works of wanderlust

Clock Works

As my 101 year old grandmother transitions between living situations, she found herself giving away some of her most carefully curated possessions.

At some point in the last forty-six years I (apparently, though unintentionally) impressed upon her that my (genuine) interest in her cuckoo clock, the same clock that hung on the wall of her house for most of my childhood, the same clock that my (late) grandfather would wind daily by pulling the chains down to the floor each night, the same clock that would fascinate us with it’s animations when we visited, that such a clock should end up on my wall some day.

That day was today.

I am feeling a little emotional and humbled, to be honest.

As my parents and relatives assisted with the job of packing up her room and sorting out what needs to move to the next place, my grandmother firmly asserted that the clock was to go to me.

So, suddenly there I was, with something of a family heirloom in a heap on my kitchen table after a short delivery visit by my folks.

As it turns out, my grandmother got tired of the tick-tocking and hourly cuckoos about fifteen years ago, so the beautiful beast has done little more than hung lifeless on her wall as a decoration for that whole time.

I hung it up, set it up, reset it all, and … the ticking doesn’t tock as well as it used to.

The pendulum ticks and tocks for a few seconds… or a few minutes… as long as eight minutes once, keeping accurate time for a fraction of an hour, but then tick-tock-tick… tick…. tick… silence.

I opened it up to see if there was something obviously wrong, but clock works are not my specialty (nor, if I’m being completely honest, a thing that I have anything other than a passing experience) in diagnosing or fixing.

So, for the moment, the family clock is hanging decoration-like on my wall looking sharp and elegant and like it belongs there. But thus starts an adventure to restore it to the glory of the 70s and 80s and those days I remember from my youth, and to bring back the ticks, tocks and maybe even a cuckoo or two.

January 4, 2023
Travel Memories in 1000 Pieces

Someone gave us a jigsaw puzzle for Christmas.

Gifting jigsaw puzzles can be tricky. They vary in difficulty. Not everyone is into spending hours fiddling with a game like that. And then the vast variety of images depicted in their giant tabletop chaos can evoke a feeling that is often a matter of taste, particularly for larger sets that sit there taunting you to build them for weeks and weeks.

Someone gave us a jigsaw puzzle for Christmas and hit the nail directly, squarely on the head.

See, back in November we spent five days in New York City. Specifically, we spent five days wandering around mostly near midtown Manhattan and Times Square. We did a lot of fun stuff, but my own personal recollections of the time there were punctuated by three specific memories: Broadway, sketching, and people everywhere.

Someone gave us a jigsaw puzzle for Christmas and it depicts a bustling scene of Time Square rendered as a colourful urban sketch of a hundred memories of our recent New York vacation.

Tall colourful buildings.

Taxicabs and street vendors.

People and signs and shapes and shadows.

Lines and hatches and curves and squiggles.

A thousand pieces of a travel memory perfectly encapsulated in a jigsaw puzzle project.

…though it didn’t take us too long at all to get it assembled.

January 3, 2023
hoar frosty

hOr / frawst – (noun)

From the old English, hoar frost evokes the hairy, beard-like frost that grows upon trees and other outdoor objects when the combination of temperature and humidity crystalize ice in a white, icy fuzz on all the surfaces of the world.

It is a kind of magical scene, assuming it is not too cold to be outside.

The dog and I felt compelled to walk for over an hour through this wintery wonderland.

If you thought it was magic walking through a gentle snowfall in the evening, with the flakes drifting through the air all around you and in every direction like stars descending slowly through the spaces and places, try instead walking through a winter forest the morning after a fog when the hoar frost covers literally every branch with a frozen crystalline twinkle.

To reach out an touch the delicate ice is to destroy it, either shattering or melting it into nothingness, back to dusty snow or a drop of cold dew on your fingertip.

And as the sun reaches into the sky, the apricity sublimates it back into the atmosphere, like fairy dust returning to the magical source, suddenly and subtly gone without explanation. The fungal-like growth slinks back into whence it came.

To walk between and under trees covered in hoar frost is to feel the deep cold of mid-winter with your eyes and to understand the power of nature to decorate itself in such a visualization of the weather.

Powerful and gentle, peaceful and extreme.

Crisp.

White.

Cold.

Frosty.

January 2, 2023
taking stock, making stock

New Years Day and it’s officially 2023.

