Play Green

Not sure if this qualifies us for any "off the grid" bragging rights but today during Jave's nap Anza and I installed a solar shed light in the kid's playhouse. I'm gonna wait to make the final electrical hook-up cause the directions say it's best for the battery to let it charge for a full day the first time. After it was installed I realized that putting it lower so the kids could turn it on and off would have been wise. Maybe I'll move it.

Going Up?

This evening marked the begining of Anza having a whole new level of access...

Chele left the bathroom for a moment while Anza was brushing her teeth. Anza was on the counter when Chele came back in. So Chele puts Anza back on the floor and says to show mom how she got on the counter. Without hesitation she climbed back up.

Block Head

You wouldn’t think cutting wood into blocks would be a very time consuming process. We’ve made small sets of blocks (30-50 blocks) for friends in the past and it was a quick enough task. We recently decided to make a set for ourselves. We wanted a larger set, so I bought 13 board feet of European Beech. FYI a BF is 144 cubic inches. Cutting the wood into individual blocks went quick enough but routing the corners and sanding has proven to take way longer than anticipated with 160 blocks to process. Knowing that it would probably take a few more days to get the remaining 50 or so blocks finished, I brought all the ones that were kid ready into the house. We’ve had a blast playing with them. Anza loves to knock over the structures that Chele and I make. Mojave is happy to just be close to the action.
On the guitar building front… I did a little cutting and gluing to create a ‘blank’. Also, a friend created a pattern from the creamsicle/spaceship guitar in the previous post. Seeing the outline traced onto the wood is pretty cool. The outline is kind of hard to see in the pic, but it's there.It seems like everybody around Seattle has their favorite bloom that indicates the transition from winter to spring. For some reason, I’ve had several conversations about it this year. I think the top 3 are crocus, daffodil, and which hazel. While I like all of those, I think the currant is my favorite. I never gave the currant much thought until I had them in my yard. Now I look forward to them blooming all winter. It’s just been in the last few days that our currant bushes have showed signs of waking up from their winter slumber. It doesn’t look like much yet, but I’ll post another picture in a couple weeks when they’re solid pink puffballs of blooms.

Ides of March

It’s been a pretty low-key week since we last updated. A few little things have transpired that individually don’t justify a post but I’ll lump them all together to make one post.

Anza was the sole beneficiary of our REI dividend this year. We got her a new hydration bladder (it fits perfectly into her backpack) and a sleeping bag. Outside of REI Anza found a large drain spout. I think it was a downspout from the roof. She has recently discovered that if she speaks into certain objects, sometimes there’s an echo. For some reason she tried shouting into the drain. I tried to herd her along but she wouldn’t budge. Suddenly the playground that was next on our agenda had no allure. I decided to give the drain a try. I crouched down, stuck my face in the opening (it was about a foot in diameter) and gave a shout. The sound was fantastic. I understood why Anza was hesitant to move on too quickly. Not only was the delay of the echo impressively long but also the spacious acoustical quality of the sound was really cool. Anza and I sat there for probably close to 10 minutes taking turns speaking, shouting, whooping, screaming, and making all sorts of fun noises into that drain.

Anza in her new mummy bag. I’ve decided to build a solid body electric baritone guitar. So far all it is is a 2-inch by 7-inch by 6-foot piece of ash. I’ve been doing a lot of research looking for inspiration and technical info. I came across this image of an electric bass and it spoke to me. I especially like how the shape and color scheme compliment each other. It makes me think of a cross between a spaceship and a creamcicle. I’m not gonna try to duplicate this exactly, but I am thinking to borrow a bit. Lastly, after the kids went to bed this evening I noticed these cars. I’m not sure what Anza was planning to do with them all lined up like this but I can't help but imagine that she had something in store for them when she was wisked away to bed. I often wonder what her thought processes are.

