The Riddle of the 38 Pots

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Jef

When we bought the house, the deck was bordered by these terracotta pots.

Thirty eight of them.

They ringed the entire house. Most of them were empty, or has moss growing in them. Those that were not empty were filled with hardpan, weeds and mold. This travesty could even be seen from space:

Space View

To create this abomination, someone had to take a saw and cut thirty eight circular holes in the plywood that went around the deck. That probably took all day and burned a six pack of beer in the process. Who would do such a thing? What manner of madness would compel someone to construct this affront to common sense? I have been attributed with an inhuman amount of patience, but even I would only make it to the third cut out before I said “screw this shit” and stopped doing it.

Staring at those pots day after day on our deck gnawed our minds from the inside out. Not only did it look tasteless and tacky, but it made no logical sense. Were we really going to put potting soil in every damn one, pay money (real money not monopoly money but legal tender for all debts public and private) for plants that for all intensive purposes is just DEER FOOD. You may as well just fill them with kibbles and bits and let the critters go to town.

Yeah, we’d had enough. We took the pots out, and got a bunch of slate tiles to put in their place. I haven’t yet cut the angled ones, but as far as I’m concerned they look lovely.

Home Improvement didn’t stop there this weekend. No sir. We also went down to Bullock’s Nursery here on the island, which is like no nursery you’ve ever seen. It’s basically a hippie commune and among the many things they do they sell plants. And like a farm, they have chickens walking underfoot while you shopped. Never been in a nursery with chickens. Anyway, the people there were very friendly, knowledgeable and helpful. We were quite grateful they took the time to help us out since we’re coming from a completely different climate. We went in intending to just get some barberry and lavender; simple and deer proof. But like kids in a candy shop, we ended up buying all sorts of fun things. They may even be deer resistant too.

We worked pretty hard today, getting all those plants in and the rocks set down. Our ground here is soft and digs pretty easy, but it’s very, very rocky. Just digging a hole for one plant and you’ll pull out some rocks the size of a small head. The plants look great, and so far the deer have sniffed them but they haven’t nibbled. We left the underside of the deck open, for now at least. We also left the wooden beams as a border for the planting area. I hate them and someday they will go away, but for now they serve a purpose. And I got a hundred and ninety things on my to do list before I go and fix something that isn’t broken.

We did keep a few pots. If you look closely at the pic of the one with the mushrooms you’ll see the snail I found today. He seemed pretty happy and looked right at home with the mushrooms and weeds and moss and stuff. It’s been critter overload around here lately; bees the size of dogs, bald eagles, raccoons, turkeys, deer, you name it.

I did notice one thing – those pots were made in Italy, and they’re pretty good quality. I actually expected them to crumble in my hands as I removed them but only one or two were even cracked. Whatever madman came up with this idea obviously really loved it. There’s no other possible reason.

Extremely Blue

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Jef

Here is a Before Picture of our lovely roof.

It was kind of mold colored, covered with years of dirt, bug parts and fungus. Well, we had it pressure washed and who knew how blue it was underneath.

Extremely blue. Swiss Miss blue. It’s going to be interesting when we go to paint the house.

Table Saw Restoration (part 1)

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Jef

So I was visiting with father in law the other weekend and I mentioned that I was looking for a table saw. He said, and I quote, “well, your prayers have been answered.” If by prayers he meant nightmares then I think he was spot on.

He was willing to part with his old table saw, a Craftsman model, probably from the Reagan administration. It had been around the block more than a few times, ridden hard, hung up wet, and thrown from the back of a moving vehicle at a busy intersection (true story). But like all things craftsman, it is a workhorse.

I was torn. I really wanted to save up for a nice cabinet saw with tolerances that have a lot of zeroes in them. But of course, they have price tags that also have a few zeroes, so after much deliberation I figured I’d do my best to restore this Craftsman and see what I could do with it.

This thing was a mess and it needed help. It was rusted, dented, gouged and beat up. I started making a list of the parts it would need, then crossing off the things they no longer sold. This started to turn into something like restoring an antique. It’s the kind of thing I better enjoy doing, because it’s a lot more cost effective to just go and buy a new one. Still, like many things, they don’t make them like they used to. When I started taking this thing apart (and believe me, I dismantled it down to the last rusted lock washer), I saw that the parts were a little more solid than what you find in many new saws. They cut corners these days. The metal is a little thinner, the bolts are a little softer.

