Our Humble OBode

Tonight's Sumptuous Repast

2009-08-03T03:58:00.000-07:00

My Darling B began to bring in the bean crop about a week and a half ago, and the damned plants just won't stop producing beans.

Since it looks as though we'll be eating beans for a while yet, B's always on the lookout for new ways to prepare them, and this is what she came up with tonight: chicken, potatoes and beans in a lemon sauce.

There's no recipe, sorry. Or, rather, there were several recipes, from which B took what she needed and relied in inspiration to supply the rest. There's a little basil and garlic in there ("Not enough garlic," My Darling B mused as she ate) and I don't know what else.

And there was plenty left over for lunch!

This just in ...

2009-08-02T19:04:00.000-07:00

My Darling B planted an eggplant plant just because she liked the way the fruit looks. When she brought this fruit in today, though, she had big plans for it.

First, she marinaded it in a honey sauce, and then she cooked it on the Weber grill while I was flipping burgers.

It turned out to be very tasty, really. Grilled eggplant. Who would've thunk it?

Dedication

2009-07-30T16:38:00.000-07:00

She will brave swarms of mosquitoes to make sure her tomato plants are properly cared for.

This just in ...

2009-07-30T03:48:00.000-07:00

We're coming to the end of this year's pea crop, sad to say. It's been a very good year.

B steamed this batch and we ate them on a bed of rice with spicy sauce.

This just in ...

2009-07-28T19:16:00.000-07:00

We have a tree in our back yard that is heavy with mulberries ... which makes it a mulberry tree, I guess. I always thought mulberries came from bushes, but ours is very unequivocally a tree.

For the past two years we have let the squirrels and birds hog the mulberries all to themselves, but this year we made up our minds to harvest some of them and make a jam or jelly or wine or something, we haven't yet decided.

Tonight's pickings amounted to a little over two pounds, much more than I thought it might be. A couple more nights of this and we'll have plenty of mulberry jelly to spread on morning toast.

Lend me your ears

2009-07-27T18:09:00.000-07:00

Someone I know once told me that just one ear of corn grows on each stalk. Well, here's a stalk on which two ears are very clearly growing, and there might even be a third at the bottom.

Hmmmm...

Tonight's Sumptuous Repast

2009-07-26T18:13:00.000-07:00

Buffalo sirloin, new potatoes, patty-pan squash & zucchini, all fresh off the grill and chased with a pint of home-brewed beer. Does life get any better than this? I don't think so.

It's Time for Toms

2009-07-26T15:02:00.000-07:00

Here's one more sign I'm turning into my dad: I'm looking forward to fresh tomatoes. I haven't advanced far enough into the transformation to slice them up and eat them in chunks the way he did, but I do love me some fresh tomatoes on my sandwich, and My Darling B makes tomato soup that I would sit up and beg for.

This just in ...

2009-07-26T11:39:00.000-07:00

My Darling B tells me (and I believe everything she tells me) that carrots were not always orange. Once upon a time most of them were white and purple, until at some time in the distant past the Dutch bred them to be orange, and that's the color most have been ever since.

But she's not into conventional veggies. B loves "heritage" varieties and plants them whenever she can get them. Here is a selection of the carrots she harvested yesterday from the garden and prepared for dinner. I have to admit I was more than a little surprised when I stuck a chunk of the white one in my mouth and it tasted just like any orange carrot.

Plump, fresh pots

2009-07-25T05:43:00.000-07:00

We had potatoes with our dinner last Thursday, and here's where we got them: The garden plot in our back yard, so lovingly tended by My Darling B.

Potatoes grow like weeds; there's one literally growing like a weed in our compost heap. But you have to tend to them by heaping dirt or, in our case, straw up around the base of the stalk if you want to eat the potatoes.

Then, when you want to bring some in to eat, all you have to do is root around in the straw at the base of the stalk until you find a couple nice, big ones, pluck them out, as B has done in the photo, and cover the plant up with straw again so the little ones can grow up to be dinner!

Tonight's Sumptuous Repast

2009-07-23T18:56:00.000-07:00

It's Guy Night, and I wanted to fire up the grill, so we picked up some fresh fish at the co-op on the way home. When we got home, My Darling B rooted some potatoes out of her garden and I threw them in a foil packet with plenty of butter and dill, slapped it all over a hot fire and voila! Dinner.

That's a nice cut of fish

2009-07-23T18:49:00.000-07:00

Farm-raised sockeye salmon, fresh from the Willy Street co-op. This is fish so good I don't mess with it much, just lay a couple pats of butter on the foil, lay the fish on top of it, and let it simmer for five or six minutes on a side.

I tried cooking it as slowly as I could tonight, just to see how it would turn out. After it cooked just about all the way through, I turned it, dropped a couple sprigs of dill over the top, closed the lid on the Weber and let it roast a little while longer.

When I could poke all the way through it with my fish turner I gave it just one more minute to finish up, then brought it still-sizzling to the table.

Don't be afraid to add too much butter. Yum!

... and the secret ingredient is:

2009-07-23T18:43:00.000-07:00

The Weber kettle grill!

This is probably the best hundred-fifty bucks we've spent all summer. There's enough grill space to let me spread the food out and control the way it's cooked, and there's plenty of room underneath to let me build a roaring fire right in the middle of it, or bank the coals for slower, indirect cooking.

Plus, it's green.

Tonight's Sumptuous Repast

2009-07-22T17:42:00.000-07:00

Pesto pasta with tomatoes and zucchini! It's quick & easy, and it goes well with a bottle of Botham's X vin white wine.

It's making you drool, isn't it?

In the steamer

2009-07-22T17:37:00.000-07:00

There was a time, not so long ago really, that I would have brayed with laughter if you'd suggested I might enjoy a dinner made with zucchini. But that's what we were having tonight.

All the ingredients come from the weekend farmer's market, so they're no more than a few days old.

The toms were deliciously sweet.

... and the secret ingredient is:

2009-07-22T17:33:00.000-07:00

The pasta bowl!

Purchased for only seventy-five cents at the Saint Vincent de Paul thrift shop, this is one of those prizes that makes the meal, because presentation counts.

This just in ...

2009-07-20T17:56:00.000-07:00

One of our next door neighbors has the most amazing raspberry patch. We've looked on it with envy for years, and were delighted when a few of the plants nearest our yard migrated over the lot line and began to grow in our garden. This summer they even produced berries for the first time. B would bring them in a cup at a time, happily snacking on them.

And then last weekend our neighbor invited us to wade into her patch and pick as many as we liked. "I'm tired of picking them," she said. So tonight B hung a basket around her neck, braved the mosquitoes for the better part of an hour, and brought this bounty back to the kitchen. She's soaking them for a while to encourage the little bugs to quit the scene. Sometime, maybe next weekend, these could become raspberry jam. Or a tart.

