Friday-the blog report

 If this blog has a theme it is catching you up, with what's been going on in my shop and my life.

So, Part the First

 A couple  of Friday's ago; not the hottest day in recorded history, but a day that finished a close second we had 82 square feet of stone and 1/4 yard of screenings delivered to our back gate.  We put our heads down and went to work putting in this little patio.  We need the patio since our house has a lower level walk-out that was either wet, or muddy or covered with poor quality grass, it always looked a mess.

   After fussing over what to do and exploring the possibilities of plastic composite "wood" product we decided that the thing that resists wet and hides mud best is stone.  We went local, the stone is a Hanson product made in Ontario.  Eva laid the stones and I carried them down the hill from the street, a heavy and tiring job but clearly worth it.  In all the job took about five hours of serious focused work.

Part the Second:

   This is the project that I started a week or so ago.  It got put aside when the Grand kids arrived, mostly because I would rather play with them than make boxes for re-cycling. I made the two bins to fit under the coffee machine and they sit on a wheeled base.  This arrangement is easy to move around and not too heavy to haul out to the garage on garbage day.  Eventually the boxes will get painted to match the unit under which it is sitting, eventually.  It was  a "use up scraps" project that used shallow dados to give the project just a little more strength and make building the boxes a little more interesting.

Part the Third:

   Last week I bought one of these bikes, a Scott SUB 10.  I have owned a variety of bikes over the years, in some seasons I'd ridden more than 2000 km, one year I rode over 5000km. Needless to say serious riding, by a XL size guy beats bikes to death, eventually the gears don't shift and the brakes are broken and riding is barely controlled chaos.   In spite of my preaching about using good tools, I allowed my self to ride a bike that was worn out and prone to break downs for way too long.  I was spending more time fixing than I was riding, and should have known better.    After two very frustrating days in a row last week, I finally caught on, and bought a new bike, with new technology.

  This morning my wife and I went for a bike ride on the local rail trail, it was the first day that a cyclist wouldn't be roasted while riding and so we went out for 50 km together. On the rail trail we passed by a patch of wild black berries, and each ate several handfuls.

 Working in the shop is one of my pleasures in life. Riding the bike and improving my general health and extending my life to work in the shop is an other pleasure.

   Fresh, wild local berries,  are a special treat and these are far enough out of town that it would be cyclists only that find  them.  I plan to get there again before the season is past.

   There will be time for shop projects, but the time spent in the fresh air with family and friends is good  time too.