Veterans Day

An Old Project Done

Sometimes, I buy stuff for a project and never get around to it.  Sometimes it is funny just seeing the stuff sitting around for months or even years, thinking "I really need to get that done:.  Sometimes, it is really annoying, like when I look at a bag of bolts and hooks or some stuff and have no recollection what I intended to do with them.  And sometimes, I know what they were for, but I did something different to solve the same problem.

At least THIS time, I knew what the parts were for and still wanted it done!

Twentyfive years ago, when I was building the fence around the backyard, I needed sawhorses.  I bought these cheap aluminum brackets you screwed 2"x4" boards into, and the sawhorses were flimsy.

Ten years ago, I bought some sturdier-looking brackets with a unique way of attaching boards.  And they sat around at the back of a shelf every since.

Hang in there, there WILL be pictures...

Yesterday, I looked at them and decided to just "get them built"!  The poly-something brackets are nicely designed.  They are specifically molded to accept both 2"x4" or 2"x6" boards, and you can bolt wider tops on if you choose.  The bracket is also molded to hold 2"x4" legs at a proper angle with heavy-duty poly wedge blocks that are ridged to dig into the boards a bit.  The box even has a convenient chart to tell you how long to cut the legs to get about a dozen possible heights.

So yesterday I went to the DIY store I went for a 2"x6" top.  The 2"x4" pressure-treated boards  (P-T boards because they are for outside use - I have fancier adjustable stuff for shop use) I found there were JUNK (twisted or bowed)!  I chose the best I could find.  But when I went looking for the 2"x6" board, I discovered better quality 2"x4" boards next to them.  So I returned the junk boards to the bin and selected the good ones.  $1 more per board...

So with my perfectly straight boards, I went home and and cut them to length.  That was enough for the afternoon and I had other things to do.

Today, I went to assemble the parts.  The first thing I discovered was that the 2"x6" top board didn't fit in the pre-molded slot.  I had tested a bracket with a regular 6" board, but apparently, pressure-treated wood gets a little bit swollen in the process.  So I had to shave off 1/8th" from the ends using the table saw.  Same with the 2"x4" legs.  Its a bit ugly, but it's just a sawhorse.  If I had it to do over again, I would have just ripped 1/16th" off both sides.  And it actually would have been easier.  Ahh, "hindsight"...

But everything fit eventually.  I marked the spot where the 6" top needed a 5/16" hole drilled for a carriage bolt to attach the top through the poly wedge to hold the legs in place and set up my drill press to get the holes perfectly straight. 

And then discovered they should have said an 11/32" because I had to hammer the bolts through the board to get them through.  Well, I suppose they figured not everyone has an 11/32" drill bit.  I do, but hammering was easier than drilling all the holes slightly larger.  I do not object to "brute force" on rough projects.  And carriage bolts are designed to be hammered into place.  They have a 1/8" square shape intended to be pushed into the wood to keep them from turning.

Holding 2 legs AND placing the poly wedge was a bit tricky while I placed the large wing nut of the bottom of the carriage bolt, but a shoulder was a sufficient "third hand".  I have gotten used to doing things that require 3 hands, LOL!

Tightening the big wing nut between the sawhorse legs took some creativity.  I finally figured out that using a large screwdriver as a lever got 1/3 turn and a large pliers got another 1/3 turn, repeated over and over.  There are some things that are hard to describe but obvious when you try them.

Anyway, I finally got that wingnut so tight that The Hulk couldn't pull those legs loose.  And even then, I might put a couple of 2" screws through through the poly bracket and into the legs. 

And the instructions suggested that added crosspieces of wood across the middles of the legs would improve stability.  Naturally, I did that.  But the legs are at angles.  So, feeling a bit "perfectionist", I wanted the crosspieces to match the angles of the legs and not stick out. 

One little tool I love is an angle tool.  It is nothing but 2 pieces of metal with a wing nut tightener at the connection.  You loosen the nut, set the 2 pieces to match the angle you want, and bring it to the tablesaw to match the angle of the miter gauge to the saw blade. 

It worked perfectly, and I even used scrap PT 1"x3" wood (intended for but not used on the compost bin project).  After I screwed THOSE on the insides of the legs, I sat of the sawhorses and they didn't give at all!

Now, finally, PICTURES...