A weekend in the garden

2009-07-05T15:35:00.001-07:00

B's been working happily in her garden nearly every daylight hour this weekend.

Would you like to see what she hath wrought?

Not quite as high as an elephant's eye

2009-07-05T15:31:00.000-07:00

On the right, corn in the foreground, dill in the middle and garlic in the background.

On the left, onions in the foreground, potatoes in the background. I'm not sure what's in the middle.

You say poe tah toe

2009-07-05T15:28:00.000-07:00

B brought in a pretty impressive crop of potatoes last year, and this year her garden gives every indication of a coming potato-y abundance once again. She's trying the straw method of hilling the plants this year, partly because that's what other gardeners swear by, but mostly because there's wasn't enough dirt in these rows to properly hill the plants.

2009-07-05T15:23:00.000-07:00

Sun glowing through the pea pods growing along the fence line. B just loves peas! She was snacking on them on her lunch hour at her office desk when a coworker came by to ask her a question. Confronted by the sight of someone snacking on whole pea pods she staggered back and asked, "Just what are you eating?" Maybe if they came in a foil bag and were deep-fried they wouldn't seem so weird.

Finally! All the same color!

2009-07-05T14:13:00.000-07:00

Today marked an important milestone in our never-ending project to repaint our home: The north wall of the house is all one color. None of the primer paint is visible!

The glare from the afternoon sun doesn't make it very easy to see, but the color we picked out, Cottage Red, is looking very nice now that I don't have to make a frame with my hands to block out the parts of the siding that weren't painted.

It's an ice cream maker ... duh!

2009-06-14T06:28:00.000-07:00

My Darling B bought an Oster multi-speed food-chopper-upper with a half-dozen attachments back in nineteen eighty-something and, as far as I know, she's only ever used the blender.

But last week while trolling the many and varied offering on e-bay she went for this impulse purchase, an ice cream making attachment. Pour the cream and other ingredients into the central barrel, pack it with ice and salt (does anybody know what the salt's supposed to do?) around the sides, lock the cover down on the contraption and turn the motor on.

After about ten minutes of mixing she poured the nearly-finished ice cream into single-serving bowls and stacked them in the freezer. But she sampled a bit of the mix by licking the mixing paddles clean with her tongue, making happy yummy sounds all the while. How could it be anything but delicious? It was cream and strawberries!

She could hardly wait to scoop a bit out this morning to see how it turned out. And what do you know? It was ice cream!

My Darling B's Garden

2009-05-25T10:01:00.000-07:00

Peas marching along the fence line of My Darling B's garden.

She planted them some weeks ago and already some (not in this photo) are beginning to blossom, which makes B squeal with delight in anticipation of fresh peas for the kitchen.

A Weekend Made For Gardening

2009-05-24T15:51:00.000-07:00

Even with the rain we've had, it's been just about the perfect weekend for gardening.

My Darling B's been out in it all day today, weeding, planting, tilling and watering, to say nothing of how much mud she's tracked into the house.

This photo unfortunately can't show you much. You'll simply have to take my word for it that there are legions of onions, tomatoes, peas, lettuce and broccoli marching across these fields. To the left, just in front of B, you can make out a small portion of this year's crop of garlic, almost as high as B's waist and growing higher every day.

First Batch

2009-05-12T03:35:00.000-07:00

If the recipe I followed doesn't fail me, it'll be dandelion wine in six to twelve months. We have a lot of dandelions, so we figured we ought to make good use of at least some of them. We had to pick and de-petal probably five hundred dandelion blossoms to make the gallon you see here.

I pitched the yeast into this batch last night and fermentation's already begun, so it's off to a good start. Too bad we have to wait so long to see if it works out. Meantime, we're planning our next batch, so we'll have more than one gallon jug waiting to be sampled come the snows of November.

Not looking forward to plucking all those tiny little petals off again, though.

Weekend visit to the farmer's market

2009-05-04T04:17:00.000-07:00

My Darling B hasn't even begun to plant tomatoes in her garden, but there are plenty to be had at the Dane County Farmer's Market.

Flowers around the yard

2009-05-03T05:58:00.000-07:00

We have wood violets in our lawn. Not sure how they got there; like the Creeping Charlie and the Begonias, we inherited them when we bought the house. They only last for a week or so in the spring but they sure are pretty.

Sign of Spring: B's in the garden

2009-04-28T18:38:00.000-07:00

My Darling B finally got some time to take her roto-tiller into the garden after work today and get almost half the plot turned over, while the dandelions looked on and trembled.

Those guys knew what they were talking about

2009-04-21T18:21:00.000-07:00

"The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free."

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #8

Our First Trip To The Market This Season

2009-04-20T04:48:00.000-07:00

My Darling B hands over the veggies she's selected for purchase at the Dane County Farmer's Market.

The market had beautiful weather for its first day back on the square. B has been counting the days for its return since about Christmas.

Family Night with the O-Folk

2009-03-29T18:28:00.000-07:00

Just so it's not all about plumbing and painting, here's My Darling B making Philly cheese steak sandwiches for dinner. They were awesome!

Adventures In Plumbing

2009-03-29T14:08:00.000-07:00

My Darling B caught me seated before the kitchen plumbing as I was putting a new blade in my hacksaw.

"Oh-oh, it's time for the cursing to start!" she observed.

"Can't do it without lots of cursing," I answered, and got to work.

Adventures In Plumbing

2009-03-29T14:05:00.000-07:00

Here's what I was finally getting around to fixing: I cobbled together this drain pipe from pieces I had on hand when I discovered that I wouldn't be able to install the sink disposal, as I thought I could when I put in the new sink back in December.

Although the drain worked fine, but My Darling B wanted her disposal once again. My task was to figure out how to give her one.

Adventures In Plumbing

2009-03-29T14:02:00.000-07:00

And here's why I was unable to attach the disposal in the first place: The sink's drain ended up directly over the sewer pipe, which sticks out from the wall so far that the butt-end of the disposal would be in the same spot, spatially, that the sewer pipe is now occupying. So I had to cobble together the Rube Goldberg drain pipe while I mustered the motivation to do what had to be done.

Today, I finally had my motivation ready to do the job.

Adventures In Plumbing

2009-03-29T13:49:00.000-07:00

I decided the best fix was to saw off the end of the sewer pipe, leaving about two inches still sticking out from the wall.

There's probably a good reason for leaving so much pipe sticking out. If you know anything about plumbing, you're probably wincing right now, thinking, "Don't do it!" Well, it's too late. I know nothing about plumbing and I'm not calling a plumber to fix this thing.

As you can see, I had a bit of a problem finding the room to get in there to do the job. I had to knock out a partition, then ask My Darling B to pull all the mixing bowls out of the cupboard because by this time my hands were covered in muck. Finally, I yanked a shelf out and crawled into the cupboard so I had the reach and the angle I needed to hack away at the pipe.

