This morning, I moved the painted scrap wood bench back to it’s spot under the white lilacs.
For all that the salvaged wood had damage to it, this is a VERY solid bench.
And heavy. Much heavier than it looks. I don’t know what kind of wood they are, but the true-to-size 2×4 board I used for the legs, plus the seat board, are dense and have a lot of weight to them. With care, this thing should last many years.
Once I set it in place and sat down on it, I gave the seat a good look. I think it could use one more coat of paint. There are cracks and old nail holes that I’d filled with paint, but once the paint dried, they’re not quite filled anymore. Especially that big crack you can see on the left. When I give the stairs a second coat of paint, I’ll go ahead and add another coat to the bench seat, too. There’s no reason not to.
This is an ideal spot for a bench. Nice and shady, but also open and airy. There have been many times since we’ve moved here, where I’ve been working in the heat of the day and wished for a nice cool place to sit for just a few minutes. We do have a few places to sit down, but they are all in full sun.
Over time, I hope to have seats and benches scattered all over the place. Nice little spots where one can take a break and enjoy a bit of shade on a hot day. 😊
This morning, before giving the scrap wood bench a final coat of paint, I spent some time scrubbing the stairs in front of the storage house.
This is how they’ve been looking since before we moved here.
I just used water and a scrub brush on it. I discovered the surface, once wet, became green and slimy. It felt like an algae. Very strange.
After I finished painting the bench, I spent a few hours mowing the lawn. I focused on the areas I didn’t get to, the last time I was able to mow. I started with the outer yard, including the outside of the driveway gate, where I was finally able to mow the spaces I normally keep clear. The last – and until today, only! – time I mowed the driveway, I was only able to make a few passes on the sides, and that was it. Unfortunately, we’ve got lots of poplars spreading into the space, like crab grass. We can’t let those take hold. I’d love to find a way to kill off those roots, but as long as the mature poplars are nearby, they will keep sending them out.
Once that was done, I took a lunch break. The girls raked up the grass clippings for me – there was so much of it! – and hauled it to the garden. I’ll use it to continue mulching the squash patch, tomorrow.
Before I got back to mowing, I checked on the stairs.
They were fully dry and ready for painting.
I discovered how incredibly spoiled I was while working on the bench. It was resting on the saw horses, at the perfect height for painting.
Painting the stairs, however, was remarkably hard on the back!!!
First coat is done, though!
Wow, that’s bright.
Now we just have to hope the cats stay off of it until it’s dry!
I’m glad I had the paint to do these, though. The stairs were already starting to show signs of moisture damage and cracking.
I’m trying to remember how old these stairs are. To me, these are the “new” stairs. I know when the previous stairs were replaced, because one of the steps broke under me while I was stepping down on them. The bottom stairs were completely engulfed in weeds and likely had been like that for years. That bottom step was quite rotten, which was hidden by the weeds.
My goodness. That was the year we got our first minivan and made a road trip to the farm for Thanksgiving. It was the last time I saw my late brother before he died, which puts it at 2009.
These stairs are 12 or 13 years old. I’m not sure if they got replaced that fall, or the following spring.
I guess I can’t call them “new” stairs anymore! 😂
They have held up to neglect quite well!
Tomorrow, I’ll add another coat, and move the bench to its spot under the white lilacs.
I’ll also need to finish mowing the garden area. Yesterday, I’d scythes parts of it, which made it mow-able. With no more standing water at one end of the spruce grove, I finally got the space between the spruces and the crab apple trees mowed. I was really happy when mowing around the branch pile in particular. There is a thick, dense layer of moss growing under the grass. Just beautiful! I would happily have moss instead of grass for a lawn. With so much water this spring, the moss has actually spread, and I love it!
I worked my way from the outside, in, as the ground is less rough, and that way I could mow around the trellises early on, before fighting with the middle area.
For all that I know how rough the old garden area is from the last time it was plowed, it always surprises me when I actually try mowing in there. Just brutal. I finally got it to where there’s just a section of old garden area near where the squash and corn patch is before I finally just stopped for the night. I was too exhausted to fight with the uneven terrain.
