Sunday, December 25, 2005
My Christmas Present to Myself
Yay! Here’s my shed, finally finished enough to call “done.” Of course there’s still some trim that needs trimming and I need a pulley system to raise the window and I need to install pavers all around. But there’s a solid workbench inside and a slide-out bench where I’ve flush mounted my table saw and router. The chop saw and other tools will be set on top as-needed. Inside I have a wall of pegboard and lots and lots of shelves. The only bad news is that at least temporarily I’ve filled up most of the shelves with old files that haven’t yet found a rental storage unit to call home. If I get rid of the boxes then it really will be an ideal workshop.
Now I have no excuse not to begin working on bathroom remodeling.
Saturday, December 24, 2005
A Christmas Poem for ‘Mouse
Last night I was looking through the one old box of “things I don’t throw away when I move” and found the little notebook my long-deceased grandmother gave me when I was a child. In it was this poem, attributed to my grandfather who died when I was about eight—thirty-ish years ago:
Monkey Business
Four people living in a house
Wake up at night, they hear a mouse
Nibbling away above the ceiling,
Gives them sort of a creepy feeling.
That alone is bad enough;
But I declare it’s really rough,
When one big rat is stumbling badly
While jumping and tumbling rather madly,
Chasing a tail which is his own.
I say, to heck with such a clown!
——————-
There is one other poem in the notebook attributed to him with the notation “To the boys from Grandpa H.L.”:
Guess What
Our animal is awfully clever,
It does what I shall never, ever
Be able to do by hook or crook
And simply can’t learn from any book!
How to walk with feet over head
Across the ceiling over my bed.
I tried it a few times more than many
But always and always land on my fanny.
Pray, what is the crazy critter called
Who hikes upside down so fast and bold?
I will tell you for sure for a jug of cider,
The name is Mr. or Mrs. Spider.
————————-
Other than my over-large Swiss nose, these are the only things I have from him.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Nothing Else to Talk About
This construction project has become rather all-consuming, sucking up all my attention during non-working daylight hours. I’ll try to make up fiction or have insightful comments about world events just as soon as I’m done making sawdust. Meanwhile, you get progress photos.
This week I made it as far as building the windows on the front and getting everything properly hinged. Last weekend I had closed in the large front section without windows—the idea was to make it harder to break in and steal my tools, to save time, and to have a section which would open up and out forming a canopy. However, it turned out looking flat, ugly and rather dead, just as I’d predicted but then pushed aside in the hurry to get things done.
So back to the drawing board. I changed the hinge design completely, building a pivot so the entire window assembly still tilts up into a canopy and the bottom doors below the window open barn-style. (Pictures soon.) Then I made the windows out of tough plexiglass instead of glass. Now it’d be easier to break in through the wooden wall than the windows. As for the visual on my tools, I’m just going to install thick curtains.
The nice thing about this design, other than the much better look, is that the shed can now be used (by someone else in the future) as potting shed and place to start plants. My wife was angling for this to begin sometime before “the next person” but that ain’t gonna happen. I’ve got to get my tools out of the doghouse and into a proper workshop in there if any of the other house projects are going to happen.
That’s the report for this week. Tune in after turkey-day for the near-complete version.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Can’t see the forest
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Last week in flowers
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
What I did last week (in pictures)
Here are a few pictures. Perhaps I’ll put up more later. Maybe a tree-fetish series, since I took lots of those.
[Second Edit - I think I figured out the scroll-bars on the pop-up pictures. Any problems with them, folks?]