It’s been a rainy day like any other we’ve had recently. A storm came through in the early evening and left Brooklyn a little cooler but a little more humid. The sun is setting now.

I’ve never seen anything like that. Here’s hoping a meteorologist specializing in cloud formation stops by.

Update: A friend writes that these are called “Mammatus clouds”. From Wikipedia:

…the mammatus cloud is generally poorly understood. Detailed observations of the cloud have been meager and usually occur only by chance, since mammatus do not pose a meteorological threat to society. However, scientists’ lack of understanding of the phenomenon exhibits that there are microphysical cloud processes that remain to be researched.

Share on Facebook

I am currently reading a volume of two transcendentalist essays: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature and Henry David Thoreau’s Walking. I began reading Walking on the subway this morning and was much relieved to read this opening excerpt after Emerson’s, in my opinion, drier style:

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks — who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived “from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre,” to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, “There goes a Sainte-Terrer,” a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.

It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearthside from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return, prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again — if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man — then you are ready for a walk.

Many travel writers have explored the idea of wandering and, further, the importance of movement to living, even life. Bruce Chatwin comes to mind and, of course, Jack Kerouac too. John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley is another good exploration of what it means to wander. But they treat the philosophical underpinnings of the simple act of walking - or sauntering - through stories, fact and fiction.

In Walking, Thoreau is writing a thoughtful essay with only minor personal reference on what he considers to be a spiritual topic: going for a walk in the woods. Compared to what else is on my bookshelf, this is a unique perspective. It is also Thoreau’s unique perspective that one without a home is in fact at home everywhere. Prove me wrong; this is a favorite topic of mine and I’d love to know Thoreau is not alone.

Now for you etymology lovers, Thoreau’s musing on the origin of saunter is more than you’ll find anywhere else. Others suggest that it comes from the French s’aventurer or s’auntrer (to adventure with oneself) or have no idea at all.

Whatever the root meaning of the word, go forth and saunter!

REFERENCE

Walking (Google Books)

Share on Facebook

The objective of my Introduction To Woodshop class is to build two things: a mallet, with which I will use to build all my future furniture, and a simple end table.

The mallet was a lot of fun to make. Making this mallet, I learned all about the power tools and hand tools around the woodshop. It is three pieces of wood: the two halves of the head and the handle. The halves of the head are grooved (with a table saw no less!) to fit the handle. The whole lot is glued together and a sliver of wood is pounded into the top for further tightness.

Here is my mallet, just glued together, waiting to dry. You can see the sliver of wood in the center. I will then spend some time going over it heavily with sandpaper.

The table we are building is two pieces: the table top and the leg structure. The table top is four pieces of wood glued side by side. The leg structure is four 24″ legs glued together into a base on which the table top will rest. Simple. And I learned pretty quickly that this was going to be a flimsy table. As you’ll see in a later post, I joined the legs together with an under-structure (there’s probably a word for that) to make it sturdier.

We doweled the joints to make them stronger. You drill a hole through the two pieces of wood you are joining, pour some glue into the hole and pound a dowel in. Here is a dowel just hammered into place with my mallet. I will then saw off the dowel and sand it down so it’s nice and smooth.

Joinery is the next thing I want to learn. Knowing my joints aren’t weak will make me feel more confident making furniture.

I have not had any significant problems with the construction of either (I am pleased to say) though there are some things I need to improve on.

In particular, I am an impatient sander. I need to slow down and do several more rounds with the power sander. That’s something I will have to work on because I won’t be much of a furniture maker with hasty sanding jobs. But that’s what I hoped to gain from this class: lessons in patience.

Share on Facebook

A couple weeks ago, I went up to the Poconos with my brother and his girlfriend. Except for a few scattered showers on Saturday, the weather was perfect. The Pocono mountains are littered with glacial lakes and smaller ponds like this one we visited…

This little pond wasn’t anything to speak of. A man-made beach ran up one side from the road. It was splendidly quiet up there but for the hissing trees, crying birds and my big mouth. Near where we parked, shallow waters dribbled over stones before draining down a hillside. I checked it out.

The timing was perfect.

I noticed black clusters in the water and, looking down at my feet, recognized the wiggling as tadpoles!. Lots of tadpoles. Smaller groups surrounded small leaves and water plants. Several had gotten too close to the edge and died. These clusters of tadpoles filled an area of about 50 square feet.

Frogs (and I assume these are from frogs) spend a month to two-months as tadpoles before becoming adults. For most of that time, the tadpoles have developed legs. That means these legless tadpoles hatched from their eggs in the last week, maybe two. In a couple months, the gribbiting in the Poconos is going to be loud! When I go back in August, I’ll be sure to check out the lake.

The water snake pacing through the grass eluded my camera.

Share on Facebook