Fall is a very nice time of year. I noticed a few years ago that we live in the Monarch butterfly fly zone. For the past couple of weeks I've been watching them move constantly south-west on their way to a particular tree in Mexico. I've noticed that if I mention that they are migrating past us, people give me a deadpan look, like they're wondering if they've just run across an unwashed, evil scientist working on a nefarious destructive device. Oh well, I've always been interested in all things nature - way more than "normal" people.

I enjoyed being a scout leader but hikes with scouts were frustrating, because they clashed so horribly with my inclinations when hiking. I want to hear and see birds, but the scouts are always yelling at each other about something trivial and city-ish, which means you never hear anything, and seldom see wildlife. I like to stop and watch a bug or spider or other critter, but scouts are only interested for about 1/2 of a second before moving on, fairly often right over the top of what I'm trying to show them. I find an owl scat and they think it's disgusting to look at poop. I tell them I see a racoon and if they move really slow and quiet they can see him, too, and they all come rushing and pushing and wonder why it is gone.

Fortunately, I am blessed with exceptional grandchildren who will listen when I have something to tell them about, and will mostly obey my request for calm, slow movement. Of course, the rabbit that lives just outside our door is just too much. I'll tell them to move slowly and very quietly and not get too close, and they do it. For about 5 seconds. Then one moves forward a little and one of the others will rush forward a little more, and the others follow suit and in a flash the rabbit is bounding past the neighbor's house with Sterling right on its tail and little Ginger not far behind.

We had a cold day on Tuesday and the monarchs have all hurried past us, or froze.
Josh and I are planning to go camping tommorrow night and I am looking forward to a very pleasant time. The cool weather is good for discouraging mosquitoes, and for pleasant sleeping. The wild hogs are getting a bit desperate for food, so they're likely to come check out the feeders. My camo trailer is full of cobwebs, but is still intact and a pleasant place to spend a cozy night. Life is grand this time of year.

A few miscellaneous photos

Josh hugs his Mommy as he arrives home from his stint in the Navy.

Happy to be home.

Angel modeling a new sweater.

A few miscellaneous photos

This is our newest neighbor. You have to look closely because his camo is very good. He lives right outside our front door, but he is a good neighbor: quiet, unobtrusive, cute as a button, etc. He was born here and while his siblings all left to see the greater World (or feed them, as the case may be), he stayed right here.







One of the Benac girls had this necklace, which we thought might inspire Nancy.
At one end is a loop made by running both threads through one bead. At the other end is a button with one bead after after each button hole. It is reported to be "cute" and "clever". Chics rule!















Nancy said she had never even seen a photo of Brant, so here is a fresh, hot out of the oven photo of him early this morning.

Nancy said she liked the bracelet displays, which made me happy. So, I called her and asked how she was going to display her necklaces. There was a pause before she admitted that she and Richard had planned to make one out of a paper towel tube.

"Oh! The Humanity! This is just terrible, folks. "

After she also admitted that it wasn't going all that well, I offered to give it a try and this is my attempt to be creative and functional. Notice the upright is our good old Bois D'Arc? In fact, it is the same branch as the necklace displays. Of course it's not as pretty with bark and sapwood still attached, but this was a rush job and I just didn't have time for that. The base is common whitewood, aka soft pine. I'm thinking the base needs a couple of coats of black paint. What do you think? There are 19 pegs, but it wouldn't be too hard to add more.

I will ship it unassembled, but the only assembly required is to screw in a long deck screw from the base into the bottom of the branch.

Bois D'Arc

A couple weeks ago Nancy asked me to make her something on which to display bracelets at a craft show (on Oct. 11). By coincidence, I've been thinking about some Osage Orange trees (aka Bodark, or my fav. Bois D'Arc) out at the piggery farm that were killed a couple summers ago when it was so hot and dry. The wood is nearly impervious to the things that destroy dead wood, and in fact there are 100+ year-old bodark fence posts all around and through that farm and they are still sound and strong. But my interest was as a woodworker. It's a crazy-hard wood, but it turns quite well, and Nancy's request was primarily a turning project, so this is what I did.



The round parts are Osage Orange wood, the bases I made from scraps left over from Roko's cradle. They are about 9" long and the logs lift right off the stands so it will be easy to add/remove bracelets.

