The Table Saw in our Parlor

You know I have a new table saw, right? Deb and I picked it out at Sears and she gave it to me for Christmas (I’ll tell you about the sweetest gift in another post). Well, I had to put the danged thing together, and it was too cold and too lonely to do it down in our basement, so I put it together last week in our parlor…my table saw and its stand is now fully assembled and itching to rip some wood.

We were gonna move the thing out of the parlor, through the yard, and into the basement through the wide outside door…but then it snowed, and the outside entrance to the basement became blocked with snow. And the saw is too big to get down the inside stairs to our basement without disassembling it. And that ain’t happening, Reader.

So, it waited in our parlor for the snow to melt. Which it did. And then, yesterday, I fell and busted my wrist and now I’m in a splint, so I can’t carry my share of the saw with Deb outside and through the yard to the basement. And then it snowed again last night, and the basement entrance is once again blocked with snow. And we have this freaking big table saw stuck in our parlor.

Deb said deciding to put this thing together in the house is like building a ship in a bottle. We may never get it out.

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Cast-Iron Skillets

Deb was out of town for a couple of days, so Suzanne and I headed over to the Green Dog for dinner on Tuesday night. I can’t remember how it came up, but it turns out that Suzanne doesn’t own a single cast-iron skillet. And Suzanne’s a very good cook, which is one reason I can’t quite wrap my mind around this absence in her kitchen.

I don’t know why, but that’s what I’m thinking about this morning. Frankly, I probably spend way too much time thinking about cast-iron skillets. There are four different ones within my reach right now. I can’t imagine a kitchen without them. I think they’re beautiful…the blacker, the better, of course. My mother’s cast-iron skillets are so black and so shiny that I think of them as works of art. And they are. My mother is the best cook I know. As I recall, my mother leaves one of her skillets on her stove at all times. I would, too, but then Deb would put it away somewhere and I’d never find it again. Ours hang on the pot rack over our stove so I can get to them easily. When it comes to skillets, I never use anything else.

Both of my grandmothers used cast-iron skillets. They fried a lot of food, and when it comes to frying you cannot beat these things. And, after they’re good and seasoned, they’re a cinch to clean…just wipe with a cloth. Sometimes you have to scrape a little bit, but not often. Never ever ever use soap…and never ever ever let it rust…soap or rust ruins all that wonderful seasoning that comes with use. So, when you wash it, dry it immediately. You know this, right?

I guess I think of these skillets as I think of my tools. I love how dark the wood and how dark the iron and how wonderful they look with use.

P.S. Lodge makes a very good cast-iron skillet (but not the enamel kind…get the raw, black, naked kind). The brand really doesn’t matter, though…buy whatever one you find so long as you like the looks of it. You can usually buy one in a good hardware store, too…I mean an independently owned hardware store…not Home Depot.  The 10-inch size is a good place to start. My mother uses a glass lid, too, but I don’t. And I buy mine unseasoned…I want to take full credit for how lovely mine eventually looks, and you can’t do that if Lodge seasons it for you.

Cast-iron skillet

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What Kind of Respectable Gay Woman Doesn’t Own Either a Pick Up or a Hitch? Not My Kind.

This is my car. This is my car with it’s pretty new hitch. This is my scooter-hauling thingy attached to my new hitch. What you can’t see is my rusted-out muffler—which started dragging on the ground on my drive home from the hitch place. (Oh, I have a shiny chrome ball, too.) Yep. I can now haul all kinds of shit.

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You Just Have to Hold Your Hand a Little Differently

Yes, I know you’re dying to hear how the barbeque grill turned out. It’s beautiful! Okay, there is the little matter of the one handle that is slightly off kilter…but other than that, it’s wonderful. There’s probably some trick to drilling holes in a round thing so that it attaches straight to something level, but I don’t know what it is. I probably need a vice and a non-handheld drilling device…something to eliminate human error. But I don’t have those things just yet (Deb, we have GOT to get that vice from your dad’s workbench), so we’re just going to have to live with this slightly tilted barbeque handle. What the hell. Deb says we’re not all that straight and perfect around here so why should our grill look as if we are. But it now feels firm and solid—just like we are—and I think that’s the most important part. It feels good. And the linseed oil rubbed in nicely, and I think it all looks excellent. I would post a picture, but then all you’d look at is the handle, so forget it. If you want to see it that badly, come over for dinner. Which will probably include corn. 

P.S. I accidently drilled a hole right through the deck.

