The Ultimate Answer to Kings

Early on in each year’s building season I usually have a little encounter with dehydration, just to remind me that the issue doesn’t go away over the winter, it just sort of hibernates.

Doesn’t usually happen as early as April, though. This got me Thursday afternoon, after a very productive morning in which BB and I finished the new flashing on the east side of the Lair and fixed and resealed some winter damage on the siding.

The next task was supposed to be quite simple, just cut and apply inside molding around the back door. But suddenly I couldn’t get anything right – I wasn’t thinking straight and really shouldn’t have been around power saws, the sun dazzled me, I was achy and cranky and just generally stupid. You’d think I’d know what all those things are a sign of by now, wouldn’t you? Except it’s April, it’s not hot, it wasn’t even all that bright.

Dehydration is cumulative. I spent the whole day before holding a ladder and staring into the sky, getting a nice face sunburn. I was fine Wednesday and I was fine Thursday morning, but Thursday afternoon it all came home to roost. We finished the trim and I called a halt for the day, and after a couple hours’ sit-down and a lot of tea and water I was fine again.

Just nature’s way of reminding me – Hydrate, stupid.

Seen this morning at a breakfast restaurant on the way to the big town about 50 miles away…

I’ve kept it in the Jeep’s gear bag, reasoning that if a need arose for a length of really kickass rope it would likely happen around the Jeep. But no need sufficiently urgent appeared, and I certainly wasn’t going to use it up in little slices for mundane uses. That’s what cheap hardware store rope is for, and this is a really nice piece of rope.

Last night it occurred to me, a sufficiently important use had emerged to cut a piece off that coil.

…keeping Big Brother (and me, of course, since it’s not a one-time use) from breaking our geriatric backs falling off a tumbling ladder.

Yes, we did the east side of the Secret Lair this morning, and step one was finding studs and planting big screw eyes into them for ladder tie-downs. I really don’t know why that notion never occurred to me before now.

And now we’re done with roof flashing. And we also fixed some wind and winter damage to the east side of the siding, which I had not yet noticed.

Tomorrow I’m going to the big town about 50 miles away (for the third time in a little over a week, which has to be some kind of record) for a scheduled eye doctor appointment. So I don’t know what the posting situation will be. But if I don’t post till tomorrow PM, that’s why.

Sorry, I had this all ready to go first thing this morning but my connection went away. Then we’ve been busy till now.

But yeah: The last windstorm (peak gusts 63 mph, which is a respectable gale) did the last of the bad thing to the camo netting on the chickens’ top cover.

Fortunately, a Generous Reader sent me a big section of new camo netting, and in the very nick of time.

So the part that needs good shade still has it. And thanks very much!

Actually I’m thinking seriously of retiring the Fortress of Attitude as a chicken yard and converting it into a dog kennel. LB’s urinary problems have returned – no, not bloody urine, but an urgency he never suffered from before. So much so that – just in time for Big Brother’s visit – he has had three indoor accidents this week alone. That never happened before, even when he was a puppy. I have him on another course of antibiotics, which he loves. But it may no longer be possible to leave him in the cabin when I’m not there. If I convert the chicken coop to a dog house and clean out all that straw, the Fortress would make a dandy dog run.

And truthfully, the whole concept of maintaining two separate flocks as redundancy in case of predator attack has not proven all that useful. Makes more sense to have one flock you only have to tend one time. So that’s on my mind. I’d still need the shade cover, even though I could stop worrying about hawks and owls.

For years I’ve been a little reluctant to post pics of the front of the Secret Lair, because of its rather comical shortcomings in the roof flashing department. Got tired of the “You’re supposed to have drip molding up there, you know” comments, well-deserved though they were.

Little did I imagine that those same pics were causing Big Brother, who has spent most of his life in hurricane country, downright mental anguish. He wasn’t interested in hearing “Yeah, but this is dry country.” Especially not after experiencing two days about as windy as it ever gets, and seeing the rather haphazard manner in which the roof panels are attached to the Lair he got more serious yet on the topic.

So guess how we spent the day?

Though maybe not the sort to dance on the edge just to show off, BB is much less prone to paralyzing acrophobia than I am. And that’s fortunate because today was Flashing Day. I’m proud to say one thing, though…

…he thought my idea of lag-bolting a strategically-placed handle on the cabin was so good, he spread it all across the front.

The drip molding took most of the morning, what with some modifications made necessary by the not-very-pretty condition of the upper edge of the roofing. Then he went back and bolted the windward side down and used up a bunch of caulking tubes.

