Catching Up: Spring, Blanket Chest and Stuff

It’s actually starting to look like spring out there now. Sort of. I’ve been seeing robins and finches of late, one late afternoon I even heard frogs singing. And most important of all, the days are getting longer now. I don’t mind winter, but it does get a bit tedious. It still isn’t all that pleasant out, but things are stirring out in the flower beds and signs of spring are beginning to pop up.

This is an amazing time of year. The weather is still chilly and they’re even talking snow by the end of the week, but that will pass and soon we’ll be about to get outside without bundling up. I even spotted a little flower trying to peek out of the mulch the other day!

I mentioned a while back that we had to take down the pear tree after a large part of the canopy collapsed. That was sort of a blessing in disguise because that’s opened up a large area where we can now put in plants that require full sun. We now have a lot of options open to us for that area. MrsGF wants to put in two raised beds there now, so this week I need to get some lumber to build those.

I even had the bicycle out the last few days. A bit cold for me, but pleasant enough out that I could put a few miles on without freezing my bits off. Well, I had to get the dopy thing fixed first. I pulled it out of the garage, checked it over, checked the tire pressures, gears, oiled the chain, and everything seemed fine and dandy, and I got maybe a half mile before spokes started to pop on the back wheel. Again. This is the third time that’s happened now. I keep telling them at the shop that they need to just replace the darned wheel, but no, they said, it’s just the spokes. Well, after the third time, now they’re starting to believe me and if it happens again they’ll replace the wheel. So we’ll see.

Anyway the bike is back on the road again and I’ve finally been able to get out after a long winter hiatus. And wow, am I out of shape!

And then there’s this, the chest:

This was one of those projects that took me way too long. I started this chest ages ago and for whatever reason got distracted or lost interest and it got set aside and forgotten about until MrsGF got on my case about it. This was a gift for some friends of ours on their wedding anniversary and it went out to its new owners, finally, about a week ago. It turned out pretty good. It’s white oak trimmed with walnut edging and the vertical inlaid stripes on the front are purpleheart, with hand made wrought iron handles attached with brass bolts that I picked up somewhere. I’m rather pleased by how it turned out.

I’ve done several of these now with varying types of trim and inlay and they’ve all turned out well, but to be honest I’m not all that fond of making chests. They are, oh, fiddly, I suppose you could call it. I can’t get boards wide enough to make the panels so those have to be glued up from smaller boards. I don’t have a power planer big enough to take the panels so after glueing them up they have to be smoothed down by hand with a hand plane. Then there’s the inlay, the trim pieces… Looking at one I’ve completed is very satisfying, but the process of making one is tedious.

Other stuff…

MrsGF and I both have had our 2nd vaccination now. I’ve already warned the kids that as soon as the waiting period is over we’re going to hunt them down and hug them.

MrsGF had a mild reaction to the 2nd shot. The next day she felt generally out of sorts and achy, but that passed pretty quickly.

My reaction to the 2nd shot? Well, I had more important things on my mind the next day because I was sedated and curled up on a table in a hospital with somebody sticking a scope up my butt getting a colonoscopy. I’d had a Cologuard test come back positive so they were up there rummaging around. Fortunately the biopsies came back negative. But they did the colonoscopy on Thursday and they didn’t get the results back until Tuesday. Nothing ruins a weekend like waiting around to find out if you have cancer or not.

Anesthesia was – interesting. They couldn’t believe at the hospital when they found out I’d never had any kind of anesthesia before. They wheeled me into the room, put an IV in me and the anesthesiologist said “I’m going to start giving you the…” And the next thing I knew I was sitting in a sunny room, fully awake, fully alert. It was like someone threw a switch off and then on again. It was one of the weirdest things I’d ever experienced.

Things are going to get real busy real fast over the next few weeks I suspect. We have new windows going in next week, I need to guild the new raised beds for the yard, it’s almost time to get seeds started.

Oh, and I got a new chainsaw, a DeWalt battery operated one to supplement the ancient Poulan gas model I have. I wanted something that was going to be quiet, easy to operate, and it didn’t have to be big because what it’s mostly going to be used for is cutting wood up into more manageable sizes to fit on the lathe. If I need to do any serious tree cutting or any of that I still have the Poulan to fall back on. Once I’ve had a chance to use the DeWalt I’ll let you know if it’s worth looking into or not.

And that’s about it…