There’s been a lot of activity in Jay’s work shop. The saw dust has been flying!

Although, not so much on the jewelry cabinet:

The shelves are installed, the doors are fabricated, and the trim has been added. I believe we are to the point of installing hinges… if we had them to install. Those have not yet been purchased. So it sits and waits…

We did manage to get one project together and put to use:

The platform bird feeder has been weather proofed and had the screen installed.

I haven’t seen as many birds on this as I had expected. I have one mourning dove that gets in there and then refuses to let anybody else in. The sparrows are in there when the mourning dove is not occupying it, but that’s about it.

I went out there one day to see how much seed had been eaten, and I noticed some anonymous critter poop in it! No wonder the birds don’t want to spend time in it! The problem was that I couldn’t identify the poop to know what is getting in there. I told Jay that I wanted to buy an inexpensive camera and set it up so that I could catch the critter in the act. The only critter I’ve seen around is a skunk. Jay saw it around the feeder, and I saw it actually on its back legs leaning into the feeder to get to the seed, but I haven’t seen it IN the feeder. I did a quick google search on ‘skunk poop’ (which turned up a lot of interesting pages!), but none of it really looked like what I’m finding in there. We might have to build a platform to put it up a little higher so that the pooping critter can’t get into it.

(An interesting aside about the skunk… it’s quite a striking creature! If it hadn’t had the tail upright I might have mistaken it for a cat because it’s almost all white! It just has some splotches of black on its head and at the base of the tail. When a rabbit came hopping up a little too close it waved the tail in warning, and the rabbit backed off. Thank goodness!)

The other outside project that I had Jay do for me is an experiment of sorts. I wanted an easier way to cover my rose bushes. Usually I wrap them in burlap and struggle to get the thread sewn through the seam to keep them closed for the winter. Then I struggle in the spring to gingerly untangle the rose bushes from the burlap. It’s a pain. So, this year I’m trying these:

Yes, the picture was taken from inside because I had already been wet and frozen putting these out there. I had Jay make tripods (actually, quadpods as there are four legs) and then I stapled the burlap to the legs. This way the burlap will help protect against the wind and snow without having to be cinched up close to the bushes. I didn’t cover all of them, just the hybrid teas as they are the delicate creatures of the garden.

Last year I had Jay build a wooden teepee for this rose because all of the snow and ice from the roof falls down on top of it. The problem was that there wasn’t enough air movement so when I pulled it off last spring there was a LOT of mold and mildew in it. YUCK! I’m hoping that the wooden support will prevent the ice from doing any damage to the rose bush. We’ll have to see. In the spring when I’m done with the supports they easily pull apart so that I can store them without taking up a lot of room.

The next project is one of mine.

I am going to make these into key chains. You’re probably wondering what in the world are they? They are wooden Jesus Nuts! (Please keep your thoughts pure as these are also made from the old church pews that we used for the Advent Wreath Stand). Thanks to Wikipedia, here is the definition for a Jesus Nut:

(or Jesus Pin) A slang term for the main rotor retaining nut^[1] which holds the main rotor to the mast of some helicopters, such as the UH-1 Iroquois helicopter; or more generally is any component that represents a single point of failure with catastrophic consequences. If the Jesus pin were to fail in flight, the helicopter would detach from the rotor and the only thing left for the crew to do would be to “pray to Jesus.” Real examples of the Jesus pin failing are few and far between. However, the pin must be checked before the flight.^[2] 

I had found a site that sold silver Jesus Nuts as jewelry, but I decided that this would be a great way to use up some of the scraps of church pew oak that we still have sitting around. You have to admit that Jay does have to do some work for the spoiling that he receives from me. He cut these out and tapped them so that they can actually be threaded onto a bolt. Then he made a mop sander for me to use:

This sander did a good job of smoothing out the sharp edges. I have some touch-up sanding to do on them and then I get to finish them. Like I said, I’m going to make key chains out of them and hand them out to friends who will appreciate them.

I don’t have pictures, but currently under construction are some Christmas gifts. I already know what Jay is making for me, but I won’t tell you so that you’ll be surprised when you see it. There has been more milling being done as well, but that’s for another post.