It's ALIVE!

OK, Campers, it's been a busy week at Rancho Juvat, so let's get started.

 Time hack. It's 0400 out in Tuna-Land, 0600 on the Rancho and those crazy, lazy lugs (you know who you are) on the East Coast are just starting to stir at 0700.

Next we'll go with the Weather.

Nobody does the weather quite like him.  After a week or so of 100^o+ days, we're back down to relatively cool mid-90's.  So, the walks up to feed the horses aren't quite so drenching.

On-going Mission Reports

1) Status of Little J.  Still in durance vile.  His replacement had some trouble jumping hoops to get into country which delayed his arrival in country. The past tense of that last verb telling the story.  However, like everyone else with this communist flu, the replacement is now in his quarantine period.  After which Little J and he will do some handover coordination for about a week.  Once that is satisfactorily accomplished, Little J will depart and return to Kuwait where, word on the street right now is, he will be put up in a hotel, by himself, for his 14 day quarantine.  After which, he can rejoin his beloved.  Sometime around August 20th which, if one believes in omens, was my father's birthday.

So, we've got that going for us.

2) MBD construction project status.  Since MBD is working from home (like a bazillion other folks) and SIL is beginning his final year of Seminary School, they need workspace in their house.  MBD asked if I could make a desk big enough for the both of them to work without bumping elbows all the time.

One can ALWAYS make something bigger.  The problem is how big is the container it's going into.  In this case, the living room which is not too big.  So, the desk will be L shaped with one leg at 7' exactly and the other leg at 6' 8".  About 23" deep.  I set out to my favorite big box store to buy some 5/4 cedar deck planks that I'd had great success using on my chair/bench project for the guest house.  On arrival, I found they only had two in stock and both were warped, bent and bowed (AKA unusable except for fire wood).  I asked the friendly guy at customer service when he expected another load.  Well,  apparently, the gummint dictated that saw mills were not essential business, so had been shut down. They had only recently reopened and backlog was large. I mentioned that lumber was essential to my mental health and so that decision was, like so many recently, BS.

He agreed, and asked what I was working on, so I told him and he took me by the hand (ok we stayed 6' apart, but you get my meaning) and walked me to another section of the store where he showed me some cedar boards.

They were gorgeous!  (Gorgeous is the wood worker's term for "expensive".)  So, I did some cipherin' and spoke with my banker.  Mrs J said I could go ahead and get them.  (Apparently, I had been getting cranky lately with nothing to keep me busy other than the house and the foreman was getting tired of my questions so...)

Toldja they were gorgeous

 I loaded 4 8'x12"x11/16" Cedar planks into my truck and headed home.

Now, my workshop is 15' long, so my first thoughts were how the heck am I going to plane them.  I puzzled on that for a day or so when one of those 3AM moments happened.  The Tail Gate of my Truck works pretty well as a bench for a planer and with a Saw horse for an entry support and a roller stand for the output, the planing went relatively smooth.  However, the  thickness was now just over 1/2".  So, I went back to my friend and bought a sheet of 5/8" plywood (one side sanded, no knots).  Cut it in half lengthwise then used each piece as a base to laminate two of the planks side by side together.

Used a couple of pipe clamps to gently force the sides together on the dowels

I used dowels every 6" to keep the top level and was very pleasantly surprised that it worked quite well when I put the pipe clamps on and cranked them down a bit.

Cut a notch in the side that would go against the wall, for an electric/USB charging port, then put a piece of trim around the edge.

Then came....Sanding.

Yes, Beans, I was very religious about wearing a dust mask.  (Sorry, gonna go off topic.  Even with the dusk mask on all the time I was in the shop, I still had saw dust in my nostrils.  My shop mask is much better than all the masks I see being worn at the store.  I can see sawdust, I can't see the communist flu virus.  Tell me again, why we MUST wear masks? Going back on topic,now. Sorry!)

Finally, I got the first leg sanded to satisfaction.  4 coats of Polyurethane later and Voila'.

 This week's project is a repeat of last weeks.  Is Ground Hog Day coming soon?

3) Last week, while waiting for finish coats to dry, Mrs J was being ruthless!

"VE must purge ze junk ve haf accumulated in zis House over ze past twenty years!  Get to Verk!"

"Jawohl, mein Anführer ... ich meine meine Liebe".

When Dad had passed away, we brought most of his "stuff" to our house intending to go through it when we had time.

Yeah, Right!

Well, now was the time.  So I'm going through the stuff and I find an envelope with my Mother's handwriting on it.  So I opened it up.

 This was cool.  They're the ration books for my Aunt and Uncle who were 2 and 8 months old at the time of issue.

This was my first indication that my Favorite Aunt's first name wasn't Janet.

The instructions were interesting.  Not much waffling around back then, I guess.

And signed by my Grandfather.

It was a good moment.

4) Finally, I've got a video of our construction supervisor at a critical moment in the construction process.

Yes, we have electricity and air conditioning!

And flooring and fixtures.

And a front door.

Appliances will be delivered and installed this week and then the inspections will commence.  The last major portion of this project, paving the road and putting down concrete in the low water crossings should begin in the next week or so.  Once that's done, we can set a closing date and start my 45th and last move.

Yeah...I'm a bit excited!