After working behind a desk for three years, I've gotten flabby and have no stamina for this kind of thing any more. It took me three-quarters of an hour to saw that damned pipe off. The last quarter-inch took at least fifteen minutes. If I ever have to do this again, I'm going to put in a request with the chief financial officer to buy the power tool that does this.

Adventures In Plumbing

2009-03-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

I had planned to reuse the old disposal. It seemed to work just fine, but its butt end was so big that the base of it still crowded up against the sewer pipe even after I cut the end of the pipe short.

I would have to either cut some more off the sewer pipe, or I could drive down to the hardware store to see if they had a smaller unit. Hmmm. That's a tough one.

This unit was a little bit smaller, and it was made in the USA. All the rest were made in China. I've heard the Chinese have fallen on hard times over there, but so have we, and I'd rather keep Americans employed, or whoever it is in America that's making these things. Damn, got up on my soap box without even noticing. Sorry about that.

The butt end of this unit still crowded the sewer pipe, but there was enough flex in the rubber adapter to make room for the disposal.

Just FYI: I managed to get through this entire project without cussing, a first for me.

Pedaling Through Monona

2009-03-22T08:36:00.000-07:00

On my morning pedal through Monona I spotted this lakeside home. With its second story and guest house on the shore it must've been considered big in its day, but it's receded down the ranks to become a quaint little cottage. Sandwiched on either side by bulked-out lakeside homes, the day when a buyer looking to build his trophy home and sees this as his teardown cannot be too far in the future.

Seth Thomas 1960 mantle clock

2009-03-21T10:08:00.000-07:00

The nifty old Seth Thomas mantle clock I picked up this morning at St Vincent de Paul's thrift shop.

For a 40-year-old cheap electric clock it's in remarkably good condition, except that I can't get the motor to run, which has a bit of a negative impact on a clock's usefulness.

With luck I can find a replacement. I don't want to replace the movement because that would mean losing the chimes.

Seth Thomas 1960 mantle clock

2009-03-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

This is the balky motor that keeps my nifty old clock from running. It defies all my efforts to break it down. I don't think it's made to be taken apart at all, just thrown out & replaced, but I don't know what to search for as it has no identifying marks other than the legend, "Made in Canada."

2009-02-15T15:13:00.000-08:00

I've been promising My Darling B a new shelf for her photos ever since we moved in. She had a pair of store-bought shelves before, but they were just awful so I stuffed them into a corner of the basement where even I can't find them. Then I procrastinated for almost three years.

But I finally bought the lumber for a new set of shelves two weeks ago, cut them, sanded them and fixed the parts together. I'd been waiting for a warm weekend to stain them, so I could open the windows, but weather that's warm enough for that doesn't seem to be forthcoming, so I just went ahead and did it. The fumes weren't as bad as I thought ... or maybe they were, and I'm too brain-damaged to realize it.

2009-02-15T12:30:00.000-08:00

Worse Than Useless

A work bench that's cluttered with junk is worse than no bench at all. I don't have places to put a lot of the little junk, though, a problem I dealth with this morning.

2009-02-15T12:26:00.000-08:00

I got a few of these at the hardware store months ago, to try them out. They're handy because I can throw stuff in them, I can easily see what's in each one, and they clip to hangers on the wall so I can take them down to use them, or to rearrange them.

Since they worked so well, I went back to the store this morning and bought more. Didn't quite count all my fingers, though, and shorted myself one hanger and two bins.

2009-02-15T12:24:00.000-08:00

Much better.

Now I can stain the shelves I started working on for My Darling B last week. Or the week before. It all sort of blurs together after a while.

2009-02-14T10:54:00.000-08:00

We woke to find a fresh flocking of new-fallen snow had transformed our yard in the night.

2009-02-14T10:50:00.000-08:00

Fresh snow highlights the milkweed pods.

2009-02-08T06:39:00.000-08:00

Boo sneakes up onto the dinner table by taking a shortcut underneath a folded newspaper.

On the Shelf

2009-01-11T14:16:00.000-08:00

Trying to improve the storage available in our tiny kitchen, I finally finished this shelf by staining it and installing it today.

It came together almost exactly as I imagined it would, with just two flaws easily visible: The grain of the closest bracket is vertical, while the others are horizontal, and there's a gap in the shelf under the third bracket that's wider than the one between Letterman's front teeth.

But it looks pretty good otherwise, and holds all our pitchers and a few other odds and ends. I have to admit I'm well chuffed with the results.

Lazy Sunday

2009-01-11T07:44:00.000-08:00

"What are you going to do today?"

Hmmm. Curl up on the bed and nap sounds like a good answer. Curl up on the sofa with a book sounds almost as good.

Lap Cat

2009-01-09T04:01:00.000-08:00

Boo doesn't eat bananas, but she just loves to snap at the peels when they do that dangly thing right in front of her.

This is her favorite spot, first thing in the morning.

Don't Ask Me How, I Just Live Here

2008-12-27T08:18:00.000-08:00

Same back yard, one week later and fifty-five degrees warmer. There's no way to describe it other than just plain batshit crazy.

And I can't take advantage of the warmer temps by, say, going for a little walk around the neighborhood to finally get out of the house and stretch my legs for a bit, because it's raining! I suppose I could take a bumbershoot along, but then we're back to batshit crazy again. The weather can go ahead and act crazy if it wants to, but darned if I'm going to be a part of it.

"Do you ever feel any regrets about moving back to Wisconsin?" my Mom asked me the other night, and I told her "no," because that was the only self-respecting thing to say, but ...

Find The Brass Monkey

2008-12-21T06:12:00.000-08:00

It's a state law that when the temperature plunges below zero, and if you have a blog, you have to post a photo of the thermometer and prattle on for a bit about how cold it is.

Man, is it cold! It is so cold in Wisconsin, all the brass monkeys go south for the winter.

I have to admit, I never got the brass monkey comparison. I always assumed it was code for something we weren't supposed to say in mixed company, but nobody ever told me the dirty version, so I've never been sure what "colder than a brass monkey" means.

In my neck of the woods, the more popular expression was, "Colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra." Brass seems to be a baseline for measuring cold temperatures, I supposed from way back when there used to be more brass door knobs and handles you had to grab hold of to get in out of the cold. Good thing they came up with the saying back then; with all the brushed aluminum and stainless steel out there now, "witch's tit in a brushed aluminum bra" just wouldn't trip off the tongue as satisfyingly.

When it's this cold, every trip from the house, no matter how short, becomes a major expedition you have to provision for. Is there a shovel and a bag of kitty litter in the trunk of the car to attempt a dig-out? Do you have at least a quarter tank of gas to run the engine in case you have to call for help? Are you wearing the requisite half-dozen layers of clothes? I wouldn't even walk to the end of the driveway for the morning paper on a morning like this, and in fact, I didn't. I figured I could read it on-line from the comfort of my easy chair where I can stay wrapped up in quilts. That's how cold it is.

