Scattered Thoughts . . .

I started off the day hoping to get enough accomplished today to check a few things off my absurdly long to-do list.  First, I did some spraying painting...  that went well.  Then I pulled out a can of white paint, a stirrer, a screwdriver and a ladder so I could put a second coat of paint on a few windows I started a couple of weeks ago.  That didn't go so well. I couldn't seem to hold onto anything.  I dropped the paint can lid into leaves and pine needles so I then had to stop to clean it up.  Then I dropped the screwdriver into the paint covering me and the screwdriver in paint.  Then I dropped the brush to the ground into the pine needles and leaves.  At that point, I was just finishing up a sloppy second coat of paint and decided to call it a day.   It is a bit of a hazy, partly cloudy day but I decided to try out my newly built telescope pier anyway.  Crystal clear skies would have been far better but the last time I saw crystal clear skies here is one night late l

I'm going to keep this short and sweet because I am feeling so lousy.  The past few days have been generally lousy as far as my health goes.  I still managed to get a few little things accomplished over the past few days.   What I accomplished should have been accomplished in a few hours but it required a few days for me to get this done considering how I was (am) feeling.  Anyway, the telescope pier project is now a success! Here is a photo of the telescope pier doing its thing around lunchtime today... This morning, I assembled the mount leveling adapter which is the white metal part on top of the wooden pier...   And, a closer look at this newest part... In this photo, you can clearly see the polar alignment pin.  This turned out to be an easy part to create contrary to what I expected.  I did, however, need to file down one side of the top of this pin in order to make it fit into my telescope mount.  The four bolts around the outside of this adapter make it v

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

I got a little more accomplished on the metal telescope pier adapter.  Today, I drilled holes for 1/2 inch stainless steel bolts (running thread, actually) which will be used to enable fine leveling of the mount.   At this point, I'm running out of oil for keeping the drill bits cool while drilling.  I only have about five more holes to drill...  and two of those holes will require tapping...  maybe I do need some more oil.  We'll see...  The drilling went well.  I was left with two pairs of four holes perfectly aligned with each other.  I will have 1/2" stainless steel threaded rod in these holes.  The running thread will separate the two halves of the adapter...  top and bottom...  about four inches apart...  and stainless steel nuts will allow me to level this adapter.   Here is the top of the telescope pier...  this metal adapter will bolt directly to this wooden top plate through the four holes around the circle scribed into the wood.  The two diagonal l

As expected after all the heavy work yesterday, today has mostly been a day of recovery.  I slept most of the day so far but I did manage to get a little bit of clean-up accomplished around the telescope pier. I was able to backfill around the pier.  There was only about a foot to backfill here because the rest was filled with quick setting concrete.  After leveling it off, I put down some grass seed.  Someday down the road (certainly not this year), I may add stone or concrete pavers to this area.  For now, it will be grass. Those four little stakes in the ground along the timber step (seen in the photo below) are where I will be putting in 4x4 fence posts.  I'll have a gate in between the second and third posts and then the fence will turn back toward the house at the end posts.   The grass seed is green in these photos...  the areas that appear to be just plain dirt on each side of this telescope pier area are wildflower gardens that we planted yesterday.   I desig

I'm in the process of building a few different things around the house.  Depending upon how I feel and how the weather is at the time, determines which project I attempt to tackle each day.  Today, was a beautiful day and we were both feeling quite well this morning so we jumped into some labor intensive projects outside.   First, we tackled the easier project since we are already quite far behind with this particular thing...  spring planting in our wildflower gardens.  We took care of six wildflower flowerbeds and planted new seeds.  This was the easier project and it was finished in a very short time.  It was nice to finally get the wildflowers planted though.  We still need to buy some plants for our window boxes and the three larger planters on our deck but that is typically a "June thing" anyway.  The wildflowers really needed to get accomplished because it is getting late in the growing season. Then it came time to tackle a heavy and very labor-intensive pro