Sunday, February 24, 2013

For a change . . . .

. . . . we got 12 more inches of Al Gores BS today . . . .  the wet and heavy kind
Annie shoveled the deck and a path to the garage. . . . the look on her face says it all. Note the bracing on the fence behind her.. Despite my repairs last fall three posts managed to snap off at ground level once again in a windstorm about a  month ago.
I cleared the driveway
Miserable looking garbage
Took a couple of hours with the snow blower to clear the driveway and a path around the house.
even the one lonesome dove was looking forlorn as it picked through the snow for some seed.
To cheer up the dreary day I made an attempt at making some Ciabatta
The results were quite good washed down with a good bitter .
Beer and fresh baked bread, what could be better?


Friday, February 22, 2013

Smelting Lead

After suffering for three weeks with the flu, including a seven day stint with 102  F fever, and loosing about 15 lbs, I finally felt better and got out yesterday. So I went to visit my friend Terry Harper in Windham and scored about 200 lbs of lead from him. So now I have some thing to cast bullets from. Its a mixed bag of about 3 gallons of wheel weights, some ingots and half a dozen cylinders that we're told are medical radioactive shields of some sort or a other. Each one of those big cylinders weighs about 25 lbs
So this afternoon I melted down the wheel weights in the shop wood stove in a nice little cast iron pot that I also got from Terry
Resulting a a very heavy little pot of liquid lead and a whole lot of steel clips floating on top of the lead.
so we skim the steel clips off with an old kitchen spoon . . . .
and flux it with some sawdust to get the impurities out and keep the antimony in the lead.
Then we skim the scum and floaties of the surface of the lead and get our mold ready
and pour
and after a couple of hours end up with a nice pile of ingots.


Saturday, February 9, 2013

Global warming???I think not.

Winter storm Nemo.
About 11 pm Friday night looking out the living-room window.
camera set on 400 asa no flash
According to Al Gore its so hot that maple tree should just about be ready to drop coconuts.
and out the other window on to First St
the tool shed 11 pm
The old Mazda covered after about 16 hours of snow. Annie shoveled the driveway twice already during the day removing about 6 inches each time while I lay in bed sweating out a fever. Not a good time to get sick. And as if that weren't enough the furnace pump is starting to screech and needs replacing.
7 am this morning out the kitchen window.
the back yard
about 4 feet of snow on the barn roof
Mazda covered... official count is 30 inches so far and more to come
that's not going to be fun
wish I could do like the bears.... just wake me up some time about end of April

Friday, February 1, 2013

Kitchen and Stair job finished

At least my part of it is...
Glass tile back-splash was installed this week . . .
so we also hung the microwave and leveled the stove, installed crown molding, toe kick covers and cabinet hardware.
Customer is moving in thus the mess
After an other long day on my knees installing new baseboards through out the house I gave the risers and skirt-boards a coat of white to help out the painter catch up.... (customer's dad)
It still needs one more coat of white on everything
Though at first I thought the stain on the oak treads was to dark it did turn out OK
Over all I am pleased with the result and the customer was one of the best I have dealt with yet.
122 hours labor all together . . . . . and the best part was getting paid . . . .