I want to get the rest of the mowing done tomorrow (Sunday), though, as it is expected to be a relatively cool day. After that, we’re supposed to heat up again. However, I also have to do some preparation tomorrow. Monday is the court date for our vandal’s vexatious litigation against me; his retaliation for my filing a restraining order against him. It’s been more than a year, but with all the lockdowns, this is actually the first time a judge will finally see it.
I am expecting two possible results. One: the judge will see how ridiculous the whole thing is and throw it out. Our vandal has no case. Or two: the judge will want more time to go over the claims and set another trial date.
The things that I’m most unhappy with, however, is that my brother will not be there. He, as owner of the property, was supposed to be my witness. His job, however, has sent him to the States for a cyber security training course. Cyber security is a big part of his current job, and he really didn’t have any choice.
Which give another possible reason for the judge to set another trial date; my witness can’t attend.
We shall see.
Meanwhile, during the conference call “court” dates we have before, I heard our vandal saying he’d have as many as 5 witnesses. Witnesses to what, I don’t know. But it’s going to be me, alone, with him and his posse.
*sigh*
Ah, well. It will be what it is. I just pray we have a sane judge.
After giving the leg ends a second coat, and filling in any spots that looked like they got missed, this morning, I finally flipped the bench to pain the top this evening.
Once it was right side up, I could also see spots on the legs and cross pieces that got missed, simply because it was more difficult to see and reach while upside down. I also took the time to make sure paint got well into any holes or cracks in the wood, so no water can come in contact with unprotected wood.
I thought it might need three coats of paint on the top, but now I think one more coat on the top, and it’ll be done. The paint filled things in better than I expected. I don’t know what this seat board was salvaged from, but it’s got saw cut markings on it, nail holes, and even several small nails and some kind of heavy duty staple stuck in it that I couldn’t get out without damaging the wood. Nothing the paint can’t smooth over.
For something thrown together in an afternoon, using scraps dug out of the barn, I’m really happy with how this bench has turned out.
Thanks to the girls moving the bench I made under the tent, this morning’s rain did not delay painting! It was nice and dry, and ready to work on.
I placed a couple of bricks under the bench to give me some space to do the edges at the saw horses. I picked up a really cheap brush set for this job, because I knew I’d be pretty rough with it, getting into the tight spaces, as well as working with such rough wood.
The bottoms of the legs will get a second coat, just for extra protection from contact with the ground, before the seat gets painted. The seat will get at least two coats, maybe three, depending on how well I was able to rasp and sand off the rough spots.
I am really happy with that colour. The final result never quite matches what the colour swatches look like, if only because of how much more surface area there is. Once this is done, there will be enough paint left over to do a few other things. There is the tree stump bench we made last year, though I think I will wait for the flowers around it to die back, first. The stairs to the storage house needs to be painted, too. I’d love to do the laundry platform, but that would likely need a gallon of paint, all on its own. Plus, the kittens like to play on it, and it would be rather hard to keep them off while the paint dries! 😁 I might do the hand rail in front of the sun room, though. If I can figure out a good way to pull the rose bush away from it. The thorns on that thing are brutal! 😄
I saw one good thing when heading into town with the cats this morning. The gas prices dropped 10 cents per litre, overnight. At 169.9 cents per liter, it’s still higher than it should be, but every little bit helps.
I was going to fill the jerry can after dropping off the cats, but the cats didn’t get dropped off. On deciding to head into the city, that will just have to wait again.
Before hitting the Costco, I went to a Canadian Tire to pick up a couple of bags of stove pellets for cat litter. I also picked up some ant traps. I would prefer not to kill off ant hills, since ants are also pollinators, but there are a couple of hills that are large enough to damage some garden plants, plus we’re seeing more of them in the house.
We’ve hardly used the van this month at all, and the gas tank was almost full when I left home. Costco gas prices were 159.9 cents per liter for regular. A considerable difference! So I topped up the tank, anyhow.
