A Few Goings On, Here

[Sonny]

Two weeks ago, I broke my left ring finger, while applying a blind tack str ip on a sofa. Hit it with the mallet. Makes for some awkward times, doing other tasks.

I bought the QEP Brutus 61024 tile saw, started assembling it, this evening , and discovered one of the upper wheels doesn't fit into its slot. I had hoped to cut some brick this weekend. That wheel doesn't affect any cuttin g, but I don't want to use the saw if QEP will want the whole saw returned.

The remaining items are referenced with the first three pics on my Flickr P age:

Tried to joint my walnut table top boards, individually, using the router. The boards have a very slight warp, enough to make for non-matching joints when routing the boards individually. I secured two boards together, alig ned the straight edges and routed between them. That did the trick. I hav e a center board remaining to joint.

Went to a garage sale last week and rescued an old 10" Oliver 153 vise for $20. It was ugly and frozen. Got it home, cleaned it a little (rust), oil ed it, smacked it around a little and got it working. It's in great workin g order. A little more cleaning and it'll do just fine on my work table.

I finished the faux mantle fireplace. I might go install it this coming we ek. I kinna don't like the brick "trim".... kinna looks out of place. Th e upper back board (boards actually) are hand split boards, from that old c ypress house we torn down at the farm. These boards were what the original wood shingles (no longer there) were nailed to (there were still some remn ants of the wood shingles under the tin roof). The boards' faces are unev en, having been hand split. I had wondered how they would look on the mant le, this way. I may replace the brick trim with this kind of board, along those side edges, see what it looks like with boards. I'm thinking the un even faced boards will look better than the brick.

We salvaged quite a few of these hand split boards. I may try making a gu n cabinet, for the camp, with them, now that I have a taste of how they fin ish. A rough faced cabinet might look nice.... and unique.

Sonny

[Swingman]

Every time I see someone from South Louisiana utter the word "camp", I get homesick and immediately get envie - to go shoot/catch something that will fill the pot that taste good.

Good post, enjoyed update.

Sorry about your finger, Cher ... Pauve ti bete! ;)

[Sonny]

Thanks Karl.

Jonas and the boys are at the camp, now. Got an email this morning, Ian ca ught a nice little catfish.

7507736/in/photostream

We're surprised they are that large, already, having stocked the lake only

1-1/2 yrs ago. Some bream are 4". Bass & white perch are still tiny, mayb e 3".

Wrong time of year, but last time I was out there, I planted cypress trees along the back side of the lake. Jonas says about half have died. Will pl ant again in Jan.-Feb.

I had lost track of time, thinking yesterday was Saturday. I may head out to the farm, today, after all. Jonas said he'd shot enough doves for a goo d meal, so that's incentive enough.

*Initial post, forgot to mention: Last week, I called Public Works (city) and asked if I could purchase a damaged street light pole, to make a wood s teamer. Got a call back, yesterday, and was able to get a 10' tapered leng th, from 6" to 8" diameter... at no charge.

Sonny

[dadiOH]

Got a catfish story for you, Sonny...

When I was a little kid, we lived for a while in Kansas City, Kansas. There was a park near the center of town called - IIRC - "Big Eleven". There was a fair sized but shallow pond in the park frequently used by the Baptists to dunk new Baptists.

In that pond there were catfish, used to go feed them bread. We moved from KCK when I was 11 but I remembered those catfish as B I G catfish! I'm talking 3' long. Well, I attributed that size to the fact that I was little when I saw them but years later wife and I passed through KC and I took time to go look...they really are 3' long. Maybe more.

Sorry about the finger, a sore one sure DOES make doing stuff hard.

[Lew Hodgett]

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"dadiOH" wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------------- As long as catfish stories are on the table, my father told me about one of his neighbors who broke both his legs trying to pick up a

100 lb river cat in Southern Indiana along the Ohio River.

This would have been before the levees along the river were build, probably about 1910.

When the river would flood in the spring, the fields beside the river would flood enough to allow fish to swim into them, but then get trapped when the flood would waters to recede.

