We're saving money!

I mean,   what else can one say?

So far,  the hair salon and nail salon are missing a few bucks due to the Covid-19.   I shan't attempt to quantify just how much I mean by "a few bucks".   But let's just say,  with the money we've saved,   I'm thinking of buying yet another woodworking tool and having it shipped to the door.

Just a thought.   Thoughts are free.

Mostly.

Haven't quite figured out what I want to do today.   Might just futz around out in the "shop".   Seems the sensible thing to do.  I have enough material to make a couple more book cases for the downstairs,  so that might be an idea.

I haven't run out of material just yet,  although there are a couple other things in my pea brain that I wouldn't mind taking a stab at.   It mostly involves storage ideas.

Now,  speaking of things involving wood,  I did manage to (finally) finish a towel rack that T.C. had asked me to make some time *ahem* last year.   (These things can take time, after all)

Hard to get just the right angle.  I do appreciate that there are those woodworkers who have some sort of photo set-up,  but I have no intentions of selling stuff,  so I've never bothered.  That chest in the last two pics is a cherry blanket chest I made...some twenty years ago?  And the first pic has a bed that I made for Daughter Number Two some....twenty years ago.   I dunno.  Maybe that's a rough estimate.  Twenty,  twenty-five?   I suppose I should sign and date everything,  for posterity or something.


I do have one of those branding iron thingies,  with Handcrafted by....The Caretaker.  (no,  that last part isn't quite true,  but you get the idea)

I did get a call from the fellow who has the "make your own wine"  shop,  as I was due to go and bottle both a batch of red and a batch of white tomorrow (Wednesday)  but he's technically "closed"  due to Covid-19. 
Now,  considering that wine making involves being ultra sanitary,  I'm not sure just how he needs to be closed,  whereas the Beer Store and the L.C.B.O.  are considered "Essential Services"  here in Ontario. 
I mean,  I'm not complaining,  and I do buy beer at the L.C.B.O. instead of the Beer Store,  as then I do get a couple Air Miles to boot. 
But "essential"?   Not so sure.

Oh and,  for those who are reading from afar,  as good as our Health Care system might appear to be,  our "drinking system"  is from the Victorian era.   L.C.B.O. stands for "Liquor Control Board of Ontario",   and every province has their own little quirky system of regulating booze (and beer).

We can these days buy beer in the grocery stores,  but of course,  I never think to buy beer at the grocery store,  some sort of conditioning I suspect,  plus you don't get the variety that's available at either The Beer Store or the LCBO.

Anyhoodle,   T.C. is making Potica,  which is a type of Easter Bread,  although it looks like we may be having Easter by way of Zoom,  or some such internet thing.  Not sure how that will play out.


I was going to put in a link,  but you can Google Potica,  and see what I'm talking about.

Thanks for stopping by.

Keep your stick on the ice.

And wash your hands.

It's Saturday!

Or,  as my oldest brother was forever saying,  "Every day is Saturday".   And that was because he has been retired since....I think it was back in the 80s some time.  I'd have to do the math.
So ya,  in our case as well,  "every day is Saturday".   The major exception in the case of the weekends used to be that we would never set foot in a store,  as we had no desire to be out and about with the working folk.  Back in the days when I was working,  and had to venture into a store after work hours or on the weekend,  I'd get ever so slightly annoyed at the Seniors in there,  mostly in the damn way.  Just all I could do to keep from trampling someone's Granny. 

But, we don't want to get off on any kind of a rant here.

We're getting a little bit of rain today,  and the temperature is hovering around 4 degrees.  (Celsius,  what else?)

I was going to have a wee bit of a pity party yesterday,  as both my back and my front were aching like a son of a gun,  after having transplanted that Rose of Sharon on Thursday.

The weather prognosticators were calling for rain,  but in typical fashion,  they were wrong.  It rained somewhere,  but not here.

