Construction journal: my first piece of furniture completed!!!

Ok. Maybe my second. The computer cabinet on the left was the first piece of furniture. I designed the set to accommodate Irene’s wishes, within physical limits. 

I spent the past 10 hours attaching the drawer fronts to the drawers and installing the drawer pulls. It was slow going until Michael got back from picking up Irene’s new mattress and buying more wood. It is so much easier to site drawer fronts with an extra set of hands. 

The one drawer is missing because I cut it an inch too wide. I had to remake that drawer. 

The last I wrote we had just constructed a tower of drawers. Drawers need to run on slides. 

The handy jig for installing the slide didn’t work on the side without room for a clamp. I screwed a scrap piece of wood to the cabinet side.  It worked.  

I spent a day climbing inside narrow spaces learning how to use a screw driver left handed. 

Paint stirring sticks measure a convenient eighth inch, the space needed between drawers.  

The drawer pulls Irene selected had an odd measurement between screw holes. In order to get them placed, I made a pattern by stretching a piece of paper over the screw side of the handle and poking holes through the paper into the screw holes. I transferred the measurement to a piece of wood I cut to give me 2” below the top of the drawer. I folded the paper in half and marked the mid line on my wooden jig. I drew a line from one corner of the drawer face to the kitty corner, both ways, which gave me the mid point of the drawer face. I clamped my jig to the drawer face, lining up mid lines. I used a drill press to drill my screw holes.  This took a while, but worked well. 

To make the holes in the drawers (drawer screws fit only the drawer face, not the drawer face AND the drawer) Michael found me a nail set that fit in my screw holes. After I fit the drawer fronts in place, I punched indents into the drawer, unscrewed the drawer face, then used a large drill bit to make holes in the drawer aligned with the screw holes in the drawer face. We then replaced the drawer front and installed the drawer slide. This is why it took 10 hours to place all the drawer fronts and pulls. 

A built-in set of dresser drawers seems an odd piece of furniture for a living room. However, Irene considers this her “kitchen”. A refrigerator/freezer, toaster, coffee maker, paper towel holder, and microwave will fit on the countertop. The tall drawer will fit a trash can and cleaning items. The drawers are different depths to accommodate a variety of items, including office supplies, silverware, dishes, dish towels, and files. 

We hope to get the computer desk and pull out keyboard tray installed tomorrow. Michael completed refinishing the bed stead yesterday. I have yet to cut the boards for the closet face. I also need to make shelves for the closet boxes and the computer desk.

I don’t think we will have Irene moved in before she comes back from Michigan on Saturday. But we will have her moved within the week. 

Whew. We are both exhausted.  

Construction journal: putting the drawers together

Remember all those boards from yesterday?  We got them all put together today. 

I screwed and glued.  

The clamped board was so the drawer fronts and backs wouldn’t slide out of place. Having flush fronts and backs is somewhat important. 

As soon as I had a drawer assembled, Michael put the veneer on the top edges.  

We worked like house elves.  

Ta da!  

55 boards turned into 11 drawers. I am covered in glue.  

Construction journal: so much work, so little to show

We are in the home stretch towards getting Irene in her new space. She has gone to visit in Michigan beginning on September 3 and returning on the 15th. We are desperately trying to have her MOVED before she returns home. Given how hard we have been working and where we are, I’m not sure we will make deadline.  

The Monday she left it rained an inch and a quarter.  

The chickens were so bedraggled!  

Michael and I worked on “adjusting” the studs in the closet so that the box I made would fit without twisting and leaving a half inch gap on one side (and all the shelf holes twerked).   We also made a run to town for materials. 

The shims don’t hardly show!  We still need to cut, router, sand, finish, install drawer pulls, and attach the drawer fronts. 

Tuesday saw me crawling in and out of the drawer spaces, measuring and cutting shims, shims, and finally shims the correct width. I needed a proof of concept before I measured and cut the rest of the drawers. Michael mowed a lot of grass, so when it came to cutting boards, I wouldn’t have to wade through a jungle. I also put veneer on two drawers I measured and cut and put together.  Four drawers completed (except for drawer slides). 

Piles of boards, all in order.  

