Finished Projects

Well since I stayed with my Brother in in last hours, I've been exposed to Covid. So I am on self quarantine from my work. Since the start of the pandemic, my work has had rules in place to prevent spread. One of those rules is that you need to answer the questions to be admitted to work. One of the questions is, Have you had close contact with any people who have covid? Anyways, 10 days of self quarantine.  I've been trying to get motivated to finish a few projects around the house.

I finally got going on a project I've been thinking about-and procrastinating about-for quite a long time. We have two window wells out front in the driveway. They tend to collect leaves and debris and look terrible! I pushed some wire in them to try to keep junk out of there, but it's not working too well.

So I used some treated lumber to build a frame-I used the Kreg jig to put it together.

I made one and then just repeated the steps to make the 2nd one. Then I used a fine wire mesh to cover it.

Nott too bad. 

I think they look pretty good! And they look like they'll do the job well.

See those old leaves, they gather in the space around the window wells. 

I sweep them away and in a day or two, they're back.

I also went and did a little work to straighten up the flag pole. It was leaning a little bit as a result of last years derecho. I'll wait until the tulips are done and see if it needs a little more of a boost.

I used the shovel to dig out the cement around the flag pole, and then shoved some rocks under there to level it out again, Look at all the pretty violets out in the yard!

I just love these violets! 

 

A Little Yard Work

 So the power company cut off a bunch of tree branches at my Mom & Dad's house. Being good kids, my Sister and my kids and me went over there to get the wood moved. See DD is almost done...see the pile behind her?

 We probably won't get an A for neat wood stacking but it's better than it was! We stacked it closer to the garage so Dad can cut it up to burn in the garage when it's cold.

 One thing was a pretty big deal, see that? Ben drove Grampa's pick up! He pulled close to the piles of wood that the power company left.

 Then we loaded it in the pick up and moved to the next pile. Then unloaded over by the garage.

 At the same time. Julie and Dad were burning the pile of sticks that was piled up.

 It was a pretty fast burning pile!

 Selfie!!

 One thing I can tell you is that hackberry wood is a lot heavier to pick up than walnut!

Dad pointed out this big old walnut tree is almost all hollow-look at it on the North side-I sure don't know why they wouldn't take the whole tree down! It's bound to fall at some point. They're putting in new power poles, so they cut away the branches they wanted, but you's think they would be a little concerned over a whole trunk falling on the lines.

 All done for now.  Really good weather for the fire-hardly any breeze. Glad this work is done.

Sanding ...

So awhile back, like last year, I started sanding down a really pretty peice of lumber to make a table out of.
Here it is...the beginning of a wonderful idea!
Well I've gotten a few pretty cool things in my garage since then. Look I have electrical outlets! Two of 'em! Thanks to my SIL John!

 And I got a belt sander at an auction last summer and I haven't even looked at the manual yet! Well, today's the day, look here.

 I put on a new belt and tested it out on a bit of scrap wood. Now to work on my cool wood.

 Foe some reason it has this icky blue paint or stain or something on the end. Not really the look I want.

 Look now...after a couple of passes with the bel sander! Wow!

 And now, just a couple of more passes....

 And there, now that's so much better. I used my little baby sander to get in that tiny jagged place, and it looks like I want it to. Now after a little bit of sanding with a little 220 sandpaper, I'm ready to decide on a finish.

Hmmm, stain or not? Shiny or not? I better take a break and think about this!

Back To Real Work....

Gosh, how time does fly! Vacation is over, darn, so I've been busy at home.

Look at this awesome piece of wood. I've started getting it sanded down a bit to make into a table using those awesome hairpin legs I got a couple of weeks ago. Here's the inspiration/idea..(photo from axsoris.com)

You can just see the pretty woodgrain starting to come through. I have quite a ways to go on this project though!

The "garden" is starting to produce some tomatoes! Yay!

And I spied these little green guys eating the parsley, it turns out they are the kind that turn into butterflies, so i guess the parsley isn't as important as they are.
Oh I almost forgot, I also spent some rental time on the long arm machine.

As it turns out, I tend to make bad design choices. Surprised? Yeah, me too...not so much! Anyways, I started out with the large pebble, stones, design, and thought I would do the whole quilt in that way. Well, it takes a lot of thread to do that let me tell ya. I used more than 2 whole bobbins to do the top row(5 blocks across). So, I thought well, I'll do some out line/echo quilting around the center blocks of the quilt. Much better, less thread and less time. But I STILL used my whole 3 hours & 6+ bobbins & an entire cone of thread and got only half way done!! More rental time when I get monied up on payday!