Travelling and braking for tools and greenhouses...

As you probably surmised by now, not much woodworking is taking place around here, but that does not mean I stopped lurking for tools in our travels :-)

The grand peanuts are also taking up a lot of our time, so even less shop time. Rudy sure is having a great time with the girls :-)

Friday before the girls arrived for the week end, we took a drive to Annapolis for yet another chocolate run (Tm), and of course stopped at a greenhouse she hasn't been in yet :-)

This is what we brought back Friday.

Chocolates? I'm afraid none survived the trip back home.

Finally got my first English infill plane. unknown maker, but the blade is from Spear & Jackson. Extra refined cast steel. the blade is in good shape, the mouth close pretty tight, can't wait to try it, but, that would have to wait, we are taking the kids to the grand street parade for the 58th Kingston Steer BBQ.

Watching the parade that start the day's events

And yes, they are wearing the official RCAF tartan for their kilt

Of course you cannot have a parade 

without marching bands and fire tucks

I love the steer bits, the steer has been slowly cooked overnite in a giant rotisserie tended with loving tender care by the Lions International members. I always look forward to this event, love my steer plate and strawberry shortcake mium mium.

Of course there is always the Bounce Kingdom 

to keep the kids occupied

Rudy too got into the action 

trying to impress the girly dogs :-)

Then finished the day at the pool on base, Meadows take to water like a fish, would have to check out swimming clubs around for her :-)

If any of my readers recognize this British infill form, I would love to hear from you. The body is cast steel with what look like Rosewood infills (2)

There are no markings to be found, but the body has been sanded for sure. There is a maker's mark on the double iron, tapered blade:

Spear & Jackson
Warranted extra cast steel

You know that feeling when you bring home that new tool and you are itching to try it...
Well Sports Fan, this will have to wait until I clear my poor bench, and to do that, I got a lot of tools to inventory and stored aside...
Soon... I can hardly wait, I just going to have to steal some time somewhere, if only I knew about this concept of free time  :-)

My weekly stash of new finds... :-)

Yes it is a Birmingham Block plane :-)

More on this plane and the remaining of my recent finds soon... sometimes, one day...

 Bob, free time challenged but loving it :-)

There you go Dear, I fixed the flag pole...

Well .... Temporarily at best, but heh :-)

Back in 2011 when we got posted here, in Greenwood NS, the house we bought had a rusty flag pole in the front yard.

Barely visible, but the pole is there, middle RH corner.

The two large trees too close to the house, would be cut down later on

Yes, way too close...

So of course, one of my task was to clean up, paint the pole and hang a flag.
Which I carried out diligently, but it kinda look lost into a large flat, feature less front yard.... So....
In the year leading to my retirement (2013), we started to landscaped the front yard, wanting to make the flag area more of an anchoring feature.

Our first plant garden in front of the flag pole, circa May 2013 

Throughout the following years, more plants and flowers were added, some relocated some did not survived some of our harsh winters.,.
We lost the flag pole to a severe windstorm and rust ...

Since then, all the major renovations have been carried out inside, bringing this 1976 house (the year I joined the Airforce incidentally) kicking and screaming into the 21st century :-)

Last year, obviously,  no work was done whatsoever in the flower beds and etc :-(
so this year, it is grand time to tend to them.

First we set up a garden in the back yard, producing both vegetables (now coming out faster than we can eat them :-) and flowers, plants for the flower beds. But would you know it, we need more...!?
I must say that Jean is a very savvy plant buyer :-)

The raised gardens last month

Everything is overflowing and some is our second growth...

As much as I brake for tools in our travels, 

It should be said that Jean brake for plant nursery :-)

First we widen the existing flower bed, then duplicate the half moon bed behind it. I left a space large enough to drive the tractor thru. I can see a classic English garden bench in between later on, once garden area is established or Stefan is finished with his :-)

Every new plants locations have been

 inspected and approved by Rudy

Then listening to chain gang music (well this is a forced labour camp, isn't it :-)
I diligently worked under the blazing sun.
Not to worry, cold refreshing beverages were consumed in this operation... :-)
OK, not really comparable to a forced labour camp, my apologies to whomever got offended by this lame comparison... :-)

Starting to take shape, dug about a foot plus, 

then loosen up the soil under at the bottom.

Was aiming for about even with top of soil in pot 

and about 5 pot's wide holes (diameter) for the trees.

More flowers and plants to come

The trees have a raised mound lip around to make sure 

they get properly watered. Once established, probably by next year, 

that would be replaced by a mound of bark mulch 

The look as of last nite

In our nursery visits, I spied this little flag, so you know I just had to get it and play a joke on Jean :-)

There you go Dear, flag pole fixed :-)

What? You can't see it?

Look how tall it is :-)

And it even meet regulations, it is lighted at nite :-)

yeah, I know, still going to have to fix the real pole or install a new one, one of these day. But for now, I can scratch that from my list ? :-)

In the mean time I am experimenting with a pizza oven 

that you put on your BBQ. Works great

Part of the rear yard landscaping projects is setting up a gourmet kitchen outside. Would love to have a wood fired pizza oven, so I thought we could experiment with this pizza oven box and see how we liked it. A heck of a lot cheaper than building your own, especially for experimenting :-)

And that is about all the news fit to print, Cheers :-)

From our bistro area up front.

The girlie beer (Corona) is Jean :-)

Bob , Jean and Rudy enjoying the front sitting area while discussing our next projects... and keeping an eye out for squirrels...