So after this treatment, if the roof ever leaks I’m sure it’ll be so embarrassed it’ll keep the matter to itself. 🙂

I’ve carefully avoided wearing my new BDU trous during painting sessions, but forgot to switch to old boots before yesterday afternoon…

Ah, well. It does no real harm. It’s the principle of the thing, I suppose…

Fortunately we were at a Tractor Supply yesterday, and I finally remembered to get a heavier-duty throwbolt latch for the chicken house door, one that can bolt right through the door instead of just adding new drywall screws for the wind to tear out. Sure enough when we got there (early!) this morning the door was wide open and all the hens were freaked out and hiding in the chicken yard. Fortunately once again no predators took the chance of trying for a free meal. Sure glad I had a second pair of hands, because the wind was blowing so hard I couldn’t hold the door shut against it while marking and drilling for the bolts. But now that door finally has a serious bolt, and the wind will have to break it somewhere new.

The wind immediately canceled our original plan to do high work, finally finishing the roof flashing. No way anybody with any sense would want to work on a ladder today. Even the chore we chose required precautions…

Yeah, the clear plywood I stored all winter for use as the bedroom’s sliding door got warped. Maybe I can straighten it and maybe not, but not in time to make a door out of it this week. So we came back with an incredibly heavy sheet of … I dunno, something white and smooth over what looks like chipboard. Cut it to size in the howling gale, then moved the operation indoors.

The living room side of the door gets the cedar tongue-and-groove siding to match the living room…

…and the bedroom side is white for now but will turn green when the bedroom finally gets its second coat.

Neat, huh? And I’ve got some black handles that will match the hanging hardware, sort of.

Spent a very great deal of time in the car today. And coming home, BB’s car presented me with proof that I have indeed ended up in my perfect promised land.

So yesterday we got a lot done but couldn’t reach completion because neither of us knew how to miter an inside corner on crown molding. If I’d just bought a bunch of baseboard and used that at the ceiling we wouldn’t be having this problem.

Anyway, I spent part of yesterday evening researching how you do that, and determined that it really couldn’t be done with the chop saw I was using. It seems you need a saw that can cut 45^o angles in both directions, and mine can only do it in one direction.

Fortunately, I have an emergency back-up saw.

This was my Dad’s old saw, which BB sent to me a couple of years ago. I plugged it in at the time to confirm that the motor ran, then stored it in Landlady’s barn and more-or-less forgot about it. Checked it this morning, and sure enough it should be capable of helping us finish the crown molding job. Brought it home.

There was a box wired to the housing…

I’d seen that at the time, of course. Didn’t open the box. I just figured “other stuff” meant spare parts or other paperwork. Didn’t give it much thought.

So I opened it this morning, in an idle moment while cooking breakfast for BB and myself…

“You really should open packages when I send them to you, you know,” he said with a shit-eating grin…

ETA: Crown molding success.

…a Dick’s Sporting Goods spokesperson announced that their entire remaining inventory of “assault weapons” had been lost in a tragic canoing accident.

Yeah, that would be funny. Instead, Dick’s went full dick.

After announcing policies that most gun owners saw as alienating, Dick’s Sporting Goods said it will go one step further and destroy its remaining inventory of firearms dubbed “assault weapons.”

A spokeswoman told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the remaining inventory at the retailer’s Field & Streams stores will be destroyed and then recycled.

“We are in the process of destroying all firearms and accessories that are no longer for sale as a result of our February 28th policy change,” she said. “We are destroying the firearms in accordance with federal guidelines and regulations.”

What a bunch of dicks.

Got an early start, finishing up yesterday’s work…

A little figgerin’ out still required on the ceiling fan, but when we were done…

…it works! It’s a little weird, but it works. Need to kind of reach through spinning blades to change speeds, but how often will that happen?

Then we got the hardware up for the sliding barn door. Figured it all out yesterday, so today it was really just a matter of assembly.

Little Bear does not think all this activity is right at all. Though he took to his Uncle Big Brother right away. This is the third time I’ve seen him do that with his first introduction to a relative of a regular. Has to be pheromones or something: If he likes you, he’ll like your mother or your sibling.

BB and I, on the other hand, were reminded late this morning how much we both dislike painting. Fortunately the actual painting phase of the trim project is now complete except for post-installation touch-up.

Tomorrow: Trim installation!

It’s cold and blowy even by my standards, and Big Brother comes from a much more nearly tropical state than here. So the plan was to do indoor stuff as much as possible. I did set up the generator and chopsaw, but when wood needing chopping I mostly went out and did that myself – trying not to be blown to Nebraska in the process.

BB is much more of an electrician than I am. So this was a perfect day to look into some pesky electrical projects that have been hanging fire. Like the bedroom ceiling fan…

BB sent me a 12v ceiling fan last autumn, which would have helped make the new propane-heated bedroom even more comfortable than it was. Alas I installed a big heavy-duty electrical box for it and ran duplex, and it turns out to want no electrical box but has a PWM controller that requires four wires.

