I was hoping that things would slow down with the end of summer break and Izzy back at school. It didn’t feel like it today. Susanna is quarantined until early next week, so I get to run the show for the weekend. I’m trying to finish off a not so major, but really needs to be done, house project; I’m replacing the roof over the sun porch. I’m also watching Izzy and trying to keep the house somewhat clean. I recognize that it is too easy to get wrapped up in doing chores and projects and forget to enjoy life. I don’t think I did a good job balancing chores with fun over the past year, and I’m trying to do better.

This morning I focused on chores . I changed the oil in my car, did a bit of cleaning around the house, assisted Izzy in cleaning her room, and ran to Home Depot to get more roofing supplies. But the afternoon was set aside for some family fun. Of course with Susanna being sick, and Will out for the day, family fun was just for Izzy, Hoagie and me.

I loaded up Will’s tandem paddle board and life jackets and we headed to Amos Lake here in Preston. We inflated the board and pointed the bow out into the lake and I paddled. It was only my second time on a paddle board, but the tandem is so wide, that stability wasn’t a problem, even with Hoagie wandering around. The board is just very slow, but we didn’t really have a destination. Isabella eventually found the courage to jump in the lake, but Hoagie never really relaxed.

The weather was nice; sunny and nearly 70 and the lake was pretty warm. We got home by early afternoon. Izzy was able to head across the street to play, and I was able to get an hour working on the roof.

Tomorrow, Will is taking Izzy to The Connecticut Renaissance Faire and I’ll try to get some more time to work on the roof.

It was way too hot and humid to climb on the porch roof and work on the house tonight, so I decided to finish another very quick workshop project and use up some of the cherry I pulled out for the chisel rack. I built a shelf for my No 2. smooth plane. The nice thing is that I used the No. 2 plane to smooth the lumber after milling.

The shelf is made from cherry with a piece of what I think is likely teak for the front edge. The teak is reclaimed from an old boat project that Ben and I started years ago and never finished (and eventually cut up the boat and disposed of it). I reinforced the glue joints with 1/8″ brass rod. The whole project was finished with shellac and a final coat of wax.

I have some more space above the chisels, so will make a few more over the next few days. I’ll laser engrave a label on the front of the shelf for the next one; I didn’t think of it until I had already glued on the edge trim on this project.

Tonight I finished a quick workshop project, my upgraded chisel rack. I had previously milled the cherry rack and back board, and cut the slots for the chisels in the rack. Tonight, I finished the groove and attached the rack to the back board. After the glue dried, I finished the project with two quick coats of spray shellac and let it dry for an hour or so. I removed the old rack and installed the new one. The English mortise chisel (pig sticker) doesn’t fit properly in the rack, but it works for now (2nd from right on the picture below).

I have the other half of the cherry board still; I just have to figure out what I want to build with it. Maybe a second chisel rack to allow me to grow my collection of chisels. It is a bit of a sad collection of chisels at this point and not a very coordinated set. But it matches my ADHD (I have Japanese and western style chisels, just in case I get bored with one style). I just need more.

Today finished up the first of for weekends with Susanna and Isabella away in Sweden. But, with Ben over for the week, it isn’t as quiet as I suspect the next few will be.

We started our day with a visit to a new donut shop, Dixie Donuts. My friend, Mark, recommended it; it is much better than the usual Dunkin. To be fair, this morning wasn’t the first visit. Will and I stopped by there yesterday morning while we were out running errands before Ben came over.

After our second breakfast, we headed to Stonington for a short hike at Hewitt Farm and the surrounding trails. It was a good chance to get Hoagie out for a walk and practice some off-leash training.

After lunch, Ben and I worked a bit on my summer house project, repairing the sun porch roof. I’m working on repairing the soffit and fascia on the main roof in the area directly above the sun porch. That lets me get all the work and wear and tear on the old roof before replacing it. The roof has been leaking for a while; I think the roof pitch is too shallow for the shingles. Today we scraped and washed a section of the upper exterior wall and main roof trim. It is an area that isn’t very visible, and we didn’t paint it when we repainted the house many years ago. Tomorrow I’ll prime the area we prepared and I’ll paint it later this week and move over to the next section of wall/trim to repair. I took the gutter off the upper roof, so I’ll have to figure out how to install one if one is needed for that section.

This evening I milled the back board for the chisel rack that I started on Friday night. Again, I flattened the board by hand, but milled it to thickness on the planer. I jointed the first edge by hand, but didn’t have a good way to mark that wide of a width, so ripped it to width on the table saw. I marked out and started chiseling out the grove that will hold the rack (seen in the background). I’ll try to finish the piece tomorrow night after dinner. Ben and I are watching Westworld in the evenings this week, so I won’t get too much time in the shop.

This morning, Will, Izzy and I drove to the Connecticut College Arboretum for a short photo walk. It was warm and humid early which elicited complaints about the walk early on from Izzy. However, for the most part, she was good company and a somewhat willing model for pictures. Will focused on the wildlife, and I tried to get Izzy to at least not look too grumpy for pictures. She did take some pictures of me, but I had a manual focus lens on, so they didn’t turn out great.