Category Archives: Home
Kitchen Remodel 2015
Refrigerator, dishwasher, stove, washer, dryer, sink, cabinets, counter, walls… all gone. Ripped out by young men with power tools. We’re starting Week Two of a major renovation of our home that Barb has been planning for two years. They’re gutting our main living area. New hardwood floors, bathrooms, even the fireplace gets a make-over.
Barb has worked — as my friend Taisir is fond of saying — “like a Hebrew slave” on this and my contribution is staying the fuck out of the way.
It’s a bit like moving to a new home without going anywhere. There’s a “pod” sitting in front of our house which is basically a semi trailer. Large sweaty men will move all of our furniture there and back. This project is supposed to take two months but experience has taught me everything takes twice as long and costs twice as much as planned. In the meantime, I’ve barricaded myself in my little bunker upstairs for the duration.
Lucy: I will not be ignored
New deck
This is Curt. He and his helper built a new deck to replace the old (29 years) one. The original deck was put together with nails and had become treacherous if you were barefoot. The new deck is screwed together (much like everyone in America) and very nice. Will christen (Beck’s) on the next nice spring day.
View of home from drone
Not exactly skimming the rooftops of Paris or zipping between Manhattan skyscrapers, but George Kopp was nice enough to bring his drone out to our place so here’s a minute of video he got before parking the drone in a tree top.
Is the chainsaw perfect?
I spent a few hours with the chainsaw today. A perfect day to be in the woods. As I slowly brought order to chaos I wondered how people got along without chainsaws. And is it one of those rare tools that can’t really be improved on, like the fly swatter. I headed over to Wikipedia for some history:
“The first portable chainsaw was invented in 1925 by what became the German company Festo in 1933. The company now operates as Festool producing portable power tools. Other important contributors to the modern chainsaw are Joseph Buford Cox and Andreas Stihl; the latter patented and developed an electrical chainsaw for use on bucking sites in 1926 and a gasoline-powered chainsaw in 1929, and founded a company to mass-produce them. In 1927, Emil Lerp, the founder of Dolmar, developed the world’s first gasoline-powered chainsaw and mass-produced them.”
While they’ve made lots of improvements to the tool, the basic design seems unchanged for what, 85 years? I daydreamed (not while sawing) of ways to improve this wonderful tool. Quieter? The noise keeps me on my toes, always aware of the potential danger in my hands. Lighter? Maybe, but the weight of the saw seems to make cutting easier. I guess if someone could come up with a tiny (safe) fusion reactor to eliminate running out of gas. But I look forward to the rest breaks those provide.
If the chainsaw never gets better than it is, it will be good enough for me.
Stacking Logs
“When stripped of formality and returned to its natural shape, Zen is earthy and ordinary. Nothing special.”
“It is so uncontrived and subtle that it goes nearly unnoticed. And no one can deliberately do it.”
“Taoism and Zen cannot properly be understood, but they can be experienced.”
Sawing Logs
In the low 30’s today here in mid-Missouri but I spent a couple of hours with the chainsaw making little one from big ones. These will have to be stacked unless the lumberjack elves do it while I sleep. By the time this project is complete, I think I might have enough logs to fill 50 pickup trucks. Maybe more.
The clean up begins
Short of hiring someone else to do it, there doesn’t seem to be any easy way to tackle a job like this. The trunks have to be cut into logs; the logs have to be moved and stacked; the limbs have to be dragged and piled. Lots of lifting and walking, up and down the hill.
Josh Stevens thinning trees
Josh Stevens clearing trees on our three acres. (5 min)