It's Spring..!
What a perfect day to pick up on Tilling By Moonlight! I was out at the crack of dawn cleaning the yard after the storms of last weekend. I also pruned a lot of trees, cleaned and trimmed the ivy beds in the front yard, and, at 1:30, the equinox, I went around and whacked all the trees with a rolled up newspaper to wake the up from their winter slumber and get them growing!
It's a beautiful here on the grounds of Stately Sad Old Goth Manor, all the spring bulbs are popping up and, a little surprise on the East side of the grim old pile under the hemlock trees, a crop of Snow Drops! I have no idea where they came from, I didn't plant them, but there they are.

I'll take it as a sign from Mother Earth that beautiful surprises are in order this coming year.
Well, back to the tasks at hand, I've got hours of cleaning up to do now.
Welcome back, my fellow wanderers!

this...
is not what I'm supposed to be doing on the sixteenth of August, especially when it's already close to ninety degrees at ten o'clock in the morning...










sow what you will...

mealybugs...
I came home from work last night and was wandering around the front yard, looking at our Thuja planting, when I saw they were infested with mealybugs. I hopped in the goth mobile and headed to The Big Orange Box and bought a bottle of insecticidal soap, came home and gave them a good spraying. They look clean today, but I guess I'll have to keep an eye on them to make sure.
Other than that, everything is still growing like crazy, it's been a cool, wet summer so far, but everything loves it. How's your garden growing?


sow what you will...

finished, for the most part...
here, without much commentary, are the during and after shots of the new living room book shelves. still have one to complete over the bay window in the south wall, need to design some abbreviated height brackets to accomplish that, so it's on the back burner for a week while I wind down a bit.
Once the mantle, bookcase set in over the mantle, new door and interior shutters are complete, I'll post the whole set of before and after pix...

(click on any to enlarge)

















They do encircle the room, but I don't want to post pictures yet until the bay window section is complete and the bookcase/mantel thing is done.

This is why I'm always beat...



sow what you will...

the latest project...
the brackets for the living room book shelves are finally assembled...



I spent yesterday at the drill press, drilling all the screw holes and counter sinks, then spent two hours assembling everything. Today is going to be a wasted day, we have a combination graduation party and Father's day party to attend, so nothing else will get done until tomorrow, when I'll shoot the line around the room with the laser level and start putting up the brackets. After they're mounted to the walls, I'll rip and trim to length the ledger strips to support the back of the shelves, prime and paint them, then spend Monday putting them up. I might actually have this done by the 4th, maybe even have the inset bookcase over the mantle assembled, stained and in place as well. We'll see.

More rain today. Everything is growing like gang busters. The Thuja that I put in last May are almost three times the size they were then. All the perennials and annuals are lush and full and huge. Even the vegetables are going wild. I've yet to use any of the irrigation system I put in last year.
Well, I've a few errands to run before we leave for the festivities. Enjoy the day.




sow what you will...

no idle hands around here...

I was up at 5:30 this morning, although, I have to admit, I medicated myself into a coma last night when I got home from work, I had a headache that defies description by words that can be uttered by mere mortals... I put a coat of finish color on the new living room door trim, hung out with Tiger The Cat for a while, then ran my usual Saturday morning errands to the post office and the recycling place, then headed over to The Big Orange Box in town to get some more foam roller covers for my trim roller and some blue painter's tape, then came home and started painting some of the pieces for the living room book shelf brackets...



These are just the pieces that make up the vertical and horizontal parts, the angle braces still need to be ripped and cut, I guess I'll get to that tomorrow.
Here's the result of four hours of off and on painting...



The blue tape keeps the paint off the gluing surface of the dado in the vertical piece that mounts to the wall, into which the shorter horizontal pieces will be set, the slight dado will offer up a bit more strength. I'm still a bit sketchy about loading the final shelves up with books and such, I think I'm going to add weight little by little until I'm sure they're not going to come down and kill one of us. It's not that I don't have faith in my handiwork or my design, which is based upon some serious calculation using some tables I worked up for the weight bearing limits of certain types of wood, fasteners, etc, but I've moved enough boxes of books around to know how heavy the are. Time will tell, I suppose.

Well, time to kick back and watch some "go fast, turn left" for a while.
Have a wonderful evening, friends.




sow what you will...

wood butchery...

I cut all the blanks for the shelf brackets last weekend, but didn't have the chance to work on them again until today. I routed the dadoes in the blanks for the wall pieces, then ripped those and the horizontal pieces to width. I took a break from the brackets after that to make the trim for the living room door, which I've been avoiding doing until we found a new Arts and Crafts style door, but funds don't allow that at the moment, so I'm going to just paint the inside of the existing 15 light French door so it matches the rest of the trim and leave it at that for now. I'll paint and install the trim tomorrow, then paint the door during the week. After I get done with the door trim, it's time to play with the drill press for a while, drilling the insets for the buttons and countersinks in the pieces of the brackets, then predrilling all the screw holes. Then I'll prime all the pieces and then assemble them. I'll finish paint them before I install them. This is coming together well, in spite of interruptions. I will have the door painted, door trim installed and the shelf brackets and ledger strips mounted next weekend, then it's time to start on the shelves. I'm going to use three quarter birch ply with an edge strip for some added strength, those books and albums weigh a ton. After the July 4th weekend, I'll start on the library ladder so we can reach everything. I was really wanting one of those rolling jobs, but there's not enough uninterrupted space under the shelves to warrant the effort and expense. I think I might try one of these -



Looks easy enough to knock off once I figure out the folding mechanism. But that's for another day.
Time to kick back with a few brews before dinner, Mrs. SOG has some tasty smelling steaks going on Grillzilla...



sow what you will...