Szilvia and James James Lytle planted a maple tree with his 8-year-old son Jimmie. That was 45 years ago.  Jimmie and his brothers and sisters grew up playing around this tree. But James had to take the tree down last year - it was competing with the plumbing.  So he and his wife Margaret came to us, and asked us if we could make nine linear clocks, one for each of his children and grandchildren, as christmas presents. Margaret and Szilvia I thought this was the coolest thing ever.  I said "Yes! We'd love to!" I asked him to mill them...

We make 'em - we use 'em! Of course in this case, nothing after 6 Pm matters...

Most of these clocks fit well near the ceiling, over a door or a window. But if they’re not perfectly parallel with the ceiling, that'll make you crazy. So we came up with this really clever angle-hanger idea.  Simply hang the clock like this:   And look how they work: If you shift the clock to the right or left just a little bit, then one end drops down and the other rises up.  So you can get it perfectly level in two seconds - even if the screws are NOT totally level.  People say we should patent it. But our patent attorney says...

Dwarves? Gods? Scientists? Oh my.  We started naming each clock back about #15. It was just easier to remember names than numbers. And every clock is different, so why not? But about clock #100, we got tired of names like William for Walnut, Javier for Jatoba. So we started naming them in batches: We had a Game of Thrones week: Tyrion, Grigor, Davos ... Then there was a Norse Gods week: Thor, Loki, Baldur ... Ross, Monica and Joey are from our “Friends” week. Women of Science week: Curie, Kwolek, Telkes… Snow White week gave us Doc, Sleepy, Dopey, and four more. We’ve also been through Star Trek,...