Category: home and garden

The girls’ dresser

On Friday night my dad and I moved this finished dresser in to Ella’s room. It took roughly 3 months to build due to some distractions, but Ella (and Michelle) are happy to see a finished product finally sitting in the room after many afternoons over in my dad’s shop.
Finished Dresser
The idea was to build a matching dresser for the furniture my dad built for Ella’s arrival. With two girls, we were going to need a little more space for clothes and blankets. My dad is the craftsman on the project, but I tried my best to be as involved in the design and building process as time would allow. I used Sketchup to come up with an initial design after measuring the existing furniture, only to have it thrown out when my dad pointed out that it was half as wide as I intended it. “You want it to be a square?”
So the second version was much better (below), though my dad made some design changes based on things he’s learned since building the originals, and based on access to certain materials. The original dresser had a bunch of birdseye maple in it that he got on the cheap from a cabinet shop in Yakima. To get even enough birdseye for the top of this project would have tripled the price. So we went with a nice-enough selection of rock maple (some with great figuring) and used Pacific Coast maple and some poplar for the innards.

This is the first project like this that I’ve been involved in from start to finish, so I was taking every opportunity to learn from my dad. He also took the opportunity to not be sold on sketchup for design, since it seemed that we were correcting mistakes at every point of the project. I blame this more on my creating a plan and his modifications of it, so we had no single accurate plan at any given time. I also learned from some bone headed mistakes, like if you modify the height of the piece, you have to redraw all the drawers if you don’t use sketchup like a pro. Needless to say, I learned one of the most important things in woodworking – how to back out of a problem.

It was a little frustrating that it took so long (I’m sure my dad would agree, since it was holding his shop hostage), but I had a lot going on at home. And when I tried to rush in some work, I often made the biggest mistakes. But I also got to learn to use his shop and the process from design, to purchasing the wood, to planing and cutting boards, assembly, and finishing. I’d done individual parts in the past, but never all as one project.
Dresser in Sketchup

Having made the piece, I can see all the flaws and errors, though they’re relatively minor. Hopefully it isn’t obvious to Ella and she decides she’d rather have IKEA stuff for the rest of her life. It was a lot of fun, and I’m hoping to find another project to do soon. Right after my thesis.

Perils of spring weather

Michelle and I took full advantage of the glorious weather to work the yard in to shape. We also added a third raised bed in the front yard, which Michelle agreed to with some trepidation. It’ll be nice to have another bed that gets more sun and won’t be as likely to have heirloom tomatoes plucked by passer-bys.

This evening after a second full day of yard work, we decided a walk to Pause was in order. On the walk there, we discovered that the two warm days was enough to get the ants out, and we passed through hatch after hatch of flying ants. The patio at Pause was even getting swarmed, but I seemed to be taking the brunt of the, well, nuisance. The nuisance quickly turned in to sheer terror when one ant landed on my ear lobe and crawled up and in to my ear canal. A quick finger after him wasn’t enough and he crawled in to some place that tickled like hell. The movement somewhere that only water and wax goes was the stuff of childhood nightmares. The tickling was roughly where my jaw hinged, and it was not normal. For the next 4 minutes I thrashed my head around, used my finger to suction and plunge, and finally flooded my ear with water. That seems to have done the trick, though I kept having to remind myself that the ear was a closed-enough system that nothing could go too wrong.

Still, I hope that never happens again.

Double Yolker

Yesterday we found our first double-yolk egg. We’re not sure who laid it, but I think it was probably Boots or Bitchzilla. It’s huge, but it was cracked because the shell was so misshapen and thin. So we cooked it up for Barley. Hopefully they’ll be more careful next time so I can eat it. Everyone knows quantity means quality.

1 regular, and 1 super egg
2 Yolks, exposed

Tunnel Rats

When we first got the chickens last spring, I read Storey’s guide to chickens from cover to cover. One of the many things it covered was the issue of rodents. The coexistence of rodents and chickens is almost unavoidable because the chickens are rather messy and clumsy eaters and the design of most coops allows the small, conniving rodents access to pick up the scraps. Though nearly unavoidable, you want to reduce opportunities for rodents to the best of your abilities.

Last fall, our rodent story begain with a family of mice that set up shop in the garage to take advantage of the loosely guarded scratch (dried corn). At first, I was gentle. I caught 9 mice in 24 hours and released them all a block away at the abandoned building and blackberry thicket. But then I had to start using kill traps when the little buggers failed to take the hint. After a week or so, we’d cleaned up. No food source, no mice.

Then, about a week ago I looked outside and saw a rat. Not a tiny, cute field mouse, but a big ‘ol Norwegian. I wasn’t surprised (we live in the city after all) and the hens have a steady diet of chicken feed, scratch and kitchen scraps. I wasn’t immediately sure of what to do since we couldn’t exactly get rid of the food source (lazy, sloppy chickens), but resolve wasn’t formed until I noticed the rat had burrowed in to the compost bin and had pulled out bits of celery stalk, carrot, apple core and potato. I’d be happy to have vermicomposting , but that’s done with worms and flies, not rats. And I now know why: Rats take stuff out of the compost bin. And their tiny little feet leave prints in the snow.
Rat Tunnel
So, we decided to trap. It didn’t take long for us to catch the rat, but then evidence has come in that maybe it wasn’t a solo gig. The biggest surprise of all? I was walking from the garage to the house when my foot sank. The brick I had stepped on sunk about 4 inches under my foot. Panic set in because the neighbor across the street was dealing with a drain-related sink hole. Over the next few trips between the house and the garage, another several bricks sunk underfoot. Crap.