Rock On

Chele, the kids and I recently went to a friend reunion with some dudes (and their wives and kids) from my days in Ballard. It was fun for everyone. The kids got to expand their social circles and the adults got to catch up and reminisce about the glory days. Anza fell in love with a homemade kid size rocking chair that was there. When we were getting ready to leave, Anza didn’t want to abandon her newfound throne. Chele said those beloved/dreadful words to me: “you could make that.” I looked it over and decided to trace the profile and measure the width and that that would be sufficient to make a reasonable facsimile. When we got home I looked through my stash of scrap wood and found a few pieces that were just the right size so there would be minimal waste. I traced the pattern onto the wood, made a few cuts and the sides were almost ready to go. I needed to make a rabbit (fitted groove) in the sides to support the seat and back. It was one of those wonderful moments that I realize I need to buy a new tool. You see, plywood isn’t the thickness they sell it as. ½ inch plywood (the size I need to match for my rabbit) is really 31/64ths of an inch. Router bit manufacturers are savy to this piece of trivia and just happen to make appropriately sized bits. I bought the necessary bit and in a couple hours Anza and Mojave had a new rocking chair.

Sand Is Just Minerals

Met up with friends from NW Hikers (hiking web site) today for a walk around Discovery Park. There were no major injuries or mishaps, so there's not much of a story to tell, but it was such a great day I wanted to post a bit about it. For those unfamiliar… Discovery Park is one of Seattle’s larger parks and most of it is forested. There are many miles of well-maintained trails throughout the park. We did the 2.8-mile loop trail and added on a side trip to the beach for a picnic and throwing rocks into the sound.

We’ve been to this park several times but have never been down to the beach. I think the beach was the kid’s favorite part. Mojave was particularly fond of eating sand and seaweed by the handful. Anza was just as satisfied by eating jellybeans and throwing rocks with Maddie.

The pre-schoolers did most of their own walking, but there was some sporadic carrying during the last mile or so.

Suburban Folly

Had a pretty no-frills play date today. We arrived, played ate snacks (the toasted peanut butter english muffins were excellent), cleaned up and left. Well, some of us left. Rory had a dead battery due to a bad alternator. But that’s not the funny part. While waiting for the tow truck (which was a 90 minute ordeal involving several calls to AAA and the tow truck driver) Anza and 2 of her toddler friends were playing in the “dead” car. The keys were in the ignition. It was a little breezy so someone shut the car door to keep the kiddos warm. Somehow Anza found the lock button. We grown-ups heard the click of the door locks and simultaneously looked over to the car. The same thought raced through all our minds… “Did the kids just lock themselves in the car with the keys?” (or something like that) . It was right out of a bad movie or sitcom. Fortunately, with a few minutes of cajoling, we were able to direct Anza to push the unlock button. The whole kids locked in the car ordeal was relatively short, and was quite humorous in the circumstances. It’s not too hard to imagine a similar scenario with a less humorous outcome (extreme weather, panicking or injured kids locked in the car, etc.)

Bit O Tinkering

Didn't really do too much with the kids outside the usual playdates this last week. Hoping to get out for a hike sometime in the next couple weeks. I will however mention a couple recent tinkering projects.


First is the wagon. In case you’ve never priced them, wagons are expensive. The fancy brand name ones are in the neighborhood of $200. Most of the decent ones are over $100. We found a gently used Radio Flyer model 18 (it’s the basic/classic red wagon) on Craig’s List for $25, so we jumped on it. Problem was that the kids would fall out of it on any sort of incline or turn. I decided to make sides for it. I salvaged some lumber and hardware left over from previous projects. It’s not as pretty as it could be but is quite functional. We took it out for a test-drive today. I loaded up the kids and tooled around the neighborhood for about 40 minutes without anyone falling out. It’s way more of a workout puling that thing than I imagined. Mojave especially seemed to love it.



The other thing I want to mention is this sail I’m working on. It’s pretty heavy. It’s especially thick where the tack webbings are sewn on. Fortunately I’m cutting it down and am removing the thickest part because I don’t think it would even fit under the presser foot of my machine.