First thing I did was give it all a fresh coat of paint. Several coats, in fact, of rust resistant enamel. It came with what looked like after-market wheels on the base that I wasn’t sure would make it to the final build but I painted them just in case. Father in law had mentioned those wheels were kind of crappy anyway. I even sanded, cleaned and hand painted the bolts that came with it. Why would anyone waste time on such a ridiculous endeavor when you can buy perfectly good bolts at the hardware store for 10 cents each? Well, these were pretty good bolts, all made out of hardened steel that you don’t always find at the hardware store. And more importantly, they were the right size. So it took two hours of my life to clean them and paint them, but the saw will fit together correctly.

Now the base and frame were a little dented but nothing a sledgehammer couldn’t smooth out. The table top, though, was in really bad shape. Rusted, dented, gouged, pitted – it looked like it had been dragged behind a car for a few miles and left for dead behind a liquor store. I started in with the 80 grit sandpaper and quickly realized that sanding it smooth was going to take forever. And you don’t want to sand to much because you don’t want to destroy the flatness of it. At least not too much. At the end of the day, I burned through about 40 discs of sandpaper just to get the rust spots off.

At last, after sanding it so much I blew a fuse, I deemed the surface to be adequate and ready for service. Some of those deeper gouges I’ll never get out but at least wood will glide smoothly over it now.

It’s far from done. I got the stand assembled and the top generally put together (I just got the bolts hand tight as I’ll want to calibrate it when I get a new saw blade) just so it’s not in two dozen pieces strewn about the shop. Got enough going on in that shop to have to contend with that.

It still needs so many things. I’d like some extension wings to make the surface a little bigger but so far I can’t find the right size. Not even on the internet. I think this thing is so old they stopped making parts for it. I may have to make my own. It needs a riving knife, a good fence, one of those fancy zero-clearance things for the blade, some kind of dust collection set up, and the motor needs a little electrical help (just gotta replace the melted power cable, nothing major). But it’s almost there. Just a few more hundred dollar bills and it’ll be a good little saw for the shop.

The Mark Of The Boob

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Jef

If you can’t cut kitchen countertops at 90 degrees, maybe you shouldn’t be cutting kitchen countertops.

There are right angles and there are wrong angles.

This is snow

Posted on March 3, 2013 by Jef

It hasn’t snowed a millimeter on the island so far this winter, but we took a road trip that went over Snoqualmie Pass and got our snow fix for the winter. It’s on the mainland just east of Seattle. Everyone told us the horror stories about how bad the weather could get up near the summit. Snow, wind, ice, slippery roads, California drivers, all of it. But we got up there and honestly it wasn’t much different than my drive to work in Denver.

Chains were required at the summit on the eastbound trip, unless you have four wheel drive which fortunately we do. It was a bit snowy for a stretch of about 10 miles but once we got out of that it was clear and sunny and the roads were dry. And it was raining and wet on the west side. So we pretty much got all kinds of weather in one day.

Landscaping ideas

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Jef

We walked around town the other day looking for landscaping ideas. It’s getting a little nicer out, the days are longer, and we’ve even heard whispered rumors that the sun has been shining here and there.

Our property doesn’t get much direct sunlight, but the plot is pretty well cleared and we get a lot of daylight. We’re going to build a fenced courtyard between the house and garage so we can plant things that would normally be considered deer food. I’m considering getting a large tiger to help fend them off.

The really nice thing about here is everything stays green, even through the winter. That will be a nice change.

That compass was kind of neat. I bet those things are cheap, too.

Visitor

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Jef

Out here, we have more critters than neighbors.

Island raccoons are not like Denver raccoons. The urban ones are friendly, happy, and eat everything they see. Island raccoons are bad tempered, have an attitude, and eat everything they see. I’m pretty sure this one would have tried to force his way inside the door if I left it open for a minute longer.

Socked In

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Jef

A thick fog rolled in the other day. The air was calm and quiet. Nice thing about a fog is it traps the heat in, gets nice and warm. And you totally expect a horde of undead zombies to come crawling ashore from a wrecked pirate ship. Some of these old growth forests are spooky enough as they are, dark as a cave and crawling with critters. I’d hate to be in a boat out there, when this fog rolls in.

