Home

Wood Butter?  What?  You’ve heard of regular butter, peanut butter, almond butter, apple butter, but wood butter?  Sounds tasty, eh?  Well, you probably don’t want to eat this stuff.  Have you ever eaten dutch oven mutton?  Actually , it is one of my favorite meats but it has to be almost burned to a crisp.  It’s pretty tasty but you need one of those rubber spatulas your wife uses in the kitchen to scrap the grease off the top of your mouth.  Hey, I didn’t say it was healthy, just good!  I’m sure wood butter wouldn’t be as tasty and you would definitely have to use the spatula after eating it.

All kidding aside, wood butter is used to keep those wooden spoons and bowls in your kitchen treated so they sparkle and shine and don’t dry up and crack.  I’m sure some of you have built a cutting board and used mineral oil on it.  Well, wood butter is an even better … (read more…)

I built some 3′ x 3′ grow boxes for Mammy in my woodshop.  I used some end pieces left over from building our Trex deck on the back of our house.  I figured Trex wouldn’t rot like wood does.  Once built we filled the grow box with one-third peat moss, one-third manure, and one-third vermiculite.  Well, take a look at the carrots Mammy grew last summer.  Pretty impressive!  She juices them and adds a little spinach and makes me drink it each morning.  I think she is trying to keep me healthy or cure my baldness or something.  I have to admit, it is pretty tasty stuff although when she adds the spinach it turns an ugly dark green color.  I just close my eyes and gulp it down.  They say that fresh spinach is the best whole food there is and carrots are good for your eyes.  Come to think of it, I’ve never seen a rabbit wearing glasses.  My daughter-in-law is into … (read more…)

Well, if you’re between woodworking or honeydew projects, I’m sure you will be thrilled to hear about my treatment for prostate cancer. You need to read “Pappy’s Prostate” before reading this to get the complete story. Anyway, if you look at the picture in this post, you’ll see where this is going. I survived the biopsy. This I wasn’t too sure about.

After visiting with my urologist, he sent me over to his associate that treats prostate cancer with radiation. I had checked into most treatments before going, even Loma Linda University in California where they do radiation treatments (with minimal intrusion into your body parts). It came down to radiation treatment or having it removed. I just knew I didn’t want to have my prostate removed. It had the highest risk for being … (read more…)

I’ve been building a cupola for Mammy’s greenhouse. Why I like cupolas will come later in this blog post. You say, what is a cupola? There are many definitions but the one I am referring to relates to architecture….”In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like structure, on top of a building, often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome”.
Some things just don’t look finished or seem complete without the topping. For example, look at the pictures of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The small dome like … (read more…)

I just had my prostate biopsied last week. I was going to put a picture of a prostate with this post but didn’t like the idea of showing such a private part and thought this picture of a bottle of Saw Palmetto was a better conversation piece. After my annual checkup, my doctor recommended that I start taking Sal Palmetto along with going to see a urologist.

What’s Saw Palmetto? According to Wiki, “Saw palmetto extract is an extract of the fruit of Serenoa repens. It is rich in fatty acids and phytosterols. It has been used in traditional, eclectic, and alternative medicine for a variety of indications, most notably benign prostatic hyperplasia”. After reading that, I didn’t know any more about what it was than before I read it. In common folk language, all that I know is that it is supposed to help maintain a healthy prostate. By the way, if you think it is hard to say “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled … (read more…)

Finally, you really wanted to see a real picture of Pappy. Well, here it is! A picture of me and my grandson. Nice resemblance, eh? Isn’t bald beautiful? I’m so proud of my grandson for wanting to look like me. However, he’s a lot cuter from the front.

I actually started going bald when I was 20 something. My grandfather on my mother’s side was bald so I expected the worse. Thank heaven’s I kept some of my hair until I met my wife. Although Mammy claims she married me because I was the only boy on campus during the deer hunt (a manly big event where I came from). After 5 years of marriage, my hair was mostly gone. We moved to rural Wyoming for my job and I went to the only barber in town. I know his genealogy went back to Chief Geronomo because he did a nice scalp job on me. After that I insisted that Mammy cut my … (read more…)

Here is my son, M, the fireman along with his mug shot when he was young and as an adult father. Well, he’s not really a fireman or ever wanted to be. However, you can see by the picture, he still likes playing with fire in his adult years. He’s currently working on his doctorate at a western university. He works in a lab at the university and tests hypothesis. He seems to like it and I’m just sure he was born with this ability.

You see, when he was the boy in the picture, he learned about calling 911 at school. One Sunday afternoon after church, he decided he would test this hypothesis to see if it worked. After the family had finished a relaxing dinner, I told Mammy that I was going down the street and around the block to talk with a church associate. When I got there, he was outside admiring his new truck. The next thing I know a fire engine comes up the street with its loud siren and … (read more…)

Having a woodshop elevates your position as a grandpa with your grand kids, especially the boy grand kids. Just think what my grandson (we’ll call him C) thinks about me after making him this puppet theater. He thinks I am a neat old man!……and wow, all those tools! (the male grand kids have that man-thing about tools, also). They like to putter in my woodshop which excites me because I know they will eventually grow up to be big putterers and maybe inherit my tools. The girl grand kids pop their head into my shop and then disappear. They hate the sawdust, a trait that will remain with them for the rest of their life as noted in my original blog posting. By the way, the colors on the puppet theater are C’s choice. His mother … (read more…)

I’m a conesouir of glue. I know there must be some recipes somewhere made from glue (after all, flour is just a form of glue). Two of my bad habits are Diet Coke and picking glue off my hands. Caution: There is some glue you just can’t pick off your hands and it could be dangerous to try. For instance, don’t try mixing up a batch of epoxy glue and spreading it all over your hands, letting it dry and then try picking it off. The kind of glue I’m talking about is good old Elmer’s glue. I blame my 4th grade teacher for getting me hooked on this stuff and also my friend in the 4th grade (he broke the habit and is now a successful disc jockey in Denver). My teacher simply supplied us with the glue…you know, kind of like drug dealers supplying their customers with dope with no sense of responsibility. However, she had no idea we were spreading it on our hands and fingers when she wasn’t looking, … (read more…)

Puttering in my woodshop, I’ve learned a few things about life. First, most men love tools. As Thomas Carlye once said, “Man is a tool-loving animal. Nowhere do you find him without tools; without tools he is nothing; with tools he is all.” I’ve come to believe he is right. Woodworking tools, mechanics tools, golf clubs, fishin’ pole, yer truck; they all count as tools. We are lost without them. If you have a good array of tools, you are sure to make it to heaven. Charles Kingsley said, “Have thy tools ready; God will find thee work.” You see, it all makes sense. Men have no confidence without tools!

Second, women hate sawdust in their kitchen or anywhere else in the house for that matter. I think that comes from their ability to shop. You see, they buy nice things for the house and nice clothes and don’t … (read more…)