The 2 sawhorses...

The poly-something bracket...

The leg crosspieces (showing how nicely the angled cuts match the legs...

 They don't exactly "nest" on each other, but can be stacked...

The box info.  The brand is Crawford and the model is #90.   I looked them up on Amazon and they are up to #90-6, so maybe there are improvements.  And there are similar products from another brand.

Very worth it for outdoor sawhorses.  These might outlast me.

Seeds

Today I went around and snipped off all the flowerheads I could find in the meadow bed.  I figure they will do better if I keep them in the fridge over Winter, and spread them out next Spring.  I filled up a continer of rubbed-aoart seed heads.

Then I did the same for the bee/butterfly/hummingbird bed flowers. 

Then I did the same for the odd huge marigold that volunteered this year. 

3 containers of hopefully "self-sowing" seeds and I will try to help them in Spring.  I figure spreading them around rather than just letting seedheads fall in clumps will be a good idea.  We'll see.

Dessert

After a good home-cooked meal, you need a good dessert.  I like fresh fruit, nuts, and a taste of chocolate...

And some TV...

And cats on my lap...

The Compost Bin

Well, I thought it was finished, but it wasn't.  The tops were heavy to lift.  And keeping them lifted meant lifting them totally up and over to rest on the fence.  Which annoyed me.

And then I had a totally wicked idea.  Counterweights...

The tops took 17 pounds of upward pressure to lift before (I weighed the lifting pressure with a fishing scale).  So I screwed 2"x4"x6' boards to the tops and added some 6"x6"x53" posts left over from building the new decks (I save scraps and this is why).

Here are the bins now.

The 6"x6" posts are attached to the boards.  I used two 7" lag screws anchored with fender washers up into the posts per board.  Those posts won't ever come loose!

The weight of the posts is perfectly matched to the weight of the tops.  Instead of  17 pounds, I can lift the tops with a finger.

And close them just as easily!

The tops sit upright on their own...

The front slats lift out for easy access to the compost contents.

The slats have small pieces of wood as spacers...

That fit into slots I created by sandwiching a 2"x4" board between two 1"x6" boards ...

 All the sides have braces...

And I even have a barrel of dirt to shovel a couple inches into the bin after every 6" of compostable material.

Looking At New Houses

Every Fall, I wish I had more sunlight for my garden, a little more distance from my neighbors.  And every year, the neighbors' trees grow a few feet higher and hang over the yard a bit more.

But staying has advantages.  No Homeowner Association, all-electric house (and buried cables, so few outages in storms), familiarity, the ease of staying in place,  city water and sewage, dead end street so little traffic, optical fiber internet service, a fence the cats don't climb all around the backyard, and years of landscaping.  I can walk through the house in pitch-black.

But one thing keeps whispering in my mind.  The longer I wait to move, the harder it will be if I EVER do.  And I will get unhappier the longer I stay.

I've emailed the agent to set up an appointment to visit the property I like.

Pictures...

 Inside is open. 

Wondering, since I moved here from an apartment to a new house...  What does it really take to move a whole house?  I can hardly imagine it and it seems daunting!  A 1000 boxes?  How would I even pack drawers of kitchen stuff? 

The last time I moved I had a living room and a bedroom.  Now I have 20 times all that stuff.  Do the movers pack most of it?  Or do they expect to just find everything small in boxes?  What will they do?

I'm only here now because Im afraid of the moving process.  Its unfamiliar and unkown..

Sadly, the times my parents moved us, we just got sent out of the way.  No learning experience there.

The New Samsung HDTV

Well, the Samsung Plasma HDTV repairman arrived Wednesday.  The Samsung Service Center was sure it was a power supply problem easily fixed in spite of the fact that I told them the red indicator light on the set was on.  Well, OK, maybe the power goes there first and then to the TV components.

And I had bought a 24" Samsung HDTV for $138 to use for the week it took for the repair visit (and to show the rest of the system was working).  Half of my TV use is really just listening to political talk shows and science shows, so the small picture was "OK" for a week.

The repairman instantly recognized the problem wasn't the power supply.  He said, if that little red button is on, you have power.  He waved some gadget across the screen and found a tiny crack in the front panel that caused the screen to fail.  "The gas escaped slowly until it failed".    He arranged to have a new front panel shipped, total cost $1,000.