I Love This Backpack!

2008-12-20T14:49:00.000-08:00

Tim's kitty getting some love from his backpack.

Hang 'Em High

2008-12-14T13:04:00.001-08:00

Today's Home Improvement Project #1: Give My Darling B a place to keep her stemware.

The china hutch is full, there's no room in the cupboards for them, and there's no room for shelves anywhere.

The solution? Find a place to hang them. I've seen these stemware tracks on the underside of shelfwork in wine bars. The only trick was to find a place to hang them, but B suggested the underside of the counter end, which worked out fine.

Then I ran to the store to buy some wooden cleats and some pine lath, cut it to length and tapped it into place with some finishing nails. The most rewarding home improvement projects are the ones that are easiest, yet still produce impressive results. I'm going to get a kiss for this one, I can feel it.

What Would Chief Al Say?

2008-12-13T08:23:00.000-08:00

I'm this close to having hair long enough to pull back in a ponytail. I asked My Darling B to show me how to tie it back, but she went further than that: she combed it and tied it with an elastic band from a tin of them she had in her store of hair-care stuff. Considering that she told me years ago she'd leave me if I ever grew a ponytail, I'm gratified she not only accepted my latest phase of middle-age denial, she also took part in helping style it.

Even though it's still pretty short, I wore it back this way when we went to the market, and blended in pretty effectively with the rest of the organic-food crowd.

I may have to wait another four to eight weeks before I have a ponytail that's more like the founding father look I'm shooting for and less a middle-aged man trying to look like a kid again, although in my defense I've never had hair this long before in my life, so I don't think I'm in denial if I'm trying it for the first time.

Adventures in Plumbing

2008-12-07T16:18:00.000-08:00

Success! It took all day to get the water running again and, more importantly, to get the waste water to go where it was supposed to go, but I finally had everything hooked up in time to hand the kitchen over to My Darling B, who planned on a pizza for dinner tonight.

Look at the size of that thing! It looked nice and big in the store, but once I got it installed it looked even BIGGER! I could probably climb in there and take a bath! And I needed one, after taking apart the drain pipes and playing in the muck.

Adventures in Plumbing

2008-12-07T16:07:00.000-08:00

Time for Adventures in Plumbing, where I take apart some vital piece of our house's waterworks, then try to figure out how to put it back together again.

Today, I tore out the kitchen sink. It was made of stainless steel, divided down the middle, and the faucet began to make an annoying knocking sound about two weeks ago that has gotten worse with each passing day.

The sink also had a garbage disposal attached to it, just to make the operation more interesting.

I planned to replace it with an enameled cast iron sink that was divided into a large and a small bowl, but when I went to the store to buy it, I found that it was made in China. Whoops. My Darling B would never have allowed me to bring that through the door, so I quickly re-evaluated the choices.

Everything was made in China except for a selection of divided stainless steel sinks much like the one I was trying to get rid of, and a number of acrylic sinks. I wasn't crazy about them at first, but found one in stock that had a single, huge bowl we'd be able to wash even our largest frying pans and platters in, and went with that.

Even though I got what I thought was an early start, I ended up working on this project until dinner time. It should go without saying that I've never removed a kitchen sink before, nor installed one.

Found! A Better TP Dispenser!

2008-11-23T17:42:00.000-08:00

The O-Folk once lived in Japan many, many moons ago, and fell in love with their gadgets, the best of which, and one that we could afford to bring back with us, was this toilet paper dispenser. When the roll runs out, all you have to do is lift up on the empty core and two little swing arms let it pop right off. Then you push a new roll up through the spring arms, and they snap into the core. Presto! Chango! Even the O-Folk can handle that.

We liked these so much, we bought two, but the most frustrating thing about moving is that the things you're most looking forward to as you unpack are stashed away in the last box you open. These dispensers were in a box that's been shoved way to the back of a shelf all these years. I didn't find them again until tonight and was so pleased by the discovery that I installed it straight away.

The simplest things are the ones we treasure, right?

Give Me A Call

2008-11-02T19:00:00.000-08:00

The paint job on the Western Electric 202 turned out pretty good after all.

I bought a spray can of clear coat that put a beautiful finish on it, not glossy but semi-gloss. It looks just right on a telephone body.

The next problem is the handset. The one that came with the phone is a transplant. The 202 is an elegant-looking phone, but it needs a genuine E1 handset with a "spit cup" mouth piece or it just doesn't have the same character. I'm scoping out sales on e-bay for the real thing and have found several in the past two weeks, but they're expensive. I may have to make due with the transplant for a while.

It's so heavily pitted that it'll take quite a bit of sanding and buffing before it comes close to matching the finish on the body.

The cord's pretty nasty, but I'll order a cloth-covered cord new from House of Telephones on payday. That ought to give me enough time to polish a good-looking shine on the handset.

Wait For Dial Tone

2008-10-26T15:15:00.000-07:00

The cradle presents its own set of problems, not the least of which is the need to zap it from a dozen different directions to get an evenly-applied coat.

This is the second trip the cradle has made to the paint booth. The first application was very uneven, so after sanding out the roughest spots I tried again this afternoon. I'm less than pleased with the result. You can easily see the globby paint inside the cradle arms.

I've started doing a little research on the interwebs after noting that the handset that came with this phone was a transplant. It's not even a Western Electric handset. From what I can tell, the 202 should have an E1 handset, which has a knobby look and a mouthpiece with a "spit cup." I found a few on e-bay, but none at the bargain prices my skinflint sensibilities will let me bid on.

After cleaning my Western Electric 302 this afternoon, I strongly suspect the dial of my 202 is a transplant, too. It's got a plastic number card under the finger wheel; the 302's dial had a porcelain face. What are the odds that Western Electric would have used plastic in the earlier version of their desk phones, and porcelain in later versions? Smells fishy to me.

Wait For Dial Tone

2008-10-26T15:12:00.000-07:00

... and this is about forty-five minutes after spraying one coat as light as I could get it using a can of Krylon. It's probably my most successful attempt so far. There are some scratches evident in the paint, but I'm thinking of overspraying with a clear fixative and polishing it a bit to see how that looks.

Wait For Dial Tone

2008-10-26T15:11:00.000-07:00

It usually looks pretty good while the paint is still wet ...

Wait For Dial Tone

2008-10-26T15:04:00.000-07:00

Here's another reason I don't want to rush into painting anything. This is the D1 base of a Western Electric 202, and I've been trying for almost two weeks to apply a smooth coat of glossy black paint to it, but the damned paint keeps krinkling up like this around the shoulders. The last coat I gave it got me so cheesed off I set it aside for three days before I came back to it this afternoon with a patch of 100 grit paper, sanded off three or four layers, smoothed it over with some 220 grit and put it in the paint booth to give it another zap.