It took us the best part of Wednesday and Thursday to cut the 55 boards that will make the 11 drawers in addition to the 4 I already made.  My architect daughter wondered why I was making the carcase full of drawers rather than shelves. I gave her a design answer:  when you get old you don’t want to have to bend down and rummage in the back of a 23” deep shelf near the floor. A drawer pulls out and is so much more accessible. She could appreciate that answer. 

Friday and today were spent with Michael sanding boards and me varnishing them. Finding sufficient horizontal space has been a challenge.  

It’s amazing the plants are still alive, if only just. So many things are suffering from neglect.  

Oh hey, Michael did get the replacement sculpture parts painted and installed. The sculpture is now both beautiful and functional! 

Now there’s room for a coffee cup or a book on that shelf, which had been full of extra TP rolls.  

Michael and I are taking a break, sitting on the back deck and surveying our realm. We will have tomatoes for dinner, then I will sand some more while he is putting the birds to bed. 

We are missing having the Little Apple Eater around, but are looking forward to having her and her parents back in December, should we all make it that far. Sheesh, I am tired!

Grand Girl Journal: she’s making herself right at home

We started this blog as a journal about farming 40 acres in the 21st century. Lately, it hasn’t been so much about farming as about constructing the addition. The original cabin was built to house 2 adults, and perhaps a single grandchild might overnight on the couch. We now have 3 adults living here long-term, another adult living here for the time being, and now two more adults and the Grand Girl vIsiting for a week. The construction project allows us to pull this off.  If a farmstead is quintessentially about nurturing and family, then we are still on track!  

Loving up Summa. 

Working out.

Picking (and eating) plums. She says the apples are okay too.  

Chasing chickens.  

Cooling off. 

Climbing stairs. 

Drinking coffee just before bedtime.  

Oh, wait. No coffee until she’s twelve. 

Charming cheese from Auntie Sister. 

Harvest journal: tomato season has begun!

We ate our first tomato for dinner on Saturday, August 18th. Since then, I’ve had tomatoes for breakfast,

Aunt Harriette loved fried onions with her eggs. That woman knew how to eat!  I added a half of an heirloom pink tomato.  

lunch,  

The fresh sliced onions are hiding under the tomato.  

and dinner. 

Green chile chicken enchiladas.  Michael makes wonderfully tasty corn tortillas, but they don’t roll well. Fabulous pared with one our Early Girls. I had to dice another to go with the last of my enchiladas. 

I will eat tomatoes until frost ends this orgy. 

Construction journal: a utilitarian sculpture

Michael put on his artist hat for the bathroom grab bar project. He had the vision. I lent tech support. 

The original design involved finding ADA standards, measuring and listing parts.  I made my list and checked it twice. 

The small hardware store in Milltown cuts and threads pipe. it didn’t have all the parts we needed, and we realized some of the pipe would be too large for toilet paper rolls, so we had to make some on the spot changes. 

The connectors were in a plastic sack and not as photogenic.  

Michael cleaned all the parts, found his pipe wrenches and set to work.  

Michael taught me how pipe wrenches work. I hope never to need this knowledge. I don’t know what we will do when our work space becomes civilized.   

The next step was painting the sculpture with rustolium spray paint. 

A nice place under the trees where the paint couldn’t drift onto anything else we didn’t want painted. 

Michael cut and finished a wooden pedestal for his sculpture. One thing about Pergo flooring: you don’t want to screw through it to the underlayment. It needs to breathe!  We located attachment points and Michael installed appropriate anchor 2x4s in the walls. He held the sculpture in place while I did adjustments to ensure everything was square and plumb. We made marks on walls and floor, put silicone adhesive on the bottom of the pedestal and went to press. 

I installed the trim on the inset shelf before we installed the sculpture. The grab bars are solid, although toilet paper rolls do not fit over the end caps. We need to figure out how to remedy this design flaw without compromising the sculptural integrity.  

It works really well as a grab bar at least. I think doing the ADA research helped. Wish we had remembered to bring a toilet paper roll with us when we were buying parts!  This is becoming one of my favorite areas in the house. And yes, I have been taking baths! 