But the next day, I got a call saying that front panel was no longer made or available from secondary sources.  And that Samsung would call me.

Which they did.  They prorate depreciation over 5 years, mine was 3.7 years old, therefore, I will get 30% back.  Aside from that, I was out of luck and was free to purchase any new TV (or not).

So I read up on the newest 60-65" HDTVs at Consumer Reports website.  The bad news is that there are no more plasma HDTVs.  I liked them; the colors are better and the refresh rate higher than on LED HDTVs.  But the LED HDTVs are better than they were a few years ago.  I set my sights of a particular one (another Samsung - the slightly higher rated TVs were a brand I don't know anything about, and I have all these Samsung remotes, LOL) and went looking.

The nearest place turned out to sell ONLY Samsung!  Well, they have a price-matching guarantee and I had already looked up the prices of the model I thought I wanted and the prices were all with a couple of dollars.

So I was expecting to buy the model from Consumer Reports.  The salesman asked to show me one before I told him what I was looking for.  It was a newer more advanced model.  2160 instead of 1080, many times more pixels, double the screen refresh rate, etc.

I am suspicious of tech advances; some don't mean anything.  But he showed me a special picture on it.  Granted, it was designed to show off color and black background (which creates "depth").  I sure don't know everything about TVs, but it was noticeably better than the same display on the standard Samsung LED  HDTV.

As I said I don't know every about TVs.  But I can follow wiring, and both TVs were receiving the same signal through optical fiber.  Well, if they faked that, they are too good for me to tell.  While the salesman was away briefly selecting the surround sound modes, I looked at the 2 TVs .  The lesser picture quality was the exact model I had come in to purchase!  I had not mentioned that to him.

So I was looking at what I expected to purchase vs one with a noticeably better picture. And I understood why the picture was better.  More smaller pictures equal better picture resolution.  The better TV cost $1,000 more, but came with a 5 year repair guarantee, free delivery, and free removal of the old unit.  That adds up.

I chose the better one.

I was delivered today and the picture is WONDERFUL!  Well, showrooms are designed to make the TV pictures look best.  I know about those tricks.  I watch TV ads seeing the tricks and smiling to myself about them.  But the picture of this 4000k HDTV is really good.  It's worth it.

They tried to sell me a surround sound system.  I didn't go for that.  The Bose soundbar in front of the TV was $700 and the wireless speaker to go behind me and the subwoofer was another $700.  Actually, the subwoofer was so strong, it vibrated the chair and that would have made me nauseous.

I have my TV "audio out" going to my stereo system controller.  My floor model DCM speakers give fine sound after a decade )I don't play music load very often).

But there is an odd effect right now.   I was seeing people speak, but silently.  If I had the TV-only speaker on, they spoke.  Something about the system is separating the audio channels.  For now, I have the TV speaker and stereo speakers both on, But I will have to look at the plugs in the TV control box  soon to see if I can connect them better.

Because right now, If I want to change the volume and keep it balanced, I have to change both the TV and stereo volume, and that's a pain.  There will be a way, I just have to find it.  And I've explored the TV controls and seen many options.  For now, a great picture and good sound is enough.

Not Painting The Fence

And FINALLY, I get around to explaining why I don't want the neighbor to paint my fence on hos side...

I have a personal image of my property.  Let's start by imagining I only lived inside my house.  I don't see the outside of it.  But my neighbors do.  They may or may not like the color of my house, but they agree it is mine and all the sides of my house match in color.  As it occurs, my house siding is dark green and fits into the landscape.  There is no Homeowner Association here to complain, but it is not like I painted it hot pink and added lime green shutters.

So the neighbor can't decide he thinks the side of my house that he sees should be painted beige and could just go ahead and do that while I was on vacation.  I care about my house looking rather consistent in color all the way around.  OK so far?

Now, I think of my fence in the same way.  The entire fence is on my property and and I want it to look the same all the way around.  It, in its own way, partly defining my choice of how my property is viewed by outsides just as my house is.

Having the neighbors view my fence in a consistent color makes a difference to me.  One side being one bold different color from the others just destroys my vision of my yard. 