We host a party every new years with our camping friends. We don’t camp on new years eve, but instead we cook a big meal in our warm house and then wander over to the park to skate or sled or (if they’re not cancelled like last night) watch the fireworks.

We play games. We talk. We drink and we cook a big meal.

We splurged last night and spent inflation-grade prices for a huge piece of beef prime rib that we cooked and carved and served.

Left over was a small stack of beef bones that I carefully shaved the best bits of meat off of and then promptly hid in a baggie at the back of the fridge. Gnawing on a big old bone would not be unheard of with our crowd, but I was saving these for my New Years Stock.

Recipe

beef bones and leftover trimmings onion garlic carrots parsley celery bay leaves spices water

In a big ol’stock pot, bring it all to a boil then let it simmer for as long as you can. Four hours, for hours, for ever. Ideally about five to ten hours of cooking renders all the beef tissues and pulls all the aromatics from the vegetables and turns leftovers into a golden-hued liquid that is amazing for all your upcoming cooking needs.

New Years is a time for taking stock.

We make resolutions to be better or do better or feel better.

I made stock, which was a kind of literal taking stock of some things about using up leftovers and cooking even more at home and thinking about flavours and ingredients and other foodie-type thoughts.

Not a bad way to end the old year, and an even better way to start the new one.

Happy New Year.

January 1, 2023
daily

December 31 of 31 December-ish posts

Oh, rich. Coming from the guy who couldn’t manage a daily post in December, huh?

Daily?

One word that sums up your theme for 2023.

Daily.

Yes. That’s it.

It’s New Years Eve. Again. And rolling into 2023 leaving 2022 behind I got to thinking of how I want to spend the year.

As it turns out (I find as I have two weeks off work and have time to think about these things) I’m happiest when I’m creating, y’know, anything.

Oh, maybe I won’t be posting a blog article every day, or whatever, but my mind was churning on what it means to be creative and productive for every single day of a whole year.

Writing. Drawing. Photographing. Video…ing.

And not only the net results of daily effort but the meta-results: creative output about daily creativity. Like, making posts or videos about “How I Painted One Picture Daily for a Month!” or “What Daily Cycling did for My Mental and Physical Health” and sharing those.

Daily.

Daily stuff.

Daily reflections.

Daily.

Tomorrow morning will be the two-year anniversary of this website. I set out on January first of 2021 to start writing a daily blog. We were in the middle of a pandemic (arguably we still are) and I had no idea that we would spend two more years slowly getting back to normal. I had assumed (like most of you) that 2021 was our year to climb back out of it and by, say, mid-summer we’d be camping and hiking and cooking on firepits with our friends. I was going to document that. Daily was my theme for 2021. And I almost did it.

My perspective was wrong, though.

I wanted to bring you all into this adventure and create a wonderful site full of amazing ideas. What it turned into was a journal of a guy trying to do that.

If you’re still reading, or just recently joined, you may be a bit disappointed with my effort in 2022.

I wrote about some of that yesterday and how I’ve been in a bit of a funk because of a knee injury. It sucks. And I know it. And I think I can will myself to do better.

I keep telling myself that (a) since I’m not trying to make money off this blog then (b) I don’t need to follow any particular set of rules from all those pro-bloggers out there with their tips for maximizing traffic, so (c) this site can be whatever I want it to be.

In 2021, it tried to be a daily blog about outdoor life, cast iron cooking, and running adventure.

In 2022, it was a journal of healing and reflecting on a tough year.

In 2023, I think I want it to be about that idea of daily. Creating daily. Living in the day. Being present and enjoying the moment each and every day, even if just long enough to capture a bit of it as art or photos or video. You’ll see more of that starting tomorrow. If you come along for the ride, or if you’ve been along the whole time, thanks. We’ll see you on the next day… and the day after… and the day after that.

Happy New Year.

December 31, 2022

blog.8r4d.com

Ah. Some blog, huh?

I’ve been writing meandering drivel for decades, but here you’ll find all my posts on writing, technology, art, food, adventure, running, parenting, and overthinking just about anything and everything since early 2021.

In fact, I write regularly from here in the Canadian Prairies about just about anything that interest me.

Enjoy!

Blogging 411,270 words in 541 posts.

8r4d-stagram

collections

archives

topics

tags