Mini Clocks

Over the past few weeks I have been working on making mini clocks that are a 1/3 replica of a clock that once hung in my grade school classroom.  The grade school was converted to condominiums a number of years ago and at the time my dad managed to get hold of the clock but never did anything with it.  I found it in his attic when they sold his home.  The original clock was painted pea green and when I stripped the clock I found it was made of oak.  I refinished the original clock that is about 15 inches square and replaced the works with a quartz movement. The original clock remains in our kitchen now.


Last year I built two miniature clocks that my sister has hanging in the rest rooms of her art studio in Lowell.  Visitors spotted the clocks and asked if I would make copies for them.  When I learned she had orders for three of the clocks I decided to make additional clocks since once my tools were setup it would not take much longer to make additional ones.  I had plenty of small pieces of scrap wood and was able to use scraps to build the clocks which helped to keep the total cost of materials to a minimum.


When I started the clocks I built them with the intention of hanging them on a wall.  I later thought they might also go well on a table or shelf so decided to build a base for the clock to sit on.  The base is removable so they can either sit on a table or hang on the wall.  My guess is that they they will most likely sit on a table rather than hang on a wall.


I used several types of finish and wood to make the clocks.  I used quarter sawed oak and Cuban Mahogany.  One of the clocks was finished using an ebony process where the finish was almost black. The clocks shown above are from left to right natural oak, English Oak stained and Cuban mahogany.

Maine Coast - Kittery to Old Orchard Beach.

This is one of two trips I recently made along the Southern Maine Coast.  I needed a brake from doing routine  landscaping and the few rainy days we were having it gave me a good excuse to set that aside and relax.


This area of Maine can be very busy in the summer however it was early in the season and with the weather as it was I did not encounter much traffic.   


The beginning of my trip followed the Maine coast from Kittery to Old Orchard Beach where I explored some of the more popular villages along the cost and stopped at Ogunquit Beach to have my lunch which I packed with me.  The beach was unusually void of visitors as it was the middle of the week and the weather was cool with intermittent periods of rain.

Oqunquit Beach MAP

After having my lunch on the beach I moved on to the Rachel Carson Wildlife Refuge located along State Route 9 just south west of Kennebunkport.  The wildlife refuge covers a forested area where a footpath is maintained for visitors and also borders a marshy estuary. 

Rachel Carson Wildlife Refuge MAP

Leaving the wildlife refuge I traveled a little further along the coast to the Franciscan Monastery overlooking Kennebunkport Village Harbor.  I was curious abut the Monastery as I traveled through this area before but never noticed it so decided to stop and explore.  The facility consists of a guest house that accommodates visitors, an outdoor chapel a church around the early 60;s as well as housing for Lithuanian Monks and priests.   There was also a short trail that paralleled the shore overlooking the village which I explored.

Franciscan Monastery MAP

I traveled as far as Old Orchard Beach before calling it a day and traveled the Interstate home taking about an hour to complete the journey.

Maine - Portland to Old Orchard Beach

It was another rainy day in New England on Monday so I decided to drive to Portland and return along the coastal route to Old Orchard Beach.

Portland Head Light 

More Photos      MAP

My first stop was the Whole Foods Market located on Franklin Street in Portland.  This is a relatively large market that caters to new age groupies wearing Burkenstock sandals and driving huge 4 wheel drive SUV's.  The store specializes in a large variety of organic foods.  Unfortunately most of the foods were off limits to me.  Even though lots of foods were organic most were very high in sodium and would send my blood pressure off the scales if I did eat the stuff. I ended up purchasing a few boxes of cereal and a small tub of almond butter.  It was lunch time so I decided to have some veggies from the food bar that would fit into my new low salt diet.

My next stop was Hamilton Marine.  Hamilton Marine sells boating supplies for commercial and serious recreational boaters.  I was looking for a hasp to secure a patio door but when I learned it would cost me over $30.00 I began to think about making one myself.

Leaving Hamilton Marine I drove through the Old Port and along the waterfront.  The area has gone through a complete transformation since I last visited the area. It was bustling with activity as it is a popular stopping point for locals and tourists.  A Harvard college student went missing the night before so there was lots of activity with rescuers searching for him.  I later learned he apparently became intoxicated and it appeared he fell into the water and drowned. It was sort of sad as his graduation was the same week.

I followed the shore road out of Portland to the Portland Head Light which is the entry into Portland Harbor.  I spent about an hour here walking on the footpaths along the shore taking time to stop along the way to photograph the area.

Leaving the Lighthouse I headed south towards Boston and before too long it started to rain fairly heavy and it was getting late in the day. As I did not look forward to driving in the dark with the driving rain I decided to push on home arriving back in Groveland at about 7:30 pm.

Stonington Connecticut

While visiting relatives in Rhode Island this weekend I spent Saturday afternoon walking around Old Stonington.  It was a fairly mild day however it was also a foggy day which made for some interesting photographs.

Stonington is located along the south eastern shore of Connecticut and only a few miles from my home town of Westerly, Rhode Island.  Stonington was established during the mid 1600's and today has over 18,000 residents.  The first lighthouse established by the US Federal Government in 1823 and was located in Stonington.  The area supported a small fishing, whaling and sealing fleet.  It was also a way station for travelers between Boston and New York. Trains brought travelers from Boston to Stonington who then took a steamship to New York.

