The rain barrel platform... in a day...

Today is another scorcher of a day, 37.5 by 1100 this AM... but at least there is a breeze keeping the damn little flyers out of the circuit... less bites that way :-)

As I said earlier, said platform must be sturdy to resist the load of a full 50 US gallons of water (pretty heavy) and not be rickety to tip the barrel (would be dangerous). That means, overbuilding is of the rigueur , or simply put, Par for me :-)

This should be an easy one day project... :-)
First thing was to figured out the optimum height. Guesstimating 16 in high
Rounding up my limited stash of PT lumber we have...

Enough 4X4 but not enough 2X4 and decking..

So after some mental exercise, I put some ideas to paper and quickly concluded that I need more stuff...

Off to the local lumber yard to get it before it close by 1700. Yes it has taken me that long to get there: Rudy to the vet first thing this AM, one trip to bring Jean her purse that she forgot, another trip to the stores and checked the mail which resulted in one more errand, filed the trailer with soil, plant some more seed as we planned last nite and etc etc... Oh and did I mentioned that it is hot today? Well another winter's day in Ken's corner of the world but, for here... :-)

So near the end of day one we have...

Oh right, safety first people...

These nails and staples have to go, and I need another beer...

By then Jean was back home with a tree and the grandkids, so time for a break and a tree to plant... So end of day one :-)

Tree planted, Meadow giving it its first drink

We also planted some flowers around it

It is an ornamental tree, Susan Magnolia.

It represent the beginning of our lives together, sort of my life V2.0

We will also plant a Silver Birch in Heather memory nearby. So I can cut down the one by the house to build a bigger deck. I have long debated to cut or not to cut this tree, Heather wanted to save it, build around it she said, but Id rather not.

As you can see that tree had a hard life, 

which probably is what made Heather its protector..

During the Snow armagideon of 2015,  she was worried about the birds not being able to forage for food. So I had to clear a path to the bird feeder to replenish it throughout the whole winter :-)

Finally, a good friend of Heather and I, David Morris, talked me into cutting it down and plant another one in her memory.  Good idea, dilemma solved! Thanks David :-)

Bob, who gave Rudy a bath with his new special shampoo. Dry skin conditions, too hot and numerous insects bites. Thank you Bailey's skin rescue, that stuff works miracle on his skin...