First International Shipment

Wow what a week it's been and it's only Wednesday.  I've been trying to figure out why I'm so tired this week or maybe I should clarify to say more tired than usual.  I sat here and started looking at my shipping printouts and realized that I've already sent out an incredible amount of product this week.  Since Monday I've sent pieces to Cleveland, OH., Baltimore, MD., Washington, D.C., Gardiner, ME. and Montana.  Thursday and Friday I am shipping to Bangor, ME., NJ, PA, MA & MD again.  The one that I am most happy about this week is the mill (pictured here) that is going to Ontario, Canada.  This marks my first international shipment.  Don't get me wrong I have pieces that are all over the world but they have all gone to a customer here in the US and than have been taken over or shipped by one of my customers to it's final destination.  The mill order to Ontario was from a customer in Canada for shipment to Canada.  Hopefully it's just a start of things to come.

What to do with all that zucchini? Try this

I understand that this summer has been a great summer for growing zucchini and that a lot of people have an over abundance and are looking for things to do with it.  This is one of my favorite chocolate cakes.  My mother used to make this for us when we were kids (and she still does on occasion).  It calls for zucchini in it and believe me even the pickiest eater will not know there is zucchini in this cake.  So here goes:

Marilyn's Chocolate Zucchini Cake Recipe

1 stick magarine
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
4 heaping tablespoons cocoa
2 cups shredded zucchini
1/2 cup chocolate bits
1/2 cup nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine margarine, oil, eggs and sugar in a large bowl.  Add vanilla and milk to mixture.  In a separate bowl combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and cocoa.  Mix together and than slowly sift into first bowl.  Mix together and than add zucchini, chocolate bits and nuts to bowl and thoroughly mix together.  Pour batter into a greased 9" x 13" pan.  Bake for approximately 45 minutes.

I got a laugh when I looked at my mothers recipe and saw that it actually called for Oleo instead of margarine.    I haven't heard it called Oleo in years.  Does anyone remember calling it that?  Warning you might be showing your age if you do.

Enjoy!

Dailey style pepper mill

8" Dailey style pepper mill made in seven color laminated wood

I promised in a post a while ago that I had one more pepper mill design to share with you.  The last design would be the Dailey style and yup, you guessed it, the design is named for my family.  I don't make very many of this design and you won't find it on my website, at least not right away.  I don't remember now which turning symposium that I was at but I saw a gentleman named Mark Sfirri demonstrate offset turnings.  Basically you start off with your turning just like all of the others but after a little turning you move the center line over a little bit and turn some more.  You can do this as much as you would like provided you either don't run out of wood or break the piece.  I thought it would be cool to try offset or off center turning on a pepper mill.  The difference between what I had seen Mark do and what I wanted to do was that I actually have a 1 1/16" hole running right up the center of my mills and he was using a solid piece of wood.  So with the hole in mind I set out to see exactly how far I could push this design without breaking through into the hole in the center.  What you see pictured above is one of my first attempts.  I was happy with the outcome and now I'm eager to try the offset turning on other pieces like candle sticks and goblets.

Shop Foreman

Hi Everyone,

I thought that I would introduce myself.  My name is Hershey B. Dailey and dad calls me the shop foreman here at Dailey Woodworking.  I actually like to call myself shop dog extraordinaire.   I have Dad busy at the lathe working on orders so I decided to write this post.  I don't want to brag or anything but things just wouldn't run smoothly without me.  I like to greet people and whenever dad stops I am immediately up to find out why.  He thinks that I want to be petted but I am actually trying to make sure that he doesn't take a very long break.  We've got a couple of cats here as well, Twix and Snickers.  They seem to be useless though.  All they do is eat, sleep and well you can guess the rest.  Oh, I've got to go he looks like he's trying to take a break and I've got to keep him working.   We've got a lot of orders to fill.

Hershey B.