Harvest journal: Hot August Nights

We have various outdoor horizontal surfaces we use during harvest season.  We need them to dry out certain parts of our harvest before bringing them indoors. The humidity has been ferocious this year. 

Butternut bark drying for future dye baths. 

Garlic wilting a bit before being bundled. 

The hard neck garlic did well, despite being planted in November and then surviving a cold, snowy, and loooong winter.  The soft neck garlic had a 15-30% failure rate. We were eating last year’s soft necked varieties until about a week ago. They save better than hard necks. 

We love onions!

We planted our onions late, due to the late spring. They had a reduced success rate, much like the soft neck garlic. Some years are just that way.  We ran out of onions in March. 

Heirloom beets. 

The beet crop suffered as well. The leafy greens, on the other hand, are marvelous. 

We can grow kale again, having fenced out the rabbits.  We may get a ripe tomato soon.

Kale and onion pizza for dinner tonight:

And olives and.... 

The elderberries and plums are ripening as well. Michael has been stripping berries from umbels while I bundle garlic and onions.  

Having a basement stocked with onions and garlic (and jelly and eggs and...) makes me feel rich.  

Pet journal: the mighty hunter

We have been hosting our daughter’s cat while she is staying with us to recalibrate. 

The master of all he sees. 

He likes being an inside/outside cat. He chases bunnies and jumps for butterflies. We have found dead mice around, whole. If it is not dry cat food, he does not eat it. Today, we found this on the lawn:

We didn’t know we had rats, but given the amount of feed around, it’s not surprising. 

He does leave our chickens alone. They travel in a pack, and collectively have bigger teeth. 

Back stair time is the best time. 

It’s good to have a cat again. It’s good to have our daughter with us for the nonce. We will miss both whenever it comes time for them to move on. 

Construction journal: slow progress on the cabinetry and closet

Finish work is slow and is as exciting as watching varnish dry. Michael was good and varnished some boards for me while I was in New Mexico saying hello to loads of relatives and friends, and goodbye to my daddy. 

My nephew holding the box my Uncle Tom made to house my father’s ashes. My mom painted the images. I’m nowhere near this level of competency...but they have a few years on me!

I’ve been back for a week now. It seems I should have more to show, but it has been a week of learning. 

The veneer tape arrived just after I returned.  

The cabinet making books my Uncle Tom sent to me mentioned finishing plywood edges with pre-glued veneer tape. We ordered some just before I left, not really knowing how the darn stuff works. You Tube saved us again!  It is applied with a clothes iron (I bought a small one to dedicate to woodworking) and then is trimmed with a plane iron. 

Before. 

After. 

Getting the veneer tape to stick on a curve required Michael’s ingenuity, warm water to soak the tape, a large dowel, some scotch tape and a couple of twist ties. 

More waiting for the tape to dry.....

Using a wood block to encourage the glue to hold while it cooled, together with the pre-bending, worked!

Yes, squaring this corner would have been so much easier, but I like matching the countertop’s curve. 

The box for the computer desk got put together.  

The wall next to the computer desk is not plumb. This is what happens when architects come and build things while you are away. Sweet, but it creates problems down the road. 

We also installed two of the boxes in the closet area. 

We share this mania about checking for level...

We bought more plywood to make the rest of the shelving in the narrow area to the left of the closet. 

We were blessed with a wonderful visit by some friends of mine from high school (I went to high school in California, so visits are rare):

Kim from Watsonville, CA and Starla from Austin, MN. What a treat!

In our spare time we harvested butternut bark for future dye projects and garlic because, well, garlic. 

Bark comes off so much easier if you catch it right after the tree comes down. This tree had a fungal infection.  You can see the bark at the end of the table is black. This is what Michael and I did to relax the day after I got home. 

If you wait too long to harvest garlic, the protective paper deteriorates. 

Oh yeah, we did go fishing this past week as well.  Looking back on this week, perhaps “slow” fails to track reality.

With that, I present the font of all energy, and her progeny: 

Four generations. Watch out world!

Harvest journal: first fish of the season

17 Crappies and 10 Sunnies

Atlas Millpond didn’t fail us. 

Good to be on the water again.  

Fish for dinner tomorrow.  

