Inlaws are working hard to get their soya beans up asap so that they can enjoy the rest of the weekend once it’s all done. I am willing to bet that the roads were all a twitter last night as people head out of town to see family or go to events. It’s times like this where we don’t have access to a full line up of buses & trains, trams and shuttles so the roads get congested and it takes hours longer to get just about anywhere you’d want to go. Monday on the roads will be a nightmare because everybody has to come back. I prefer to move about on off peak weekends if I can help it. Save my sanity and a few extra hours of stress behind the wheel. The children’s programming last night was a touch lighter in attendance, so parking was a breeze. It’s like a non fatal Thanos finger snap. All of a sudden we have available seating & parking! It’s terrific.
Once the weekend is done we will clear the lawn once more then I’ll set up all of the inflatable Halloween decorations. That should put us in a festive mood.bi will need to take down the slack line and the swing to make room, but I think it’ll not be a problem. Neighbourhood kids don’t play on it much so it’s no big deal to put it away until next spring.
3/4 in Narex chisel newly sharpened to the rescue! (Fig 1.)
Huzzah! The rough cuts for the top most portion are done and now I can find my sharpening kit and go to town on getting my chisels up to snuff. A sharp chisel will make short work of this Cherry wood. I’m excited. While this is more technical, and somewhat slow going the end product looks so much nicer than the rough cuts. I will be several days rough cutting and then fine tuning with a chisel these two sides with four mating sections that I have to do. It’s all progress!
Sharper & cleaner edges await! (Fig 2.)
Pretty soon this is really going to feel like it’s coming together. It’ll be pretty heavy so I’m going to need to enlist the aid of my wife to move it into the front hall once it’s actually done. Should be this calendar year after all! Moving the dog crate just in time for winter boots, coats and snow pants will be extraordinary timing on my part. If we can get 4 x 8ft of open area to enter/exit the house and store our gear without having to climb over one another that’ll be a massive win in my book. I hope the kids choose not to write on or carve their initials into this completed piece like they did the other one from a few years ago. That was pine, so I didn’t care too much. But this is hardwood with hand cut joinery so I’ll be a little more concerned if it happens again. Still not heirloom quality, but better than Wayfair/Ikea. Real solid hard wood made on the premises. Means more to me anyway.
In other news the paper mache sort of dried but the under lying cardboard is soggy, so I switched to masking tape and then duct tape. It weighs more now, but shouldn’t melt under duress. Next up is cutting out the eyes and mouth, gluing in our plates and figuring out my daughter’s eye level for sight. Then she’s free to paint it and decorate it however she sees fit. With weeks left to go she has not got to rush. I like that.
It’s a slow process but I am relying on my chisel work to clean to the edges and make some tight joinery. (Fig 1.)
I did not get very far on the four edges that will mate with the box joints. I have rough cut only one section of the four that need it. But in order to do the last two section on the leg portions, I need my final sized top panel completed then I can transfer my pins & gaps. And once all that’s done I can measure out my shelves and router those mortises into the legs too. Do a dry fit so that I can notch out the bottom backing plate that is there to stop the dogs toys from getting under the couch and I can dry fit that too. I can take this time to either break all the edges with a sanding block or use the router to round over the edges. I haven’t decided which i’d prefer. Then it’ll be sanding until I’m sick to death of it all. I think I might then go ahead and rub on some Danish oil to make the colour a little richer right off the bat. This avoids the glue accidentally leaving voids where the oil gets repelled and won’t hold. All that’s left is to glue it together, and allow it 5-7 days to offgas in the garage. I can add some rubber feet or some padded strips to the bottom of the legs if I do wish. Save any more scratches of our hardwood floors. Though given how badly damaged they are from the dog’s bones I don’t need to worry about it all that much.
I’ve looked at some new thickness planers and of course the best reviewed and highly rated bench top version is still going to run me $1,100.00 and change. Not to be entered into lightly me thinks. That might stay on the old wishlist for a good many months if there are no sales any time soon. I will monitor the pricing on Amazon, Canadian Tire and such over the coming months to see if the price ever drops. I doubt that it will. It’s better than the cheaper lunch box style planers, so it likely never goes on sale. I could check out Busy Bee but those 15″ wide planers are way out of my league price wise, and are too large for my available shop space. It’s gotta remain mobile and on a wheeled base.
Anyway, progress is slow by moving along so I will consider that a win for today. Nice to be home working and still be able to go out into the shop and tinker with my toys! Why have them if I’m not able to putter around doing stuff.
