6/4/2016

I got up early at 7:00 today for a Saturday, I usually sleep in. It could get hot and I want to make potato salad, best start early. I diced up 5 pounds of red potatoes, in the big yellow pan with water to boil. Six eggs in a smaller pan to boil. I kept a close eye on the potatoes, checked often until they were just done enough, cooked but firm, a fork cuts it easy. Chilled in cold water to stop the cooking, these are perfect. I shut the eggs down when they boiled and left them to cook and cool. One to eat for breakfast. Coffee, yes, to town then, Starbucks, tall Pike with room. This isn’t as smooth as the Jamaica Blue Mountain my friend Ken brought me from his Jamaica vacation, nothing is as that is the best in the world. The people from Kona agree.

Off to the farmers market early, I want bacon end cuts for the potato salad, they have them, two bags please. Some of Dunkin’s mushrooms, I should have waited on TJ’s as the zucchini is already on. Carrots, spring peas from Preston Farms and a peach.

Back to Safeway for baguette, O celery, some burger and a chicken. The dollar store for containers for the potato salad, some olives.

Off to Sally’s, they just opened and the rush is frantic around the bins, I find a pile of cardboard dulcimers on the tables, probably from a school. The tuners are good with three per, I’ll need two to make a ukulele, with frets as well. I find a nice Turkish looking copper cup Raven will like and a few CDs.

Home to finish the potato salad, I sliced the bacon smaller, nice chunks of solid meat to fry, hold back the pure fat to render later. The green onions have been growing in the water glass, time to chop them up. Almost everything here is organic, mayo, my home made bread and butter pickles chopped up for relish, capers, olives, mustard, a dash of horse radish, celery, half a sweet onion chopped fine, garlic, dill, garden tarragon, rice vinegar, and a large dollop of Larupin’s dill sauce to push it over the top. Oh my, this is good and a lot of it, two big cylinders, and a plastic casserole dish plus a small serving.

I picked up some fresh spring peas at the FM, a stir fry is in order. Rice on. Dice green beans, string the peas, a zucchini quartered and sliced, fresh carrot, garlic, ginger diced small. A half an onion top side sliced, save the root end. Dunkin’s mushrooms sliced. Chopped an O chicken breast. Fry it up with soy sauce at the end and some corn starch water to thicken it. Finish with garden green onion top diced. Served with rice, yum.

I started working on the bass stand as Raven arrived, sanding the upright with the belt sander, moving to the lapidary. The wish bone will need the smaller drum sander hooked into the big 1/2 inch drill clamped in the bench vice. This works well. Rough finished on the lapidary. I glued up the two base planks this morning. Scraped with the plane scraper then sanded all the parts with rough 80 grit, 100 grit and 150. I trimmed the upright lower end and squared the bottom plank on the band saw. I marked the notch I’ll need to cut in the bass plank. A couple dowel stops should hold the base in place.

Raven has been working on sewing leather bags using the sewing machine. This is a challenge. She got a few out, then broke a needle. The brown thread is not strong enough, switch to the red stuff, Getting the tension right on the upright spool takes me a long frustrating time. Not today, though she got a few done. She moves over to paint some runes on the stones we collected last time, they are looking good.

A walk to the river for some mugwort and  time for home with a bag of bounties. What a fun day.