First day of a Master?

If this was it take it back!  LOL.  I started today in earnest working on my masters project . My friend Bob was kind enough to give me an olive tree from his back yard. Sooooo

Step 1. Remove tree … Mother told me there would be days like this

Lets back up.  4 days ago I caught either bronchitis or walking pneumonia.  Couple that with the fact that I’m in season for my allergy induced asthma and that’s where I start today – not breathing.

So all day I’m dropping cough drops like they are my favorite candy ever (EVERYONE KNOWS that,  THAT is CHOCOLATE)  and we decided we are going to take THIS branch off this tree….that’s all just one branch.

Yeah, uh huh, 1 branch.  This tree is HUGE.  This 1 branch , one of the smaller ones, was 9ft long and 8” in dia. After pruning it to a ball head, with several smaller ones able to be used for lumber as well (I will have pen blanks for sale not TOO far down the road) in total I harvested 4 logs (5 1/2ft , 4ft,6ft and 3ft…remember I had to clean cut them all after they  were grounded)…..but lets not forget the foliage.

So here’s the count…. 4 logs and 2 truckloads of foliage .

So I take it back to the shop to mill it down to rough lumber. Getting there at 4PM. By 8PM I was calling Kat to bring me my rescue inhaler that I foolishly left at home, a 16 mile round trip for her – she loves me. . . or my life insurance isn’t paid up :/

By that 8oclock time I had accomplished exactly 3 things:

1.    (1)  I DID get 1 branch to the shop…..remember this started with step 1 up there LMAO yeah right

2.        (2)1 did get ¼ of 1 log milled down….the other 3 and 3/4  logs? Not so much.

3.      (3)  I got all the ends of all the logs painted to slow the drying process in order to allow me time to mill them & then air dry them

Remove tree?.....yeah right next time I’ll know better and I’ll have a better plan.
Why didn't I have a better plan you ask?...after all  I AM working on my masters project??!!
To this I say : I'm a furniture maker not a lumberjack or millwright!!! ( though I may be when Im done! )

Where did he go, George?

Well the entire month of May was a blur.  Where to begin. 
My partner (who handles all of the advertising/ business end of the shop) went away for a weekend to visit friends the first weekend.  This meant things were a bit hectic, but manageable. So there was a post at the beginning of the month.

However, the second weekend her father collapsed in his home and had to be rushed to the hospital.  After a few days of poking and prodding and tests they really still aren't sure what happened.  But needless to say that weekend and the week after were a whirlwind. 

The third weekend of May we had her family reunion.  And with her father sick, we still had to figure out how to get everyone there.  Definitely stressful. 

So the last weekend of May we decided to take the 3 day weekend off and do a lot of nothing.  Sorry, but I think we needed it. 

While all of this was going on, I had someone come in and ask me to do a prototype of a credenza with the promise of many more to come.  I took the time to talk with them and decided to start trying to see if I could work with them.  There's an old phrase about how sometimes it isn't everyone else.  They told me about all of the people who they had tried to work with and all of the things they had done wrong.  I had given them the benefit of the doubt because I know sometimes you really do just find a lot of people who say they can do more than they can.  But after a few weeks of back and forth with committees to make every little decision and nit picking about things that weren't reasonable for anything less than machine production (I wanted to move a heat vent 1/32 of an inch), all with the promise of lots of work - but not a lot of pay per piece, I decided this just wasn't going to be a good fit.  I let them know and they didn't even bat an eye as they took their stuff.  Which tells me that was a point they were accustomed to getting with people.  Yes it was a job, yes it might have even been a lot of work going through the shop.  But when they start out that unrealistic, there's a point where it just isn't going to be worth the amount of work and headache and problems. 

So, it's June now and my daughter will be graduating from high school next week.  So a lot of preparation is going into the last weeks of school and organizing the family to see her walk and for the party that comes after. 

I'll try to get a few blogs posted - but as May reminded me, you can't always get what you want.