Just Walking In The Rain

Sorry,  but now this tune is going through my head,  so I thought I'd plant the ear worm in your brain too. 
No name calling,  please.

And to think,  this was 1956!   Um hello?  That was the year I was born,  so that tells me that that tune must have stuck around for at least a few years. 
I do seem to vaguely recall singing along with the Beetles later on in the early sixties with my then very young niece.  I was an Uncle at the age of five,  but that's a whole other story.


And yes,  it is definitely raining here at the Ponderosa.  Like....a lot.

The thing is,  if you're not entirely happy with the weather around here,  all you really need to do is wait a few days.  It'll change.   Not always for the better, mind you.

Darned good thing  that we had a thaw a few days ago,  or we'd be in some deep poop.   And that might mean literally.  But,  over the years,  I've carried out certain mitigating exercises to possibly avoid such a situation.  You know,  extra weeping tile and that concrete pad to set the generator on,  which just so conveniently is sloped away from the house.

Even the deluge we had in August of 2014 (before I had put in the pad)  only resulted in about three or four cup fulls of water coming in at that back corner,  which would now be really difficult.

He says.   He hopes.


Anyway,  I can't say I've been up to too much lately.   We did have a crew in on Friday to take down yet another one of the dying ash trees out here in the side yard.  Sad,  but necessary I'm afraid.

There's another one to come down which,  depending on the weather might happen later this week.  I asked if he was coming back today,  but he mentioned something about "back to teaching again",  so I'm guessing he must run a course at one of the local colleges?   I mean,  he is an Arborist after all,  and it's not just something you learn by some sort of osmosis.

I got busy on Saturday tidying up some of the longer chunks the crew left behind.

The deal was,  certain price was agreed to,  with the idea being that the bulk of the wood would be left behind.  I'll once again get around to splitting up this stuff at some point,  but it won't be ready to burn for at least a year or so.

That's my little "Poulan"  there,  that I bought not so long ago from a fellow who was "downsizing"  and sold it to me for an exceptional price.  He had won it as a "door prize"  at some sort of sales conference (odd thing to have as a door prize I thought,  but whatever)  and it was still in the box.  He had never used it.  I haven't even had to sharpen the chain yet.  Its been maybe 20-30 years since I've sharpened a chainsaw chain,  but I'm sure it'll come back to me.

Meanwhile,  I got it in my pea brain a number of days ago that I wanted to disassemble my bench,  clean it up and refinish it. 
Now I know why I had been subconsciously avoiding this job.

This is going to take a while:

Here I've removed both the tail vise and the shoulder vise,  and started sanding the whole thing:

Working on the tail vise.

So I moved the bench top over to a mobile cart so I could take the base apart.  It was pretty gross,  considering how long spiders had been hanging out under there.  Didn't help that we were away for four and a half years either.

Then i realised,  I'll need some sort of "bench" to work on the bench.  Thankfully I have a couple "workmates" stored out in the shed.

And well,   that's pretty much life around here.  Generally fart around.  Work on that for a bit.  Watch some Olympics.  You know.  Like that.

I'll check back in at some point.

Thanks for moving your eyes back and forth.

And remember,  keep your stick on the ice.