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Rub a Little Linseed Oil on It

Facebook just got too crowded and loud. I’m taking a little break from all those voices and all those faces and all those one-liners. I keep telling Deb (who has so far adamantly avoided it) that Facebook is like being at a party at which you sort of drift from group to group and briefly join in on conversations. But Deb’s not a big fan of parties— she usually finds one or two people she likes and sits down with them and doesn’t move much the whole night. I get antsy and drift around a bit. Or I find my way outside alone for a while. The noise gets to me. And the noise on FB is getting to me these past couple of days. So, don’t look for me there for a little bit. I’m catching some air. 

On another note: We’ve had the same cast-iron New Braunfels barbeque grill/smoker for about 15 years, and the few pieces of wood on it—the nice round handles and the platform you put your tools and platters on—finally rotted off. The last handle disintegrated in my hands this week.  So, I bought some nice new oak pieces, cut them to size, and prepared to fix up the grill and make it like new again. Shit. Those huge bolts were so rusted and so fired onto the screws that it took every hammer and hacksaw and sledge hammer in the neighborhood to loosen them.

My next-door neighbor watched me wrestle with it alone for a while, then he arrived with his hacksaw to help demolish the old hardware. For a little while, we had two hacksaws going at once. This morning I’m off to the hardware store for more screws and bolts and washers and spacers. Nice shiny ones. Then I’m going to rub linseed oil in all the wood to give it that deep rich glow. Don’t worry…it’s going to be beautiful.

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Who Wants My Old Drill?

Because Deb’s playing in a Big Golf Tournament,  I met Mary for pizza last night and then went to meet Sam, the new puppy. Murphy went with me. It was a gorgeous but very cool night, and it felt really really good to be at Mary’s house. Lots of land, mature trees (I’ve got to find a Shagbark Hickory and plant one right here), two college-aged children who chose to hang out with us, two pigs, a bunch of chickens, dogs, and cats. Murphy was all citified and a bundle of nerves around the pigs, though.

(I remember, Mary, when you first mowed on that tractor. You wore that straw hat. I think I have pictures.)

I liked poking around in the garages, too. I find it interesting that my friends with multiple  garages and storage sheds seldom park their cars in them….cars all line up outside—tractors and motorcycles and skis and bicycles and leftover bricks from the new patio inside.

Well, I’ve been feeling the need to build some shelves and install some pegboard in our garage so I don’t always have to run to the basement for tools. But first I need to buy a better drill. Mine sucks. It’s like a sissy electric screwdriver. I want a drill that will put a hole in a dense piece of wood as if it were butter. And I’m willing to pay for it.

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We Like the Quiet One

Because I deleted today’s first post, I thought I should write something else.

One of our lawnmowers died last week…the old red Toro we’d had for about 15 years. We took it to the lawnmower graveyard. Then we decided to buy a reel mower to take its place…you know, the kind without a motor. Deb was very excited about it, so I brought it home last night and put it together and when I left for work this morning, Deb was outside in her pajamas and her house slippers quietly and happily mowing around our house.

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Magic Was Performed

The 2008 wreath making is complete. Mary’s wreath is gorgeous, and she did it all herself…it’s wide and wild and full of color…it looks as if it’s reaching for something; it looks like the North Wind on its mad way.

Yes, I refer to Mary of the-now-renamed Row Your Boat, Maryly blog.

I had absolutely nothing to do with the wreath now hanging on my front door. Debbie started it, and I thought we would just have to settle for a routinely beautiful one because Don took his sweet time arriving; but he did arrive, and magic was performed, and below is the first picture of our Christmas flair.

(For some reason this picture makes our door frame look bowed; it’s as straight as anyone’s, though the house is 100-years old, so there are some sagging parts. Like our 100-year-old floors. But the bowed door is a distortion.)

The last order of business yesterday, after having some pizza at Dewey’s with Mary, was to clean and oil my Felco trimmers and to oil the leather holster in which I carry them. The clippers got full of pine sap from all those greens, and I keep my tools cleaned and oiled and sharpened. I like old tools. We still use Debbie’s grandfather’s axes and awls. I did have to replace the handles on them when we rescued them from the barn, but I rub motor oil into all our tools’ wooden handles, and that keeps them from splintering. Before I bed the garden tools for the winter, I clean them, rub motor oil into the wooden handles and into the metal parts to keep them from splintering and rusting, and then I sharpen the edges using the bench grinder. I love the sparks that fly from that thing, and I love the shiny sharp edges begging for dirt in the spring.

Do you think I’m already eager for spring? Yes, Reader, but let’s not rush the days…right now, there’s a big beautiful wreath on my door making me happy it’s Christmas.

The 2008 Wreath

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