Okay, new power supply not working for some reason!
Hoping to figure it out but, who knows may have to invest again!
Hopefully not, but if anything I will post from work or Crystalie's laptop, tomorrow.
Birdhouses
Well here is a look at what I have been working on in the shop. As you can see I am using recycled red painted barn wood, and the sides and base are some wider gray boards from the barn.
The recycled license plates come from Crystalie's Dad, some of his auction and scrap finds. Along with reusing the turn knobs from water faucets, that her dad also collected when he sorts for brass and aluminum.
The birch branch trees are from the trees I cut a week ago, and as you can see I try to make the best of everything we have. It takes about 20 minutes or so to put one together, using my brad nailer and my variable speed dewalt drill-screw gun.
The bases can be removed on them to clean them out, so if they do become the lucky home for some chickadees or finches or maybe even some tree swallows or bluebirds, they can be maintained.
Their first home will be on display for sale at Wooden Nichols starting on April 28th!
Shop time...
I spent most of my time outside in my large shop, worked on clearing some space to cut some plywood, for a project on my list.
But I also spent time cutting some pieces for some birdhouses, using the old barn boards I harvested from the old barn that fell late last fall the picture above.
I spent some time ripping some wide gray boards on the radial arm saw, so I could get even edges to work with, and then I cut some other pieces of the red barn siding boards, into smaller pieces to work on developing some birdhouse fronts. The goal is to create some rustic primitive birdhouses to be sold a Wooden Nichols next spring and summer.
Tomorrow I should have a finished picture of a birdhouse to show you.
Today brought a very sunny day, but the temp only rose to 24 degrees, with a steady breeze from the northeast. It was tolerable outside, and I also got the rest of my firewood logs split and stacked, the main reason to finish it was in case we get a bunch of snow so it will not all get covered up.
We spent lunch time watching a documentary movie called "Which Way Home" the storyline is following 4 young Latino boys as they hope to get to the United States, using the rail system in Mexico as their way to get here. If you want some perspective on how good we have it here in our country, watch this movie, it is on Netflix available for instant watching. Have your children watch it with you, there is some offensive language but they will maybe look at what they have differently.
Friday March 4th
Musings, of a long winter....
Yes it seems like we have had snow for months on end, but really only 5 so far...and yes there is more to come based on what the weatherman is forecasting for the next week.
The temperatures haven't given us any thoughts of Spring yet, as the lows have been around 10 above...and the highs haven't even reached above freezing this last week.
Which probably means that when it does warm up, it will be fast and we will be besieged with news of lots of flooding, which is not good for our fellow Minnesotans, or North Dakota friends. If you live in a place that has a potential to flood, I can not comprehend how you deal with the impending threat of flooding.
The sun shines longer each day and as I drove home from Grand Rapids, I noticed even at 7:00pm there were traces of light blue on the western horizon, the last glimmers of the sun setting. In Minnesota, depending upon where you live the horizon is not always that far away, meaning the trees maybe out your back window, not allowing you to see the sun dipping below the curve of the earth. One of the things I always love about North Dakota, was that you could see the sun slowly go down over the horizon, as it paints the sky with the most beautiful picture.
At Coffee Lake Farm, we have a fairly open area, and we see such sunsets, almost all year around, one of things I love. The picture above was last summer, but it gives you an idea of the horizon we see.
The weekend is here and I will be outside, working on some projects in my shop, even though it is cold out, I am hoping that I can at least start on my long project list.
Night of the Movies at Home!
For entertainment, we do watch movies, especially when there are reruns of our favorite TV shows that we watch.
We are Netflix customers, and we are only rotating 1 movie at a time, and watch streaming movies also. Needless to say like most people we enjoy certain types of movies, but I think we have broad interests.
Tonight we watched a movie called "Adam" which was the story of a young man who has Asperger's Syndrome, a form of high performance autism.
It is about the struggles after his father's death, and how he begins a relationship with a young woman who moves into his building, it is set in New York City and Central Park....it is interesting and very nicely filmed, and overall it was enjoyable to watch.
We recently we watched another little Independent movie called "Feed the Fish" it was set in Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin, and is a romantic comedy, with lots of winter experiences...check it out you might like it!
If you are into something more suspenseful and murder mystery, check out the Trilogy of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who played with Fire, and the Girl who kicked the Hornets nest. It is 3 Swedish Foreign films with English Subtitles, it is graphic and some intense scenes but the story line is great and the movies are very well done!
So if you have seen something interesting please feel free to pass on it's title and also what you thought, always appreciate a good recommendation!
Survivor night!
Yep, it is Wednesday and it is Survivor night again, and also Pizza night.
Pretty simple around here on Wednesday nights, but that is okay. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago Survivor is one of our guilty pleasures for reality TV. So far the new season has been very entertaining, with some wacky characters, and some dumb and bold moves by the game players.
It was cold today, but warming up some, and the next day may bring us a touch of snow but warmer temperatures..it was - 9 degrees this morning.
For work, I attended a Brainerd Chamber event at Breezy Point Resort, for what they call a Chowtime. Lunch was a fajatia buffet line, and it tasted good to have some Mexican food, and the event had about 4o people.
We get to do some shameless self promotion about what we sell or do, and I go to a couple of these events each month along with other meetings, and that revolve around networking and getting to know what various people and businesses do. As you can tell I have no problem, meeting people, and of course visiting with them, and also educating them as to what I sell or do.
Here is the website fo the Magazine I sell advertisng for..check it out...
www.lakecountryjournal.com
Enjoy, if you haven't seen before, we are all pretty proud of how it looks and it's content.
Back to work and winter temps!
Well after having a 4 day weekend, it was back to work today!
It seemed like a Monday for me, but the rest of my co-workers were in there routine of the week. Less visiting about what took place over the weekend, and more concentration on the tasks at work.
I had some catching up to do and a couple of appointments, and also worked on getting some other meetings set-up for the rest of this week and into next week. I have some traveling to do next week, and maybe the week after that.
In the mean time the warmer weather we experienced the last couple of days, mid 20's or so...has given way to an Arctic blast pushed by strong frigid winds from the Northwest. Needless to say it has everyone in a mood that is like "isn't it over yet!!!" Everyone is so ready for spring to come and the snow to start disappearing for good. Hopefully you have been this optimistic.....
I returned home to find my wife not feeling well, flu like symptoms that are leaving her chilled and hot, but not to much of the upset stomach yet. So I have been busy taking care of her, fixed a warm baked chicken hotdish. A cup of warm tea, and provided whatever she needed to make her comfortable, but more sleep, and hopefully she will feel better tomorrow!