Hi folks from wonderful balmy Nebraska. Well, 70 degree days in Nebraska in March? I’ll take all I can get. Go grab a cup of your favorite coffee or tea and I’ll catch you up on what’s been going on around the Urban Ranch.
I took a week off to help a friend rewire his ceiling lights. The starting point was three fluorescent ceiling lights. Replacement of these lights with 15 spot ceiling can lights which included separation of six from a hallway circuit to its own switch and adding another new circuit which included replacing a two wall switch box with a three wall switch box. The whole project took about a week. It was the first by myself electrical wiring project for someone else. They read my Grit blog and decided to ask me to come and wire their lights. I guess indirectly Grit blogging does generate income. I never expected to get paid but they decided it was only the right thing to do. So now thanks to Grit blogging I have officially crossed the line into professional handy man. I’m not sure exactly what to think about that.
In the last post our discussion was about flat box furniture. Oh, yes, my daughter decided that my flat box days were not over just yet. Her purchase of the Captain’s twin bed gave me a two day challenge to get the old bed removed and the new bed assembled. This bed was especially challenging in that this three box purchase had five steps to the assembly directions. Was it any wonder that near the end the screws left were a little too short and the wooden dowels were a little too long? Now I could have disassembled the entire bed and tried to figure out how to assemble it again, but for me if the screw fits use it. For the screws too short a trip to the friendly neighborhood hardware store saved the day. For the dowels that were too long a good rasp fixed the issue. Well, you might ask because the wrong parts were put in the wrong place is there any chance the bed will fall apart? Nope not a chance. It’s together and it ain’t coming apart. Now getting it out of the room and moving it to a new house very well could be a problem. One never thinks about that when assembling flat box furniture in a room do they? Oh, by the way this bed was manufactured in Vietnam. It’s getting harder to find anything manufactured in the States isn’t it?
Finally after two days of assembly the final result is a bed that stands erect and strong for a six year old super hero warrior that happens to sleep in one of my bedrooms.
In addition to the above handy work, school was off due to a couple snow days and then again for President’s day and then again for teachers in service day which all cut into my home project time due to entertaining the grandson. Projects are much less draining than a day with the grandson. I love him to pieces but I understand now why parents need to be a lot younger than me.
Among all the other tasks at hand to keep the household running, the storage area suffered but the structure for the insulation and drywall around the heat duct for the dinning room was completed. Maybe that will get done soon. The entire ceiling in this area will be insulated and drywalled to keep the heat from the upstairs out of this area. This will be six inches of insulation to fill up the ceiling rafters. The wall insulation will only be four inches as it will be make out of 2X4s and not 2X8s.
You ever hear of the TV show American Pickers? It’s a show about rummaging through junk to find things of value in storage sheds. You ever have the opportunity to go American pickin’? I felt like I was American pickin’ right in my basement.
Here are three scrapbooks from 1962 through 1965 about all of my sport activities. My Mom cut out every newspaper article about anything that pertained to the football team or track team from my high school years. As for me I was a mediocre athlete but was good enough to make the traveling team to compete in the big events of the year. It was kind of fun to read about some of the old star athletes and wonder just what ever happened to them. I’ve not been to a single class reunion since leaving high school. My high school was so old that at one time the city thought about making it a museum.
Everyone called it the Castle on the hill. There was no airconditioning but we never had heat days off from school. The heat was the old steam radiator heat which caused those by the radiator to roast and those across the room to freeze but we never got any days off because it was too cold. Yes, we did get snow days off when the rural buses just couldn’t run their routes. They were the good old days. Well, I’m not sure they were all good but they are now very old. The museum never happened because of the lack of funding and now the grand old building is called the Castle on the hill apartments.
Next up for the basement pickin’ find is the original gun purchase of my youth. At 35 cents a week for allowance it took nearly a year to combine the allowance and birthday and holiday money to make this purchase of $15.00. I hit many squirrels, rabbits, and turtle dove birds with this gun but never really hurt any of them as it just didn’t have the power to do any damage. The velocity of the BB was so slow it could be watched as it flew through the air. What ever I was shooting at could almost see the projectile coming and jump, fly, or dodge the BB before it hit them. It was the greatest thing ever when I bought it and was a sure memory jogger when I found it. It still works by the way.
Here’s the original guitar that started the journey through the 60s rock and roll garage guitar playing era of my life. It’s a Silvertone sold by Sears and given to me when I was about 9 or 10 years old. It ranked right up there with the BB gun and was the best remembered Christmas present. It still plays wonderfully well. My pride and joy Fender electric guitar I bought some years later was sold probably 20 years ago to fund a Christmas for the kids when money was tight. This probably is a better find at this stage of life then the Fender would have been. All this and more came out of the little soon to be storage area.
The tulip say it’s spring. The Robins say it’s spring. The grass says it’s spring. So I guess it’s spring. I’ve bee sitting out on the Poor Man’s Patio enjoying the sun. Yard clean up has started around the urban ranch and plans for the trellis from last year are being formulated in my mind for this year. The pole beans of last year didn’t get enough sun and didn’t work out so well, but this year I have a new and better plan. It will be glorious. Aaaaaah, well that’s the plan anyway. I really getting anxious to fire up the automatic gravity feed watering system again this year. It will be expanded to water a total of five raised beds. An expansion of two more beds by the fall for next year will be one of the projects.
That’s all for now but much more on the way because spring is here to stay and the snow has gone away. Don’t forget to leave a comment about your spring and summer plans.
