For the Birds--Plant a Tree

It has no roots.  It may not live.  For a tree with leaves to be bare in winter certainly does not foretell its future viability.  But come spring, we'll know for sure.  Regardless of what shows on the tips of each branch, this odd tree will continue to serve its purpose.

Downey adjusts easily to the new location
next to the sideway--good access for Mom
 and her walker.

My mother loves to feed the birds in the winter. North of Spokane snows are measured in feet not inches.  The birds who stay are blessed by the help from Mom's feeders.  She is careful to tend them with watchful regularity.  But over the years winter snow and ice has made the old feeder location treacherous to get to if not impassable at times for even the able bodied. At 91, Mom's not going to attempt crossing the icy driveway to keep the birds' tummies filled.

Handle and hook so Mom feels safe and can enjoy filling the feeders

Most satisfying of Things I get to do today is make the new bird feeding station and insure that it is a pleasure to visit for the birds and for my mother.  An 8' 4x4 post, a 2x4 cross beam, fasteners and screws make the basics.  Three feeders are fastened to the cross beam.  Next screw in a sturdy hook to hold the small bucket of bird feed that my mom has trundled out on one handle of her walker.  Then a secure, keep-my-balance handle is fastened on well so mother's stable while she focuses on filling the feeders with sunflower seeds.

A Black-capped Chickadee and Downey Woodpecker feel at home

And now to find a "tree." Service berries grow profusely on this land. A long, lateral branch from a nearby shrub is perfect. With 18" plunged into the ground, this delicate "tree" still stands nearly 10 feet tall. As the last soil is tamped around its trunk, chickadees and pine siskins have already marked it as their own. I wouldn't be surprised if it sprouted leaves, sent out roots, and started another life in its new location after winter has come and gone.

Healing a Wood Ulcer

Wood ulcer is not a real medical term.  It describes, however, what we found while repairing and rejuvenating the back door.  Over the last 50 years the structure has seen its share of inhabitants come and go, though this old schoolhouse-turned-home has always belonged to my mother.

My sister recently realized that we all, including my mother, were having more and more trouble getting the old knob and paint-coated door jam to release the door from its opening on request.  So she bought a door handle-lever to replace the knob.  Installing it was at the top of the Things-I-get-to-do-today list when I arrived at Mother's place last week.

Knob already gone.
  Deadbolt chipped loose

Ancient deadbolt

Old hardware had to go.  A very dead deadbolt, no key, no bolt, no screws to undo it, had been in place as long as my mother could remember.  A few firm blows with a screwdriver under its lip and it was loose enough for my mother to suggest the claws of a hammer as the next tool.  Popped that sucker right out, it did!  Now there were two gaping and useless holes in the door.  We covered the hole mess with a metal guard, and no one other than all of us reading here needs to know what lies underneath.

Covering a multitude of "sins"

The new handle slipped into a hole made just for it at a comfortable-to-reach height.  Slick. Functional. Handsome with its own strike plate to match.

Ulcer

But now we see the hole in the door jam--the scene of a bundle of careless attempts to fix/replace the strike plate over the last many dozen years.  This is the wood ulcer--deep, ugly, festering, rotten.  No solution but surgery will work.

Prepped for reconstruction

So we cut away to clean wood, making square corners and straight lines.  Wood graft cut to fit the dimensions was glued and wedged in place.  The belt sander cleaned it smooth to its neighbor wood.

Restored and ready for its last
coat of paint.

It's interesting, isn't it, how old wounds/ulcers hold a funny sense of dis-ease about them whether in the body or in the wood.  The repair, cleaning, restoring of the entrance to this home has released old pain and suffering.  Now, as we come and go through that space, it feels free, fresh and peaceful. Healing on so many levels has taken place.

Cedaring the Barrels, Part Two

Save the best to the last.  It's definitely a plark to put a bungie-cord belt around a big-tummied rain barrel, and then slide in its fancy new outfit.  It seems less work to create the top edge up, down and all over the place than to attempt to have it even and level.  Some constraints still apply: too great a variance in the board heights is not pleasing to the eye.

By proclamation of a passing neighbor,
"That is really pretty.  It looks beautiful!"

The remaining finish work after arranging the staves is the application of the barrel straps.  It was a month-long search last summer for the best material.  None of the lumber/big-box stores could help us with anything other than narrow plastic-type stuff used for strapping lumber.  Strong, yes, but it would deteriorate in the sunlight (why am I worried about that?).  Fastening the ends together would also be a problem.

Then one wildly adventuresome worker at our near-by lumber yard suggested galvanized steel strap.  And my engineer husband* showed me how a hose clamp could be used to fasten it round the barrel.

Hose clamp cut and positioned

Wiping my hands on the front of my aproned, carpenter-styled, bib overalls as the last strap tightened securely was the most satisfying of the Things I get to do today.  All the public barrels are now handsomely covered.


*Engineer husband has also designed an "anatomical pressure-relief valve."  To see a pink picture of it you'll have to email, and I send it to you direct.

A Gaggle of Swifts

Completed wood project of three swifts for winding yarn

I'm pretty sure they come in flocks. But if this group of swifts were ever again to be together, it would for sure be more of a gaggle. Tomorrow they all fly out to their respective new homes here and there about the country to live with friends of mine. That's where the gaggle comes in. We are a talkative bunch who know well enough when to be still, but that event does not arise often.  So when we are together, gabble and gaggle we do.

Giving wings to these swifts is my friend-related item of Things I get to do today.  It's taken awhile to cause these "birds" to come into being from a 1"x6"x 8' piece of maple lumber.  I've learned and loved the process.  It all started with an idea.  Any idea held firmly long enough will come into being one way or another.  The thought took wings and landed, finally, fully-formed, in my hands.

