Wednesday, August 09, 2006

It's Good to be Home

Late in July, we received word that a close relative had passed away.  Off we went to the city, to do all those things people do when someone close to them passes away.  Finally we're back, have been back for a few days now, and are starting to return to our natural rythms.

We're into August now.  Rat season will begin any time now.  During rat season, the little bastards crawl up into the engine compartment of your vehicle and make a nest on your carburetor, or where the carburetor would be if your vehicle had one.  Sometimes they chew through wires if they think them sufficiently decorative nesting material.  Our first year here, I tried all kinds of methods to get rid of them.  Simply clean out there nests and they rebuild.  They're too fast to poke with a stick unless you get lucky.  Shooting them with a regular gun almost guarantees damage to your vehicle.  Finally I settled on a pellet gun, it's just powerful enough but not too powerful.  Oh well, some things are just not much fun.

During our time away, I had plenty of time to think about what this pipe "business" means to me.  Some changes are in order.  Pipe carving can no longer be my first priority, it needs to take second or third place in the order of things.  Hours that have been devoted to carving will shift over to software development or other activities.  Pipe carving will be a fill-in activity, a meditation to practice while other things are being thought out.  

It may be a very good thing, it is definitely an essential thing.  It will suprise me if my future production goes much higher than 12-14 pipes a year, it will not surprise me if it sits at or near zero.   Perhaps, doing other things, I will generate enough income to attend the Chicago show some year.

In any case there is work to be done in many areas.