Arming My Children For Valentine's Day

I had some time tonight, so I'm posting now instead of my usual Tuesday.

The title of this post could have multiple meanings, I suppose. My wife posted recently about the public school Valentine's Day exchange kind of stuff in her blog post last week (she led the charge to make medallions; the whole family teamed up for that effort, which was pretty cool). However, I have been--quite literally--making weapons for my kids.

Okay, they're fake, but still.

Here's my son's sword

and my daughter's, which I suppose is more of a dagger than a sword. But then, I'm not really up on the vernacular of antiquated cutting implements.

My daughter also recently acquired a cheap bow, and I made her a quiver for her arrows from an old pair of pants. It's been fun to watch her stand up on top of their backyard "fort" (pallets screwed together) and shoot.

The swords were made from broken axe handles (hickory?) I found in my Dad's stuff, and the hand-guards are maple that I had lying around. I made the hand-guards in 2 pieces and sandwiched the sword between them. I cut the rough shapes on the bandsaw and shaped them more finely with a disc sander, hand planes, chisels, and my new favorite tool--the card scraper. I plan to inscribe them on the handles with a Dremmel tool. Not pictured is the slingshot we also handed down to my son. My Dad had it, but I used it when I was a kid. I have no idea how old it is. We've already launched a rock over the fence, but nothing was broken.

Today felt like Spring. We would have gone for our long Sunday hike, but my son is fighting some virus that has him down and out. So, we did chores we've been procrastinating. I tend to put off washing the cars for as long as possible, but my daughter and I washed both cars and the dog today. We also gave the trees and shrubs in our yard a good drink, all while the neighbor kid practiced sneaking up on me (and then we had a nice conversation). It is bone dry here in NM, and without moisture, we could have a scary spring and early summer. Contrast that with the rest of the country where record snowfalls and freezing temperatures are literally killing people. At any rate, the weather seems to be going crazy. I hope we are not entering an era where climate models become meaningless and the weather changes radically from year to year. If we are, it will change human existence. I hope we can adapt.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week!