Wondering what to do if we had a sink hole, I remembered the house we rented in SW Portland with burrowing rats who dug from the crumbling crawl space out to the middle of the yard under the bird feeder to get bird seed from underneath. So I pulled up a few bricks and discovered tunnels. The rats had created a maze of tunnels under the brick patio. Tunnels filled with chicken food and bits of compost. Impressed and annoyed, things have been escalated. I worked on cramming the tunnels full of dirt and fixing bricks. I ended up placing about 7 gallons of dirt back into the ground before sanding the bricks and resetting the traps. This is likely to be a protracted battle, and I suspect that I’ll lose.

Winter birds

I’ve been really enjoying the winter weather this past week. I’ve especially enjoyed all the birds flocking to the feeders outside our dining room. Here’s a few of them, though the list includes black-capped chickadees, chestnut-backed chickadees (a new one for me), goldfinches, house sparrows, juncos, and small little wren-like birds that move way too quickly about the birch tendrils.

Mock Duck

Tonight I used a wheat gluten product known as mock duck. It’s a brownish blob formed into a miniature duck-ish shape complete with dimples that works as source of protein when you’re out of duck. I picked it up after coming across it in a recipe for squash curry that sounded good. Tonight was my night to cook, so I walked by Vieng Lao on my way home from work and picked some up. They also have mock chicken, abalone and oyster, but I didn’t see any mock turtle.

Anyway, it wasn’t bad by any means, though duck would have been much nicer. I managed to make a curry that didn’t bomb, and I’ve got lots of leftovers for tomorrow.

3 in the hand

Yesterday was the first time that all three hens laid eggs on the same day. Additionally, they all laid them in the nesting box! Hunting all over the yard wasn’t necessary this time. I think they’re starting to “get it.”

Three fresh eggs and a decoy
Three fresh eggs and a decoy

The decoy is a golf ball that some friends made for me in high school. Oddly enough, we may see them again for the first time in nearly 8 years this Friday.

Dishwasher

The dishwasher stopped suddenly on Thursday night. Well, it didn’t stop, but it wouldn’t drain. I tried to start it again to force it to drain, but luck wasn’t with us. In fact, I think Luck must have taken an early weekend, because the problem wasn’t a clogged drain or a kinked hose or anything simple. By Saturday morning, the motor seems to have died.

Both Michelle and I hate the dishwasher, but it’s such an unimportant thing to consider when it’s working that we just went with it. Sure, it frequently left detritus on the glasses and bowls, but it should be sanitized. We hope it was sanitized.

Anyway, it was clear that the old box was dead, so I pulled it out then went to work on my thesis while Michelle shopped around for replacements. After taking it out, we also learned that apparently there were some dampness issues because the subfloor had some mold on it. By 2pm, Michelle had found a washer and I was tired of working on my thesis so we got back to work on the washer. The old one was a bit of a tank, partly because it was made of steel, and partly because it still had some undrained water in the sysem, but most of that leaked out while evicting it with a hand truck.

The new one was light enough to pick up and carry myself, which was great for carrying, but makes me a tad nervous. I opened the box, took out the instructions and noticed on the second page that the required cabinet height was 34″. We had a 32″ opening. Crap. It wasn’t listed anywhere on the outside of the box, so we had to open it up to find out. We quickly checked the internet for several other models and manufacturers and it seems that 34″ was the minimum cabinet opening across the board. Crap.

At some point in the past, one of the previous owners had remodeled the kitchen by adding an additional crap-board subfloor and non-adhering vinyl tiles. To make the opening work, I removed the subfloor inside the cabinet and removed some of the extra trim around the cabinet and viola, 34″.

Next, I had to prepare the utilties. Electrical and the drain were simple enough, but the previous owners had a section of iron pipe (like gas line) in between the water line and the dishwasher, so there was this nasty section of rusty gunk that had to be removed. The dishwasher did not come with the necessary 90 degree elbow for connecting the supply line, so we had to make another trip to the big box store. Since we use pex for plumbing, I was tempted to just run out to Parkrose Hardware (awesome) since I knew they would have the appropriate parts, but my dad brought over a sharkbite fitting that spared me a trip all that way and instead we were able to get the parts at Lowes with just one complete redesign based on inventory.

Finally, 5:00 pm, hooking up utilities. I managed to wedge the washer into the cabinet and feed the utilities to the front. Hooking up the drain was a cinch, electrical not too bad, but connecting the water was a pain, and by that point, my arms were starting to loose initiative. I was on the opposite side of the connection, so I was trying to attach something and tighten it in reverse in a space with not enough room to turn a wrench to tighten it. Still, persistence paid off and all the connections were in place. With the water and power back on, there were not sparks or leaks, so we started a load of dishes.

It worked.Ella helps dad install the dishwasher

Egg balloon

Two of the three hens have been laying, but it appears that Bitchzilla, despite her early lead in size and attitude, is now the most timid, and most immature. Well, she may be on the verge of maturity now as we’ve found an egg that looks like a first try. At first we thought it was broken because of the odd pitch it was at and the weird shape. When I picked it up to remove it from the coop, I realized that it was still fully intact, but the shell was only slightly more solid than a balloon. Instead of a full egg, it was a thick membrane around a yolk.

When hens start laying, you should expect a few eggs that aren’t quite done. Some will just bee the inner goo (white & yolk), and some with have various stages of calcification as the shell machine comes online. Looks like we’re about to the point of having a working egg production line.

Now, if only we could get them to lay in the nesting box instead of all over the run. It would be nice to have some eggs that weren’t covered in droppings and feathers.