BB came up with a genuinely elegant solution to both problems…

…we built a wooden box that will bolt to the ceiling box, and mounted the controller (and the fan motor, of course, in the fullness of time) on the wooden box. Izzat cool or what? So I can turn the fan on and off by the wall switch, but change speed/direction with the controller on the ceiling box just over the fan. The ceiling is just high enough to permit this without any impromptu haircuts. I’ll just watch where I do my jumping jacks.

We also hauled out the big box of hardware for the sliding door which never got built last season. It came with no documentation, so step one was to figure out which piece of hardware was supposed to do what. Then we cut a plank to mount all the gear on, which plank needs to get firmly screwed to the wall.

But first paint, of course. Yesterday’s big lumber run included a gallon of green paint, so (what I had hoped would be) the last official piece of work for the day was to haul the plank and the wooden ceiling box to Ian’s place where it was still and warm, set up a secure paint-proof work space, and give both items two coats of green paint.

So first thing tomorrow we’ll be able to mount the ceiling fan and the door hardware – though the door itself remains to be constructed.

I was quite happy to call it a day right there, but BB is made of stronger stuff – plus unfortunately by then he’d had a look at the hash I’d made of the 12-volt wiring. So he went into the corner behind the reading chair with some tools and straightened out a little problem I’d left with the 12-volt fuse-box – like, it wasn’t actually wired to anything. Now an electrical inspector could look at that corner without biting through his cigar.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a much more pleasant – or at least a much less unpleasant – day once it warms up. Tonight is forecast to be the coldest in a few weeks. We finished off with a trip to town for a little needed hardware and a restaurant supper, and I sent him back to landlady’s house with my Carhartt jacket and good pair of gloves because things are getting seriously chilly out there by anybody’s standards.

Can’t get pictures to this computer (yet), but we did figure out how to get this old Compaq laptop BB sent me a few years ago to connect to the hotspot. Which makes it a viable Plan B at last.

Carry on, it’s low-thirties and blowing half a gale here, so as little as possible is going on.

Safe and well, and presumably happy to be off the road for a bit. One of the things we needed to work out was his degree of actual desert mobility. He has a hybrid SUV, which – as we have learned through earlier sad experience – is not necessarily an off-road vehicle. To get to the Gulch does not require anything but dry clay and a moderate sense of adventure. To get to (and from) the actual Lair requires a competent 4X4.

Turns out BB’s car has sufficient traction, but insufficient clearance. For my driveway. 😉

Unfortunately he has arrived just in time to get a taste of why Uncle Joel spends so much time bitching about the weather. Moderate temperature today, the forecaster says, but 60 mph wind. We’re going to the big town about 50 miles away for lumber, so it’s a good thing his car is much more competent on actual pavement than the Jeep. Then low 30’s tonight, maxes out at 50 tomorrow (merely 40 mph wind) and a night down into the 20’s. We shall burn propane.

Then starting Saturday it’s supposed to get nice again. Probably even if I’m not too busy to be near the ‘pooter the connection is going to get funky for the next couple of days. Just saying.

You probably have just the weapon for it right in your toolbox. You terrorist, you. 😉

I’m afraid I pressure-tested my cerebral arteries first thing this morning.

I’ve become somewhat addicted fond of this damned iPhone I previously spent so many years laughing at, to the point where I use it for entertainment/instruction during otherwise routine tasks that don’t require my full attention like dough kneading and dish washing, when visibility and connectivity conditions allow.

This is a special day: Big Brother is due to visit for a few days on this leg of a long road trip at mid-day, and I spent much of yesterday scraping the top layer of dirt off the Secret Lair’s interior*. So right after breakfast I boiled some water for dish washing, propped the smartphone on the dog biscuit canister and poked around for a video. I was looking for one of the What Would Stoner Do vids, which I’ve enjoyed very much. Saw something marked WWSD What Would Sabrina do, clicked it, and stuck my hands in soapy water. Politely regarding any stranger as a sensible person until convinced otherwise, I assumed this was somebody’s reaction to the WWSD ARs.

Next thing I knew, I was watching some goth-like chick emote about glitter-covered smartphone cases.

There is no truth to the rumor that shrill, anguished cries emanated from the newly-opened windows of the Secret Lair, though it is true that for some reason the chickens panicked and LB left the room.

“Omigod, who doesn’t love a glitter phone case?” she trilled.

“Well, lady, that would be me,” I shouted, frantically trying to jab at the touchscreen with suds-covered fingers.

I curse the day someone invented glitter.

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*BTW, expect posting to be a bit sparse for the rest of the week. Don’t know for sure.