It was another eventful day at Mr. Basketmaker’s Redneck Bootcamp with our nephew Ben. However, one task that was not on the agenda was working on his walking stick from last year. When he saw Uncle Eric’s and how smooth it was, he said “I want mine to be just like his.” So the schedule had to be slightly adjusted…
Out to the workshop he went, put on the “headphones” and got to sanding. He spent hours on this…
I sensed his frustration after the fourth or fifth time he came into the house to show me his progress. On the next visit to my office he asked “how much sanding do I need to do to get it as smooth as Uncle Eric’s… His is like silk!”
I replied “He’s a professional Ben. It takes years to get wood to do what you want it to do. But you’ll get there. Just keep at it.” All I heard was a groan. I’m thinking he had a vision of way more work than he thought!
He eventually got it to where he was happy with it. And glad he is since it replaced the time were to spend on constructing the anchors for his very own tree house. But I’m thinking we should have some time for this on Monday (hopefully). He was able to complete the sketch of the house, so at least it’s in progress.
After our busy day, it was time for a little “Astronomy” lesson. Eric took out his huge telescope to look at the moon. Below, he’s showing Ben how to operate the equatorial mount sight finder and the slow motion cable controls.
They also went through all the different magnification lenses for Eric’s telescope and when Ben viewed the moon with the largest magnification, he yelled “Hey Guys! I can see the flag on the moon!”
We both laughed and said “That’s cool Ben.” Who knows… maybe he did!
No wonder he loves coming to TN.
I want to come to camp on sanding day next year! I love to sand!
Come on over Miss Tracey. I will give you even more stuff to sand if you like it so much!! I do not like sanding!