I understand that my neighbor has a view of his internal yard.  But he should have thought to ask who owned the fences around him before he just had people paint them.  I am probably the only person who knows that all the fences around this new neighbor's property are owned by others.  The only fence he owns is those small parts from the sides of his house connecting to the sides.

And I may be the only person who cares.  But I do care.  I specifically like the look of greyish aged pressure-treated wood.  And I don't want people looking at my property from the outside seeing it of different colors.

I hope that all made sense...

Yesterday, Neighbor and Project

The neighbor just amazes me more and more.  If there is anything he can do wrong, he does.

Yesterday, I looked out over the fence and saw the neighbor's contractors had made "volcano mulch mounds" around several trees.  You don't DO that.  It smothers the roots, invites fungal diseases around the covered tree trunk and invited voles to gnaw the bark away.

If I even meet this guy (he has to move in eventually, there is way too much work being done for a flip or a rental) I will try to help him.  Don't laugh, but I am a real boy scout and helpful type.

But the contractors were ordered to do the weirdest thing so far.

Most house on the street have "swales" at the front of the street.  Those are designed to catch rain from the street and direct them sideways in storm drains.  Those are all just slight depressions in the front lawns.  For some reason, the neighbor's property had to have an actual concrete depression.  I remember the builder being upset by having to install that at his own expense.  Maybe because it was between 2 storm drains.

The new neighbor had his contractor fill it up with rocks!  Rocks like the size of a child's fist.  I didn't say a word.  I'll do almost anything to not provoke this nut into painting my fence and make me take him to small claims court.

You know what happens when you fill a low space with rocks?  Dirt blows in, leaves fall in, mowed grass falls in.  Eventually, it fills up with soil.  And when a space designed for rainwater drainage fills up, water collects.  And around here standing water means places for mosquitos to breed!

And I have to laugh.  They had 3x as much rock delivered as they needed.   Evidently, the owner or the contractor failed geometry in high school.  And do you know how hard it is to shovel irregular rocks?  It is like digging into broken bricks,  A shovel cannot get a good scoopful of irreular rocks...
  -------------------
But while those poor suckers were trying to spread the irregular rocks, I was working on the compost bin.  The last part (I thought) was adding 1/2" wire mesh to the top to keep varmints out.  I measured it perfectly!  It fit precisely on the top.  I found zinc screws ans washers that would hold the mesh down tightly.

Oops, on only the front and back...  Well, the stuff is so stiff, I wasn't worried about the unsupported sides.  Until I pushed only a little and it bent down several inches.  ARGGGHHH!

OK, I can fix that.  1"x3" pressure-treated wood strips will be attached under the sides and I can screw washer over that to hold the sides in place too.  And THAT will complete the project.

I wanna see a varmint try to get into THIS compost bin.  I don't care how clever some varmints are, they can't.  When I put the latch on the front of the tops, I'm not sure some PEOPLE could get into it, LOL!

An addition...  My beloved 60" Samsung plasma HDTV died last week and I might have mentioned that.  The repairman was scheduled to arrive here today between 10 AM and 2 PM.  But that was last week.  So I called them at 9:30 AM to confirm the arrival and also ask if the schedule was more firm.  It is and they say he should be here before noon and will call 30 minutes before.

I've been watching a cheap 24" TV (Sumsungm LED from Walmart and not bad for $138) for a week and it is driving me mad*.  Political news shows are just fine that way, because I only listen to them really.  But the best shows the past few days have been about outer space  and I guarantee the universe does not look as impressive on a 24" TV as on a 60" HDTV! 

Nor do baseball playoff games!  My hometown Washington Nationals have played 3 games and I can't even see where the baseball is.  It is hard enough to see the players.  With luck (assuming the 60" TV CAN be fixed), I might see them "win or go home" later today.

* I must remember/mention that the first TV I ever saw had a 10" screen and when we got a 16" TV in the 60s it seemed amazing.  We never actually knew what Lucy Ricardo looked like before that.  And, BTW, that is why animated shows like the Flintstones were popular.  The characters were drawn LARGE!

TV producers caught on to that and that's why sitcoms and dramas had lots of close-ups back then.  

Historian Mark...  

Well, the TV repairman came.  He found a crack in the screen.  He showed it to me on a handheld device.    I felt there with a fingetip and could detect it. a slight crack.  He said the screen uses a gas sealed front panel.

