The White Dog

The White Dog prefers the neighbor's front yard for p&p, and on the course there, invariably pauses to give Silver a sniff...I sit on the front step, contemplating, and keeping an eye out for passerbys on foot--Pooch, (the White Dog doesn't have a name, so I call her Pooch, like I call all dogs without a name) is excitable, bursting into woofs that make her bounce at the approach of strangers, bounding after them with each woof...and Pooch isn't housebroken...but the small clean ups from the hard wood floors have been a minor thing...I woofed once about it, but regret it, as it's a minor thing!...anyway, the thought of carpeting the floors seems problematic...carpeting gets grungy quick too anyway...we used to joke about the carpet critters at Last Chance...management seemed to think it good to get rid of it, and installed tile, which is best in a restaurant...one I worked in, Orange Coast's Captain's Room, carpeted the kitchen, thinking I guess the clean up would be good discipline for the cooking students...at least two of the bedrooms need to be sanded...but I'd like to do all the floors as the stain I used before is dark, and I'd like to lighten things up a bit...the bedroom I'm working in is like ten by ten, and after having worked on one foot and a half strip, I have an idea...it is going to take 'oceans of time'!!!...if I do a strip a day, it'll take like ten days--a Ten Day Daily Quest line!...hmmph...I forgot to get paper breathing filter masks, and when I do tomorrow, I'll ask about renting a floor sander...the instruction video has it that one can just turn the hand sander on, locking the switch in on position, and let the weight of the sander do the work, sliding backward and forward with one hand holding it...no...one does the work by standing on one's knees, holding the switch in on position, and pressing down with both hands, going with grain left and right sideways in front of one...it's an awkward stance, and I need to give my muscles time to get used to it...day started out sunny and clear, but clouds are coming on, and the Donut Shop had it 'it might rain'...'we'll see'....Pond level was down, that happens in anticipation of rain...Pond very quiet...Coots about...a curio is how in olden days wooden ships were sanded...they were a marvel of woodworking...brb...

quote

The US Navy has it the term may have come from the fact that 'holystoning the deck' was originally done on one's knees, as in prayer...
...
Holystoning is referenced in Richard Henry Dana, Jr.'s diary, the 1840 classic Two Years Before the Mast, in what he calls the "Philadelphia Catechism":^[9]

“Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able,

And on the seventh—holystone the decks and scrape the cable.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holystone

unquote

But holystoning isn't quite sanding a floor clean and smooth, and for that old woodworkers used planes and scrapers, and the old Egyptians may have used stones...I have two planes from the stay in the Valley...I bought the second forgetting I bought the first...the Cabin was settling, or being raised up by the Cedar!, and the door frame was all out of whack...thought to take the door off the hinges and plane it down, but never got around to it...to do the floor with a plane, I'd need the biggest sort, I think...but tomorrowmorrow will try the jack plane...leastwise it'll be quieter!...oh!...searching youtube for 'refinnishing hard wood floors', and the like, bring up some good clips...here's one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSMLFggsApY

oh!...and while editing the post, I got to thinking of the stone use...and of flint scrapers...and here is wiki's take on the first scrapers...likely the first tool!...hmmph...wiki link doesn't bring up page...google flint scraper, or maybe prehistoric technology!