Growlery, 11/22/11

Nothing very visible has happened in the Growlery during the past week, just slowly tightening windows and getting it more homey. Today I added another chair so Christy from next door will have something better than an old pail to rest his poor old broken-down ass on. As you may recall, Christy is for all practical purposes a one-armed man. As a lad he blew most of his right hand off screwing around with a revolver, then three years ago he had an accident while climbing a tree to a deer stand. "Hell, I only do it once every 60 years." A one-armed old man climbing up a tree while carrying a loaded .50 caliber muzzleloader - what could possibly go wrong? When the butt hit the ground the gun discharged, the ball struck him in the right armpit, destroying his shoulder. After numerous failed surgeries at the Mayo Clinic, the arm just hangs there limp with a non-functioning hand attached. He does not have it removed because, as he puts it, "I've become attached to it over the years". I only digress to share this little nugget of misery and woe because he is presently in South Dakota on a pheasant hunting trip ... with a shotgun ... a regular unmodified shotgun ... a one-armed hunter armed with a shotgun and a history of gun related mishaps. And still he is invited on numerous hunting and fishing trips. "They only tolerate me because I cook." For the sake of his companions, let us hope he doesn't receive the honorary Richard B. Cheney Award for Marksmanship.       Again.

Back to my world, I've added an additional lower shelf to the desk to hold my amp/CD player and I put a little knob on my cigar humidor, thereby turning it into a lidded drawer. The waste basket is the first prototype of the Hershberger baskets that Velo Orange used sell, from back when I was in the Amish basket business. ;-)

My old man made the ottoman. I have plans to eventually cover it with button-tucked cognac cowhide. He tended to cobble together junk furniture, but this one caught him in a brief moment of sobriety and it's quite sturdy and is just the right dimensions. 

Oh, and the bookcase is a peach crate from my late father-in-law's general store. For years, along with cardboard boxes, it was part of my very sophisticated wine cellar. It ain't much, but I will die with it. All the miscellaneous on the desk top have personal back links too of course, or they wouldn't be up there. There are a lot more and if I ever get this thing done, I'll post a history of them all.

You can double-click this photo if you want to read the writing on the wall or check the titles of my reading material. 

McLean bike for sale link

http://1410bicycle.blogspot.com/2011/11/mclean-for-sale.html

Growlery, Phase II Completion

A couple of people have inquired about the progress of the Growlery. It's slowly coming along.

My workbench will be centered on this, the  west wall. The boxes in the corners are actually temporary stereo speakers.  I have a flush, wall-mount set that I will install when I put up the sheetrock. 

Same wall. The windows slide up in the wall, so I have to  insulate above the window with 3/4" foam panels. I think the ceiling will probably be tongue-in-groove pine, painted off-white.

The light fixture with the cover removed. My vision is not good and will continue deteriorating, so I installed as robust a fixture as was feasible. It's pretty intense, so I wired it with two switches, so I can turn on either three tubes or six. I also bought a dark woodgrain linoleum remnant for the floor to make nuts, bolts and widgets as visible as possible. There is another single light and a cigar exhaust fan above the desk on the other end of the room.

The desk corner. Eventually there will be wainscoting and bookshelves in this corner.  The wall-heater under the window throws off pretty good heat, but just in case I wired another circuit under the north window for a future  auxiliary heater if I need it.

Photo...

... at Edgewater Park, from Lorna's cell this evening on her daily walk.

Hell in a Handbasket

The world is going to hell in a hand basket. The world economy is collapsing, Penn State is a den of perverts ... and then ... the Elbow Room. When we arrived for our regular Friday night hamburger,Vic was waiting for us with the saved Minneapolis Tribune newspaper for our reading pleasure. Rachel, the waitress, knows what we want, only stops by our booth to confirm it. All is normal and right with the world, right? Wrong. After my cheeseburger with fried onions and a side of deep-fried onion rings - done crispy, I surprised even myself by ordering a desert - the local delicacy, strawberry rhubarb pie. Obviously it is seasonal, so I expected it to be frozen.  But it was even worse. Mary used to bake the pies at home and bring them in to the cafe in the morning. The looong arm of health regulation finally has reached out and saved us from ourselves. Mary can't do that anymore. Her kitchen has been deemed unsafe, unclean, and unhealthy - it just ain't safe. Instead of a flaky, lard based crust rolled by hand, encasing fresh rhubarb and strawberries, the pie came from Sysco, Inc. The crust was a cardboard based product and the filling was pink goo with a slight hint of artificial strawberry/rhubarb flavoring.  But it was safe. :-(

When I got home, I had a waiting email from L.P. confirming a breakfast date for tomorrow morning at Trumble's, where they have a full time baker who prepares all variety of things that will probably kill me in the long run. At least it'll be real food that takes me out.

Illegal R Us

Ducks At Dusk

Oakwood Sunset

Day of the Dead

        

Name That Stick Contest

We have a winner! Hell, the name of my stick has been hanging in the air just waiting to be spoken. For at least ten years of my life, trudging across snow covered fields with our guns at the ready, getting lost on narrow gravel backroads or bad neighborhoods on our first forays into the Urban Jungle, Margadant in his best Chingachgook impression, urged me forward into poor decisions with, "Um, come Pathfinder ... etc." I suspect, although James has always been a literary man and a woodsman of sorts, it probably came from a Jonathan Winters record rather than James Fenimore Cooper. Nevertheless, Pathfinder has a nice, vaguely sarcastic ring to it.

Lawyers, Guns and Money

Gentleman (and Ladies),

We have situation where one of our frequent commenters is about to be thrown out of a third rate banana republic. A couple of us have been exchanging news, bad advice and copies of letters to embassies, etc for a couple of months now and it has finally come to a head. At the end of this month he has to be out. Period. The issue is that he has a family there. His young son has dual citizenship, but his wife does not. (I have  just been advised that his son also needs a Banana Republic passport to leave.) If I were a religious man I would be praying for him. I am not, so Warren Zevon is all I have to offer.

Albert Lea Audubon Park

For local hikers, go to the south end of Madison, turn left on Oregon for one block to the dead end ... and find the hidden park. :-)  And be alone for awhile.

Sign with MY STICK, a reclaimed shovel handle which spent 30 years as a curtain rod in our basement before being reborn a third time. It just feels right in my hand. It was just waiting for all those years.

No bikes!

Lorna with HER  store-bought sticks.

Accidental art.

Stump.

Very dry. Normally this is a marsh.

Wild asparagus.

Walnuts. You could fill a large pickup box with black
walnuts this year.

Markers. Somebody's pets? Or unfortunate pioneers?

Teak (!) chair at the rest stop.

Yard art. Bird feeders, chairs and benches - places to sit and think and  rest your feet.