A tale of two squirrels

I put the bird feeder up after winter had already started. Despite a little red squirrel feeding there too, the seed level would only descend slowly. Then, this past weekend, I noticed a *dramatic* drop in seed level over very little time. What had changed? Word had gotten around! Saturday I counted around a dozen birds at the feeder: sparrows, finches, chickadees, nuthatches, and woodpeckers. I figured I should grab my camera, there were so many birds! Of course, by the time I got back to the window with my camera, the birds were gone... my little red friend was there:

He was nice, though, and only had a few seeds before letting the birds back. (I'd post a photo of the birds, but they blend fairly well with the trunk, so it's hard to see them with all the spots on the window... which prompted Saturday's cleaning frenzy.

However, I suspect the real reason for the drop in seed levels is this pig, a grey squirrel:

When I took this photo, my little red friend was higher up in the tree, and eventually he gave up and scampered away. :(

Getting $#!T Done!

This weekend I:
- cleaned the toilet
- washed the kitchen window (well, the inside... I'd have to shovel a bunch of snow to do the outside, and, although warmer, it's still below freezing out there... not the best time to wash windows)
- swept kitchen floor (mostly because the shelf/board I moved to wash the window dropped crud on the floor... wiped the board down too)
- glued soles back on cheap sandals I wear at work (on warm days)
- caulked along board that runs along the counter with the kitchen sink
- recaulked parts of tub where caulk was failing (more accurately, built up caulk)
- laundry
- went to Rona (twice)
- planned how to make upstairs shelves pretty

Photos of recent "got $#!t done" episodes that I didn't manage to blog until now:

Laundry room cabinet going up, before I realized I put the centre panel in facing the wrong way, so that the narrow part would get two doors, and the wide part one:

Boo-boo from not being careful enough when taking cabinet box apart to change the centre panel:

I can repair that!:

To-do list I made for when a friend came to visit:

(She visited and knit, and kept me on task. I visited and worked. If she felt so inclined for any reason, she was permitted to direct me to do a different task. Friend did an awesome job! Look at all that stuff crossed off! Oh... and I didn't take a photo of the column of drawers that now line up and slide much better now that their broken glide corners have been replaced.)

Laundry room cabinet after the centre panel had been adjusted:

Yeah, whoops. I decided I wanted the wide spot on the left, not thinking about the effect that would have on the doors. I decided I didn't care.

Of course, the cupboard, being el-cheapo particle board, didn't take long to start to sag under the weight of a bunch of laundry detergent. Fix: Add some screws to the bottom up into the back support, and put a piece of moulding under the cupboard. I am tres impressed with the miter job I did:

(It turns out I *can* use a miter box if the stuff I'm cutting is soft enough... and, being MDF, this stuff was nearly cardboard and super-soft.)

Observation: nothing like nearly-level cupboards to make it apparent just how unlevel the existing shelving is. (Gotta love old houses where *nothing* is square!)

Also put up some hooks last weekend so that this stepstool/ladder has an "away" spot, and put enough hooks & screws in the broom closet so that all the brooms can hang. (It's a bit crowded in the broom closet, but it'll do.) I neglected to photograph the broom closet, but do have a photo of the stepstool hooks:


Oh, and a friend/coworker and I fixed mom's laser printer. I (and my coworker) rock. The printer-repair guy mom paid previously *doesn't*.

Speaking in Tongues

Saturday morning, my bathroom clock radio was fine. Saturday evening, it looked like it had had a stroke:

I tried unplugging it and plugging it back in, on the off chance that would reset it. Nope:

*sigh* What is it with me and LED displays? (New bread machine worked much better the second time around, so, after one more test, old bread machine with its cryptic display will be leaving, one way or another.)

My Louis Riel Day

Today, on my holiday Monday, I slept late, then shovelled the sidewalks:

(I shovelled a lot more than what you can see here, but this is representative, and I didn't want to go back out in the cold to take more photographs that you probably don't care much about anyway.)

I had a battle of the bread machines:

Sourdough (back) in the old bread machine, plain white (front) in the new... because the last time the new bread machine produced a funny-looking loaf with a swirl of black (oil?), that I ended up tossing out:

This week, however, the new machine produced a perfectly acceptable loaf, so now I have an overabundance of bread, rather than a shortage. Once I've gone through these loaves, I'll give sourdough another try in the new machine.

Finally, I finished off the day with an evening at the art club:

I finished carving the modelling compound, patched the cracks, then added some colour that will mostly be an underpainting. (With this much texture, I want to avoid white spots showing through, so I figured I'd get things covered with colours that wouldn't look funny if I miss spots with the final colours.

