Two in Two Days!

Two cutting boards in two days, I'm CRAZZZZZZYYYYYYY! I have nothing better to do right now and besides the point, I've been working on this one on and off. This is another end grain cutting board. Tell people to take a look and buy something if it strikes them, (nudge, nudge). All proceeds will go towards a good cause....................... a new planer, mwuhahahahahahaha.

New Cutting Board

Here is a new cutting board........ well not new exactly. This would technically be my first cutting board but I was forced to abort it because when I glued it the pieces got so far off course that I couldn't sand the imperfections out of it. Until last weekend I didn't have access to any tools that could do the job but I got to use a planer last Sunday and that did the job nicely. Oh yeah, I have to get one for myself. It's a little weird but it's almost fun to just run a board through a planer over and over again until it's paper thin.

NFW

Not From Wisconsin will be playing on Saturday night at the Nines at 9:00PM. GO CHECK THEM OUT, you will not be disappointed.

St. Patty's Day!!!!

All of my good friends came over for St. Patty's Day for a big party/potluck. We made Irish soda bread, potato soup, greens, shepherds pie and bread pudding. As for the drinks we had Mcsorley's, Guinness, Blue Moon, Saranac and Irish Car Bombs! After we all had a fair share of the drink we decided to have a little fun in the form of arm wrestling, Indian leg wrestling, pull ups and this strange poking game which is much harder than it looks. All in all it was a great night.

New Cutting Board

A friend of mine wanted a cutting board as a gift so this is what we came up with.

Tired

It was a good weekend full of great hiking, beautiful scenery and good friends. The cabin we stayed in was amazing!!!!!!!!!!! I don't have any pictures but I do have a few videos that I might put up of the cabin. When we arrived on Friday we hiked one of the lower peaks called Hurricane which was 3694 feet. I borrowed snowshoes from a friend and ended up getting a nasty blister on both heels about 3/4ths of the way to the top which really sucked. It was all worth it in the end though. On Saturday we all decided to hike Algonquin which is the second highest of the High Peaks at 5114 feet. I had almost decided not to even go because I couldn't even walk on flat ground in my shoes very well but couldn't back out that easily. About half way up my friend Anna asked if I wanted to switch snowshoes with her to see if that would help any............Um, YUP!!! From that point on my heels never touched my shoes which was the only reason I could finish, thanks Anna! Near the top there is a branch off in the trail where you can head to Algonquin or Wright Peak which is 4580 feet. We decided that we didn't have the time to do Algonquin so headed up to Wright which was amazing. I don't know what the wind gusts were when we were there but earlier in the day they were upwards of 80mph. On the way down we ran most of the way which is fun and strange in snowshoes hahaha. The first two pictures are from Hurricane and the last two from Wright.

Bread for Pot Luck

The bread for the pot luck is done. Here you go.

SO MUCH TO DO

Friday morning is the ADK trip and there is sooooooooooooooo much left to do between now and then. Going to spend most of tonight making my portion of the pot luck which consists of bagels, two loaves of white bread and a loaf of some kind of hard crusted bread.

I think it's time to cut my hair, there is this uncomfortable Jack Nicholson from the Shining thing going on

Oh Man

Well the whole maple syrup thing is going good but I don't know what to do with it all. Each day the four taps I used this year are pumping out three Ball jars. I now have 5 and am working on 7 or 8 as I type this. Every year I start off totally excited but it doesn't take long to get tired of the waiting involved with boiling it down. Whatever..... more for everybody else.

Syrup!

Well I managed 2 jars out of the sap I had, but it didn't finish till 2:00AM......Ugh. At least it tastes great and much more should be on the way. Maybe to a home near you.

Long Wait Ahead

My Maples finally decided to open up a bit and give me enough sap to begin boiling it down. It is currently 10:00PM and the sap is about half boiled down, it should be done around 12:00 or 1:00. Let's see, on top of that I made a new bread and a couple of new cooking utensils out of Curly Maple. I decided earlier to start carving another wood chain following the one my Malamute devoured a couple of weeks ago but had to abort this one as well. Just as I was about to finish carving the links free my knife slipped through a weak point in the wood and lets just say finger wrapping was necessary hahaha. So to this date that wooden chain has proven a worthy adversary but I will try again tomorrow maybe.

Day of Cooking

Today was a lazy day full of cooking and throwing snow balls at the dogs on the pond. Leslie and Mike came over for a day of baking and getting fat. Success on both fronts, at least on my part. I had started off the day thinking I would boil down some maple sap but the taps stayed frozen most of the day so I didn't get nearly enough to even bother with. Here is what most of our day consisted of. The two loaves on the left were made by Mike and had this really thick and hard crust but an airy center that went great with a little butter. The center loaves were a french bread filled with olives from the olive bar at Wegman's and the pizza was a white garlic pizza.

Three Metric Tons

So a friend of mine wanted three metric tons of bread which equals 6600 lbs of bread. So Anna how would you like that, what kinds of bread and how much of each? To be honest..... I'm not even sure I have made over 100 lbs of bread let alone 6600 lbs of it.

Maple Syrup Time

I just got finished tapping some of my Maple trees..................home made maple syrup!!!!!!!!!! I did this last year but tapped 12 trees, and at 5 to 8 gallons a day that was way too much. I scaled it back this year to 4 taps. I am glad to report that as soon as I pulled the drill bit out of the trunk I heard the steady drip, drip, drip and took a quick sample. Yup, it's sweet. I am hoping to have the first batch done by Sunday. Time to go out and see the friends and have 2 dollar Yuenglings and beer hot dogs.

New End Grain Cutting Board

Just finished this one, I like this one most I think. The design was not planned at all, I just put different wood together and this is how it came out.

It's Alive, It's Alive!!!

So in my last post I mentioned that I was trying an experiment and I think it's going to work. I am hoping to have it finished tonight but I might be pushing the glue a bit. On a side note I have two dogs that are sleeping on either side of the house right now, one looks dead and the other has a crusty face and looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger does now. Yeah you know what I mean.... old and fit but with that wrinkly over skin.

Something Crrrazzzzzyyyyyy!

Yeah yeah I know the title is a little dumb but right now I don't care. I decided to start another end grain cutting board, this one will be much different though. I will call this an experiment due to the fact that I have no idea how it's going to turn out.

First One Got it Done...... Buh Dum Bum Ch!

Finally finished the first end grain cutting board and as usual along the way found the hangups that could be avoided in the next one to make it faster next time.