He mentioned that this one was about the finest plasma HDTV Samsung ever built.  I could shrug that off as a repair pitch, but Consumer Reports said so at the time and that's why I bought it. then.  So he was correct.

It is going to cost $1,000 overall, but you can't get that plasma HDTV at any price now.

And let me say that $1,000 is a large amount.  I could do other things with that money.  But I have that TV on most of the day and love the detail.  Ayla follows golf balls across the screen.  Iza watches lions.  Marley pays no attention.  

The rrepairman asured me of a few things.  Wiping the screen occassionally had caused no damage to it.  I did not cause the failure.

Sometimes things just break...

So a mew front panel is coming.  If from California, several days.  if from New York, 1 day,  He doesn't get to decide that  But he will be the one to replace it.  

If I got scammed, they did a good job.  I suspect not.  Hopefully, in a couple days, I will have a rather  excellent Plasma HDTV good for 5 years.



There are times when you can't tell if you are being played for a sucker   

An Incident

I was going to write about my fence tonight, but I was surprised by the sound of gunfire.

I live on a quiet dead-end street at the bottom of a neighborhood behind a department store.  No one finds there way into here by accident. 

So I suddenly heard 3 gunfire shots at 9:38 pm.  "Crack, Crack, Crack"!  And then 2 minutes later, 3 more shots closer, same Crack, Crack, Crack but louder and less echo.  I turned off the room lights and looked out through barely-parted curtains.  I saw 2 people walking down the street, seemingly unconcerned.

I called 911.  Gave them the facts, time, mentioning noticing 2 people in dark clothes.  I told them I had enough experience as a hunter to know it wasn't a shotgun or rifle.  The sharp "crack" sound suggested a handgun.  I said the sounds were too regular and sharp to be firecrackers and that the apparent distance of the sounds matched the walking speed of the 2 people I saw.  I expressed concern about poosibledomestic violence.  The 911 dispatcher said there was a related call nearby.

I always have to warn people about my street name.  I live on street "X DRIVE".  There is a street "X  COURT" nearby.  It causes confusion.  But they are close tother and it can't be hard to get from on to the other.

They said they would have a police car come by.  I said I would be glad to talk to them.  I waited...

It took 10 minutes for a car to drive down the street at somewhat high speed.   20 seconds later, just the time it would take to reach the end of the road at full speed and return, it returned with police lights on.  So I thought it was going to some other street where there had been a problem and the gunfire sounds fooled me.  Nope.

No such luck. 

After another 20 minutes, I called 911 again to ask about my report and any results.  They found my report and said the police didn't see anything.  Well, gee, at 40 mph I suppose they didn't!  They also said I hadn't asked for the police to talk to me.  I had.  I could point to directions of the initial and 2nd gunfire and the direction the 2 people walking had gone.

They also claimed there was no other report of gunfire (though they had said that in the initial call).  When they asked if I still wanted a policeman to come by and talk to me, I said there didn'r seem to be any point to a visit by that time, and the person cheerfully said "OK", and hung up.

I am TOTALLY PISSED OFF!

I gave the police a report of handgun firings.  From a person who has no record of calls, problems, or complaints.  And they didn't consider it worth investigating carefully.  They did the fastest drive-by check possible, and didn't stop by to even ask questions of me as I agreed to. 

Some Good Things

I complain sometimes.  Well, the things that go wrong bother me.  I don't like failures.  But some things have been going right.

1.  In spite of all my measurements for the new double compost bin,  I failed to  account for the 1/2" hardware cloth on the top accurately enough.  I missed it by an inch.  And an inch is enough for mice and even rats (though we don't have rats here to my knowledge).  A rat in the yard?  Marley would catch those easily.  LOL!

So, today, I added 3" boards to the top . I found 6" wide pressure-treated boards among my collection of excess wood.  I cut them to length and then ripped them in half the long way.  I glued and screwed them under the top frames.  That narrowed the gap to be covered with 36 inch 1/2"mesh to 32"'

Even a mouse can't get through 1/2" mesh wire.  Tomorrow, I attach the 1/2" mesh.  That will complete my compost bins.  Well, OK, I can add some chain to hold the tops at 110 degrees when lifted, but for now they can rest on the fence and that is fine.  I'm declaring the project "complete".

