Scattered Thoughts . . .

W e always have our first barbeque of the season on the weekend that falls around July 1st which happens to be my birthday.  This year, we had this barbeque on July 1st.  If anyone is wondering, I turned 61 years old this year.  Unfortunately, most days, I feel like I'm 81 and I have difficulty and a lot of pain trying to get around and I even look the part due to being hunched over and having difficulty standing.  Contrary to how I feel on these days, my birth certificate claims I am 61 years old this year.   We had a very dry spring to the point where everything in the yard was dying and turning brown but the past two weeks were filled with day after day of solid rain until the day before our scheduled barbeque.  The rain stopped just in time for me to mow the lawn, do some much needed landscaping and set up the backyard for our barbeque.  It was sunny, hot and humid with a bit of smoke from Canadian wildfires hanging in the air.  My health didn't fare so well and I ended up

W hile Lukey and Kenzie were staying with us for a few days (mom was in the hospital giving birth to Sophia), we spent some time in the backyard.  We had a fire in the firepit, nice Adirondack chairs, a putting green, and the new homemade Giant Jenga game.  Later in the evening, I made some Shish-Ka-Bob on the grill in the outdoor kitchen, we had S'mores and we played a few games of Dominoes.   We had a good time playing quite a few games of Giant Jenga!   I shot video as well as photos but I'll put together a video soon for another blog entry.  Hmmm...  maybe I'll put together a video of all the things we did in the backyard on this evening.   For now, here are some photos of Giant Jenga with Gee, Lukey, Kenzie and Pop... We had a really nice time on this afternoon and night!   We're looking forward to the next time some or all of the grandchildren are at the house.  It is always fun to play!

Liza and the kids spent some time at the house after Kenzie's and Gee's 5K run the other day.  They had a little time to kill before Lukey's baseball game later in the afternoon.  While we killed time, we set up the newly finished homemade Giant Jenga game in the backyard so the kids could play a couple of quick games. The weather was chilly, windy and it looked like it would rain at any moment.  We could definitely use the rain but we didn't get any.  It actually feels like September and the lawn looks like a typical dry September lawn.  We really could use rain...  a lot of rain at this point.  We were able to squeeze in a couple of quick games before Liza and the kids had to run to Lukey's baseball game.   Lukey played against Gee in the first game.  Kenzie had the winner in the second game.  Unfortunately, Ace wouldn't allow Kenzie to play so the game was cut short when Ace knocked the tower of blocks over.   Gee and Lukey played a very good game though!  Th

O ur homemade Giant Jenga game is now ready for playing in our backyard! After I finished sanding all the 2x4 pieces with 220 grit sandpaper (which was after 80 grit and 120 grit), I waxed every piece and then polished the wax until it was smooth and slick.  I also waxed the top of the leveling base.  Now every piece is very smooth and looks nothing like a typical framing 2x4 which is how this wood started!  Each of these pieces started very rough when I first cut the 2x4s to length.  Now they are looking nothing like a typical framing 2x4. For some reason, I thought that the relatively easy process of applying wax and then polishing it would go very quickly but, as usual as my health worsens and I get older, I was very wrong in my time estimate.   I think the waxing required even more of my time than sanding with the last grit of sandpaper did and that took far longer than I anticipated!   I found that I could only wax and polish 12 of the pieces in an hour.  There are 54 pieces so th

I 've been working on two small woodworking projects lately.  Well, they are what I would consider small projects but they are taking forever to finish! Everything in the photo, at right, has been sanded with 80 grit sandpaper followed by 120 grit sandpaper so I am making some progress.   As seen in the photo at right, I made a table for the backyard and I am making a Giant Jenga game.  Each of these small projects has required a lot of cutting and even more sanding. Giant Jenga will be played on the ground.  It is only sitting on the table for the photo, at right.  Actually, I wanted to keep the bare wood off the damp lawn so I placed everything on the new table.  All this wood in this photo still needs sanding with 220 grit sandpaper but that finish sanding with 220 grit should go quickly.   This photo only shows about two-thirds of the Giant Jenga pieces because I still need to sand the remaining third of pieces.  I ran out of energy yesterday and I ran out of 80 grit sanding be

M y first springtime woodworking project was a small one but one which will be very useful this summer.  I decided to start my annual woodworking projects by making a Giant Jenga game for the backyard.   I cut up all the wood... 54 pieces in all...  then cut some additional pieces to replace any pieces that weren't looking so good in the first batch.  As I was cutting the initial batch of pieces, I noticed that some of them would not work well so I cut up an additional eight foot 2x4.  After I cut all the pieces, I started working on cutting and assembling a leveling base.   This leveling base has leveling feet at each corner so we can have a level playing surface even on uneven ground.   The great thing about the leveling base is that it can be turned upside-down to store all the pieces (see the last photo, at bottom).  I'm thinking I might need to make some handles for it too.  It is exceptionally heavy with all of the pieces stored in it.  Sheila and I did move it but quickl