I started some paper mache today and… good god is that messy! Eew. I only managed to get half the head covered, and it’ll require many layers and I’ll need to be able to flip it over once dry to do the underside. Let us hope the water, flour, salt mixture adheres as well as I remember it. With any luck I can really crank some strips out tomorrow and then we can cut out the eyes and my daughter can paint it however she likes. A big wearable pumpkin head of some random character she likes. Then she can focus on the clothes she’ll need to wear with it. Fun-fun.
Back washing the pool to drain it ready for wintering. (Fig 1.)
As far as I can tell the steps to this process go as follows: Drain the water down to below the jets & intake outlets while cleaning out any leaves and debris. Suction all of the water out of the pipes. Cap the pipes from the pool end. Add three different types of things to the water in an attempt to limit algae, metal corrosion, and one powdered oxidizer. Manoeuvre the pool cover into place and then affix it in place with a rubber weather strip gasket type thin while on your hands & knees bent over the entire time. Takes a couple of hours. Isn’t all together unpleasant but I’m glad we only do it once per year, and then in the reverse order to open it up, but that requires heating the water too so it takes an awful lot longer. Same with filling the pool water level back up, with a garden hose you’re looking at eight or more hours.
Well, it’s now Thursday before the Thanksgiving long weekend and the forecast looks to be halfway decent at least. I think I will try my hand at some joinery today to keep the furniture build progressing at an even pace. I spent a number of hours yesterday hand planing those six boards, and I’m not entirely certain that they are any better than they were to begin with. Ha! I have many hours of sanding in my future that’s for certain.
I haven’t seen enough consecutive early morning frost to venture behind the barn to the last wood pile to start up splitting again. I want to be almost certain that those ground wasps are done for the season before I set up shop anywhere within 300 m of them. All that sweating, banging & clanging with likely raise their ire, and I can do without another swarming attack this calendar year. Never again would be preferable, but I’m not that lucky. Before this I hadn’t had a swarmed attack since 2008 when I built our shed. I was pulling up old posts that were set into the ground as a make shift retaining wall and got jumped by a bunch of yellow jackets or hornets or something. It was very unpleasant. I do not recommend it.
It was unseasonably warm last night so the damn mosquitoes were out in full force too. Seems odd that they never really died down this year. They’ve been a menace since early May. Did the bird flu kill off more birds than we are aware of and that’s why the mosquito population is so high, or was it because we kept having major cloud burst rain fall that likely kept puddles full out in the trees all summer long? When we had the months long drought last summer the mosquitoes practically died off completely due to there being no moisture on the ground anywhere at all. The lake dropped 3 nearly 4 feet by October last year. It was way way up this spring though. Nearly over the shore line at the boat launch. It was crazy high just months after dropping so low some folks had to anchor their boats 50/60 feet out from shore to have water deep enough for their boats draw. Crazy times are afoot.
Two little hand planes doing all the work that the lunchbox planer could not. (Fig 1.)Makes a considerable mess in the process. (Fig 2.)
Why spend your time setting up and dialing in your lunchbox planer when it will vibrate itself to death leaving you with wonky uneven boards! When you can just as easily spend a few hours flattening those boards by hand on your bench with various sizes of hand plane. I’d much prefer to skip this step by having the technology work correctly, but here we are. Six boards that need the centre bulge sheared off with a chisel iron and a lot of sweat and banged up knuckles. My favourite!
On the other hand we have momentum and some forward moving progress towards a completed project within the calendar year. I haven’t made much of anything this year beyond my Axe-Box the other day. I don’t know if I’ve built any other items in 2026. I have fixed fences and cleared out the shop a bunch, but I don’t recall making a single item out of wood. No bunny hitch, no tables, no chairs, no stools nothing. This will likely be it for the year. I should try to do a good job.
In other news I have begun construction of my youngest daughter’s Halloween costume helmet. That is a pumpkin with gigantic eyes. It’s from a game she plays on her tablet apparently. Hot glue and cardboard and several hours of our time. I’ll show it off once completed because the under structure looks terrible. Soon we can paper mache the outside and texturize it ready for her to paint it. I need to figure out these huge eyes though, but I need it to be a solid mass first so that I can cut into it without it coming apart in my hands. Do we add lights? I don’t know.