Wait For Dial Tone

2008-10-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

The reassembled dial after cleaning. The face is badly scratched and the paint is worn from inside most of the fingerholes, but I didn't want to repaint it today, if I ever do. I don't necessarily want it to look pristine. The scratches aren't especially good-looking, but the worn finger holes give the dial a comforting feeling of constant use. I'll have to give a good, long think to whether or not I'll repaint it.

Wait For Dial Tone

2008-10-26T11:04:00.000-07:00

With the finger wheel removed, the dial cleans up easily. It looks and feels like porcelain. That part number would probably tell me exactly what it was made of and when, if I knew where to look. A quick googling doesn't clear up the question, though.

Most people who restore phones take the whole thing apart before they even start cleaning, but all I wanted to do today was clean the dust and grease off the parts so that, after making a call, I wouldn't have the same uneasy feeling I get when I give my nose a quick wipe without the benefit a handkerchief. Not that I would ever do such a revolting thing. Ever. Forget I said that.

Wait For Dial Tone

2008-10-26T10:51:00.000-07:00

The first working dial telephone I bought from an e-bay auction was this Western Electric Model 302, and I liked it so much that I wired a 4-prong outlet in the living room so I could plug it in and use it right away.

I had to give the handset a good, long scrubbing in warm, soapy water before My Darling B would even consider using it, though. She'll put up with a lot of weirdness from me, but her love has its limits.

I swore I'd get around to cleaning and refurbishing the rest of the phone at a later date, to be determined by the availability of time and funds and, little by little, I've managed to keep up an erratic schedule of restoring it to something close to its former glory. I replaced the cords a week or two ago, and today I took it to the basement to take apart and clean the dial which, you can see here, is still covered in nearly sixty years of grunginess.

A Cookie You Can Believe In

2008-10-25T10:49:00.000-07:00

Seen at the farmer's market this weekend: The Obama Cookie. Way cool. McCain doesn't have a cookie. This may be a game-changer.

When My Darling B handed over the cash to pay for it, the guy standing in line behind her said, "He's going to give you change you can believe in."

ba-dum-bum! tssss ...

Mystery Photo #42

2008-10-21T04:24:00.000-07:00

I took the bottom off this and snapped a photo before taking everything apart so that I'd have a reference when the time came to put it all back together. It needed cleaning and painting, and all the wires and circuits had to come out before I could even begin. First correct guess wins an Oreo, America's Favorite Cookie!

Bigger is Better

2008-10-18T08:54:00.001-07:00

When we bought Our Humble O'Bode, I was thrilled to find that one of the previous owners had been a handyman who set up a work shop in the basement. He had saved an end table from the garbage to use as a bench, and hung his tools from a 4x4 piece of peg board he screwed to the wall.

The down side was that the work shop was shoehorned into a narrow space that used to be storage for the storm windows, between the lavatory and a finished room. I couldn't build anything bigger than a bird house in there.

But this season's going to be different. I talked My Darling B into letting me knock down a wall and make the work shop big enough to move around in. With this kind of room, I might be able to take on a more ambitious project than a bird house, too.

For a view of the work shop shortly after we moved in, take a look at this.

Lair Transplant

2008-10-18T05:44:00.000-07:00

Behold, the contents of my basement lair, removed to its new location.

Each night this week, I would spend about an hour unloading books from one of these bookshelves, piling them on the floor, dragging the book case from the semi-finished room to this corner, and restacking the books on the shelves.

Actually, after the bookcase on the right, the next think I moved was the stereo, so I could listen to Etta James while I moved the rest of the books.

I dragged the desk out right in the middle of the move, just to break up the monotony, and to give me the idea to stand the two peewee bookshelves in front of it. It was a eureka moment.

By Thursday night, I was done.

It's a lot less crowded than it looks, although the sofa will have to go. I'm going to ask Tim to help me drag it out to the curb this morning and prop a "Free To A Good Home" sign on it in the hopes that it'll be gone by Sunday night and we won't have to drag it back downstairs.

The new corner lair does need a better set of lights, but that might have to wait a little while. For now, it's bright enough for the kind of goofing off I do.

Guy Food Night

2008-10-16T18:20:00.000-07:00

Nothing like that smell, is there?

Thursday night is guy food night, an old O-Folk tradition that stretches back two, maybe three years. It's the night when the guys cook, so My Darling B doesn't have to.

The trouble with this great idea is, I can cook two things: breakfast, or a thick slab of meat on the grill. For tonight's meal, I chose to serve breakfast.

Make room! Make room!

2008-10-13T20:06:00.000-07:00

An "after" snapshot to compare to last Wednesday's. So much demolition has been going on here, it's hard to correlate this to anything in the previous photo. The saws on the peg board to the left are in both photos.

A New Coat of Paint

2008-10-11T12:06:00.000-07:00

Old coat, no coat, new coat.

The darkest wine-colored paint is the color we picked out for the top coat, called "Cottage Red" in the Benjamin-Moore vocabulary of color. I couldn't wait any longer to see what it looked like so, while I was at the store to pick up another gallon of primer, I asked the paintmeister to mix up a quart of it so I could slap it on the back corner of the house.

My Darling B approves.

A New Coat of Paint

2008-10-11T12:04:00.000-07:00

It's the final coat of paint without the distracting purple primer or any bare boards to muck up the view. I'm very relieved to find it covers very nicely with one coat.

Make room! Make room!

2008-10-08T18:53:00.000-07:00

Only the skeletal outline of the closet that once jutted into the corner of the work shop, taking up valuable floor space, remained in this photo I took two nights ago. Since then, I've pulled down the shelves to the right, most of the rest of the furring strips framing the wall, and started pulling down the gypsum board.

That stuff all takes up room in the garbage can, the only way I have to get rid of the stuff, which is why I'm going slow.

I've also got to work out what I'm going to do with all the books in the lair. There's a couple hundred to move and I'm not looking forward to it. My Darling B has consented to let me move some of them upstairs. Eventually I'd like to build a wall-to-wall book shelf in the living room and move most of them up there, where we can get at them and they'll look much cooler.

Make room! Make room!

2008-10-05T13:10:00.000-07:00

It's raining today, so as I was looking around for a indoor project I thought, hey, it's about time to flip the workshop door over.

The door to the work shop opened in the wrong direction. It had always opened into the work shop, and the hinge was on the wrong side so that, when the door was open, it blocked the very narrow entrance. Totally ganked up.

The simplest way to fix it would be to remove the door, but I liked that door and the work shop should probably be closed off from the rest of the basement, to keep the sawdust in. So I decided the door had to stay.

The next simplest way to fix it, I thought innocently, would be to flip the hinges around so it opened into the stairway. So I marked the door jamb, sharpened my chisel and started cutting.