I had expected doing a Costco shop in the middle of the week would be quite, but nope. It was insanely busy! At least I wasn’t fighting a flat cart around crowds of people. With the other stock up shopping done already, I didn’t need to get more dry cat food. I was able to just just a regular cart for a change!
In the end, I didn’t get much at all.
With reason.
This is what Cdn$350 looks like. Plus change.
Under the cart is a package of Kirkland brand toilet paper, a package of 60 eggs, and a case of the cheaper canned cat food. 48 cans in that size.
I also got 10 pounds of butter (at $5 a pound, that’s at least a dollar cheaper than other no-name or house brand butters, but higher for Costco prices), a package with 3 whole chickens, a triple pack of all-beef wieners, and a pork tenderloin. There’s a 6 pack of canned chicken, mayonnaise, peanut butter, cooking oil, AAA batteries, 2 packages of tortilla wraps, and a 2 pack of hot dog buns. Oh, plus a package of white button mushrooms and a big block of marble cheese.
That’s it.
This is one of the smallest Costco shopping trips I’ve done, but it still came out to pennies over $350
That’s just painful! There aren’t even any fruits or vegetables in there, either.
I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad if our own garden was producing, but it just barely is. Most things are, if not a complete loss, at least a month behind in growth and development.
This morning, my plan was to head out early to do my morning rounds, then go to my mother’s to help her shut down her sleep test, get it all together, then bring it to the city.
Of course, that meant I got almost no sleep at all.
Since I was going to my mothers, I was actually wearing normal people clothes while doing my rounds, instead of my usual grubbies. I didn’t want to be stinking of bug spray while at my mother’s, since she does have respiratory issues, so I didn’t use any when I headed out.
I have never been attacked by such swarms of mosquitoes before – and being eaten alive by the buggers is par for the course these days!
Where are all the dragonflies? They usually show up in droves to eat the mosquitoes, but I’ve only seen one so far, this year! I suspect they, too, were negatively affected by our horrible spring.
I practically ran through my rounds, and it wasn’t until I was in the safety of my mother’s car and on the road that I realized I was leaving more then half an hour earlier than planned.
No matter. It gave me time to top up her gas tank and pick up one of those 5 Hour Energy thingies. I was going to need it. I was still early, but my mother was more than happy to be unhooked.
We finished off the questionnaire that came with the tester. These were questions on how easy or not it was to use the machine, how comfortable or not it was to sleep with, and so one. Once she was set up last night, my mother was quite fine with it, though the pulse oximeter did come off her finger, even with the tape, once during the night.
Getting the tape off was not easy. In hindsight, when I put it on, I should have deliberately folded under a corner to have something to grab onto. The tape is very light and flexible, the adhesive works quite well, and my mother’s skin is very loose and stretchy!
That done, I encouraged my mother to go back to bed after I left, then headed for the city. Once I got to the place, it was just a quick drop off with the most cheerful and friendly employee I’ve seen in ages. 😁
Since driving over an hour to take less than a minute to drop off the kit would have been quite the waste of gas, I took advantage of the situation. I am rarely in this area of the city, so I headed to a liquidation centre that was on my way back out.
With this place, there is no way of knowing what will be available at any given time. On this trip, if I’d had the budget – or counter space – for it, I could have gotten a great deal on all kinds of Cuisinart kitchen appliances. I didn’t even bother looking at the clothing section. I did go through a section where they have things like household linens, tools, paint supplies, hunting and fishing gear, etc. I was very tempted by some heavy duty interlocking floor mats to put over our horrible kitchen floor, but it just wasn’t something I could justify picking up this time around.
I didn’t get a lot while I was there, but what I did get was mostly for our “stockpile.” I got a couple of big boxes of granola type bars. I used to get them fairly regularly at Costco, where they used to cost about $15 a box. The prices have gone up, but I haven’t look at them in ages. Here, they were at $9 a box, so I got two. I didn’t bring any ice packs along, so I wasn’t going to get a lot of refrigerated stuff, though there wasn’t a lot to choose from this time, but I did pick up some farmer’s sausages and the like. The AC works in my mother’s car. 😉 Some extra toothpaste made it into the cart, as well as a nice big box of English Breakfast tea. 😊
The big savings on this trip was on two items. The first was canned beans. The same brand name I have been getting at Costco in 9 packs, where they used to be just under a dollar a can, but the prices have gone up even at Costco. I haven’t been there this month yet, so I don’t know by how much, but at the local grocery stores, they are at just over $2 a can now. Even at Walmart, they’re at just under $2 a can. I found them at 89 cents a can. The cases were open, but they held 18 cans. I filled a case with two different flavours, though there was a third flavour available, too.
