Progress under the sun

Boy is the sun ever out now...30 today.  Phewww and came to find out that my car Air Conditioner is not keeping up. Humm it was last "fixed" late last summer, they claimed there was no leaks just needed a recharge... Dropped in at the garage today to ask if their superb work was under warranty... Next Wed it goes back in for "fixing" apparently the dye they put in should now reveal the culprit...

Two pick up truck loads of soil later...

Then I just have to transferred it to my trailer for my tractor

Installed another 4X4 raised garden, just one section, the other similar had two juxtaposed. This one got the trellis for growing tall veggies the other got its frame and Green house cover.

Scraped of the grass (ok, weeds) then raked soil loose

Oh surprise that kit is designed to fit into the 2 in frame, not the 1 in, 

so I had to improvise. The frame is a bit skew but should be fine

Then fill her up with top soil mix (secret recipe :-)

I am getting better at backing up the tractor with the trailer attached, but it is such a short throw, not easy....
The Veg-Trug is now also installed and ready for her to do her stuff.

Rudy inspecting the parts making sure they are all accounted for...

Before taking off with one...Got it back :-)

Assembled, resting on blocks

 

   Fabric liner in

Filled up, need to tuck in the fabric

As I mentioned early on, it is brutally hot today,  well,  I'm sure Ken would beg to differ, but it is for here :-)
So I had the bright idea to assemble the two green house frames inside the house on my kitchen floor. Hummm, I think I need a bigger floor and door :-)

What is wrong with this picture ??? Doh!

I do plan on replacing the house's front door this summer so maybe if I was to take out the door frame... ? Nah, off to plan B while I sip a cold one and regroup.

Treillis and greenhouse frames up...

...Just need their covers and netting installed.

Later tonite when it's cooler

In the mean time I set up the water point and installed her sink inside the green house

Water point, feed from the house. 

Top branch goes to the sink, bottom to the watering wand on a 25 ft hose.

Hose storage would be taken care of when the barrel platform is installed

Found this sink at Lee Valley, could not make one up for that price point.

Stainless steel to boot, well its from China, but time shall tell

Now the fun part. I need to start in earnest on a couple of "One Day woodworking projects" to set up the automatic irrigation system.

One day, heh? We shall see...

First up is a platform for the rain barrel. Simple enough, but it must be bullet proof to prevent the barrel to tip over, that would be dangerous. A full 50 gallons US barrel is...heavy. Not to worry, I shall overbuild said platform in my usual manner. I'm pretty sure my design would withstood an earthquake, but we don't get them around here. But we do feel tremors from the Air base next door blowing up expired munitions once in awhile. Such as today and tomorrow. They are kind enough to let us know before hand via the local media :-)
Poor Rudy cannot read and does not seems to care much for that..

Next would be a gardening tool station near the raised beds.

I am now in the gathering material phase. We have the grand peanuts over this weekend so I hope to finish some of these projects before.

Stay tuned...

Bob and is ever growing Honey do list. Sipping a cold one to escape from the heat :-)

Backyard gardening and projects

Something we long wanted to do here, is to grow our own vegetables.
We never had the time, so the plan was always, once I retire....

Well, I have been retired since 2013 and there is no more health crisis looming on the horizon, so this is the year.

As Jean and I are planning the landscaping of the back yard, realizing our plans are, well, not cheap :-), we decided on a phased approach.

This year we will set up our gardens to produce both vegetables and to grow some flowers for the numerous flower beds.
First up was her pop-up greenhouse, roughly were we think it should go, then setting up raised gardens.

Then we got a load of woodchips for around the trees and beds

Big bag of wood chips being loaded in her pick up truck

It quickly became obvious that buying raised gardens made of recycled PVC was more economical. Yes, it could be done cheaply using pressure treated lumber, but I don't like the idea of dangerous chemicals leaching in my vegetable thank you... I am not a big fan of pressure treated wood. Would love Western Red cedar, but its kinda pricy here on the East coast..

Add to this that one of these raised garden kit is expandable and has a frame and removable greenhouse cover and other accessories, such as a framed treillis for tall veggies and the math is a no brainer. It also greatly facilitate setting it up, not having to rototill and etc.

Instant gardens, some assembly required...

Once we sorta figured out where the yard features would be: Trees, new deck and new garden shed, sitting area under a pergola, water feature and etc...  We knew where to set them up by the greenhouse. I also bought a Veg-Trug with its attached covered greenhouse cover and another cover to keep the pest off, during the hot summer months. This will be set up behind the raised gardens.

