Call me crazy (many do) but I like rainy days. There is something comforting about the sound of rain drumming on the roof, and sometimes a rainy day provides me with a much needed excuse to take some time off. I love settling into my comfy chair next to the fire place on a chilly, rainy day and reading a good book. Or taking a mug of hot tea to my desk and writing. Continue reading “Rainy Days and Fridays”
Category: Prattlings
Wayback Whensday: Olympic Dreams
When I was in Middle School, Phys-Ed included some pretty intense gymnastics lessons. I was good at the rings, parallel bars and pretty good on the pummel horse. A bit skittish about the trampoline. But, after I got some basic moves down I was feeling better about it. Coach encouraged me to try something more advanced; a forward roll-twisty thing. OK, I was game, I was doing well so far. Continue reading “Wayback Whensday: Olympic Dreams”
A Day with a Dingo
Yesterday Marie and I spent, once again, in the company of a Dingo. In case you don’t remember our last encounter, this Dingo is a walk-behind front loader – well, OK, it can be fitted with other attachments to do other things too, but we were using it as an earth mover. And that’s how we spent the day; moving piles of earth from one place to another.
We chose to go with the Dingo rather than the Bobcat this time because the Dingo does less damage to the ground you’re working than the Bobcat. It also costs less, but it carries 1/6 as much as a Bobcat – so that’s a wash. It was the “tearing things up as fast as I smooth them out” thing that was the determining factor.
The first pile didn’t have to move far, just from where it was, next to our septic tank, to the hole above the septic tank – and the ditches running from the new house to the tank, and the ditch from the trailer to the tank. (The only way I could think of to find the tank was to dig up the existing septic line) And that pile was actually several piles or ridges scattered about the site. Quite a mess really, but it looks better now. It’s still just dirt but now it’s mostly level dirt that can be traversed, not piles and ridges that form barriers to travel. And, before I started digging it all out, I laid down a thick layer of dead leaves over the grass under the big pile to make it easier to know when to stop digging while putting it back and to protect the grass a bit. I had not counted on it sitting there for so many months, but there are still some shoots of grass harboring in a layer of decomposed leaves. They ought to come back fairly well now that sunshine can get to them again.
The second pile, or again: piles, were above and behind the house where the Bobcat and I carried the “fall-out” from our cave-in while building the Great Wall of Edwina. This needed to go back into the caverns behind the wall. That area looks much better now and will look even nicer once we get some flowers (or at least weeds) growing again. This area is the view out our kitchen window, so that’s a priority. I’d bore you with pictures, but our brand new camera quit on us and had to be mailed to Connecticut for repair. Hopefully we’ll get it back soon. The picture above? Oh, that’s a shot from our files of the last time the Dingo entertained us.
The third project was to flatten out the driveway and parking area. The parking area is bare clay and has been pretty badly rutted up by heavy trucks, and equipment used in installing our home. It is now, as Marie put it, “like the infield at Wrigley Field.”
On Friday we decided we could afford some gravel to put on the parking area, but at that late date we were unable to get anyone to deliver it on Saturday. So…
I tried to level out the humps-n-bumps in the driveway, but that was mostly beyond the Dingo’s capability. Here the gravel we spread the last time the dingo visited got churned into the clay below it by the bulldozer and Jadde (as well as by trucks full of cement blocks, a small track hoe, and the truck & trailer of our trim-out guy) forming a very hard, stable base for our driveway. It’s pretty ugly now, but once we get another layer of crusher run on it, it will be a good driveway, even for as steep as it is. Even now, it does not get mucky in the rain like the parking area. I succeeded in scraping off some of the bigger humps and moving that material into the deeper depressions, so it is better, but it is far from smooth.
And finally we moved most of a large pile of black dirt, which I bought from a road crew who were cleaning out the ditches along the Edwina-Bridgeport road last year, from behind the trailer around to the flower beds in front of the new house. There is a high amount of small gravel in this dirt, but it is also very rich, black dirt, not the red or yellow clay you see most everywhere. Around here, even if you buy “top soil” from a garden center, what you will get is red clay that has been screened for rocks and large clumps. This black dirt should be a good start for Marie’s flowers (better than we could buy) and we can cover the stones with mulch once the plants get started. I’ve got a compost pile started using wood chips from the shop. That’s been steeping since last fall so it ought to be ready this summer.
We accomplished in a day what we had hoped to accomplish in… well; in a day, but were afraid we’d need two. A Dingo, in the hands of an experienced operator, is supposed to be able to do some very nice finish work. I am far from ‘experienced’, so it proved very useful for moving around large quantities of earth and some of the spreading but all smoothing and making “pretty” was done with a garden rake and muscle. And those muscles were very sore on both of us last night. Hot showers and liniment all around – make mine a double!
I Am What I Am
The cartoon character Popeye used to say (maybe he still does) “ I am what I am and that’s all what I am.” except he said it with his odd accent that made it sound like he was referring to himself as a sort of sweet potato. His words were brought to mind by a note I received this morning from the client for whom we are building several pieces of furniture. She says:
… The incredible beauty of the bench takes our breath away. It is so exciting to watch the tenderness, thought and care you put into each move you make. How different this is than buying a finished piece (and always wondering about the level of quality that went into construction) or worse yet – buying a piece made of particle board and having to put it together with no skills whatsoever.