Then I found a display of bouillon cubes. In the local grocery stores, they are about $1.30 for a box, which isn’t a bad price at all. I like to keep a selection of them handy in the cupboard; chicken, beef, vegetable and mushroom. They had all but the mushroom, and at a very good price, but the vegetable cubes were on a limited time “4-for-” deal that worked out to 49 cents a package.
I picked up eight.
Once done there, my next stop was a Walmart, where I got mostly cat food. We should now have enough dry cat food for the month (for the amount we get, stocking up for longer than a month is very difficult), but I still want to pick up one more Costco sized case of wet cat food. For the pantry, I picked up a couple of big cans of iced tea mix. They’re cheaper at Walmart than Costco, and in the summer, my husband and I go through them pretty fast. Our daughters prefer iced coffee. 😄
They also had good supply of the large bottles of hydrogen peroxide, which we use to shock our hot water tank, so I got a couple more of those, as well as adding to our supply of painkillers.
All in all, a productive trip. After this, we’ll need to go over our supplies and make a final Costco shopping list. I should finally be able to use the van, so I’ll be able to stop at Canadian Tire and get more stove pellets for the litter boxes. Those bags last a long time! I likely won’t be able to make the trip until next week, though.
Tonight, we have three cats to put on fasts. Potato Beetle, Tissue and Big Rig have their date with the vet tomorrow morning. Potato Beetle is still in the sun room, so he’s easy enough to take care of, but we’ll have to keep Tissue and Big Rig with me overnight, as I have a door to close. Unfortunately, Tissue in particular has been aggressive towards Nosencrantz and Butterscotch – both of whom still refuse to leave the room.
I don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep tonight.
Ah, well.
In other things, on seeing predictions for rain on the horizon, my daughters moved the bench I built under the market tent for me. There isn’t much room under there with the picnic bench, but it should at least stay dry enough that we can finally paint it. Which I was hoping to do this afternoon, except now we’re under a tornado watch. 😮 I don’t think it applies to our specific area – the watches are very general – but we do have high winds right now. Perhaps tomorrow, after dropping the cats off at the vet, we’ll be able to finally start painting that bench!
Funny how much of what we can or can’t do depends on the weather.
Anyhow. I’m just glad I got the trip to the city done, and was able to add a bit more to our supplies!
The thunder I heard as I finished up my post last night was a storm that passed to the north of us, but we did get rain. A steady rain all night, and almost all morning. Enough that we’ve got water in all the usual pooling areas again.
When the rain stopped, I headed out to try scything, and to see if it was any easier with wet grass.
Honestly, I can’t say for sure, one way or the other.
I did a bit more beside the main garden. Hit another patch of mostly alfalfa, which made cutting difficult. Then I did the paths in the maple grove. The grass there is sparse, and there’s about as much creeping bellflower as grass. That went quite easily.
Then I went to the outer yard.
The area I had been working on before, because the grass was still upright, is no longer upright. I’d started working from the driveway side because that gave me an open side where the swaths of hay could be deposited in windrows. The wind flattened the grass from the other direction, though, and to be able to cut it, the most effective way would be to work from the root side. Which meant starting from the barn.
The area in front of the barn was flattened in all directions, where the wind would have swirled around in circles there. It’s an awkward space to work in. Once that was done, I started working my way towards the driveway.
What a brutal job it was, and what a mess I made of it!
First off, I’ve never buried the toe of the blade into the ground so often! The flattened grass almost pushed the tip downwards. Second, I was hack and slashing a path through the middle of tall grass. There was no open space on one side to deposit the windrow. It had to be dumped on top of uncut grass, some of which was even taller than what I was cutting, and the lengths kept getting hung up on the blade.