Add a rain barrel to feed an automatic Solar drip watering system and a portable sink in the green house (fed from the house) and we are in business.... :-)

First we set up the two 4 X 4 ft raised gardens

That took, one pick up truck load of soil, transferred 

with 5 trailer loads behind my tractor  

Both raised gardens filled, awaiting raking.

My friends on Facebook commented that I do not seems to be working too hard, not appearing in any of these pics. Thats was only because I'm the one that stop once in a while to take the pics :-) Thank god for John Deere and Ibuprofen, oh and of course how can I forget my good friend Voltaren extra strength ...

After a few days of torrential rain, I went back today and started the seeding of our first vegetable garden: Cucumber, basil, yellow bean, green bean, radish 

Phew those seeds were heavy, thankfully I got my trailer out :-)

Next up to go would be the Veg-Trug, which just got delivered today.  I have of course a few woodworking related projects to make this all happened: A raised platform for the rain barrel, a post for the automatic watering system and a small gardening tool shed on a post besides the gardens.

Later we will plant a tree in Heather's memory so I can cut down the tree by the house deck and replace the deck by a bigger one (probably next year)
Before this happens, I must build a new access road to my back yard to bring in heavy material.  I will also need that access to bring in tons of paver bricks for the walk ways and etc.
Then there is the fencing around the back yard for Rudy and a gated arbor trellis for the garage side of the house.

Finally a water feature (type yet undetermined) and a fancy cooking area, love the idea of having a wood stove in the yard...

Annual Canadian ritual of paying our taxes :-)

Yes, pic is the Manneken pis from Belgium

But first I am waiting for the taxman final assessment to know how much I can afford this year... :-(
There goes my tools budget, yet one more time. Its a good thing I have enough tools to keep me going in the mean time :-)

Bob, the backyard planner looking for a cold one

More glacial progress...

On my boring till....

Today, I worked a shift on the base at the Wood shop. So I brought along my dovetailed box, AKA the boring till, with the intentions of cutting the groove, glue the carcass and cut the back panel.... a mere 20 minutes operation :-)

That was the plan Saturday AM. But Friday my car developed problems with my driver door, wont opened from inside, door handle feel mushy... Well that was fun contorting myself to the passenger seat with Rudy's help (NOT) Once outside figured out I could open the door from the outside...
Drove from the building supply store to my nearest garage I trust, OK Tire in Kingston, and they shown me how to open the door from the inside, appointment to fix it is Wednesday. Huh, Ford has a recall on door latch but mine was not affected, maybe I should look at it closer.

Saturday morning, decided to take my car to go to the club, while Jean used her truck to move some gardening supplies.

Arriving on base, I saw that they had the whole parking area in front of the club cordoned off to run a motorcycle safety course. This course is required prior to getting your motorcycle license in Nova Scotia. The base motorcycle club run a course a few times each Spring.

So as I went to sign off the key at the MP shack, I thought to myself, there wont be much customers today, they would think it is closed.

Had to park a bit out of my way which took me two trips to lug in my unfinished carcass and then the tool kit I brought

I was going to cut my rabbets on the back piece for the backer board using my plow plane (Plan A), but since it looked like there wont be anybody, I will go faster using the dado on the tablesaw, and going back home earlier. That was Plan B.

Unplug the TS, swap the blade for the dado set, made it purposely wider than I need, would be using a sacrificial fence on it. As I was putting the nut back on the TS arbor, I dropped the nut into the Table Saw cabinet... into mounds of saw dust, it disappeared... %$#@*&? No magnet in sight (would have to fix that)
No front door like on my older Unisaw, had to reach in from the motor side, and carefully spread the sawdust to find the Bleep Bleep nut.
Took me a few minutes but I got it.  Finished cleaning  up the inside of the Unisaw, then fired up the dust collector to make sure it was not plugged, work good, almost lost my watch :-)

Found it!!!