A nice job turns into two

I was checking out the competition on Craigslist a few days ago and noticed a misplaced ad where somebody wanted help adjusting an “iron” entrance door. So I replied and asked for phone, directions, etc. or to call me. Next morning I had an email from the guy which included his phone #. I was just picking up the phone to call him when the phone rang from him calling me. So, I went to his house and inspected the door. It is a big, double, steel door in an arch, about 8 1/2' tall, leading into a courtyard. The upshot is that the arched door frame had been bent sideways while getting bricked in place, and that made the doors too close together and they had trouble shutting it. I concluded that one hinge needed to be cut off and moved 1/8” or so to tilt the door enough to let the two doors pass each other. It was a little over my head, but I figured I could still do it with a little help from Joe, my friendly welder. So, later we went out there and looked it over again. We loaded the door into Joe’s truck (it's too long for my Jeep) and on the way home we decided it really needed to go to a welding shop. That evening I needed to talk to the customer so I dialed the number he’d given me in his email. Wrong number, but the lady asked me who I was so I told my name and that I was calling for Clear Sky Handy Men. She said, “Handyman! I’ve been looking for a handyman. Can you do stucco?” Well, of course. So next day I took the door to a welding shop and then drove over nearly to Ft. Worth to look at this wrong number lady’s strip mall which had some wind damage to the stucco. I took photos and measured it out from a distance (it was about 15 feet up) and had Joe’s crew estimate it for her. I told Joe he could charge whatever he wants, but I’m going to add 10% for finding the lead.

BEFORE: This is a photo of a hinge on the removed door before welding (It's the big one at the bottom. Notice what a great job they did of welding it perfectly so it’s nice and smooth. --- Too smooth! It's impossible to weld that good.

IN PROGRESS: This is a photo after the hinge was cut off and re-welded. It turns out that those nice smooth edges were just epoxy, and the welder told me that actually there were only a few spot welds holding it on. As you can see he put a nice long weld on each side.

AFTER: When I got it home (I have a trailer now, big enough for this kind of job) I used plumber’s epoxy to do my best imitation.This is the welded, epoxy-ed, and painted hinge back in its door frame at the customer’s house. I turned the photo sideways so it would be oriented the same as the earlier photos. It’s not quite as pretty as the factory ones, but with its much larger welded surface it’s the strongest hinge on the two doors. And I think it looks pretty good.

This is a photo of the stucco job resulting from the wrong number call. The biggest space is supposed to be an off-white stucco about like the ground-level wall below it, and it needs to be recessed a bit. It’s about 150 sq. feet, plus those two smaller, patches that should be the darker color. I haven’t seen Joe’s estimate, yet, nor heard from the lady. I hope the job is still on. I’d hate to loose out on a good contact from a wrong number!

A normal day at our house

Well, actually it has been anything BUT normal around here. It's been fun, but not normal.

Here is a photo of Angela at work in our front room. Cell phone, laptop, and brilliant intellect all hard at work - multitasking happily.


LATER:

After all the kids were finally settled into bed and more or less quiet, we went upstairs and found this little art decor piece in the bathroom.
All the paper cups and glasses are brimming full of water, but that's not all. Here is a view of the sink.

Angela calls these "experiences from the Underworld". She asked Levi about it this morning and he said wanted to make it so that if anybody wanted a drink, it would be ready for them.
If they wanted to wash, brush teeth, or anything like that they were out of luck, but drinks were ready to go.

Today I was scheduled to take Roscoe out to the pig hunting farm to work on his shooting merit badge for scouting and to endeavor to find a trophy boar. Instead, I went south of Plano to buy a used LCD monitor (no answer at the house, no answer on the phone, but a repeat call brought an answer and they admitted they'd sold it to somebody else.) Then I drove out to Joe's farm to pick up Logan who was supposed to be helping, but was sick instead. When I returned, the Allred kids were here, so I ran some errands. When I returned, Allison was here to pick up her kids and took Roscoe and Haley with her to play at their house. So, no shooting/ camping/hunting tonight. Levi is also sick on his 2nd go-round. I was sick a couple days ago, and angela is also battling it - whatever kind of crud it is.
Liz got home a short time ago, after a long day at the office and a trip to the hair dresser. And now I'm headed upstairs to watch a few hours of mindless TV, hopefully at least some of it with little cuddle-bugs snuggling close.

Life is good.