I got a little more than half way to the driveway before calling it a day. Working in 16C/61F was a lot more pleasant that yesterday’s 28C/83F, but the cutting itself was brutal.
Once that first swath is cut, it’ll be easier. It’ll still be a pain cutting flattened hay, but I’ll have the open space on one side and will no longer be getting the blade hung up on still attached grass at the end of my cutting stroke.
There is a lot to cut in here and, when that’s done, I will need to cut the area in front of the warehouse, too. Right now, it’s almost inaccessible. Then, if I’m really ambitious, I’d like to cut a lane to the secondary driveway. I still need to properly repair the gate, and right now the grass about as high as the gate itself!
On the plus side, I’m finally going to have lots of mulch for the garden beds!
It’s just past 5pm as I start this post, and I could go to bed right now! What a day it has turned out to be.
One of my husband’s disability payments came in today, so it would be our normal day to go into the city and to at least half of our monthly stocking up shopping in the city.
Except, I got a call from my Mom last night.
Her apartment is being sprayed for bed bugs again, today. She needs to be away from the spray for at least 12 hours. Last time, she stayed at my sisters, but she did not want to do that. There is a motel right next to her building, so she was going to book a room there. They did not have any vacancies, however.
After talking to her about it, I ended up calling another motel in town and booking a room for her, and arranging to be at my mother’s place before the exterminators showed up.
Which meant doing my morning rounds (and finishing off the outside kibble bin!) earlier than usual.
I had a sad find.
One of our highbush cranberry saplings had been chomped! It was doing so well, too. 😥 I doubt it can recover from this. I figure it was a deer. Nothing else seemed to be damaged, at least. Not that I stuck around to check too closely. Since I was going to be leaving soon, I didn’t use any bug spray. I got eaten alive! How aggressive and voracious they are this year!
A short version of my rounds done, I headed out with my mother’s car, since I was expecting to drive her to her motel room. Since the road closed sign was removed earlier this week, I drove up our road, through were it was washed out this spring.
What an excellent job done on the repairs! I can’t remember the road ever looking so good. 😁 They built it up a bit, too. Hopefully, that will prevent it from getting washed out again.
The motel I booked my mom at is with the gas station I usually go to. I had to fill her tank anyhow, so I went ahead and got her registered, got her key, and even went ahead and paid for it, so she wouldn’t have to bother. Not having a credit card threw them for a bit, as they don’t really have any alternative. They took my driver’s license number, instead. Then, just in case, I made sure to leave my contact information along with her information, in case of emergency.
Then it was off to my mother’s. Last time, they showed up right at 9 and they did her apartment first, so I was sort of expecting the same. I was about half an hour early, which gave us time to bag up her bedding, and I cleared her storage closet floor that she forgot about. She didn’t back up anywhere near as much as last time. She’s just so tired and frustrated. She kept saying she only saw two bed bugs this morning and she killed them, so it should be fine. She simply refuses to accept that there would be more of them that she can see, and that she would not be able to see the eggs at all. No amount of cleaning or running her fingers along the edging of her mattress to squish things will get rid of them. Not only does she refuse to believe me (or my siblings; we’ve all been trying to explain it to her), but she’s starting to get angry at being told this. She isn’t getting it, and not because she can’t understand our explanations. She simply refuses to accept it. This is only the second time her apartment is being spray. One of her neighbours was getting sprayed for the 6th time!
The exterminators, however, didn’t arrive at nine. By 10, we were wondering what was going on. I ended up phoning the provincial department that owns her building. It turned out they didn’t start with this town this time. They started in another town, about a half hour’s drive away. There was no way to know when they would arrive at my mother’s building.
In the end, I just had to leave. I needed to get to the city. My mother had a neighbour that would be able to drive her to her motel (I’m so glad I got the key already!), so I promised I would check on her on the way home, then went on to the city.
