coffee's ready
Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI
>I have once again found out why I have not yet moved to a warmer climate, and probably never will. My wife has flat out told me she would move to Berea, Kentucky, but I have to wonder what our phone bills would cost living that far away from her mother, plus the trips up here. At any rate, today is a typical Michigan winter saturday. The ground of course is frozen and covered over with snow, so there are no outdoor chores to do. It is in fact too cold to go fishing, plus the ice on most lakes is not thick enough for me to go out on. I'm funny like that; I have no desire to break through ice in search of some little bluegills that are about the size of one bite, perhaps bigger. So the only good thing left to do is make something in the shop. I'm working on a drawer cabinet, with paneled sides, and was planing the side panels this morning. I spent a little extra time making sure my Hock iron was just so, and smoothed those panels. Planing of course is not about anything except the shavings. You can make all sorts of arguments about why to plane rather than sanding, but the only reason I plane wood is to see those wide cherry shavings come peeling out of the mouth of the plane. I was actually going to uncurl one and put it on my bench and photograph it to post here, but when I went to pick it up it just kind of disintegrated and dissapeared into thin air. So unfortunately, my shavings are so thin that I cannot get photographs to prove it to all the guys. Time to fill my cup again and head out to the shop.