Two hours later I was still learning lessons in how to hang a door. Here's a very important bit of information: get somebody who knows what they're doing to help you.

And yet, somehow, I still managed to get it flipped over well before supper time. Here's the door hanging ajar in its new, correctly hung direction.

The whole point of this endeavor was to make more room in the work shop for the projects I hope to get done this winter. There's just one more little thing I'd like to do. See that wall in the background? It's coming down.

Bringing in the potatoes

2008-10-04T10:57:00.000-07:00

My Darling B went through the potato patch with her trusty fork, hoping to find the last of the big baking potatoes to put up for the winter. There were precious few to be found. Most were teensy-tiny and covered in malformed knobs, and a few had been in the ground far too long; they went straight to the compost heap.

Then we spent the afternoon scraping paint off the siding. I even slapped some primer on the corner, so I wouldn't lie awake tonight thinking of how rotten the wood panels would get after soaking all day in rain that's predicted for tomorrow.

If the browned corn stalks in the background don't say autumn, I don't know what does.

Hello, Central!

2008-10-01T04:03:00.000-07:00

After I moved the phone from the kitchen to the living room, I decided I hated the cordless model we had. I'm pretty sure I've always hated it. The sound quality of the handset is terrible and the ringer makes the most annoying bleat ever heard by a human ear.

I wanted another, better phone but, frankly, I'm not as jazzed about cordless models as I used to be. If I got a phone with a cord, though, I'd have to teach myself not to walk too far from the base. That could be a trick. I'd also have to learn to put up with the base jumping up at me every time I lifted the receiver. What brain-dead designer thought making the base light as a feather was a good idea, anyway? When did people start to think it was a bad thing for the base to be heavy as a cinder block, so it would stay rooted in one spot?

The more I thought about it, the more dissatisfied I was with virtually every phone we've had since I bought an old rotary phone at a garage sale fifteen years ago and used it as an extension phone. There wasn't anything great about it. It was a basic, beige table phone right out of the 1970's but it worked great. Tim, who was about three years old at the time, watched me plug it in and listen to the dial tone on the receiver, then spin the dial. "Cool!" he said, watching the dial return to zero. There was a pause of about a heartbeat before he asked, "What is it?"

Suddenly, I wanted one.

So I went cruising e-bay to see if there were any for sale. Holey cheese, were there ever. The trouble was not finding a dial phone, the trouble was finding one for less than ten bucks. People have made a hobby out of collecting them. The upside is, those old phones look really cool now!

The one I finally found for our living room table is a Western Electric model 302 from the 1940's. I was amazed that it not only worked right out of the box, but that I could dial out. Our phone service still supports pulse dialing, how quaint. When the new set of cords I've ordered arrives I'll break it all down and give it a thorough cleaning. In the meantime I washed the grubbiness off the handset with warm, soapy water and a couple washcloths. Otherwise, My Darling B wouldn't touch it.

Tim still loves to spin the dial. I showed him how to make the phone ring and he won't stop doing that, either.

What's better than a Bernina?

2008-10-01T03:50:00.000-07:00

Hmmm ... let's see ... the love of your life ... a day off from work ... a six-pack of Mad Town Nut Brown ... oh, lots of things.

What I should have more properly asked was, What's better for sewing than a Bernina? And the answer would be, of course, that nothing is better for sewing than a Bernina except two Berninas.

My Darling B won this classic Bernina at an estate sale. It runs like a top and she walked away with it after being the only bidder. She had to part with a single sawbuck for the privilege. There's a pretty good story about how that played out, but I've already written it out once before.

I convinced My Darling B to crank it up the other night and hem a pair of trousers I bought at the irregular store. The tag said it was a 33/35 but it was more like a 33/49. When I put them on, the waist fit perfectly but the legs bunched up around my ankles like a pair of dad's slacks on an eight-year-old.

Well, here we are again ...

2008-09-27T15:19:00.000-07:00

... but at least it's not ninety degrees in the shade.

I didn't start until after one o'clock, when the sun was far enough past noon that I was working in shadow. Hot enough working in heavy denim coveralls without the sun beating down on my shoulders, too.

The work went fairly quickly. As you can see, we were able to scrape off most of the thick, dark latex paint that takes forever to grind off because it clogs up the sanding belts and calls for a lot of elbow grease.

I wish there was a way to attach a shop vac to the sander. Grinding all that paint off the house leaves a thick layer of grayish dust all over. I try to catch it with the drop cloth, but quite a bit of it inevitably drifts away, settling as far away as the deck. It's impossible to cover the whole yard in drop cloth; I'm not Christo.

2008-09-27T15:18:00.000-07:00

This is as far as I could get in an afternoon. I really wanted to sand the paint off that topmost white board, but even standing on a ladder it was about a foot over my head, and I just didn't have the strength left in my arms to do it. Maybe tomorrow ... or, maybe not.

How to pass the time

2008-09-21T15:17:00.000-07:00

Scraping paint has become an almost zen-line activity. It's not mindless; I have to concentrate in order to get just the right angle on the blade to get it under the paint yet keep it from gouging the wood siding. And yet it's so repetitious and endless that each stroke becomes a mantra that sedates my consciousness. I listen for the clock in the kitchen to chime the top of the hour and I'm always surprised at how quickly it comes.

It may not look like much progress, but I assure you we chipped quite a lot of paint off today. You see that part over the air conditioning unit? That was solid dark paint all the way up until I went at it today. The stuff between the windows was especially hard to chip away; it's not nearly as brittle as most of the rest of it. And the paint on the wall behind the airco unit is a bitch to get at. The best angle I've managed to find is from above by sitting on the unit and working between my splayed legs. Fine work for a contortionist, but I can take about five or ten minutes of that, tops, before I feel ready for a full-body cast.

Progress check

2008-09-20T16:01:00.000-07:00

On the theory that nothing happens unless you blog about it – and what's a blog post without a photo? – here's a snapshot of the back wall of the O-Home after B and I spent a collective four or five hours scraping paint off the siding.

The dark paint still remaining between the windows was too powerfully stuck to the house for our mere mortal strength to remove. We left it for later when I'll put on my home-made hazmat suit, slide a spanking new 50-grit belt in the power sander and grind away until I'm down to bare wood. Can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that.

What did you do after dinner?

2008-09-18T17:47:00.000-07:00

We're at it again.

We picked up a pizza on the way home and gobbled it down in about a half-hour, leaving us about ten minutes of daylight. Rushing outside to grab our scrapers and, in B's case, mask and gloves, we got back to work peeling paint off the siding. Fun!

The before and after photos below illustrate the challenge of trying to get any work done in the short time left between getting home after work and the point when it becomes too dark to see. The top photo was taken at about six-fifteen; the bottom photo, just before seven-thirty.

I offered to rig some lights, but B said, "No."