Since I was using my mother’s little car, a Costco trip was out of the question. There’s no way her car could fit our usual Costco trips. Instead of the usual 3 or 4 places I usually hit on these trips, I only did two. The first was a Walmart, where getting more cat food was a priority. I got only four 9 kg bags this time. Usually, I get six 7kg bags of their house brand, but the cats don’t like it as much, and I decided the bigger bags was worth it.
It’s a good thing those bags have waterproof linings on the inside, because while I was loading the back of my mother’s car, I got hit with a deluge of rain! At one point, I thought it might actually turn to hail.
Hatchbacks provide zero shelter! With our van, I could at least have had partial shelter under the lift gate, but a hatchback does nothing!
I spent just under $300 at the Walmart, and half of that was cat food, including a case of wet cat food. And that’s only about a third of what we need for the month.
Next, I went to the international grocery store we like, where I could also pick up some dim sum for breakfast… er… lunch! 😂 This is the store where we can get things like a big slab of uncut bacon, and a particular band of energy drinks no one else seems to carry anymore.
One thing I did NOT get here was butter.
Those brand name butters used to be just over $6 a pound. Now their regular price is almost $10! We’ve never bought these butters, and would just get the house brand. Those are almost $6 a pound, now. Not that long ago, they were in the $3.50 range.
I just checked out an exchange rate converter. As of today:
Cdn$9.79 = US$7.47
Cdn$9.99 + US$7.62
Sale price $8.49 = US$6.49
Cdn$5.99 = US$4.57
The last time we were at Costco, their house brand butter was just under $5/US$3.81 a pound. I hope they haven’t gone up much, since! We typically buy 10 pounds of butter for 1 month.
I didn’t buy butter, but I did end up buying some ghee. The sale price for the jar was almost $23/US$17.54 It’s shelf stable, though, and has a higher smoke point, to it may be worth it. We’ve never used ghee before. If we like it, we’ll learn how to make our own ghee.
The shopping done, I headed home, making sure to stop to see how my mother was doing along the way. I even remembered to pick up a little something for her to snack on along with her complimentary coffee. Only it turned out there was no en suite coffee set up. The complimentary coffee was at the gas station. This is the gas station that has the excellent fried chicken and wedges my mother likes so much, so when I got her her complimentary coffee, I also picked up enough chicken and wedges for a couple of meals. With the exterminators taking so long, I figured my mother hadn’t had lunch at all, and I think I was right. She was quite ready to have her “supper”, even though it was not even 3pm yet! 😁
Since I had stuff in the car that needed to be refrigerated, I couldn’t stay too long. She was well set up, though. My sister will be taking my mother home tomorrow, and helping her wash her bedding. I’ll be back again with the equipment for my mother’s sleep test, the day after. The equipment needs to be returned to the city on Tuesday, so that will be a good time to do the rest of our stock up shopping.
Once at home, Potato Beetle had to be put into a carrier in the sun room before the car could be unloaded. After everything was unloaded and I’d topped up the kibble trays outside, as well as his in the sun room, I made sure to give him some of the kitty treats I also picked up. I think he forgave me the indignity of being put into the carrier for that!
Exactly a week from now, he’ll be at the vet getting snipped, then it’s another 4 days in the sun room before we can let him out again.
As for me, I am practically falling asleep in my chair as I type this! These trips drain me at the best of times, but all the extra stuff with my mother just sucked the energy out of me.
I wonder how badly I’ll screw myself up if I got to bed at only 6pm? 😄
Oh, crud. I just remembered. My mother’s car is still in the front yard. I forgot to put it in the garage!
Guess I’d better put some pants on and take care of that.
This afternoon I worked on pruning away some low hanging branches on the Chinese elm by the chain link fence. We’ve pruned these a few times over the past few years, but they fill in again so quickly! It had gotten to the point that some branches were overhanging our “parking lot” – which meant they were also starting to shade the tomatoes we have planted against the chain link fence too much.
Thankfully, we have a really good, really long, extended pruning saw! Once I got the biggest branch down, it uncovered a bunch of dead branches that I took down as well. The branches were big enough that I had to break them down before I could haul them to the branch pile for chipping. I also used the loppers to cut away a whole lot of new little branches that were low enough to snag on my hat every time I walked by!