Quote from Riel: "My people will sleep for one hundred years, but when they awake, it will be the artists who give them their spirit back."

Let's see... slept late, struggled with snow, then had a nice evening doing art. Not quite what Riel meant, but I think it works. ;)

Woodturning Workshop

Last night and today (uh, well, now yesterday) I was at a woodturning workshop at Lee Valley, and it was *awesome*. I've never turned before. Friday night, I created a somewhat uneven dowel from a chunk of wood rough-cut from a 2x4:

(We were learning how to go from square to round, and handle two of the tools.)

This morning we continued by learning coves and beads. My practice piece started to look like a spurtle, so I practiced more even cutting to make it into one (well, it needs some pretty major sanding, plus the end trimmed off):

I was still pretty proud of it, though.

I started a second chunk of former 2x4 practice, but only got it mostly rounded by the time we switched over to working with wet poplar to make a "weed pot" (it won't hold water, but you can stick a few dried weeds in it for decoration). Here's my chunk of poplar after I took it from square to round:

And here's my bud vase / weed pot:

I was very proud of my "spurtle" and weed pot, until I got to make a second weed pot out of a Manitoba maple burl (on the left in this photo, center shows the bit of burl left over after I parted the pot from it):

Other side:

This makes my first projects look like junk. I'm exceedingly proud of this little creation! (It's sanded, but I still need to apply a finish.)

There's a lathe in the workshop in my mom's garage, but it's a metal lathe. Bummer. (Until I decide I want to do something that needs a metal lathe, of course.) I either need to figure out how to convert it, or buy myself a wood lathe... and the tools too, of course. Or find somewhere where I can use a wood lathe for a drop-in fee.

Friday night I googled lathes, to find out the difference between wood and metal lathes. The main difference is that a wood lathe has a tool rest that allows you to work freehand. The lathe in the shop also has a "dead end" rather than a "live end" (live is better, dead needs oil), and the chucks aren't spiral (according to the instructor), so it's harder to get things centered properly.

I'd like to do more of this wood turning stuff. Spindles, bowls, nostepinnes, bobbin lace bobbins...

Art Workshop

Saturday I participated in a workshop on acrylic mediums. I had fun! This is how far I got by the end:

(If you're thinking this looks vaguely familiar, yes... I'm painting the starfish again.)

I left the painting at the club so that I didn't mess up the modelling compound on the way home. Today I went back to the club to work on it some more. Whoops! Turns out modelling compound will crack:

(My mom's was cracked too. I blame the dry air... probably if I had wrapped it in plastic so that it cured more slowly that would have reduced the cracking.)

I decided to carve it anyway, and then patch up the cracks that were left after carving. I only got about two-thirds of the way through the carving tonight, though, so the patching will have to wait:


Stuff used: modelling paste, gel medium, sand, cotton from cotton balls, wool, tar gel, and gesso.

I think it's going to turn out *awesome*. :)

One of the local art supply stores has a sale on now... I'm thinking of going and picking up some more mediums. (Tar gel... I was borrowing my mom's, maybe string gel, and I'll see what else they have. The GAC stuff sounds interesting too.)

Encaustics

I bought mom (& me) an encaustics kit plus a bunch of cradled boards for Christmas, and today we had fun painting! I painted starfish from a photo I had taken a bunch of years back:

Not bad for a first attempt, huh?

Interestingly, it also looks good rotated by 90 degrees:


Now I need to decide which way to hang it. ;)

In the category of "no shit, Sherlock"... tins of wax are still hot several minutes after you remove them from the heat:

I also had it all over me, the floor, and the newspaper covering the table. Thankfully I was able to get it all off the floor! I put as much as I could back in the tin... that stuff is expensive!

Open Letter

Open letter to manufacturers of toasters:

Is it really that hard to design a toaster that toasts more evenly than this?

Done?

Contemplating...

House Discoveries

I was out for drinks with some colleagues on Thursday, and, after talking with a friend of my boss, it occurred to me he might be interested in the oscilloscope in my front porch that my brother left behind. It turns out he was. Idly, he wondered why it was in the front porch, since that isn't a terribly good place for an oscilloscope. I didn't know why, but said I'd bring it in to warm up so that he could test whether it actually worked or not.

Tonight I wandered down to the basement, wondering if my brother had left behind a "third hand", since Princess Auto has them on cheap right now. I found out why the oscilloscope was in the front porch: there were two more in the basement.

I had no clue what I would do with *one* oscilloscope, let alone three.