Scattered Thoughts . . .

As I suspected, I only needed a few short hours to finish up the trash shed project.  I completed the entire project early this morning when I installed some pavers and gravel inside the shed.  I had one small issue yesterday.  After all the torrential rain we had the other day and through the night, all the bare, unstained wood was swollen.  The wood was so swollen that I had difficulty opening the doors...  the wood latches were swollen shut...  the wooden tongue between the doors was swollen and jammed into the mating groove on the opposite door... it was difficult opening that brand new shed!   I disassembled most of those swollen parts, sanded them down and then reinstalled them.  They are now slightly tight (because they are still slightly wet and swollen) but easy to operate.  Since then, I've installed the roof and stained everything so it should not swell up like that again.   Here is a shot of it from behind showing the new roof and looking toward our house...

When I run out of building supplies for the bear-proof trash shed, I turn to some smaller projects like the telescope pier.  This telescope pier project is much less taxing on my health than some of our larger home projects so it is a nice project to fall back on when necessary to keep me feeling at least semi-productive.   The grass is now coming up nicely around the telescope pier.  I wrote previously about digging a hole...  building a wood timber pier...  installing it in concrete...  but now I also installed some of the top of the pier where some adjustments can be made.   Looking at the pier from the side, you can see two lag bolts on each side.  These lags bolts run through elongated holes for leveling the top of the pier.  I can slide each of these sides to the correct height to level it.  The telescope mount must be leveled perfectly to track the stars for long periods of time.  Looking at the pier from the top, you can notice a few things.  First, the lines thr

It has been about 50-50 between my health taking a priority and the trash shed project taking priority.  Sometimes my mast cell disease is the culprit, sometimes it is my head injury.  I can't believe that I am still having issues with my head injury.  It is still a bit painful...  I get some numbness...  I get some tingling...  I get dizziness...  I get pain in my ear and it feels like my ear is twice its normal size...  and I still get some transient cognitive issues.   This afternoon, after working on the shed this morning until the rains arrived again, the partial numbness, tingling, and pressure on the top of my head returned yet again.  It doesn't take much, even today, for my head to remind me that I am still dealing with a mild but lingering TBI.   The other day I even had that earache come back again.  It wasn't as pronounced as it was a couple of weeks ago but it was still a nagging reminder of the head injury. Anyway, between rainy days and health problems, I