Season journal: green

The air smells sweet like corn.  

The long low light makes it all look greener still. 

Elsewhere, the Grand Girl ignores an aggressive interloper. 

Construction journal meets weather journal: what to do when it is wet wet wet

The rain gauge measured slightly over 2” yesterday. The pond didn’t overflow, but the ducks have more water than usual for this time of year.  

Two inches of rain raised the water level by about a foot. 

Constant rain slowed down our beginning this addition project in 2015. It still slows us down somewhat, as it is difficult to cut large pieces of plywood indoors, and good pieces of plywood are expensive!  On the other hand, we now have individual mini projects that take time...which is what the rain gives us. Yesterday, we planned the grab bar system for the new bathroom. 

The toilet paper holder is drawn in backwards, but we compensated for that later.  

Irene needs help in standing up from a sitting position, as do I after I’ve spent several days on a ladder or kneeling on hard surfaces without remembering the knee pads. We built ourselves a problem by leaving plenty of room around the commode...a function of having too little space in the original cabin. 

Great for cleaning!  Lousy for pre-made grab bars. 

We made the trek to a local hardware store that cuts and threads pipe. Our big box stores won’t do that. It took us almost all day, between checking ADA standards and looking up dimensions for various connectors, and then triple-checking measurements and calculations. The math matters, as pipes thread into fittings and so you have to add an inch to the length you think you need. Then the hardware store didn’t have certain connector parts, so we made some seat-of-the-pants adjustments. We will assemble the parts once ready, and then paint the assemblage before installing it. More to come on this!   

In the meantime, I installed my first in-wall bathroom shelving unit.  

I am happy to report the railing on the shelf is SOLID!  

My next design challenge is how to finish the face of the closet.  

Part of the problem is that I don’t want to tape any more wall board in this room!  

More design work. It’s still raining. Life is good. 

And I’m back to ending with long-distance photos of the Grand Girl!

Weather journal: it’s a half an enchilada and you think you’re the Barber of St. Croix

Our rain gauge measured 0.5” fifteen minutes after I took this photo. 

Our pond remains full. Despite the three weeks of drought immediately following the last snow melt, we have had regular rainfalls measuring between half an inch of water (said fast sounds like “half an enchilada”) and an inch and a half. The mosquitoes love it.

The inability to work outside gave me the opportunity to have Michael, that ever-moving dervish, sit still long enough to give him a trim.  

In process of taming the candy floss.  

 “The difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is two weeks” is Michael’s favorite saying. 

After 30 some-odd years, I may be getting the hang of this.

Tip of the hat to my mom, who let me know from her shining example that you can do pretty much anything given the knowledge and the right equipment. 

Season journal: for every thing there is a season

My father celebrated a time to die today.  

I can hear his laughter in my soul. 

He has left the world a wonderful legacy.  

Life marches on... 

Harvest journal: the lettuce and chicken came due at the same time!

We picked up our broiler chicks on May 2nd this year.  By June 18th, they were almost as large as the Grand Girl!

Well, maybe only a third as big. We started with 15 chicks. One died within a day...trampled by its nest-mates. Another died at about 4 weeks. We figure it rolled onto its back and couldn’t right itself, like a turtle. We found another nest-mate who had rolled and appeared dead a few days later, but I found him in time to right him, and he walked away. This was a sure sign we needed to begin to harvest them, and so we did. 

As my grandfather would say, “You like chicken? Take a wing!”...as he offered you his arm.  

Our salad garden was planted at the end of May. Three weeks later, we are having our first salad. Seven weeks and the chickens were between 4 1/2 and 6 pounds. We left 5 to grow some more, for Thanksgiving and Christmas and other family gatherings.  I love seasons!

Birthday journal: she walks in beauty

Plumbing journal meets the electrician: the new bathroom has hot water and a sink!!!!

If you were to check my blog from one year ago this week, you would get to read about how my brother Daniel was helping us put the plumbing into the addition. He also gifted us an instant hot water heater, which has been sitting in a dusty corner ever since. The problems with installing it were many, including the fact that we had used up all the ground wire connections in our electrical box. This meant we (meaning Michael) had to add a ground bar to the box. In order to have our box be up to code (which no one inspects here in the Big Woods), we had to run a ground wire to the...ground!  