The paint looks remarkably good on the back of the house, not at all like the blistering, peeling paint that was on the side of the house. If I pick at it just a little bit, though, I end up peeling it away in sheets as big as my hand.

The weekend's supposed to be warm and clear. I guess I know where we'll be and what we'll be doing. *sigh*

Home improvement called on account of rain

2008-09-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

It rained all day yesterday, all last night, and all morning today, making it impossible to sand or paint. We could scrape, but standing in the mud with rainwater running down our backs into our pants would make the task even more miserable than it was in the hot sun.

That's our story, and we're sticking to it.

Tucked In For a Long Winter's Nap

2008-09-13T10:15:00.000-07:00

My Darling B has spent the morning putting up vegetables from her garden: She converted a whole mess of tomatoes to sauce, and while she did that, she soaked the stems of these garlic bulbs under a wet towel so she could braid them together and hang them in the basement where they'll keep through the winter.

We're not all about painting and home improvement here at Our Humble O’Bode. Thank dog.

Almost Frame-ous

2008-09-11T19:53:00.000-07:00

I tore out all the rotten molding around this window, I tore out the rotten awning window at the bottom, I put in a new window and new molding, and I'm feeling pretty damned pleased with myself right about now.

The finishing touch was to caulk around the edges of the molding to try to keep the new wood safe from rot for a while.

I'll have to tear it all out again next summer to replace the single-pane windows, top and middle, but that's so far into the future it hurts to think about it. Right now I'm sitting fat, dumb and happy.

What I saw

2008-09-09T19:03:00.000-07:00

I bought a new hand saw. I had to. I spent twenty minutes trying to rip half an inch off the width of a piece of brick molding with the trusty but old and dull hand saw that's been in my tool box for at least ten years, probably as much as fifteen. It's still a good saw, but now that I'm in my forties I can't keep flailing away as long as I could when I was thirty.

I stopped once about halfway through the cut and considered running to the store for a new saw right then, but we were trying to get as much done after supper as we could, and I was losing daylight fast. A trip to the store would take at least fifteen minutes, maybe as much as twenty or twenty-five, if I ran into a snag (and I always run into a snag), so I kept at it. Five more minutes passed and the kerf lengthened maybe an inch or two. When I stopped to catch my breath and get my strength back, I had to think about running to the store again.

No. I had to get something done tonight. I bent to the task and started again. The cut lengthened another inch. Now my arms were becoming numb. I had to think about each and every stroke to keep going. Finally I stopped cold, set the saw down, went inside to get the car keys, and bolted down the road toward the hardware store.

Fifteen minutes later I had a brand new, sharp saw. A saw so sharp I had to hold it back, or rather hold myself back. After pushing hard on the old saw, I had to adjust my technique to ease the new saw into the cut, guide it more carefully through the kerf, and, when I got a knuckle a little too close to the teeth, remember that this was not the older, more forgiving saw I'd been using for years.

I didn't have much daylight left, but in the short time I did have I managed to cut two lengths of brick molding and fit them around the window. Tomorrow I'll cut and fit the other two lengths and caulk around the whole window so it's finally sealed from the elements and I can take down the plastic sheet covering it once and for all.

Let the sun shine in

2008-09-07T15:37:00.000-07:00

I finished framing the new window this afternoon and tacking the trim back in place. Except for staining, the inside is done. I think it might have been harder than tearing out the old window and installing the new one. All the trim's got to fit just right or it ends up looking really sloppy, as, I fear, it looks to some extent now, but if I may say so it's not too bad for my first window.

Still have to cut the brick molding to fit and nail it in place around the outside. I spent about a half-hour scraping hardened caulk and flaking paint away from the rough edges. I'll make a double-check tomorrow evening and start cutting some molding if I have time. Hope to have everything nailed up and caulked before the end of the week.

I can see clearly now

2008-09-06T14:57:00.000-07:00

About two and a half months ago, I tore away the rotten molding around this window, thinking I would replace it in an afternoon. After exposing the awning window at the bottom and discovering it was rotting away, too, my afternoon project revealed itself to be no longer quick or cheap.

I put in an order for a new window shortly afterward. Owing to the odd size, there weren't a lot of choices to be had. I went with the Anderson window because it was the best one I could find and it cost only thirty dollars more than the cheapest I could find. In the meantime, I covered the window with heavy plastic sheeting to keep out the wind and rain, and waited. The window finally came from the factory week before last. You may be able to guess why I didn't install it last weekend.

Today was a pretty nice day for tearing a hole in the side of your house to install a window, cool and sunny with a fair breeze. I started by prying all the molding off the inside frame, but that didn't reveal a easy way to remove the old window, as I'd hoped it would. It fit so snugly into the rough opening that it betrayed no screw or nail fasteners, so I fell back on my tried and true method of deconstruction: I fetched my saw and started cutting. Five minutes later, the old window lay in pieces on the deck and I was poking the nozzle of the shop vac into the nooks and crannies to make a clean hole for the new window.

The new window's got a vinyl outer cover with flashing all around. I don't like the look of vinyl much, but if it keeps the weather out for years and years I suppose I can learn to live with it. The inside of the window's a nice blonde pine. I used pine furring strips to frame it up, too, even though we'll probably end up staining it to match the rest of the trim around the room.

I worked on installation until around four in the afternoon, when I called it quits on account of I wanted to sit on my butt for a while and blog. I hope to finish the framing and tack the molding back into place tomorrow.

Yes, as a matter of fact, I would like some cheese with that wine

2008-09-03T17:52:00.000-07:00

This is me, not scraping or sanding or painting the house.

Labor Day Scrape Away - Final Day

2008-09-02T13:40:00.000-07:00

It is done. The primer coat, anyway. At this point, we're calling that a significant milestone.

It's humbling to note that, when we began this adventure eighteen days ago, we believed we could have painted the whole house by now. Today, with an entirely different perspective, we'll be happy to have the back of the house sanded and primed before winter. If we can manage to get the top coat on, too, that'll just be icing on the cake. Butter icing. With big, sweet roses.

Labor Day Scrape Away - Final Day

2008-09-02T10:55:00.000-07:00

We are just too damned happy to finally be painting instead of scraping and sanding, you wouldn't believe it.

I get to climb the ladder to paint the upper siding panels and B gets to paint the lower panels, because she's a girl. No, that's not it, it's because she's scared to climb the ladder. No, that's not it, either, it's because she possesses a special knowledge of painting ground-level wood siding that I lack. That's it.

This pink Pepto-Bismol-looking color is the priming coat, by the way. The top coat will be a much darker red brick color, and I was assured by the two experts at the paint department of Ace Hardware that it would cover the primer in one coat. If it doesn't, I'm going to bring what's left of the primer back to Ace and dump it on their heads.