Such was the case with a 100 lb river cat.

It was trapped between two rows of corn and couldn't get turned to escape back into the river.

The neighbor waded into the field, straddled the catfish and tried to pick it up by the gills.

The catfish flipped his tail and "snap", "snap", two broken legs.

It happened near Derby, IN, and my dad wasn't yet 10 years old when it happened.

Couldn't happen today.

A lot of flood control was put in place during the last 100 years.

Lew

[Larry Blanchard]

I grew up about a mile from the Ohio river and spent a lot of time there. Some fishermen would use a trot line that went out 50 feet or so with short lines with hooks every couple of feet. If they had a boat the line might be even longer.

Every now and then one would have to give up and cut his line - too much weight for him to haul in. Out in the country the farmers would pull them out with a tractor.

And then there were the sturgeon ...

[Bill]

I caught a catfish when I was about 15 years old and grabbed it hehind the head with one hand. "snap, snap" went its head, and I had a hole that felt like it went all the way through my hand. It definitely got through all of the "skin" layers. I guess both of these stories have a moral to them... ; )

[Lew Hodgett]

---------------------------------------------------------------- "Larry Blanchard" wrote:

-------------------------------------------------- "Trot line", a term I last heard used by my father, and he died over 50 years ago.

He never mentioned sturgeon, but a gar fish could ruin your day.

Remember when Karo syrup buckets were used as bobbers to go drift fishing for river cats using a hunk of ripe ground hog for bait?

Lew

[Larry Blanchard]

Yep. Dump the jugs off the bridge, drive rapidly a couple of miles down stream, and go out in a boat to grab the jugs as they drifted down.

[Sonny]

Yep, trout lines. Folks still use them, today, 'round here.

Went and installed the mantle. The boys liked doing some of the finish work. And they made time for fishing and swimming, too. Some pics:

[Sonny]

I've caught 2' ones, maybe a little longer, when I was a kid. There's a pi c, somewhere, of my grandfather with a 3' one, at least.

Re: Other posts The Miss. R. levees, here, weren't made until after the flood of 1927. I'm sure folks benefited (trapped fish) from its overflow, prior to then. Not sure when the Morganza floodway/locks were built, about 50 miles north of Baton Rouge. Those locks are a water diversion, when the Miss. gets too hi gh. I use to go out there and collect driftwood, on the downstream side o f the locks. Cranes would grab the Miss. R. driftwood and toss it on the d ownstream side of the locks. All sorts of nice weathered wood, sinker logs , etc. would drift down from the Miss., to there.

Sonny

[Larry Blanchard]

Interesting. Never heard them called that, it was always trot lines. Of course, there weren't any trout in the Ohio. At least not back then, it was still polluted.

Best place to catch catfish was near the sewer outlet :-(.

[Lew Hodgett]

Re: Other posts The Miss. R. levees, here, weren't made until after the flood of 1927. I'm sure folks benefited (trapped fish) from its overflow, prior to then.

------------------------------------------------- As a kid growing up in North Central Ohio (1040's-1950's), would get the news on the radio of the latest disasters.

First it was the latest coal mine in West Virgina collapsing and trapping (Fill in the number) miners underground.

John L Lewis (United Mine Workers) would show up in support of "his" miners.

Most often those trapped underground ended up losing their lives underground.

We still get reports of trapped miners, just not as many.

Next it was the Ohio river flooding at Cincinnati when the ice broke with the spring thaw.

The reports would come in listing the number of feet below flood stage at that report.

Today the levees have solved that problem.

Years later when I had occasion to be in Cincinnati and saw the levees as they are today.

Must have taken a lot of dirt to build those levees.

Lew

[Keith Nuttle]

If you read the newspaper articles from the time before 1927, it seems like the politicians had a lot of dirt that they could use. ;-)

The one I am most aware of is the Nuttle gang. Apparently they were quite active in Cincinnati around the first of the century. I have seen reports of their activities in many Northwest territories newspapers.

PS: They are a different family even though now we share the same last name. My family came from the central New York area in the early 1800's