The metal post got pounded to below ground level, had an “acorn” added by which a thick copper wire was attached, which then ran through a hole Michael drilled in the outside box, with UV resistant RTV filling the hole so it won’t leak, so that the wire could be connected inside.  The post got buried. 

My role was to hold the flashlight, make a pattern to get the holes for the ground bar drilled in the correct place, and juggle equipment to hand to Michael. 

It looks messy, but the door should eventually fit over everything. Now to figure out which breakers control which circuits...

The water heater took very large wire as well as a safety switch. 

I cut the boards for the switch support, but it took Michael’s long arms to install them. Again, he is the electrician, I just hand him what he asks for. 

We were all curious whether we would have sparks and explosions when we flipped the breaker and safety switch.  

No drama. We like that.  

Before we could run water through our sink, we had to attach the drain. 

The P trap sits just under the floor. The pedestal hides the drain pipe. 

The normal equipment to connect the drain to the sewer wasn’t going to work for us, so we had to figure out a work around. 

A home made transition pipe. 

The coupling on the floor was installed at an angle, which posed a problem when we tried to screw it on with the sink installed. We eventually figured out that we had to take the sink off the wall, which made it so much easier to get everything where it needed to be so there are no leaks. 

Sink finally installed and level!

By the way, you may notice that I have this thing with making sure fixtures are leveled. This is why:

To be fair, Clyde didn’t have many avid assistants...or a level that was accurate. 

We have hot water!

We still need to install the shower walls and plumbing and cabinetry and grab bars and...but for the moment, I think the new bathroom is beautiful. 

Note the tricky hole cut for the electrical outlet. 

The Grand Girl and her parents arrive tomorrow, late. Nice to have a second functioning bathroom. 

Construction journal: learning new skills with a skill saw

We have been busy here in Big Woods country. Our riding lawn mower started eating belts, which means the push mower has become Michael’s new best friend. In the meantime, I’ve been learning how to use a variety of saws. Michael has always been in charge of making big ones into little ones, but he has these 3-4 acres of grass calling his name...which left me on my own. So, this is what I’ve learned:

First, I designed a counter with drawers for Irene’s new space using information from books my Uncle Tom sent to me.

I found a quartz countertop that fit the space we made last summer. It was beautiful and half price, so I bought it. It has been gathering dust ever since. It’s size controlled other dimensions. We bought 3/4” plywood, as my Uncle Tom books said that is what it takes to support heavy countertops. Michael helped me lay the plywood on top of the frame he made last fall to cut our metal siding.

I used scrap lumber to support the board beyond the frame so I didn’t have to cut through the frame itself. Michael just cut through the frame with the metal, but I didn’t want to deal with the different resistances. 

In order to keep my lines straight, I clamped my straight edge to the plywood.  

No wiggles!

I then clamped my straight edge 5 1/8” down from my line, so I had a guide to help me keep my actual cut straight. 

This may seem like a lot of bother, but I really needed my boards to be uniform. The guys on You Tube had great table saw supports in fabulous workshops. I have a lawn. 

Once I got all of my boards cut, they needed to be put together. A real carpenter would use specially cut joints that interlock. I just wanted this to go together and not fall apart. The You Tube guys recommended pocket screws as being the fast and dirty way to go. I decided to give it a whirl. 

EBay. We love EBay. I put the pocket jig together. Michael helped me hold the big pieces. He needed a break from mowing anyway. 

The next step was to screw the pieces together.  

Plywood is never straight.  We had to muscle it into square as we screwed the sections together. Clamps are only so helpful at this stage (although we did use them when screws didn’t want to sink properly).  We also glued. 

Once all the pieces were together, we set the box on top of the 4” high supports we installed prior to laying the flooring. 

I had to plan the cabinetry ages before I could start the construction of the carcase. 

The base is narrower than the carcase to allow room for the toe kick. 

We dry fitted the countertop and I leveled it by shimming the carcase.  

We used construction glue left over from putting down the underlayment for the flooring to attach the quartz to the carcase. 