It took us about two hours to paint this much of the side, so I think we'll be done by mid-afternoon and I'm lobbying hard for an early end to the work-weekend so we can enjoy the final hours of our extended Labor Day weekend sitting on our butts on the back deck, probably with cold brewskis in our hands.

Labor Day Scrape Away and Pastry-eating Fantasy

2008-09-01T15:11:00.000-07:00

VICTORY!

It took every particle of strength I had in me, but I finished sanding the north side of the house.

No fair pointing out the gable is still painted.

It's okay, really, the paint on the gable seems to be bubble-free and unpeeling, so we're going to paint over it and hope for the best.

I picked up a gallon of primer and a couple of paint buckets at the local Ace Hardware store this afternoon and, if all goes according to plan, we'll spend tomorrow afternoon with paint brushes in our hands.

Labor Day Scrape Away and Pastry-eating Fantasy

2008-09-01T15:04:00.000-07:00

Holy Crap, This Sucks!

I can't remember the last time I did anything that wore me out like this. Wrapping myself in quilts and lifting weights all day would seem easier.

I started sanding at about two o'clock in the afternoon and finished up just before five, with a fifteen-minute break to stand in front of a fan while I drank all the ice water I could hold.

Those two siding panels right above the windows go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on, by the way. And on. And on and on. Okay, I'll stop now.

Labor Day Scrape - Day Three

2008-08-31T13:26:00.000-07:00

My Darling B, on the other hand, can work tirelessly all through the day. She's been at this since I started sanding, and kept right on after I coiled up the extension cord and went in for a twenty-minute shower. (No photos of that, promise.)

Labor Day Scrape - Day Three

2008-08-31T13:21:00.000-07:00

Dammit. I really wanted to finish off that patch above the window on the right, but I just didn't have enough steam left for it.

Labor Day Scrape - Day Three

2008-08-31T11:37:00.000-07:00

So today I finally had to climb the extension ladder to finish sanding paint off the north wall of the house.

I've been dreading this for weeks. Up until now, the most difficult position I've worked in was on my knees, to sand the lowest siding panels about a foot and a half off the ground. Working off the top of the six-foot ladder was no trouble at all, just like standing, really, and I could reach all the panels up to the top of the six-foot ladder from the ground.

But now, all that's left is too high to get to from the six-footer, so I have no choice but to climb the extension ladder.

Maybe you can understand better how that's a problem if I point out that, for the most part, sanding is easiest when I'm holding the sander right in front of my solar plexus. I can reach as high as my nipples or drop it down to my waist without too much trouble, and I can hold the sander head-high for five or ten minutes before I need a breather.

Working off the extension ladder, though, is all reaching. There's no practical way to get at the wall directly behind the ladder, so I have no choice but to reach for the siding on the left and the siding on the right, and I can't reach far. At most, I can sand away a patch of paint eight to ten inches wide on both sides of the ladder, then I have to climb down, shift it to one side, climb back up, do it again.

I've been at it since about ten o'clock this morning and I'm already pretty much beat. It's a good thing I'm working in shadow and there's a fair breeze blowing past the house because I don't think I would have lasted this long otherwise. The coveralls and leather gloves are absolutely necessary but hot as hell. Five minutes after I suit up and start sanding I'm drenched in sweat so that, when I peel out of them an hour or so later, it's like struggling out of a dripping-wet sleeping bag.

But I've got to go back out now. I don't want to quit before I've finished off that patch of paint between the windows, and I'd like to get up two panels beyond that. Keep me in your thoughts.

Labor Day Scrape - Day Two

2008-08-30T16:08:00.000-07:00

While B scraped paint off the siding around the corner, I got a start sanding the back corner of the house where I was peeling the paint off yesterday.

After two hours of grinding away with a belt sander, I wore out three belts and had worked halfway up the window.

I didn't forget to shut the window; I took this photo after I went and opened the room up after I showered and changed.

Okay, I did forget. I noticed as I was sanding away under the window that it was still open a crack and, because I was dressed in coveralls, head sock and respirator, and was covered head to toe in sawdust, I had to ask B to run in and close it.

Most of the siding's really rather attractive after all the paint's sanded away. Looks like it could be cedar. Too bad we're not going to stain it. If we wanted to, I'm pretty sure we'd have to replace quite a few of the panels that haven't weathered as well as these have.

Labor Day Scrape - Day Two

2008-08-30T16:03:00.000-07:00

Can you tell which window I repaired? It's the one on the right. Sort of looks like I knew what I was doing, doesn't it?

B's hard at work scraping off the last of the paint globs still hanging on under the siding panels where the belt sander can't reach, no matter how many different ways I try to orient the thing.

Tomorrow I'm going to sand up to the two panels above the windows, then do what B's doing. If I can possibly manage to get all that done before Monday, we can have this primed before the long weekend's over.

Our Humble OBode

Tonight's Sumptuous Repast

This just in ...

Dedication

This just in ...

This just in ...

Lend me your ears

Tonight's Sumptuous Repast

It's Time for Toms

This just in ...

Plump, fresh pots

Tonight's Sumptuous Repast

That's a nice cut of fish

... and the secret ingredient is:

Tonight's Sumptuous Repast

In the steamer

... and the secret ingredient is:

This just in ...

A weekend in the garden

Not quite as high as an elephant's eye

You say poe tah toe

Finally! All the same color!

It's an ice cream maker ... duh!

My Darling B's Garden

A Weekend Made For Gardening

First Batch

Weekend visit to the farmer's market

Flowers around the yard

Sign of Spring: B's in the garden

Those guys knew what they were talking about

Our First Trip To The Market This Season

Family Night with the O-Folk

Adventures In Plumbing

Adventures In Plumbing

Adventures In Plumbing

Adventures In Plumbing

Adventures In Plumbing

Pedaling Through Monona

Seth Thomas 1960 mantle clock

Seth Thomas 1960 mantle clock

On the Shelf

Lazy Sunday

Lap Cat

Don't Ask Me How, I Just Live Here

Find The Brass Monkey

I Love This Backpack!

Hang 'Em High

What Would Chief Al Say?

Adventures in Plumbing

Adventures in Plumbing

Found! A Better TP Dispenser!

Give Me A Call

Wait For Dial Tone

Wait For Dial Tone

Wait For Dial Tone

Wait For Dial Tone

Wait For Dial Tone

Wait For Dial Tone

Wait For Dial Tone

A Cookie You Can Believe In

Mystery Photo #42

Bigger is Better

Lair Transplant

Guy Food Night

Make room! Make room!

A New Coat of Paint

A New Coat of Paint

Make room! Make room!

Make room! Make room!

Bringing in the potatoes

Hello, Central!

What's better than a Bernina?

Well, here we are again ...

How to pass the time

Progress check

What did you do after dinner?

Home improvement called on account of rain

Tucked In For a Long Winter's Nap

Almost Frame-ous

What I saw

Our Humble OBode