic scapes pop out the top of each plant. We incorporate them into many meals, chop them for freezing but donate most to a homeless shelter. We have so many garlic bulbs on the way that store well without taking room in the freezer so we don't need to preserve many scapes.

Broccoli and Garlic Scapes for Dinner!

Broccoli and Scape Curry With Rice

First Garlic Scape Harvest: 15 Pounds, 10 to a Homeless Shelter

Carving Wood Mobiles

Our middle daughter asked me to make a mobile for her son, our first grandchild, who will arrive early this summer. At the same time, the Northeastern Woodworkers Association announced a "2x4 Challenge", a competition to make something using primarily a common lumber stud. I had just joined the woodcarving special interest group who primarily worked on birds. Why not, for practice, make a flock of flying geese? 

Nine Completed Geese Ready for Painting

Painting Complete

 Suspending Geese So They Face the Same Direction and Stay Level Required Fancy Thread Work

The stand that mounts on a table and holds the "Vee" required more time to make than carving the birds. During a two hour video I could finish two of them. The curved stand required ripping half a stud into strips and then sanding them thinner and thinner until they bent over an aluminum form without breaking. The upper part has nine layers, increasing to double as many at the base.

A Different Perspective

 One advantage of working with accomplished woodcarvers is their knowledge of tools and where to get them. Or how to make your own tools. Very good carving blades are available from Warren Cutlery Corporation (www.warrencutlery.com). I used a variety of 6 shapes (6SBL for $7.25) and three copies of straight blade (22B for $3.79) that I curved for making grooves. These blades come very sharp and are very hard so they hold their edge very well. To bend them they must be red hot and then quenched in oil while hot to make them hard again. 

A Set of Carving Knives With Ebony and Rosewood Handles That Took a Morning to Make

The Beginning of "Isa", the Dog Before Her Hind Legs and Tail Were Added

 Our daughter and family often visit seashores so most of the characters I chose relate to life in the sea. We had to add a beagle so that we can tease this new little one by mistakenly calling an eagle or a seagull a beagle (or vice versa). And the owl is a nod to the book: "Owl Moon", one of our favorites.

Mobile Characters Before Being Sent to Another Daughter for Painting

 Carving legs with talons are too difficult in wood, so I twisted some copper wire together and pulled out digits. These figures are pretty substantial so that they can be unhooked from the mobile and handled or played with. The type of wood and direction of grain insure that appendages don't break easily. The starfish, turtle and seahorse are plywood.

Eagle and Owl with Wire Talons

The Owl Being Held by a Four-year-old, for Scale

2017 Spring Snakes, Turtles and Birds

The past months I've been carving wood figures in our basement. One day I was surprised to find a small garter snake climbing the stairs. I relocated it to our garden that is farthest from lawn where a mower could hurt it. A few days later, a much larger (30") milk snake surprised me by passing over the foot pedal that controls the carving tool I was using. It too I released outdoors.

Cellar Dwelling Garter Snake

Milk Snake Traveling Over Tool Power Cords on Cellar Floor

Same Milk Snake Released on a Garden Path

We have an enclosed blueberry patch that has fencing all around and netting over the top. It has a few holes large enough for birds to get in and they often cannot find their way out. I then climb in, catch and release them. Our dog, Belle, thinks this is great fun and often helps me by distracting them by running around outside the fence. One day when I was not inside the enclosure, she jumped on the fence and shoved her nose underneath, catching a dove in her mouth. She was very proud when he brought it to me. I praised her and she readily let me gently take it away. After resting awhile, it exploded in a cloud of feathers and flew away.

Mourning Dove Rescued from Our Dog's Mouth

 While walking through our acres of grass, I'm always looking for turtles, snakes and amphibians so I don't step on them. The dozen or more lady painted turtles in our pond lay nests of eggs randomly around our lawn. Though I've tried fencing these nests and moving them inside garden fences, skunks usually decimate every one. This year, one nest succeeded in producing baby turtles. So far I've found and relocated three to our small hidden pond that we keep secluded so that blue herons do not eat the frogs, salamanders and baby turtles that thrive there. These small creatures do not fare well in our large pond with its thriving bass population and visiting herons.

Newly Hatched Painted Turtle (2017 #2)

Same Painted Turtle Showing Plastron (bottom shell) 

Another Newly Hatched Painted Turtle (2017 #3)

Painted Turtle #3 Showing a Different Pattern on Its Plastron 

 A pair of geese make their home on our pond every year. They use our abandoned bee hive platform in the large pond as a safe haven for their nest. This year they had seven eggs and today brought us five goslings. I hurried to see what happened to the other two eggs and found one dead gosling sprawled across the nest but no hint of another. Last year there was a single large egg that did not hatch. Although I relocate every snapping turtle I find in our pond, earlier this spring we saw a very large one pass under our canoe. Maybe it ate the seventh gosling! 

Mom and Dad Geese with Five Goslings Between Them

Goose Nest Remnants Including One Missing Gosling