Everything is flush!!!   

I cut a 1/2” birch plywood panel that will extend above the countertop so things won’t fall off the counter onto the computer desk I will attach to the carcase. 

Note that nice little curve at the top that protects the edge of the quartz!  

My next challenge will be making drawers. I am experimenting with boxes for the bathroom made from the scraps from the half-sheet used to make the finished side of the carcase. But that is fodder for another day...

No grand baby photo in this post. She will be here at the end of this week, so I won’t have to depend on my very busy daughter for photos!   

Garden Journal: plants in the ground!

About 5 weeks ago, we had snow on the ground. Then we had about a week of temperatures in the 90s...and no rain. Not a great year for peas. 

This is how the garden looked on May 25th: 

Greenery: garlic on the right, rhubarb in the foreground, and solid weeds on the left. The bare spot on the right is planted in onions and potatoes. The dirt in the middle is where I was beating back the weeds. 

I started tomatoes and peppers in early May and got them hardening off on the 25th as well. As I was working on getting the weeds cleared out, Michael was building fortifications. 

We fenced out deer about 20 years ago, but left space at the bottom for lawn mowers....and unfortunately, rabbits. We are now saying “no” to lawnmowers, of all stripes. 

Once Michael got the bottom fencing secured, he could come help me with the weeds, which were vanquished on May 28th, Memorial Day. 

We had our first summer rainstorms soon after we finished turning over the garden, complete with hail. Today was out first sunny day. While Michael was out delivering lawn mowers to be repaired and picking up more firewood, I started planting. 

I’m experimenting with leaving a ring of styrofoam cup to see if I can defeat the cutworms. 21 tomatoes and 24 peppers!

In addition to tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, garlic and onions, we now have planted popcorn, winter squash, cucumbers, dill, cabbage, bok choi, kale, beets, carrots, and rutabagas. 

Then we have our small gardens:  

These are closer to the house and contain lettuce, radishes, chards, more beets, and various herbs. We also have cherry and apricot seeds planted. These gardens already need weeding...as do the garlic and onions.

Dirt. I love dirt. We did dig in compost from the county site late last year and some more earlier this year. It helps to loosen our heavy soil and adds nutrients. We will have our own compost from chicken straw soon, but it is still too straw-like to truly be called “compost” yet. 

I can hardly wait until this little sprout is munching fresh carrots from our garden!  She started walking this past week. She is a going girl!  

Plumbing journal: drop everything, now!!!

When things go wrong, they are wrong. 

Have I mentioned that the addition is about 9” lower than the original cabin?

We had a very exciting day. The

lovely weather had me outside, where I noticed a chicken drinking from a babbling brook...in a place where no water should be!! That would be the dump station my in-laws installed when they still had an RV.  We are talking a place that has been dry and unused for about 25 years. Eek. We started to investigate, which is when we noticed the bathroom was flooded. If the bathroom floods, so does the basement. 

Michael mopped up about 8 gallons of nasty water.

After doing some sleuthing (yes, the electricity to the pump at the mound system still functioned, and no, the septic tank was not overflowing), Michael located a blockage in the sewer line six feet uphill from the septic tank. The 50’ snake sufficed to locate the plug, but could not penetrate it. So Michael, that genius, got a length of garden hose with a shnozzle on the end and, belly on the ground and long arms hanging down, fed the end of the hose into the drain pipe and blasted water into the clog until it disintegrated.

Wow. I was too grimy to be taking photos by this point, but a house with all of its sewer pipes filled with water creates a bit of pressure. When that clog went, it was spectacular!  You will have to take me on my word. 

Tank covered. Hose stretched out to let UV do it’s sanitizing thing.  

Thankfully, Michael had put silicone caulking around the edges of the laminated flooring (like the directions say) and it limited the flooded area to the bathroom...and does not appear to have done any permanent harm. 

After the flood.  

We are contemplating how to keep this from happening again. Blockages are bound to occur and I can think of ways I’d rather spend my day. Michael is thinking of installing a trap in the sewage line that would overflow into a 55 gallon drum, which would keep the backed up water from reaching the shower drain (the lowest spot in the house). If anyone has a better idea, let us know!!!!