swt61

Game night and Detroit pizza at Al's. Great friends, great food and Claire's incredible cherry pie for dessert!

It sounds like a Willie Nelson song... "I'm workin' in an atmospheric river". Continuing the Ipe fence, come rain or shine.

I'm estimating about 1,500 Ipe plugs installed so far, with more to come. The fence is no quite finished. I need to build a trash can barn and a few gates. All from Ipe. Even the roof over the main door is covered with Ipe.

Just finished episode 3. Pretty good so far.

I glued in over 500 Ipe plugs into the outside Ipe staircase and fence, that are all held with countersunk screws. It's monotonous work, but it's easy enough. I just zone out to music. I'll try to remember to take pics tomorrow. With all that Ipe, it really is nice.

I'm watching the 49ers kick the Lions asses! Super bowl baby! In all honesty, the first half had me worried.

Got the latest Covid vaccine, and the RSV vaccine.

So much fun playing games last night! Maki and Walter roughhoused for 4 1/2 hours straight. At one point the very large Walter pounced on Maki, literally covering her completely. I couldn't see her at all for several seconds, until finally she squirmed out under Walter's tail, literally looking like a birthing. She then jumped on Walter's back, ran across his body like a furry bridge, grabbed a mouthful of Walter's face and started tugging! Tail wagging wildly the whole time. All three of us laughing uncontrollably. Those two have met before, but just for brief periods of time. I think they're beasties after last night. This little girl really has no idea that she's a 12 pound Chihuahua mix. She must see herself as a Rottweiler. I really need to get her DNA'd to see what she's working with. Longer body and the Black coloring with White accents. Much larger than a full breed Chihuahua. Maybe some Border Collie or even Dalmatian? 12 pounds of "come at me bitch", whatever she is!

Maki is in no way intimidated by the much larger Walter. She is having the time of her life! At one point Maki had Walter's cheek stretched out like a sail. His size and enthusiasm doesn't seem to frighten her in the least bit.

Going over to Compound Mayberry later for dinner and games with Al's niece Dorothy and Al's sister Corrine. No actual cooking, but I built a fruit salad. I prepped Pink Lady apple, Asian Pear, navel orange, pink grapefruit, cantelope, strawberry, peach and pineapple. Couldn't find any ripe bananas. In the past I've always made a glaze of sour cream and powdered sugar. But I found a recipe online that simply uses fresh lime juice/zest and honey. So I whisked those together. Much more natural and light and the zest really gives a great flavor, while the lime juice keeps the fruit from discoloring. The honey is subtle. ,

Dusty, I know what it's like to be slightly visually impaired. I can't imagine what it would be like to be audibly impaired. I'm glad that you have resolved that issue!

Had an appointment to get my taxes done. A good refund and a very patient Maki waiting in the van, promted a visit to Petsmart (in the same shopping center). It was Maki's first time to visit Petsmart. Many teen and pre-teen girls fawned over her. She had a blast exploring the toys, and picked out her favorite (well her absolutel favorite seemed to be a live turtle in a low shelved aquarium, but we passed on that one). Then got treats from the staff (as well as those I purchased). She really is turning out to be a well behaved girl. If not a little rambunctious for her senior Daddy.

I just thought that looking at wood through a glory hole seemed appropriate.

Have a phenomenal day Mike!

Have an amazing day Adam!

This is what I constantly am telling twinks!

I made that 3 years ago. I thought it was excellent.

I cropped one of the joints... You can see that the upper piece is slightly darker than the lower piece. But it's a nice, tight joint.

I know that if one of the boss' is happy with my work, the customer will be happy. Ciaran has an incredible eye. He'll spot things that no one else will notice. He came through today and was quite pleased. The customers are coming tomorrow for a meeting, so we'll see. I'm happy with how everything has turned out. Now I'm outside finishing up the Ipe stairs and landing. Even the ceiling above the landing is Ipe. As usual for us, this customer seems to have unlimited funds. The thing about the handrails is that the specialty lumber yard only had 8' lengths of the 8/4 Walnut and White Oak. The long runs are about 19', so I had to make two joints. They're scarfed and held together with dominoes. They came out great. Super tight tolerances.

I see what you did there.

The stairs are covered with paper to protect them, but they are also White Oak. So these will match quite well.

Here is the Walnut with said stain, and the metal rail cap. This metal rail will ne painted Black to match the wall rail brackets. The White Oak rails have stainless brackets, and that metal rail is also stainless.

I could get into that! The music's good too.

I just set the table saw to the desired angle and ran it through, turned it over and ran it through on the opposing side. I did have a second set of hands attached to Al.

They're trying to match the finish on the nearby Walnut kitchen cabinets, and thought that was the closest match. It really was close.