Spent two hours running all six pieces through the lunchbox planer just to realize after the fact that the set screws had shaken loose and made the cutting deck uneven, so I have sloped boards that need to be hand planed to take the bulk out of the centre of each panel. Lovely. Wanted to avoid having to do that. A touch up with the hand planed is one thing but having to do the inner bulk of all six is a huge pain in the ass. Tiring too. Going to end up playing a lot of whack-fuck with my knuckles I can just tell. But after all that progress has been made. With three more full length boards to flatten up I can then trim my legs to final height, and start cutting my dove tail slash box joints for the joinery. A couple tenons and some routered slots and 8 can then round over the edges and spend a few days sanding everything. Dry fit assembly, glue up, and a choice of finish will complete this bad mamma jamma.
Work shop feeling a little crowded. But I’m out of the sun, wind and rain in here. (Fig 2.)
Not as relaxing as wood splitting but I will be happy to tear down the dog crate and open up some room in the front hall. Like I said, not heirloom quality, but it should be both sturdy and made of solid hardwood. Those are good things in my book.
I am nearly ready to throw this lunch box planer into a landfill though it operates so poorly. No amount of sharpening, cleaning and TLC seems to keep it from shaking itself apart on the regular. It’s no good to me if I tune it up, dial it in and ten minutes later it’s gone entirely to shit on me. I’m bad enough as it is, I don’t need machine faults to further fuck-up my wood work.
Didn’t take much time this morning to stack a bin full of the split Hickory. Now I have all four bins filled and I’ll need the others moved back over here so that I can fill those too. Given the volume of split wood I could likely fill three more bins and get a good way through a fourth I’d wager. So with that in mind along with the whole wasp incident I might just curtail the wood splitting operation until the conditions outdoors settle into a cool frosty morning chill. No more swarms for me if I can help it.
I do however need to find the desire to get out into the garage and pick up where I left off on the furniture build. I have gotten side tracked by cleaning up the basement and organizing the chaos that was left down there by the Girl Guide craft supply hand over to another unit. The kids are turning to their devices for entertainment now more than ever so the doll houses, dolls of all sorts, Shopkins and Lego can all get reorganized and packaged up together for storing away.
We sent away the Peppa Pig, Trolls, and Paw Patrol toys to the cottage so our niece & nephew could enjoy them. Now I think that the LOL dolls and the Shopkins might join them. However, at this point I would just like them tidied up and organized. I don’t need them to leave the house. I’d like to have SOME toys here for when tech inevitably goes down, or they feel like being actual physically able children again for a brief spell. We have some stuff split into bins and baskets stored nicely on a shelf. I’m good with that. I’m not looking to erase their childhood, I’d just like things to look tidy now that the fair is over, and before the Halloween/ Christmas crafting begins.
A cleared off table and a clean island top work wonders for my mood. I took the liberty of removing much of the paper recycling last week by going through last year’s paper that came home with both children. Not as much went out as I would have liked, but it was better than nothing. I felt like I did something. In the end that’s what matters to me. A slightly cleaner home, and the feeling of having done something towards that goal. Incremental bettering of our surroundings. The age of whole sale slaughter is done. I did that the very first year I had both children off to school and out of the house — finally! I opened closets, drawers, cupboards, chests, ottomans, and every nook & cranny that I could get into. It wasn’t until last summer that I finally got under the basement stairs! My kids are now Grades 7 & 4, so I’ve been at this for a while.
Several winters ago I started slashing my hoard of books. I donated or recycled about 400 paper backs, hard covers, and design text books, and fancy satin finish full colour art and design magazines. I went over it three or four times over several months and again the following year just removing stuff I didn’t like. Books about things I had lost interest in. I did the same to my closet and wardrobe. I don’t need business attire for every day office life. I work from home and now spend most of my time in work pants for manual labour tasks, or in sweats. I had to keep some for obvious reasons, like weddings, funerals, and the odd in person meeting. But I don’t need a closet full of that stuff. I also pared down my t-shirts and sweater collections. I was ruthless where my own property was concerned. Less so with my kids.
But I will say this, I care not for Play dough and I will toss that shit in the trash in a single heart beat if I think it has gone off. Jammed up shapes, jigs, presses and the like will go to the tip along with the crusty ass playdough. Anything cracked and broken will go to the curb too. I don’t care!
Also now that I look at it I’d really like to get a move on the furniture build so that I can remove this massive dog crate from my front entrance. Swap out twenty four inches for 11.25″ in depth is a win for freedom of movement by the door. Then the kids mini couch can go downstairs too. That blocks the hall closet door. He’ll, the inside of the closet is a mess and I need to pull all manner of boots and shit out of it that doesn’t fit either child anymore. The cycle, it never ever stops!
