Ah, this is a reference to sitting out on the deck having dinner and watching the flames dance on both horizons? There's something apocalyptically romantic about that I think (and I'm put in mind of Vancouver Irrealis momentarily :-D ).
Dinner and a show "Not too much wood," I said. "That's heavy." We eyeballed the porch for maybe a second or so each before rejecting any idea of tearing it up and using that for the frame; the wood was dark, splintering, damp in places and definitely not good for a balloon basket. I volunteered to head down to the creek and the trees to find suitable wood for the basket while the other two sorted out the canvas and worked out how they were going to put this thing together. I reckoned they'd use the old basket as a design. The trees were cooler, not because of the shade but just because the air seemed cooler around them and under their branches, though the day itself was so hot that it didn't make that much difference. Just enough to be noticeable and a gentle relief to be out of direct sunlight. I kicked around in the mess of litter beneath the trees, looking for long, thin, supple branches where possible, and nothing dry and a winter old already. I started off lucky with four or five, and then my luck went dry for another ten minutes and I found myself wandering further up the slope towards the caves that we'd found. I considered for a moment if some of the bones from the cave at the top might work -- and they might have done, maybe, if I'd wanted to attract that much attention. And climb all the way back up there. Then my luck turned again and I found what looked like someone's stash of firewood; three bundles of sticks, long as my forearm and not too dry. Neatly tied together as well, so they were easy to carry. I left my poor collection in their place and wandered back down the the mountain with two of the bundle and a jaunty whistle on my lips. When I got back there was canvas stretched out everywhere, Jimmy was hacking at it with a knife and Ben was supervising, which is a great way to start things going wrong. I set the bundles down and tried to see what they were doing. "Nice sticks," said Ben, nodding approvingly. "You took the time to tie them all neat and proper like." "And you've still not produced anything looking like a basket," I retorted. "What were you doing, havinng dinner and taking in a show? I found sticks; think they’re someone's firewood. They'll likely not be happy, but I doubt they'd guess where we used them." "You leave them some?" "Of course." Ben explained what him and Jimmy were thinking: double thickness of canvas folded over itself and supported on the sides. I nodded, and we laid out a lattice of sticks on the ground using the ruined basket as a guide so that we could minimise the amount of wood we had to lift, while making sure that we weren't going to put a foot through the canvas and fall through the bottom of the basket in mid-air. That bit concerned us mightily. "We're still going to need to do a bit of sewing," I said. "We have the tie the canvas securely onto the corner posts." "Jimmy's got soft hands," said Ben. "He can sew." There was a harrumph from the master craftsman on his knees in the middle of the canvas, which we took as assent. And so we put together a mostly-functional basket for our balloon.
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Ah, this is a reference to sitting out on the deck having dinner and watching the flames dance on both horizons? There's something apocalyptically romantic about that I think (and I'm put in mind of Vancouver Irrealis momentarily :-D ).
Dinner and a show
"Not too much wood," I said. "That's heavy."
We eyeballed the porch for maybe a second or so each before rejecting any idea of tearing it up and using that for the frame; the wood was dark, splintering, damp in places and definitely not good for a balloon basket. I volunteered to head down to the creek and the trees to find suitable wood for the basket while the other two sorted out the canvas and worked out how they were going to put this thing together. I reckoned they'd use the old basket as a design.
The trees were cooler, not because of the shade but just because the air seemed cooler around them and under their branches, though the day itself was so hot that it didn't make that much difference. Just enough to be noticeable and a gentle relief to be out of direct sunlight. I kicked around in the mess of litter beneath the trees, looking for long, thin, supple branches where possible, and nothing dry and a winter old already. I started off lucky with four or five, and then my luck went dry for another ten minutes and I found myself wandering further up the slope towards the caves that we'd found. I considered for a moment if some of the bones from the cave at the top might work -- and they might have done, maybe, if I'd wanted to attract that much attention. And climb all the way back up there.
Then my luck turned again and I found what looked like someone's stash of firewood; three bundles of sticks, long as my forearm and not too dry. Neatly tied together as well, so they were easy to carry. I left my poor collection in their place and wandered back down the the mountain with two of the bundle and a jaunty whistle on my lips.
When I got back there was canvas stretched out everywhere, Jimmy was hacking at it with a knife and Ben was supervising, which is a great way to start things going wrong. I set the bundles down and tried to see what they were doing.
"Nice sticks," said Ben, nodding approvingly. "You took the time to tie them all neat and proper like."
"And you've still not produced anything looking like a basket," I retorted. "What were you doing, havinng dinner and taking in a show? I found sticks; think they’re someone's firewood. They'll likely not be happy, but I doubt they'd guess where we used them."
"You leave them some?"
"Of course."
Ben explained what him and Jimmy were thinking: double thickness of canvas folded over itself and supported on the sides. I nodded, and we laid out a lattice of sticks on the ground using the ruined basket as a guide so that we could minimise the amount of wood we had to lift, while making sure that we weren't going to put a foot through the canvas and fall through the bottom of the basket in mid-air. That bit concerned us mightily.
"We're still going to need to do a bit of sewing," I said. "We have the tie the canvas securely onto the corner posts."
"Jimmy's got soft hands," said Ben. "He can sew."
There was a harrumph from the master craftsman on his knees in the middle of the canvas, which we took as assent.
And so we put together a mostly-functional basket for our balloon.
Greg - impressed, as ever, with the boys and their resourcefulness :)
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