Had a bit of a lazy day today. It was cold outside and not conducive to going out and getting anything done.  Or maybe I was just lazy.  I finally got up the gumption to go out to the workshop and piddle around.  I lit a good fire in my Virginian iron stove and looked around for something I could accomplish with not too much effort.  Funny how just accomplishing something…anything…can make you feel pretty good.  So, when I’m like this I just look for some little thing I can get done.  Sometimes it leads me to get something else done, and before you know it I’ve ruined a perfectly good lazy day and gotten some work done.

So, anyway, there I was in my shop, when I spied the farrier’s hoof stand I welded up last week.  Needed paint.  Well, it was too cold to paint.

Better wait until it’s warmer…maybe April, or May.

Aw, hell.  I’ll just set it on the stove and let it get warmed up, and then I’ll paint it.

So it began.  I warmed up the stand, then warmed up a can of Rustoleum primer and a can of paint, and painted my hoof stand.  I left it sitting by the stove to dry.  Looks pretty good.  It’ll make folks think I know what I’m doing while I trim my horses’ hooves.

Then I picked up a rifle and revolver that I had fun shooting a few times on New Year’s Day, and spent a few pleasant minutes cleaning them. It was kind of…I don’t know, meaningful in some way, I guess, that the rifle was a new, modern Ruger Model 77 in .17HMR, and the revolver was a copy of an old 1873 Colt .45 in a cowboy holster I made myself.  The old and the new. There’s probably some great, very impressive word, with deep meaning for that… but I can’t think of it.

So, what next? Well, there’s that block of wood I glued up last week for a pony saddle cantle. It needs to be cut out and carved to shape.  I guess I can do that.

So I put it on the workbench and marked out the pattern.  Then I carried it over to the band saw and eyeballed, checked, rechecked, then checked again, to make sure I had the angles right, then told myself, “What the heck? If I screw it up, I’ll just glue up another one!”

So, to cutting I went.  It actually turned out pretty well.  Sanded off the rough edges on the belt sander I have mounted upside-down on my workbench, and it looks pretty good.  Now I need to carve out the concavity of the seat with an angle grinder with a carbide carving blade…which I don’t have. I’ll have to pick one up tomorrow.

So, what next?  Hmmm.  Yep, there’s the cantle for the old “cactus saddle”, the Visalia I showed in my previous post. I still need to glue up the Poplar pieces for that.

There we go. All clamped up and curing. It will be ready to cut and carve tomorrow.

I was so satisfied with myself that I sat in my soft chair by the warm stove, made an entry in my personal journal, and had a bite of chocolate.

Nice day. Time for dinner.