:So the big question is: what do I do about the blog now that BHM is no longer paying me to do it? You had some good thoughts on that. Actually, the big questions are both that and how do I plan for/budget for the final enormous project(s) on Ye Olde Wreck, which I hope to tackle next spring and summer? These big questions dovetail. Bear with me a moment. The back half of Ye Olde Wreck needs a new foundation: replacement of three beams 24 to 38 feet long, all new posts, jacking the floor up four inches, and…
Category: Home improvement
It is surely a mixed blessing to have time to design your own headstone. That’s a wonderful monument, though, and the Vanderboeghs could use some help getting it made. Kudos to Kurt Hofmann for a quote deserving of such immortality. “Trump: Why it happened and what comes next” by David Stockman. (How come presidential advisors never sound either this smart or this liberty-minded while they’re presidential advisors? Only afterward?) Yes, indeedy. We should always believe our heroic protectors when they tell us they need tools like Sting-Ray technology to catch terrorists, child-abductors, and the like. Sure thing. Herschel Smith says…
I’ve mentioned The Wandering Monk. He’s a handyman recently in our area who came well recommended and is living up to his reputation. He’s more skilled, conscientious, and reliable than Handyman Mike and charges substantially less. He makes difficult things simple and is pleasant to have around. Quite full of himself at times. But a really decent 39-year-old guy with a lot of experience behind him.
I plan no big house projects this year, but I’ve been bringing the Monk in on a number of small ones — partly because I can afford him, but partly (alas) because he is a wanderer and it’s been clear to me from the beginning that he’s likely to wander out of the area just as suddenly and capriciously as he wandered in. I want to get as much from his talents as I can before he drifts away.
He’s very religious and talks a lot about God. But being Catholic, and being kind of a happy wanderer, his approach is very different than some I’ve run into (who all too often figuratively slam me against the wall and threaten me with “Jesus or else” — and seem to enjoy the prospect of “or else” far more than a decent person should). I enjoy talking with him. Mostly.
Meant to get to the library for blogging earlier. But it was a good morning for burning. Just enough rain last night to keep the ground damp but not enough to soak the wood. And hooboy, have I got wood. Last week a minion came and spent a whole day breaking down and stacking all that deconstruction rubble and since then, I’ve been getting rid of it the good, old-fashioned, no-dump-fee way. Today was my fifth construction-rubble fire. These aren’t exactly bonfires, but couldn’t pass as humble little campfires, either. BUT. In addition to getting rid of the unsightly rubble…
Still sick. More than two weeks now. Whatever you do, don’t catch this thing. It may also be that springtime is complicating matters. I don’t usually get hay fever, but Old Blue looks like Old Green every morning thanks to its daily dusting of yellow pollen, and I’m wondering whether things that normally wouldn’t bother me are affecting me now because my respiratory system is already sensitized by the virus. Whatever this is, please don’t catch it. —– I finally found a dose of OTC meds that knocks the symptoms down maybe 50% while only reducing me to stupid and…
Yesterday The Wandering Monk came by to pry some lengths of 2×4 off the exterior walls of Ye Olde Wreck. They are among the last traces of the monstrous not-a-garage. I’ve never had any idea of their purpose. They had zero structural function. They were as far from decorative as could possibly be. The only use I could imagine for them was for hanging tools, but there was no sign they’d ever borne hooks or any other hanging devices. They were just … 2x4s. Extremely long ones. Nailed high up on the walls. It baffled me that I’d been unable…
It started raining again Sunday evening. Just a soft, unserious, springlike shower, followed by a few more days of the same. But knowing it was coming, I put in several hours of outdoor work, then prepped for an indoor project.
Since there was not a lot I could do inside until The Wandering Monk arrived to help me drywall a ceiling, I wandered across the little one-lane road and tried to make more progress cleaning the empty lot that will someday, if all my plans and dreams come to fruition, contain a gravel path with steps down to a homemade pergola, a small picnic area, a few fruit trees, a firepit, and maybe some chickens or even a goat or two.
It’s a long way from most of that and I’m beginning to despair.
Summer’s been with us all week (and that’s no April fooling). Aside from a little fog Monday morning, the weather’s been that ideal sort you don’t even have to think about. No worries about shivering or roasting or (thank the gods of the NorthWET) getting rained on. It’s just … what weather ought to be. Everything smells good, too. Like spring. Well, some low-lying places in the woods smell like skunk cabbage. And skunk cabbage smells like you-know-what. But even that’s a welcome aroma; it say’s winter’s officially over. In the warm, I’ve been hammering ceilings, beating rugs (lovely, messy,…
You’ve seen the improvements in my wreck of a house and indeed there’ve been many. I take pride in showing off pictures like this:
What I don’t often show you is how absolutely godawful some of it still looks. In some cases, it’s even worse than when I bought it, largely thanks to said improvements. Really, in some ways a tarpaper shack would be an improvement. I’m not kidding.
Great movie! The Martian
Boy, have you guys seen The Martian? Holy cats!
I watched it on DVD a few days ago and was glad I didn’t see it on a big screen or, heaven forbid, in 3D. I’d have had a heart attack and not be here to write this at you.