It is so difficult to fathom the care you put into each piece you make for people you have never even met before.
I always believe that those who are happiest in life are those who have found and followed God’s calling for them. God gave you such a unique gift, and you use it to His glory for each person fortunate enough to find you. I am glad that we are among those so blessed!
Warts and All
I recently posted one of my step-by-step discussions of how we build a piece of furniture; the more interesting of these discussions from our In The Shop blog become permanent articles in the library section of our custom furniture web site.
In this episode I discovered a mistake had been made in the piece of furniture and discussed my remedy for the error. Shortly after having posted the chapter I was hailed by a constant reader and frequent critic to ask, “Why in the world did you admit to having made a mistake? Doesn’t that undermine peoples’ confidence in your work?”
I asked him if he knew anyone who never, ever makes a mistake. What do you think of someone who claims to have never erred? Continue reading “Warts and All”
Moment of Truth
Hurt, resentment and a bit of anger welled up from my heart and swirled around my brain stem begging to be vocalized and hurled at my unsuspecting wife. Not long ago I would have opened my mouth and given release to them, but years of training were finally paying off and caused my jaw muscles to clench for a moment while I reviewed the situation. What had actually just happened? Is this response appropriate?
It began a few minutes earlier that bright sunny, Sunday morning. My wife; Marie, and I got into the truck to go to church. I turned the key, fully expecting to hear the familiar quick rowr-rowr-rowr of the starter motor turning over the engine followed by the purr of combustion indicating a successful start. Instead all we heard was the rapid metallic fluttering of a solenoid failing to engage. I knew that sound all too well. Continue reading “Moment of Truth”
Simply Swapping Favors and the Barter System
Photo by Michael Ging
There was a time when, especially in rural America, most “commerce” was done not by exchanging cash money for goods you wanted but by trading something you had and could spare for something you needed. Many rural General Stores were simply barter centers where families who had chickens would bring eggs and trade them for butter and milk brought in by another family or for flour ground by the mill up the road.
These stores would have cloth, pots, pans and farming implements brought in from the more industrialized East, thereby being able to supply most of the needs the local families had. Cash transactions were accepted of course, but a large part of their trade was done through barter.
Rural life is still a lot like that. Swapping favors is one way we can help one another get things done without depleting our bank accounts. This goes beyond rallying around a friend who has something heavy to move because we know when we need help he will return the favor. For instance, I have the equipment and skills to do high end woodworking, Tim has a truck and trailer. Tim has often delivered my furniture pieces going “out East” for me, and I have built him furniture. Continue reading “Simply Swapping Favors and the Barter System”
Watch What You Say…
I suppose these days, what with people sitting around in restaurants and wandering through stores talking loudly on their cell phones about Aunt Geraldine’s latest visit to the gynecologist or Cousin Sam’s messy divorce, people probably just tune out everyone else when in a public place. Except me, I have a hard time ignoring loud talk and find it quite rude to be exposing everyone within 50 feet of you to the intimate details of your life.
However, I too was caught up in a similar situation once. It was long ago, I was collaborating with a woman named Ann on a murder mystery novel. This one day it turned out to be more convenient for us to meet at a restaurant for lunch and discussion of our progress.
It was getting noisy, as the place filled up and we found ourselves having to talk louder to hear while we discussed various plot twists and character attributes. One particularly tricky bit finally flashed into inspirational focus for Ann and in her excitement she fairly shouted, “…and we could have the gardener kill Mr. Murdle and throw the body down the old well!”
We noticed immediately that the place was unusually quiet. Looking around, all eyes were glued to us in shocked amazement. Some were thinking about calling the police: we could see it in their eyes.
“It’s OK; we’re writers,” I explained, “we’re working on a book.”
Most of them gave us an “Oooohhh, I see” sort of look and went back to their meals. A few, however, kept casting sidelong glances at us and seemed to be trying to listen in.
That was the only time we met at a restaurant to discuss our work!
Moonshine Rod Run
It seems we all have our holiday traditions; what would Christmas be without a tree, what would Thanksgiving be without turkey (or ham in some homes), what would the 4th of July be without at least one 3rd degree burn. And for Marie and I, Father’s Day has always meant… Car Show!
While we lived in St. Louis, we went to a monstrous car show in Forest Park that covered square miles with every conceivable kind of custom and classic cars, trucks, tractors and motorcycles. Since we’ve lived here (2001), we have attended the Hard Times Street Rod Club Moonshine Rod Run in the Newport City Park every Father’s Day weekend.
Newport has a very nice park, and the Hard Times Street Rod Club does an excellent job of presenting this show. This year the attendance, both in terms of lookers and in cars displayed, was back up to the level it was when we first came here. When the economy crashed, this show suffered some. We did notice that all the tags we saw indicated the cars were from Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina. We saw no tags from Georgia or Florida as we had in the past. So while the numbers are up again, people are not willing to come long distances for the show.
This year the Moonshine Rod Run again boasted over 500 classic cars ranging from the 1920’s to 1958. Some were stock restorations, some were fully customized, most were somewhere between. Some were breathtakingly beautiful, all were interesting. If you like classic cars, that is.