My British friends might find it interesting to note that Stonington was successfully defended against  HMS Naval bombardments in1775 and again in 1814.  During the bombardment of 1814 Stonington casualties included a mauled cow, a killed a goose, one hen, 3 hogs and an elderly lady who was on her dying bed. 

Site Maintenance at the Boat Museum

This past winter I worked with the Site Maintenance group at the Ellesmere Port Boat Museum. This article was written for the Museum Times and talks a little about some of the work we completed this winter.

The Site Maintenance team under the direction of Ronnie McEwin have been hard at work performing many of the routine maintenance tasks such as repairing walkways, clearing the locks of debris, clearing walkways of moss, cutting lawns, and moving equipment. The team has also been hard at work doing exterior restoration work on the historic museum buildings repairing doors and windows.

An example of some of the work done by the team is the restoration of the window sills on the engine room.  Frank Perra and  Jim Donaldson took on the challenge to restore the sills this past winter. The images below illustrate the restoration work performed on two of the engine room windows. Once warmer weather sets in the glazing on the window grills will also be replaced by the team which will complete the restoration of the windows.

Engine Room windows to be repaired showing decayed sills		A before and after view of the window sill. The top shows the condition of the sills after they were repaired and the bottom shows the decayed sill before restoration.
The decayed area of the sill was removed before the new sill cap was applied to restore the sill to it’s original appearance.		This is an end view of the cap that was applied to finish the sill.  The intent was to retain as much of the original sill as possible and restore it in a way that it looked like the original as well as retain as much of the original window sill as possible.

Isoletta, Arce Italy

View of the Isoletta Area from an near by hill

Joan and I traveled to Isoletta Italy where my grandfather (my mother's dad) was born.  It is a rural area that is very scenic and is located about 45 miles south of Rome.  While there we met families that have relatives in Providence, RI and one of them was kind enough to give us a tour of the area.

Main Street in the old part of Isoletta

 

 One of the things that I often wanted to know was who was my grandfather's real mother as his dad (my great grandfather) re-married when he immigrated to the states and my grandfather's real mother has never been mentioned.  The families we met have promised to do some research to find out who my Great Grandfather's first wife was.  They believe the information would be recorded in the administrative offices for Isoletta which they are planning to research for us.

I also learned that my grandfather's surname was a very common name in the area of Isoletta which is not surprising  to be honest.

 There appears to be strong family ties between Isoletta and Providence, RI where my grandfather lived as many families are connected and travel back and forth.

We had lunch at the restaurant shown above where we met Gino who is the owner.  Gino has other brothers who live in Providence, RI and he gave me contact information for one of his brothers who I hope to contact when I get back to the states.  His wife had a sister who lived in Chelmsford but has since passed away.

What was surprising to me was how connected to Isoletta Providence has been as many families from Isoletta have immigrated to Providence and some have actually moved back to isoletta. 

 I went to Isoletta with the plan to only see what the area was like but never expected to meet such warm and friendly people and never really expected to learn anything about the Boffi family background.  I am now optimistic that I may finally learn something about my real grandmother.

Some of my Co-Workers at the Boat Museum

Here I am with two of my coworkers.  Jim standing to the left is a retired Civil Engineer and worked for what we would call the Highway Department. Jim and I have been working jointly on some of the building restoration work at the museum.  In the middle is Ronnie who is retired from the Vauxhall factory in Ellsemere port and is in charge of site maintenance at the museum.

The three of us typically work at the museum three days a week. Jim and I were paired up on a number of tasks and projects.  The two of us worked together to repair sills on the engine room and doors on the Steam Accumulator building. Jim has been helpful with familiarizing me with the procedures at the museum which has helped to keep me from getting myself into trouble on a number of occasions.

Centaur returning from a trip

Peter in a black coat and hat is the Captain of the Centaur which is the tour boat that takes visitors for trips on the canal.  Peter was a captain on the world famous Mersey Ferry before he retired and has some interesting stories about his work on the Mersey as a Captain.

Steven being trained by Mike on the Radiant

Steven is another co-worker who I have grown to know and is the youngest on the Maintenance team.  Steven has an enormous amount of energy and pulls more than his share of the work load.  It's encouraging to know that there are actually some young people who are not afraid to work.  Steve among other things is into BMX bikes and from what I have been able to gather pushes his sport to the limits.  He recently destroyed one bike doing his bike stunts. He now uses his sister's bike and I have a feeling her bike is next on the destruction list.

MartYn moving a narrow boat into dry dock

MartYn with the bright yellow coat and black hat is moving one of the narrow boats.  The boat is being moved into position where the lock will be used as a dry dock to allow the boat to be inspected.  The lock the boat is being moved into is frequently used as a dry dock when it is necessary to work on the hull of a boat.  

MartYn and his partner Sue were the first persons I met at the museum.  Martyn and Sue spent an entire morning with me introducing me to the museum by explaining the volunteer program then gave me a tour of the facilities.  Both Sue and MartYn are dedicated to the museum and spend a great deal of their personal time working at the museum.  I cannot recall being at the museum when I did not see one of them working there.