2.  The first compost bin is now a foot deep of kitchen waste and cut weeds.  I have a trash barrel full of old soil and dumped an inch on the top.  That will encourage worms to move there.  I am also setting a small area of good lawn covered with a tarp.  That will stay damp and encourage more worms to the surface.  And I will pound a metal stake into the edge.  When I pound it later, the worms will come the surface.  A trick I learned from Dad.  I will collect them and drop them in the compost bin where they will think they have gone to Heaven.

3.  I had the trailer full of old pressure-treated lumber from the old framed beds of 20 years ago and more from the original 25 year old compost bin.  I hesitated to bring the load to the landfill when it was raining every few days because of the mud and then just never quite got around to it this month.

I finally went there yesterday.  The landfill is more user-friendly!  Small customers like me get to just drive a few 100 feet to a dumpster and toss it in.  They haul it to the real landfill area later.  They don't want cars stuck in their mud.  And there was even a guy there to help me unload my trailer!  OK, I know he was doing "community-service work" paying for some minor crime, but he was friendly and I didn't ask for details.

4.  I took out my electric chain saw and tested it to check that the chain was properly tightened.  In the coming few days, I have 6' long  6" diameter oak logs to cut up into 1" "coins" (like cutting a carrot into round pieces) for use in the smoker,  2  dwarf apple trees to cut down (the squirrels steal all the unripe apples anyway).  More good smoker wood there.  And a bunch of shrubs I no longer want and never loved.  And there are new junk trees that have grown 5' high and must be stopped.

5.  And speaking of unwanted stuff, there are the wild blackberries covering an 1/8 acre after I removed a few trees shading the garden..  You can't win sometimes.  I am debating on how to remove them.  Cutting them down with a hedge trimmer works, but drops them all on me thorns and all and they are hard to pull off.  The chain saw is worse because it is shorter and I have to really get under them.

No brush remover company wants to accept the job.  It is either too small a job for them, or they want to use equipment too large for the area (there are spots I don't want scraped clean 6" deep because there are 100s of daffodils planted there.

I think I need crazy handyman with a steel-bladed weed whacker.

6.  I took 4 wheelbarrow-loads of garden pots out of the basement to the new shelves in the old toolshed.  Every wheelbarrow load makes the basement easier to get around in.  I am even close to being able to have a fire in the fireplace.  I have piles of old scrap wood waiting to be burned.

Between the garden stuff being moved to the toolshed shelves and the scrap wood being burned, I will have 100 more square feet of usable space.  That will be wonderful.

One small improvement every day...

7.  I made pizzas 2 nights.  Hadn't made one for a few years.     They weren't round, but they were good.  And I had dough left over, so I made a calzone filled with bell peppers, cubed smoked pork, an italian cheese blend, and crushed simmered canned tomatoes.

I've never made one before.  It was an experiment.  I made it way too stuffed and large.  Crimping the edges was tricky.  And getting it onto the pizza paddle was delicate.  But nothing broke and with the cornstarch on the paddle, it slid off onto the 400F pizza stone perfectly.

I would normally have cooked it at 500 (and the recipe DID say 400), but I had beets baking on the top shelf so I waited.  The crust was supposed to be "golden at 14 minutes".  14 minutes came and went.

I finally accepted the crust "done" after 24 minutes.  And it turned out GREAT!

On the other hand, why bother?  It is just a pizza folded in half.  I'll just make pizza more often.

Funny story:  My sister and hubby visited me 10 years ago and I made pizza then and referred to them having made it for me when I visited them a few years ago.  She kept trying to "shush" me and I didn't catch on at first.  Oops, 2nd marriage...  It was the first guy who made pizzas...  Yeah, I'm dense...

8.  The Washington Nationals baseball team won a playoff game!  They are notorious for losing them.  So when they were losing in the 8th inning 3-1 I was expecting the worst.  But when they scored 5 runs suddenly, I was shocked.  Maybe they have a chance.

I try not to refer to the home teams as "we".  I'm not on the teams.  But I'm glad when they win.   Not sure "why".  Yeah, it is a bit irrational.  Maybe it is because the core of the team are long-term members.  And it is a "built" team, not a purchased one.  Even most of the new guys are from the AAA farm clubs.  That makes an odd difference.