While it wasn’t an exceptionally hot day today, it was still hot enough to make the job less than pleasant. What I found myself really wanting to do was be able to just sit down in the shade every now and then. There’s nowhere to sit in that side of the yard. So, when I was done cleaning up the branches, I decided to go into the barn and see what I could find to build something.
This is what I came out with. Three pieces of scrap wood.
They’ve been in the barn for a long time, so I hosed them down and gave them a scrubbing to get the worst of the dust and dirt off.
I had only a general idea in mind of how I wanted to build this. There’s one 10 inch wide board for the seat, and a 2×4 for the legs – and it’s actually a true 2×4; I was wondering why these boards seemed bigger than the usual 2x4s you get from the lumber yard. Those are cut to 2×4, then shrink while curing, so they’re actually 1 1/2 x 3 1/2. The third board, with the white paint on it, is that kind of 2×4, and you can see the difference in size in the picture. I added that board for structural support.
For the legs, after cutting off the rotten end of the board, I was able to cut four pieces at 20 inches long. That left a slightly shorter piece that I used for a centre support. I then cut six 9 inch pieces for cross pieces and structural support. The legs for the ends were joined with the cross pieces at what will be the top of the legs. For the slightly shorter centre leg, I lined it up with the others and added the cross piece so that they all matched in height.
Normally, I would have used screws for this, but I didn’t want to fight with our drill, so I dug up a bucket of nails we found while cleaning out the house that were long enough.
Then I flipped them around and added more cross pieces to the pairs of legs, to make sure they wouldn’t wiggle out of place. For the support leg in the middle, I added another cross piece to support the seat. The board had a section of tree bark on it and was rounded, so I could only manage two nails on one side. Not as strong as I would have liked, but it should hold.
Then it was time to add the seat. Which was a pain in the butt. I don’t have any clamps. The bench pieces were laid out on its side, and I had to support the leg pieces with my legs while I nailed the seat in place. Since the legs are an inch narrower than the seat itself, I also had to hold the leg pieces up half an inch at the same time. It actually worked far better than I expected! 😄
Once I had a single nail in each leg, I could lift the bench up off its side, and do the rest of the nailing.
I had company.
The big black and white kitten came back to see what I was doing!
It is so very cute!
There we have it! The bench is done!
It’s actually a bit of a mess. I was using a hand saw or the mini-chainsaw to make my cuts, and they are far from straight or tidy. I’m sure the lengths aren’t exact, either. But then, it’s also going to be sitting on uneven ground, so it really doesn’t make much of a difference. Once the legs are settled into the softer ground, it’ll work itself out. In fact, it seemed just fine when I tested it out and sat in the shade for a while.
The seat hadn’t completely dried out from being washed, though! 😂
I should probably add some angled pieces under the seat to prevent any wobble, but between the cross pieces under the seat and the centre support, it’s pretty sturdy. With the legs at 20 inches, plus the thickness of the seat, the bench is slightly higher than typical, which makes it much better on my wrecked knees. Setting it up against the log border of this bed means that I can use the log as a foot rest, too.
All we need to do now is pick up some more paint. We’ve got the tree stump bench near the garden that needs to be painted, too.
So far, we’ve got the picnic table in a bright, almost peacock blue, and the kibble house is a bright yellow. The inside of the outhouse is a pale mint.
What colour do you think I should paint the benches? Should we go with something bright again? Or more subtle? I find myself thinking a deep red would be nice. Or maybe a green similar to the lilac bushes beside it?
Something weird happened with our intern during a storm last night. We lost internet, but it didn’t come back right. At the moment, I can only connect with my phone. It won’t let my desktop connect. Even the tablet I use with our security camera can’t connect. It can’t even fund any networks.
My daughters tell me they have the same issues. Unfortunately, the modem is in my husband’s bedroom, and he’s medicated and asleep right now.
Hopefully, we’ll be able to figure out the problem, soon.
The Re-Farmer 