So, just what have we been up to?
The biggest news is that I've built another shelf. Previously, we had no footwear storage in the house; we had a black metal shelf outside the front door where we stowed our shoes, farm shoes and rubber boots. But with winter settling in for a good long visit, this outdoor storage wasn't going to work. So I made some measurements and headed out to the barn to plug in our trusty circular saw. (There's a bit of a story to the circular saw... but that will have to wait for a future post.)
Measuring and planning |
Ideally, the shelf would have been 35.5" long, but as I had some 3' boards hanging around, I decided I could just move the shelf over that .5" so I wouldn't have to trim the existing boards or worse, cut new ones.
Hooray for previously unfinished projects! |
Awaiting the saw |
Piled boards - the boards in the nice pile will be for the top shelf, while the uglier boards will become the lower shelves. There's method to my madness, I promise :) |
The large box on top holds all our outerwear accessories, such as scarves, toques and gloves. |
Sockets, in their traditional place - the top of the toolbox. Now they're even in size order! |
Wrenches - we have 7 or 8 9/16 wrenches, so if you need one just give us a call :) |
We also propped up the back roof. While Mom and Dad were here, Dad noticed that the roof seemed to be sloping to one end. So we're hoping that this will get us through the winter and hopefully we can investigate the cause of the poor slope next summer. You can also see the support I had to install under the deck - that was barrels of fun to do on a day after we'd had a record-breaking snowfall that decided to melt. I spent an hour under the deck in the mud, with water dripping between the deck boards into my ears and down my neck. I'm glad I'll only have to do that once.
Supporting the roof. Ignore the logs, they were the base for the bottle jack during install. |
You can see that the roof is still sloping quite badly from the right side to the mid-point. From the middle to the left is now level, at least. |
There have also been a few puppy playdates. I promised pictures in my last real post, but any pictures I tried to take come out showing two blurry black blobs - the pups move too fast. Luckily, there's a solution to this - video!
When Doodle barks in this video, he's not barking at Zim; he's barking to tease the dog next door. Apparently this is a regular occurrence - Doodle will be calmly chilling in the yard, then will suddenly bark, then the neighbour dog will bark, then Doodle will go back to what he was doing before. What a goofy pup :)
Doodle had a set of booties that outgrew him (or Doodle's feet shrunk, one of the two!), and Doodle's awesome humans gifted them to Zim to try and curb the iceballs from forming in Zim's feet in the snow. Zim wasn't too sure about them when he tried them on...
Once he got to wear his booties outside in the snow, he was fine with them.
So that about brings you up to date on our super-fantastic-fun activities lately. For the rest of the night I'll be cleaning the house and making cookies. They're the best cookies ever - I'll post the recipe soon :)
Oh I am sorry I completely forgot what I was going to say I am laughing at the video of Zim with boots. It is hilarious. Sorry OK the shelf is awesome good job I love building stuff too. Sorry about the roof that is too bad and very weird hope it lasts the winter.
ReplyDeleteSnow yuck melt yuck yuck Doodle and Zim very cool I was getting tired watching them.
It was nice to hear your voice in the video now I know you for sure.
I am doing OK no worries thank you for always caring.
Take care and enjoy the weather. I kind of miss snow but not ready for it yet unless I can see the mountains:( can't see them from here.
HUGS B
Don't be sorry for being distracted by the ball of cute that are the pups! They're are downright adorable, I must admit :) And I can see the nearby mountains from work, but only on very clear days. They had snow on them all summer. I'm not a winter person at all :(
DeleteI'm glad you are doing okay! Keep on keeping on, Miss Buttons :)
Hugs!
Mandi
Its so neat to read your blog! I totally sympathize with your new farm struggles. And I am glad we are not the only ones who have our parents visit and then put them straight to work!
ReplyDeleteI am excited to see what you guys do on that beautiful piece of land.
-Tessa
Isn't is awesome to have such fabulous parents?!!! It's so wonderful to have two extras set of experienced hands around to help fix and build :) I'm hoping I can convince them to come out next year and help us with fencing - there's lots of it to do, and I have absolutely no experience (and I'm too light to hold the post auger if we go that route).
DeleteBest,
Mandi