January 2024

I started January with a First Day hike. The Maryland department of Natural Resources is pushing this thing where in people get out and hike for New Years Day.

I love this idea.

My feet still hurt a ton but I thought I could do a Hog rock hike because its only a mile.

I got in a beautiful hike with a little snow flurry instead of the rain I had expected.

There was a fire in the visitor center and there were snacks to buy.

I got the first day hike sticker. They were running out of them in the very first hour. Apparently Maryland DNR was having a successful day.

In January I continued to chase my ideal cool hair, with many colors. Megan said as we usually dye her hair she wanted to dye mine.

Here is her first purple and green dye job.

She did great.

I made bagels. I did two types. The first was with beadmaker dough and the next was by hand. They both worked pretty well so I think I would do beadmaker in future as its much easier.

I got the ribbons for my Mari Llwyd. I think she looks great.

We had some flooding in Frederick and I went down to see the river. This picture was blocks from the river proper.

In an attempt to get Kiernan doing more things that he said he would like to try, we did a polar bear plunge.

This one was near Hagerstown and the proceeds went to the humane society.

I was genuinely worried I would have a heart attack hitting the cold water but wanted to at least give it a go. So I signed us all up for it.

There was a great atmosphere. Lots of people wearing costumes and a radio station playing 90's rock and hot chocolate to be had at every turn. There was a guy with a white beard who was dressed as poppa smurf, his whole body was dyed blue.

Amazing!

There was a changing tent for privacy but I wore my bathrobe till the last possible second.

Megan's friend Molly asked to come with us and wound up signing up on the spot.

The lake has a long shallow area and you really had to go a long way before you plunged into anything like deep water.

There was much screaming.

A woman I talked to afterward said that 3 years ago there was ice all over the lake and they had to break it up with axes and that people got cut on the ice. I am very glad not to have had that particular experience.

Here is a picture of David and Kiernan and Molly all on entry.

I kinda loved it.

It was really cold and it took me forever to warm up but it was fun and exciting and I will probably do it again next year.

We got a good sized snow just a few days after.

We've had no real snows to speak of for a few years so we were all happy to see it.

I am trying to learn and to teach my family to crochet.

Megan got the slip know single stitch down solid. She filled the house with long long ropes of yarn.

I went with the kids to the sledding hill and even took a run myself.

It was freezing cold. The wind was blowing and I got ice crystals in my eyes and it was great.

Kiernan decided to build an igloo.

One of my New Years resolutions was to complete all my half done crafting project. 

The number one project on that list is my fish lyre.

There was a bad cnc gouge on the top that David filled with wood fill and I printed out these Celtic knots and painted them copper (copper is the theme for this project).

We also finished drilling out the holes for the tuning pegs. Previously this had zither pegs but when we were talking about what a playable/approachable lyre would look like, guitar style tuners kept coming up. So we got those in as well...in copper of course.

I filed the bridge with string notches.

Then tested them with a nylgut banjo string (another experiment with the banjo strings).

So far so good. The next step will be to mount the tail piece. I have ordered some wire to try. We shall see.

I turned a block of tofu into 'scrambled eggs'.

Imagine them much more yellow as they were after I added a bunch of turmeric.

Then we got a nice big snow.

The driveway is long and steep but it was beautiful.

Here is Kiernan's igloo number 1.

and here is igloo number 2

Piano classes started back up again. I hadn't touched a keyboard since Christmas and was worried I might have forgotten everything. 

My teacher was unconcerned and assigned me a new piece straight away.

It sounds like a cartoon villain sneaking around in the background.

I went to the library (to drop Meg off for a crafting class) and found this outstanding snake rock thing. It wraps around the building and they want people to add their own painted rocks. I love it.

We got some great sunsets.

Kiernan had his 15th birthday. It was the middle of the week so we didn't do much other than cake but we went out of town on the weekend.

Hmart makes the best cakes!

I joined a video club. It felt extraordinarily 90's. I wandered aisles and chose the perfect title and got a video card and everything.

This movie is my favorite or next to favorite zombie film and I couldn't find it on any streaming service. Apparently there are rights issues.

BUT the video store (and used bookstore) had it and I got to show it to the kids.

Here is the view from the Chesapeake Bay bridge as we drove out of town.

Kiernan wanted to try oysters so for his birthday we drove to the eastern shore and had a food extravaganza beginning with an all you can eat oyster buffet

The next morning I go t a very strange but delicious vegan lox bagel (carrot for salmon).

Then we spent the day at the wonderful Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.

This was the most hands on museum outside of a children's museum that I have ever been to.

It was a great find.

If you want to hear about midshipmen behaving badly and why this figure head is not longer at the Naval academy just let me know.

Look at the then and now oysters! The big one was a "keeper" in the early 1700's and the small one is a "keeper" today

Megan turns out to be a natural with an oyster rake and a crab trap. 

That girl has hidden depths let me tell you.

They had costumes and I want this hat.

The red pane of glass on the top of the light house lines up with the worst part of the shore and if ships see it they need to turn around immediately.

This was what crabbing looked like for awhile in the 50s. They tried to automate it instead of paying locals to shell the crabs but it didn't work because the machine missed so much crab meat they had to hire the locals back to pick the already processed crabs.

There were cool decoys and firearms. some of the fire arms were really small cannons. Some people strapped up to 8 on the front of their little boats and shot themselves right out of the water.

When we were ready to head back we hard that the bridge was closed because of an accident so we dragged our feet and found a hidden gem of a restaurant in Easton called Out of the Fire.

While we dawdled over lunch the bridge opened up again.

Nice birthday weekend out for sure.