Could not find a suitable piece of sacrificial lumber to make my dado fence, so decided to nix Plan B. Back to plan A. Got the iron a quick sharpen, set up my marking gauge to the iron width, then started to mark my pieces on the back side of course. After I did 3, I remember I did not made sure I was marking the right side. Oh, I thought, good thing I caught myself early on!
Quickly put the dovetails pieces in the right order A-A, B-B etc, without making sure my pins and tails were lined up correctly. Did not, they were reversed, made sure I marked with my pencil which side it was supposed to go on (reversed)
and felicitate myself realizing I was previously marking them on the wrong side (correct side)

Could barely register the fence on my antique plow plane close enough to my board to hit my score line from the marking gauge, so tried a few passes off fence, with dubious results. Yes I can cut to the line but.... Nix Plan A again and moving on to plan C, using simply the regular blade to nibble my rabbet, 3 or 4 passes should do it.
Relied on the Unisaw Unifence measurements, trusting it to be true (it always is), but surprise, it is off, off enough to throw you off. Ah for Off sake ! :-)
Resawed my board a smidgen smaller in width to correct and double checks all measurements with a funky tape measure (And you wonder why I don't like to measure...)
After all my rabbets were cut, I clean them up with my Veritas large shoulder plane. The pieces are now ready for assembly.

Cleaning off my rabbets ...on the wrong %$#@ side

Bring them to the glue table, start doing a dry run assembly to check my rabbets.... ?%$#()@ I cut my rabbets on the outsides of my boards...

Left that alone for half an hour or so, then ripped the boards another 1/4 in or so and recut the rabbets on the correct side. Trust me I made sure a few times...

Box assembled, glued and cooking. 

Yes the rabbets are correctly on the bottom inside :-)

I could then proceed to glue up, about an hour or so later took it off the clamps, measured the back rabbet to cut my piece of 1/4 ply. It fitted right off the saw... Finally something gone right... Time to close the shop, I had three customers today, but they all finished what they wanted done and left.

One of them was a cutting board. This is the jig we use to make quick work of lining up the pieces. Wax paper prevent glue to stick on the jig

The piece is now back home in my basement. Later I will clean up the joinery and the faces, prime then paint it, the same colors as the rest of my tool tills.

Meanwhile Jean made some real progress in the yard using her portable Green house

The green house has been moved already once. 

Supposedly to its final  destination...Right! :-)

She has that one for the last three years, that would be its 4th season. 

Its holding up pretty well.

Rudy...!!!!

We will later be buying the medium Veg Trug at LV to set up a raised vegetable garden. Add the frame and green house cover and extant the season.
Then I will bring in a small table top light stand to grow spices in the kitchen,

Bob, tired, my back is killing me but Heh, made progress :-)

Spring has sprung... well sort of...

We do have the occasional hi teens temps but it is short lived then interspersed by rain and gasp... Snow!!!

Well, nonetheless in my recent travels thru Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec, Ontario, I have seen signs that winter is hanging in, and signs that Spring has arrived. So that's it and I now declared Spring has arrived in NS, and none too soon I may add!

In our travels saw trees loaded with buds... :-)

Pic from Facebook

We did not saw much snow until we reached northern New Brunswick, but then the white scenes followed us until Quebec city.

Jean was amazed at the numbers of wild deers she saw in the fields in the country side of Quebec, they are starting to changes their food regimen, they can now eat grass. Mind you Quebec city itself had plenty of reminders of the kind of winter they had, lots of blackened snow banks hanging in for a while longer, and the usual Tempos (Tm) shelters are still up.

Ontario was generally warmer, lots of temps in the teens. Switched Rudy snow parka for is Spring jacket :-)

We went up to visit our sons. I have my oldest in Hamilton On. and Jean had her son Levy in Kitchener On. 4 days of driving to spend about a day and a half with them... oh well.

Got to meet Jean family side in Ontario for the first time, and brought along Tim and his better  half Rachel and had a wonderful Easter dinner.

Front table. Left side front to back:

 Sophia (Levy's partner)

Son Aston and Sophia's grand mother 

Right side: Daughter Sierra, Levy and Sophia's mother 

Back table Myself, son Tim other side Jean and Rachel (Tim's partner)

Before leaving on this trip we had another one with Jean's daughter and the grand peanuts, Meadow and Ruby-Jean.

Rudy sniffing around. I know there must be a treat bag for me, 

I can smell it, where is it?? Yes, he got his too :-)

Ruby-Jean stayed for a sleep over. How do you make a kid eat an apple? 

Make it fun :-) Lee Valley Apple peeler in action...

On our way back, we had strong rain from Drummondville until almost Riviere du Loup. It was dry in Riviere du Loup, but it the morning this was the scene... The rain had catch up and turned into snow.

Easter Monday morning at the hotel 

They forecasted up to 10 cm in Riviere du Loup, and the snow would followed us in New Brunswick until St-Leonard. Only to return briefly as we entered Moncton (close to the Nova Scotia border).
Made it home Monday nite, she had to back to work Tuesday AM.
This was the scene Tues AM....Arggg it followed us home....

