Wednesday: The Vlog Edition . . . Burn Baby burn

If Mohammad won't come to the mountain . . . The snowbanks aren't going anywhere, so Andy proposed we have a bonfire on Friday evening to dispose of some of the brush he's cut during the winter months around the cabin and some of the snowbank. While this was a perfectly honorable task, things got out of hand quickly and yet another "you know you're a redneck when . . ." post was born.


What did Andy say at the end of that video? He said "This is really going to woof." You'll see what he means. . . .



I apologize for the poor video quality. This videographer was a little too close to the burn pile.

But all's well that ends well. Right? Right?

(Please don't repeat this at home. In fact, I would prefer not to have this repeated at my home either.)

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Wordless Wednesday: Next Project

Just when we'd hit the home stretch with the shed building project, a big load of this winter's fuel arrived. I guess we know what the next project is . . . .

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How Many Hands Does It Take To Put Up Siding?

Apparently six.

By the middle of last week, Andy’d reached the point in the shed project that it was time to deal with the siding. The floors were in. The walls were up and square. And according the carpentry expert down the road, it made the best sense to put up the siding before dealing with the roof.

So Andy and I headed out back to hang some siding. The only issue was that T1-11 siding is really much heavier than it appears. Also, when you have a short ladder that just barely allows you to peep over the top of the wall, it doesn’t work so well to have someone peeping over the top attempting to see if the piece of siding is square while the other person crouches on the ground, turning red in the face, trying to support the piece of siding and make the necessary adjustments to get the siding on straight. There was complaining, bickering, frustration, and in the end, defeat.

What to do . . . . what to do?

The good thing about staying in your hometown is that there’s usually an extra pair of hands around. Yesterday, Andy’s cousin came over and between the three of us, we got two walls done. Only two more walls, a window, a door and a roof and we’ll have a shed!

Happy Solstice! We had the most exquisite long summer day yesterday: blue skies, a touch of breeze, no humidity. The garden loved it!

Today, the official kickoff of summer as far as the calendar’s concerned, is overcast and humid. Rain seems imminent and although the rain will keep from weeding the garden, it also means we won’t have to water.

In truth, as another blogger pointed out this morning, it’s not really the start of summer: it’s midsummer. It does feel much more like the middle of summer. Yesterday, after the siding success, we sat on the deck talking for a bit and realized that July 4th, that unofficial mark of summer’s halfway point, is nearly upon us. That’s not necessarily a bad thing: July 4th is the grand opening at work. The next two weeks will be the last big push there while the second half of summer this year promises to be more orderly and relaxed.

I put in a half day at work today, which got me home and fed before three. It’s going to be a busy week on the work front and I’m trying to avoid overtime. I may have to head over to work every day this week, but at least that means I have a little more time at home each day too.

I should do dishes, but I think I’m off to hunt for wild strawberries before the rain reaches us.

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Pythagoras and Black Flies

I’m a fan of the smelly stuff. I’m not into expensive perfume, but I do like to start my days with just a touch of lovely smelling body spray. I’m just anal enough to have a winter scent and a summer scent. I once had a coworker kindly describe this personal quirk of mine as “sophisticated.” I think that “eccentric” and “crazy” are probably more apt descriptions, but nonetheless, when snow starts to melt, I reach for my containers of cherry blossom products. When the autumn nip returns, the cherry blossom stuff gets shelved and the vanilla scented products come out. But what I really, really need to learn to do is to stop reaching for the smelly stuff during the summer.

If you’ve spent any time in northern Minnesota in the spring, you know where I’m going with this. Biting insects are fans of the smelly stuff too. “Mmmm,” the little black flies and mosquitoes think when they smell me coming. “What is that . . . a bit of cherry blossom mixed with . . . what’s that? Ohhh, my favorite: BLOOD!”

The black flies made their spectacular entrance into Summer 2010 this week. As I dig in the garden or shovel around gravel in the backyard, the black flies get all riled up and hungry. Right now I’m itching away behind my ears, one of those lovely little spots (ankles are another great place) where the blood is close to the skin and black flies belly up. I know the black flies pollinate the blueberry plants, but I wish they would take a lesson from their fellow pollinators, the bees, and only take a nice chomp out of me when I’ve actually committed a crime against them.

Since I feel the need to spritz myself with a bit of body spray every single morning (if only I could be so consistent with taking my multivitamin) maybe it’s time to replace the smelly products in the bathroom with a big ol’ basket of bug spray.

It seems smelly stuff + black flies = bug bites is theorem nearly as infallible as a2+b2=c2. We’ve been testing out Pythagoras as of late around here. That’s because Andy’s building a shed in the backyard. So far my job in the project is grunt worker and mathematic consultant. Since I took a class entitled “Logic” to complete my analytical reasoning requisite at college, this is pretty terrifying. But it turned out my distant memory of a2+b2=c2 was pretty useful when it came to setting the shed’s corners. Those diagonals can be really helpful!

That’s good, because it’s pretty much all on Andy to turn this into a shed.

I’m sure he’s up to the challenge. I’m happy to help where I can, but I’ve probably pretty much exhausted all and any assistance I have to offer.

It’s been absolutely gorgeous up here, with highs around 80 for the last three days. Kind of a strange time to finish up a sweater, but there you have it.

I’m still trying to gain my equilibrium with the new job. I’d gotten pretty good at the self-employment gig (well, should probably have been making slightly more money) and now it’s time to figure out what this new challenge I’ve taken on is all about.

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