For Merlyn

He mowed the lawn the day his wife died.  My father-in-law loved to garden.  Being outside with the green grass was a way to cope and a way to heal.  Before he retired he was a building contractor, so working with wood jostled around with the earth for first place in his attention.

When the Things I get to do today include any sort of wood project, I often feel like he is still with me, giving a nod or a smile, usually pleased as a papa that I'm doing what he loved to do.  Our sharing of interests meant that he understood what I would enjoy for a gift:  for Christmas one year it was a Makita cordless drill.  Before that he put together and gifted me a compost sifter!

"Fine" soil clods

Let me tell you about compost sifters. They, along with our physical effort, take lumpy, clumpy compost and turn it into fine, lovely 1/2" minus material to sprinkle around plants.

narrow clod bed

They do the same thing with clods of dirt, which is what is usually available to me when the seed packet say "plant 1/8" deep and cover with fine soil." That happened again the other day.

Compost sifter over wheelbarrow.  Ready to sift.
Just use the back side of a rake to work
 the earth through the grid.

And since my sifter is nearly 30 years old and beginning to lose its corners, I'm going to make a new one one of these days.

Finished and fine!

I know you'll join me, Mer, for the process.  Happy Father's Day in a couple of weeks, and thanks for making planting such a sweet process.

Slowly a Swift

Words don't teach.  Life experience teaches.  And I'm learning.  Several months back my post was about one of the simplest and most clear devices I'd come across in a long time: an Amish-style swift.  A swift holds the yarn so that a person winding a ball of it can do it by themselves without growing another full set of full-length arms.  Brilliant contraption!

My first Swift

When I saw one and then bought one, I knew I could make this thing called "swift."  I bought the wood, enough for four it turns out, and cut it to dimensions.  Then I shaped it--all four of them.  Sanding and smoothing came next. The Things I get to do today will see me finishing the first one.






Which brings me to a quote from Confucius adapted for woodworkers, "By three methods we may learn wisdom (woodworking): First by reflection (seeing the process completely before beginning), which is noblest; Second, by imitation (watch Hubby demonstrate), which is easiest; and Third, by experience (learn as you go), which is the bitterest."

Somehow as I drilled the holes in all the parts of this swift that needed holes, I thought of my comment to Hubby last night that I would have him show me how to use his mini drill press device so I could learn by imitation.  But today I moved directly to experience which, though it was not really bitter, was a bit disappointing.

Whoopee!  I have three more that will benefit from what I've learned so far.  And as you can well see, this one looks pretty darn good regardless of its being my lesson book.

Kiwi: Boy and Girl Do Their Thing

This was not a rush job.  At least not until the last hour or so.  Rain was promised, but it was a weakly-felt, never-really-intended commitment, so I knew I still had time.

Trellis for the boy (on the right)
and girl (on the left by the hose reel) 

What could not wait, however, were the growing kiwi plants.  Arctic Beauty Hardy Kiwi is, from all I've read, truly a beauty with its cream, pink and green leaves, its fragrant, honeybee-attracting flowers, and its yummy, grape-sized fruit.  And, from what I've read, it is a vigorous vine that can grow many feet in a season and bare up to 100 pounds of fruit.  They say right up front:  make a strong trellis for this plant.

Rails at top right will support the grown-up
kiwi vines and their fruit

The Things I get to do today for many days now included gathering supplies for this project. Then the weather chimed in with sun and sky and warmth. Time to get a move on. Put the blog aside (anyone can write anything on a rainy day), load up and put on the tool belt, and make a place for the girl and boy kiwi to do their thing.

I fetched out the plans, cut and placed the timbers, bolted and screwed them in place (I'm not so good with a hammer, and strong kiwi need screws and nuts and bolts).

Cedar, freshly weather-proofed with a waxy compound that makes it extra nice to touch, is always a pleasure to handle: smells lovely and looks rich.  I loved watching it come together.

Already learning to wrap around their support

Girl blossom buds

I checked on the kids in their newly remodeled setting just a few minutes ago.  They seem quite contented and looked so handsome I nearly burst my buttons.

Boy blossoms ready to pop out

Getting Even

I can't believe I made it worse.  When I finished a long-overdue correction on our outdoor seating area,  I held up the camera to document my success and was stunned to see that now the trim board was way crooked instead of merely crooked.

Outdoor seating area*--the trellis will come straight
up from the planter box and fasten in to the
structure just above the decorative rail.

The kiwi will need a trellis soon. My brain has been all a-buzz lately looking with my mind's eye while shaping this trellis in my imagination.

The narrow darker brown rail closest to you runs
uphill on the right side.
My tape measure says it's 1" too high.

Imaginations are good for a lot of things, but especially for creating stuff.  That's really the God part of us.  The people part of me has drawn most of the plans and is ready to go--except for the uneven trim .

Now it really goes uphill!

Even though it's drizzling today, my resolve to correct the trim remains strongest of all the Things I get to do today.  And in just a few minutes, really, it is done.  That's when I did the reality check.  Gasp!

Straight at last!

The only real damage from the glitch in my reasoning was nails holes that reveal the truth of my carelessness.  I'm headed off to the store right now to get wood putty to fill them in before my hubby sees them.  Don't tell, OK?  Bet we can slip this one by.

Original holes plus carelessness holes
 That's why wood putty was invented.

*We're looking for a good name for this seating area.  What would you call it? Add your suggestion to the comment section.  Thanks.