Tues AM in my driveway.

Must remember to remove the sky hook behind the car...

An old friend, recently retired, is coming over for a visit.  He made it to Moncton NB this weekend to visit with his brother, this is the pic he send me Sat AM, claiming it was because he was getting near us ...

Moncton NB Saturday AM

Hum I'm starting to see a trend I may have accidently started by sharing some of my pics on Facebook :-)_

So he asked that I turned the big thermostat in the sky so he can have NO MORE snow while he visit.

Too easy, so I did... :-)

Our forecast for the upcoming week for Jacques's visit :-)

Of course, subject to change without warning,

 this is after all Nova Scotia weather...

Today it was kinda warm and our big Spring clean up garbage collection is coming due this week. So I started dragging stuff by the side of the road, As per usual, most of the stuff would be gone before garbage day. I put out my 1965 Sears Craftsman Radial Arm Saw out, it did not lasted 12 hours by the curb side, same for my old NiCad cordless drill and etc... Suspect some of my stuff would show up on the Flea market season this summer :-)

While I 'm moving stuff around, figured it is time to declare bye bye to winter and relegate the snow blower out of the garage and into the garden shed out back.

Blower slowly blowing its way out to the shed. Don't see any snow?

Of course sillies, I blew it all away! :-)

This winter I could not find the new snow scraper I bought last year with the fancy add on ergonomic handle attachment, so I bought a new one, but really missed my handle attachment.  Now that I found the other one, I see that I need another handle.

Ever wonder why we accumulate more tools into our older years??? 

Now you know why :-)

Got the fire pit re-installed along with the Muskoka chairs

 (Canadian version of American Adirondak chairs)

Look like the BBQ cover had its last winter, it literally fell apart this winter.

Must be rotted

Out with the snow blower in the garage and in with the garden tools

Time for another warmer seasons, Jean is getting anxious and want to start potting outdoor plants right away. Thank god for my tractor and trailer, it would be so much easier on my poor back :-)

Last year was the first time that I did not tend to all our gardens and flower beds.

They could use new stuff and tender loving care this year.

And this bring us to its inevitable conclusion... my Honey Do list has just been re-started. I still plan on finishing all of the projects Heather and I had made for the house, but we will now started in earnest outside, I gave Jean Carte Blanche for the outside landscape. We need a bigger deck and new garden shed, Green house and etc.  And more than likely another driveway on my land to reach the back yard and bring stuff in and out. Should keep me busy for a while :-)

But I will still find time for shop time here and there. This next Week end I'm working a shift at the base woodshop. Should be able to progress slightly more on my boring till...

Stay tuned...

Bob, the eternal optimist when it comes to Spring

Finally progress on the boring till

This is turning out to be a very sloooow build...
I was asked to work a shift at the wood shop today, 1000 to 1600 on Saturdays

So I brought along my pieces and finished cutting my dovetails. Someone asked me why I did not uses the dovetail jig in the corner... Too noisy, makes a mess and I don't like the look of router cut dovetails thank you...

So keeping within the scope of were I was I donned ear defender while chopping my dovetails with Gerhard's Jenesaiquoi persuader :-)

I played with it a few times but this was its first real workout. I love it!
Nice heft and balance, make quick work of chopping. Well done Gerhard and thank you!

two sides done

All sides done and dry fitted

I did not bothered gluing it, but gave it a quick check for squareness, good to go!

Next would be cutting a rabbet in the back for the back panel, then glue it, clean up the joinery, prime and paint it, then put the back in.
Once that is done, the fun part would be to make suitable holder for the tools intended for it. Said tools selection has kind of grew since I first start this project...hummm decisions, decisions...

While I was there I spotted another sign of Spring...

The Air Cadets glider launching winch are out in the parking lot...

14 Wing Greenwood is home to large Air Cadets camps here in the summer.
Part of their program is teaching the kids to fly in a glider. I went up with them once, pretty cool, no engine noise, just the sound of the wind.... And they glide a lot better than a fighter jets, these tend to glide more like lawn darts :-)

Besides this ongoing built, I got a draft started on a blog entry on how to adjust and use my EC Stearns Hollow auger, it is a request from one of my reader following a recent blog entry.

So I wont "bore" you anymore and will catch you on the flip side

Keep your stick on the ice...

Bob, the dovetailer