Nearly three days on and I’ve still got itchy bite marks from the damn ground wasps that swarmed me on Sunday morning. With any luck these deep morning frosts will kill them off fairly quickly and I can go back to splitting sooner than later. I guess we will wait and see if I catch the furniture building bug and decide that that’s what I’m doing in my down time from now until winter comes. Did I mention that the fan on my Mr Heater Big Buddy died after a single season with one use? I changed the batteries and everything, Nada. But the propane still lights, and it heats up pretty well, it just doesn’t move the air around by itself anymore. I now use a secondary fan/element heater to do that. I am weary of the open flame heater because of saw dust particles catching flame and igniting while I’m working. Not a good look to spontaneously combust my garage when I’m in it. Not a good look to do it when we’re not there either. Ha!
Sleeping through the night has been a challenge since Sunday because my After bite and Benadryl creams seem to wear off around 2:00 am, and then I am plagued by full body itches that wake me up. I’m certain the dog hates it too. I’ve used cooling gels, scrubs and antihistamine creams but the incessant itch comes back on all eight bite locations. Some worse than others. Like my face & neck are bad, and my leg & hip itch just as much. It could have been so much worse, so I keep telling myself. I made out pretty well given how many wasps swarmed me while I was occupied weed eating at the farm.
Tried to get ahead over the weekend and wound up weed eating right over a ground wasp nest. Took fewer than ten bite/stings because I was covered from head to toe because it was cool and raining. Luckily! So now I’m going to leave that portion alone until we get consistent Frost’s which will cause the wasps to die off and/or go dormant. Then I can proceed. So instead I took the hour to fill three of the four bins and set up the camp site for my wife’s Guide group that is coming tomorrow. I basically filled all three bins from my first stack of split wood. I probably have enough left to fill four more! Yikes.
Lovely day to stack wood into bins. (Fig 1.)
Now I can go home and work. The waste wood here can get tipped into the trees because I am not touching any more of this batch. The bottoms all rotten and the wood explodes into shards instead of splitting into nice prices. Unfortunately the folks whom dumped it didn’t stack it so it’s water logged and rotting from the inside out, and top to bottom. Not to worry though we have lots!
So much left to stack away into bins! (Fig 2.)
Fair weekend is done for another year, thankfully. I only spent ten hours there, so a short one this year. I didn’t go to meet anyone and that saved me about twelve additional hours of standing and walking. I need to put some arts & crafts on my immediate to-do list in preparation of next year. I’m all pumped up for it and I have the most time possible if I start now.
I was trying to clear the weeds around the biggest wood pile behind the barn and stumbled upon a wasps nest in amongst the older more rotten logs. I got hit a good eight times much to my chagrin. Luckily the dog is ok. I did have to pull over three separate times to let wasps out of the car, and swipe them off of me. I was wearing full length pants, a bulky sweater and a jacket so many of the potential swarms stings were muted. But one went up my shirt and got my hip real good, and the top of my butt, and the face/neck stings were direct hits. Could have been far worse, though I’m not thrilled about the stings I did get. Ha!
Two of the eight that made it through to bare skin. (Fig 1.)
On the plus side the weed eating is just about done. So tomorrow I will stack wood in the first pile, and I might take a break and work on my furniture build. See if we can’t get some Frost’s to roll in and subdue the wasps before I go back. The nest looks to be about ten to fifteen feet over from where I had planned to start on the spring time bucked bits, so that’s a no-go right this moment.
I am now out of the shower, and have rubbed myself down with after bite and benadryl creams, and am in the process of washing all the clothes that I had on to get rid of any angry wasp pheromones so they don’t come back at me upon my return.
Also checked myself for ticks while I was in the shower and so far I’m all good there too. My face and hip do hurt pretty good right now, I’m not going to lie. I was so caught up in sweeping down all the long grasses and weeds I didn’t even notice the swarm. My safety goggles and headphones protected my eyes and ears, but my neck and cheek still got got, if you know what I mean.
I’d swear that at any one point I probably had ten to fifteen wasps on me just going to town with their stingers. Thank god it’s cool and rainy and I had all these extra clothes on otherwise instead of just eight or so stings, I’d have fifty or more – easily. Yuck! Makes my skin crawl just thinking about it.
Take care of yourselves out there. Be aware of your surroundings! Wear the appropriate PPE.
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