Happy 4th of July to my Americans friends

Not sure what you have to celebrate this year, but Heh, make the best of it :-)
Polite Canadian political rant :-)

Yesterday we went to the city (Halifax), to spend the day by the waterfront.
There is always something interesting going on, this week we have a visit from a US Navy aircraft carrier, the CVN 69  USS Dwight D Eisenhower .
She is on her way back to home port after a deployment. She was here for both Canada Day and the US 4th of July... Back in my days it would had been... :-)

Pretty impressive. At dockside there were two big cruise ships also, the Cunard's Queen Mary 2 and the Holland America's Maasdam

CVN 69 

Framed by the 2 cruise ships bow

For security reasons, she is berthed by McNab island

Cunard's Queen Mary 2

Samuel Cunard was born in Halifax and became a shipping magnate,

 pioneering steam ships between England and Canada 

Holland America Maasdam

After all the rainy weather we had recently, it was a great sunny day to explore the waterfront. Had a lovely lunch on a waterfront restaurant, the Bicycle theft

My new love, Jean

Eating outside by the wharf, we could get Rudy to stay with us, 

along with a few other dogs :-)

 He was well behaved and attracted lot of attention

Myself, enjoying the weather and scenery.

Oh and the food was great too :-)

The bike sculpture by the restaurant

Love this sculpture. yes, it was made like that...

The Diptych got drunk and fell down, feature a fallen light standard, while a second lamps seem to look on with concerns. 

This playful installation points to mischevious behaviours often witness in our cities and waterfronts.

Theodore the tug boat.

From a children TV show that was made here in Halifax

Scenes around the wharf

You don't often see fishing boats here, lots of fishing villages around the coast.  these two must had came for refuge from the sea or supplies :-) 

The other day, I came across an article that claimed that sniffing Rosemary (the herb) can increase your memory by up to 75%, Wow!

So you know I had to try that :-)

I looked at our herbs garden in the kitchen and realized that we did not had any Rosemary in it. Well, no wonder I forget things!

Miraculously, I managed to remember that long enough to look for one in our travels 

AKA will brake for tools and nursery :-). 

Luckily, I vaguely remembered why I needed such a plant and bought it.

Back home I gave it a rigorous, scientific testing to  validate such a memory claim....

Me sniffing the Rosemary.

All these years, I had been doing it wrong, sniffing the roses! :-)

Suddenly, I remembered all the projects on my never ending To Do list, and decided... Nah, lets have another cold one instead !!! :-)

So there you have it! It works but not recommended! 

You would have no more excuse for putting things off... :-)

Talking of which, I am so overdue to clean up and reclaim my hand tools shop downstairs. Time for action....

Bob, sipping another one....

Canada day ramblings

Today is Canada, as we know it today, 150 years birthday....

I was planning to finish the plant's bedding and fix my flag pole...but... that did not happened, nor did much work got done on fix a chair in the month of June...

Oh well, life gets in the way. And life is too precious and short lived, to worry about small things like that.

I feel fortunate to live here, in Canada, I cherish my liberty and freedom.
I gave most of my adult life protecting this hard earned way of life.
We are not a perfect society by any stretch of the imagination but, we like to think of ourselves as polite and well mannered...(except on ice during a game of Hockey)  :-)

 So I had to compromise and put up another flag mount, this time on the side of the house, with a few days to spare before today... :-)

View from our little cozy bistro corner

Meanwhile, I started digging the flower beds up front. Widened the existing one and made a new half moon, behind.

I was pleasantly surprised at the depth and quality of the top soil

Never had much luck with my front grass, more weeds than grass. The Valley soil is very sandy, left over from glaciers passing by a while back :-)

I did not thought I had much top soil on it, but everywhere I dig, I find good, deep soil. Mind you, that big expense of grass get beaten down by the sun all day. Whenever I finished landscaping, building a new driveway to the back, moving and adding some trees, I would have to install some sort of irrigation system. We had such a system in Ottawa, but it was a postage stamp piece of land... Works great but you have to disassemble some components and blow air through it to clear all water for winterizing. Will see what is available by the time I get to it...

This is what it used to look like in 2013 

before a wind storm broke my flag pole (rusted at the bottom)

Done, next prepare soil and plant bedding material.

My new flag pole would go approximately at the same place

My small Rototiller, currently in the shop

and her John Deere workhorse

And the chair? Well, I did moved it inside the garage, it was in my way for the tractor, were it is now is also in my way, so I must do something about it :-)
Miraculously, no other parts have been broken or lost, but more joinery came loose. It is looking more and more like a complete tear down and re-glue job.

So while technically while we are still in June (June 31st :-) I should be able to finish it still in June.

Meanwhile, Rudy made a lot more progress on his chair...

Ok, I will just lay here and be a good boy

What happened to the chair throws? I have no idea,

 but I think we know who is the boss of them

That was exhausting work, but I'll be done in June Dad

Got one almost completely moved

Bringing it down to the floor

Then taken to his people's couch

For some reasons he likes to bunch them up in a ball...

They also seems to be haunted, they have been spotted moving around 

the living room by themselves.

The gardens are producing nicely, one bed has been all harvested and new crops sown.

2 kinds of radishes; Champion, Scarlet globe. 

4 kinds of salads, 

 Iceberg, Romaine, Swiss Chards, Red leaf lettuce.

Its a tough job, but some one got to do it. 

Right Dad!

Bob, the gentleman farmer, short on time but with plenty of projects :-)