6.February.2010

I had a decent and productive day on Saturday regardless of a growing hang over and the lack of sleep the night before. The morning had started out with heavy rains and heavy skies. I decided to spend the day with my family in Concord. Besides, I wanted to pick up the bag I'd just ordered.

I spent the morning hanging in the kitchen with my mom. She was prepping for all the brothers and their wives to come over for the big game on Sunday. She had about twenty pounds of pork ribs to season and grill and there's nothing more I love to do than to hang in the kitchen chopping veggies and hacking up some raw ribs and slapping them with seasoning.

After grilling I was feeling a bit restless and decided to go fool around in the garage. I found some old metal and wood files and decided it was time I sharpened my old hatchet and the spade that my grandfather gave me from his war days. After smoothing out the nicks and putting a nice edge to my tools I went for a walk through the field with my sister. I had a mounting curiosity about weather I could start a fire with just a couple sticks so while out with my sister I managed to find a couple that I thought would work quite well for a bow drill.

After carving out a hole and V in the hearth, sharpening the peg/drill, and attaching some twine to the bow I gave it a shot. It didn't work so great. The drill I was using was too wet and the twine didn't have enough friction to turn it when I pressed down with significant force. My dad's interest sparked a little bit and a while later he asked me to come outside to look for a new drill piece. We managed to find a drier, longer, and rougher piece of wood and carved and fastened it into a sturdy drill. We tried again. This time we managed to make a fair deal of smoke and blackened sawdust/coal. We hadn't actually intended to make fire but just wanted to see if we could. We could.

After this we relaxed for a bit in front of the tv. I got to feeling restless again and challenged my dad to a game of pool. I can't remember how long it's been since I'd seen the thing with out it's cover on. I'm used to it only being used as a table, covered with plywood, to accommodate our large family. I had forgotten how red the felt lining was. Anyway, one game turned into two and two into four. I think we came out even, he won two as did I. Feeling satisfied with the day I was resigned to spend the rest of it hanging with my mom, eating pizza and watching tv.