Laundry Room Plans

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Jef

Yeah, it’s just the laundry room. Nothing exciting. It’s currently 72 poorly arranged square feet that are working way harder than they should be. In fact, this room does so much that we’ve decided to start the renovation here.

Currently, the washer and dryer are arranged perpendicular to the existing cabinets, which wastes a lot of space. There’s an entire corner that we can’t even get to. We just kind of drop things down into the hole, bulky storage items that we don’t have to retrieve often.

Speaking of the existing cabinets, we’re pretty sure they were born in someone else’s house. Then, when they were taken to the dump and thrown away, someone saw them and said ‘hey, I bet those would fit in my laundry room.’ Now they’re here. They’re very poorly built; when you open one door it kind of twists the whole frame of it so all the doors open simultaneously. I hate them. When I get rid of them, I will burn them to the ground so there’s no risk of them ever being used again.

Oh, and check out these wonderful shelves. Those steel racks only found at places like ace hardware, that can transform any old, rotted, trashy slab of wood and turn it into a beautiful, efficient, adjustable shelving system. These too shall burn. The steel shall sink to the bottom of the sea, I swear it.

This tiny little 5 x 10 room has a lot of functions. In addition to laundry, it’s got to have a place for a cat litter box, the microwave and coffee pot, cat food, and quite a bit of miscellaneous utility storage. It needs to have a hanging wardrobe of sorts, a place to hang clothes fresh out of the dryer, have hooks for mops and brooms and crossbows and whatever else needs to be hung up.

One reason we’re somewhat motivated to tackle this room first is that there’s a bank of cabinets in the kitchen that is going to get taken down. These are good cabinets, actually, and they’ll be a nice fit and give us a ton of storage in there. Once those cabinets are down, we get to knock out a wall and open the kitchen up a little bit. Looking forward to that.

Construction and demolition may not start for a while. Still deciding on things like flooring and how to make the new cabinets. But I’m hoping to get this finished before summer, because then I’ll be outside doing landscaping.

Strange orange object seen in sky

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Jef

We saw this strange orange thing up in the sky this morning. Not sure what it was. It was really bright and hard to look at. I think it was a spaceship, or some kind of weird fireball that inexplicably appeared for a few moments. Going to contact NASA and see if they know anything about this.

We were on the ferry when we saw it. The winged sea-rats (depicted on right) did not seem terribly alarmed. I think they use the orange light to help them scavenge for food. They’re always staring at me like I have popcorn in my pockets or something.

Once we got off the ferry, it turned into a really foggy day. The highways were downright eerie, and flanked by the gray silhouettes of gnarled, leafless trees. Not to mention the california drivers shooting by at speed limit +20, oblivious to the fact that they can’t see more than 30 yards ahead of them at a time. Maybe they were just watching their GPS to make sure they were following the road okay.

The weather on the way back was nice. Clear skies with little banks of fog socked into the lowlands. Like hordes of zombies moving slowly from suburb to suburb to prey upon the living. Seriously, fog like that is really creepy. Got a neat view of Mt. Baker with the moon right behind it. More winged rats were scavenging the beaches for anything they could wrap their beak around. They’re in league with the zombies, I’m sure of it.

While on the beach, we found a bird feather that we brought home for Inky. She went absolutely ballistic. It smelled like bird, real authentic Bird! She was completely nuts over it. I mean, Cuckoo-for-Cocoa Puffs nuts.

Well, we got back from the mainland with a carload of goods from Target and Walgreens and other various luxuries we don’t often find on the island. It’s a balancing act. Not only does it cost around $50 just to get the car on the ferry, but we’re talking 12 hours of Life that goes by between the time we have to get up and the time we get back. So $50 + (cost of gas) + (whatever you think your free time is worth per hour × 12 hours) is the base cost of dragging yourself to the mainland for a shopping excursion. Naturally, we save a bit of money at the big box stores stocking up on paper towels and napkins and stuff, but if your net savings isn’t greater than what you came up with in the equation above, you lost money. Not monopoly money. Real, live, legal tender for all debts public and private. In this case, I think we broke even.

We bought a cord of firewood a while back, so when we got home we had plenty of fuel to make this house nice and toasty. So we could unfurl our retail store prizes in the comfort of a warm home. I must say, that is well worth the price of admission.