So it was just about perfect weather for working outside,  with the temps up in the low teens.  Something like that.  Almost "shirt sleeve weather"  for the average Canadian.  Although,  I find that we are typically more willing to step outside and brace the cold after the winter,  than in the fall,  when we've just come through a hot summer.

I'm not entirely sure that the Rose of Sharon will live,  but I wanted to give it a shot.   There was a certain amount of grunting.  Or "peckin' and snortin' , as one of my other older brother was wont to say.
On the other hand,  the ground was considerably softer than it would have been in the fall.   We have clay here,  and it gets to be just like rock.  Digging by hand is,  shall we say,  problematic?

I had to remove one of the fence panels to get in close enough to dig the thing out (I didn't take a before picture,  silly Bunt)  so while I had the panel removed,  I decided to dig out a strip of sod/dirt and put in a row of bricks under the fence.  I still have a fair number of bricks hanging around.  There was an assortment of random building materials here and there on the property when we moved in.
 At the base of each pillar out front for example,  there's roughly the equivalent of a half skid of random cinder blocks that were in the basement.

Three different sizes,  just to make things interesting.

Don't forget,  my late father-in-law was a contractor,  so I guess there were some things left over from time to time.   The story goes that he originally wanted to build out in the country,  but T.C.'s Mom,  (my late Mother-in-Law,  whom I never met) being that much wiser,  wanted to be in town where there was the possibility of public transit.  A wise choice,  as car maintenance wasn't necessarily one of his strengths.   Won't elaborate.


Plus,  back in the day,  there was a "Lakeshore Bus"  operated by Greyhound that my wife's siblings and she would take to get in to Hamilton to go to the only Catholic school around for miles.

The Lakeshore from here is maybe a block away?  Well,  a fairly large block.  Like,  a "Texas block".

And of course,  Greyhound stopped the Lakeshore bus years ago.  Progress.

We finally had brunch around noon time,  and now each of us will go off to our respective "hobby rooms" for the afternoon.   T.C. has her sewing room,  and I my shop.   Did I mention that we have an intercom?   We don't bug each other with it,  but once in a while it comes in handy.

Thanks for stopping by.

Keep your stick on the ice.

And stay inside.

It sure is quiet out there.

My life as a recluse continues.  I'm sure the money that we've saved by T.C. not going to get her hair or nails done has helped offset the money we've lost on the market.

But only slightly.

Thankfully,  it's all just numbers on a screen,  as we have these wonderful things that the kids these days don't have called "Pensions".
Ya,  you can mock me all you want,  you Millenials,  or Gen Xers or whatever you're called,  but just make sure you start saving your cash. 
It is indeed unfortunate if your entire pension income is dependant on returns from the market,  but I've never thought that that was such a good plan to start with. 
That's all I'm gonna say on that.

At some point in the morning,  when I'm starting to melt into the couch,  I muster up my strength to step away from the computer and actually go and DO something.

The sorry thing is,  by the time mid afternoon rolls around,  my energy level is starting to wane ever so slightly,  and I start to have thoughts of  "mañana" .   There's always tomorrow.

I do have this one particular Rose of Sharon that needs to be moved.  I'm not looking forward to that.

There was some discussion in the fall about moving it,  and I really should have stuck to my guns on that one,  as the recommendation from several websites recommend doing so in the fall.   T.C. had other ideas,  so here we are.

I'll probably kill it.  Which would suck,  as I quite like the thing.  The trouble is,  it's right where I'm going to eventually put a fence post,  and if that happens,  I'd kill it for sure.

Supposed to rain tomorrow,  but maybe Friday?   We don't go to the Pub on Fridays anymore,  so it's not like there's some sort of time line during the day that I'd need to adhere to.


Admittedly,  the ground is going to be a heck of a sight softer than it would have been in the fall,  but that's hardly a consolation.   I was younger in the fall.

Well,  I see T.C. just emerged to cut herself a piece of Strudel,  so I think that might be the plan for the afternoon.  Then maybe a little snooze,  and then "we'll see".

Thanks for stopping by.

Keep your stick on the ice.