Finished up a new painting last week. It’s been a while since I’ve painted, but it felt good to get back into it. This particular piece had been started last year - just never got around to finishing it. Not sure why, but I felt inspired the other night and decided to take a swing at it.
The two pieces of 2×4’s in the center came from a pile of wood my Dad gave me as part of his winemaking equipment. He would stack up these blocks of wood in his wine press as he crushed and pressed the grapes. Some of the red discoloring on them is probably from the grapes.
The painting measure 36″ H x 48″ W. I used a plastering technique I taught myself last summer over top of most of the surface. House paint was used for the colors along with roofing tar around the blocks of wood. Rusty nails protrude from the wood with some copper wire wrapped around a few of them. And the four things in the corners are carriage bolts.
A detail of one of the four carriage bolts:
A detail of the 2×4 blocks:
Another detail of the right side block and the “S” that was on it:
So this morning I thought about my yard’s to-do list, specifically with regards to our lawn. It needs to be aerated… badly. I tend to not bag my lawn clippings and so the thatch that accumulates is pretty thick. I’ve known about these silly shoes you can buy that will help you aerate your lawn but from what I’ve read they don’t have the best of reviews (in regards to their design as well as their use). Regardless, I thought to myself… hey, I think I can make those! And so for the next couple of hours I proceeded to do just that…
Grab a pair of old sneakers.
Trace the outline of the sneakers onto 1/2″ pressure treated lumber, and cut out the patterns.
Align the sneakers with the boards and drill two holes (one in front and one in back) through the bottoms of the shoes and into the wood.
Pre-drill a bunch of random holes in the wood, large enough to except 1 1/2″ decking screws.
Proceed to drive your screws through the boards.
Fasten the shoes to your iron-maiden-like platforms with carriage bolts.
Walk in circles around your lawn so that your neighbors think you’re crazy.
Yes, I know… it’s a bit ridiculous. But I laughed out loud at myself this afternoon when I tested them out and that was well worth it.
They seem to go into the ground only about half an inch or so - which hardly does any good - but I hacksawed off the protruding ends of the lag bolts so when I use them again they’ll hopefully go in a little further. I figure I’ll use them every once in a while when I mow the lawn - that way I’ll only sometimes look like nut job while I’m out there. :)
Today I took the girls with me and we picked up fresh compost from our local yard waste center. Every year they have a huge mound of the stuff and its free for the taking - black gold, as I often refer to it as - and so must others because the stuff goes rather quickly. I used it to replenish the soil that’s currently in our two box planters. I keep a mixture of compost, peat moss, and vermiculite as my soil. Got the recipe last year from here: squarefootgardening.com
They recommend a 1/3 mixture with all three components, but I’m probably heaviest on the compost, then the peat moss, and finally just a dusting of the vermiculite. That worked well for me last year. After adding everything in this evening I spent a few minutes tilling the soil and getting it nicely aerated.
I use the square foot method discussed on that site, but last year the twine that I used to create my squares disintegrated towards the end of the summer and just became a mess. I like the idea so this year I’ll try fishing line instead and see how that holds up through the season.
I also need to get a decent rabbit deterrent system in place. We have a family that lives under our shed, and the planter boxes are pretty much in the middle of their living room. It never really dawned on me last year that I should protect the plants, until one morning I discovered that the rabbits had taken a liking to the romaine and broccoli that we planted. At the time, I had just thrown together a very quick and dirty wire mesh fence around the one box and it did the trick, but this year I’d like to make something a little more sturdy and reusable.
This week’s progress on the cabinet includes trimming out the left and right sides of the carcass and creating the face frame.
For the trim on the sides, I ran my 1×2’s through the router to give them a simple Roman Ogee design and then mitered the corners.
I ended up cutting a series of half lap and cross lap joints to bring together the 1×3 and and 1×2 boards for the face frame. I’ve never attempted this before, but it seems to have come out pretty nice. The glue up is still in progress for this:
The plants seem to be coming along nicely. I’ve transplanted most of the original batch of seedlings to larger cups. A few of the tomatoes and the broccoli have gotten tall enough now that they’re falling over, so I rolled up some paper around the cups to act as support for them. This was really just a quick and dirty way of adding support, and thinking more about it, I may add just add some chicken wire instead, so that I’m not limiting the amount of light hitting the plants and the soil. I did adjust the original light fixture, positioning it directly over the plants now, and added a 2nd light above the original tray that still has some stragglers in it.
One of the things I enjoy doing every once in a while is surfing the video sharing sites for various topics, including physics. Last night I came across something I had never heard of or seen before - Oobleck - or at least Dr. Seuss’ version of a non-Newtonian fluid. What the heck am I talking about you ask?… Take a container, add about 1 cup of corn starch, and slowly mix in about half a cup of water… then have fun with this very simple example of a fluid that can change its viscosity depending on how much pressure or stress gets put on it… in other words, watch it change from a liquid to a solid and back to a liquid, right before your eyes. I played with this stuff for about an hour last night:
A few things I noticed… over time it seems as though the water that’s in the mixture evaporates - I’m only guessing this because when I played with small amounts of it for a while, it stayed solidified longer. If it starts to solidify a little too much, you can revive the mixture by adding in just a little more water. If it sits for an extended period of time (say over night or a few hours) the water tends to rise to the top, while the corn starch falls to the botttom - the mixture will come back to life however with just a few good stirs.
I want to try and figure out a way to add a vibration to this as some of the videos I came across last night showed examples of what happens to this stuff when you do exactly that. The peaks and valleys that get formed almost look surreal.
Went down to DC yesterday to take some photos of the Capitol complex for a project at work (some more photos to come). But, the highlight of the afternoon was when we met Circumcision Dude out on the West Lawn. This guy was standing out there with giant posters, advocating a ban on circumcisions in the U.S. - For about ten minutes or so he went on about the evils of circumcision, why it was ever done in the first place, how it adversely affects your sexual senses as well as your partner’s, and so on. I honestly only half paid attention to what he was saying, but after doing some searching on the web, I found there’s quite a lot of information about this topic out there. Enjoy!
This weekend I started work on the buffet cabinet. I focused primarily on the carcass and was able to get it pretty close to completion. The top front and rear rails were joined to the sides with some biscuits, while the drawer support in the front and the fixed shelf down towards the bottom half are set inside of stopped dados - both sets of these dados were a bit of challenge. The ones for the shelf were fine, but I made the mistake of not turning the sides around to cut the set needed for the drawer support. Before I realized what had happened it was already too late - there’s now an extra set of unnecessary dados cut into the sides, towards the back of the carcass. I’ll probably leave them alone, since they’re out of sight and sit behind where the drawer will be. If I feel inclined, I could probably cut out a couple filler pieces and glue them in place.
The other flub I made was when I routed out the V grooves in the sides. I had the depth of the bit too far out from the base of the router and because it was trying to cut such a deep groove, it ended up burning the wood a little. I didn’t like how deep it was, so since I’m going to be painting this portion of the cabinet anyway, I just filled it back up with some puddy. I reset the depth of the bit and was able to make a lot cleaner cuts on both sides. They give the plywood the look of being paneled, which is exactly what I was trying to accomplish.
We like to watch the CBS Sunday Morning show and this week they had a story that really struck a cord with me. Out in Kansas City, this minister has come up with a program to help people stop complaining. It involves people wearing these purple bracelets (think LIVESTRONG) that you switch from one wrist to another, everytime you catch yourself complaining about something. The goal is go 21 days straight without complaining. It’s pretty tough - I was barely able to go 2 hours today without complaining about something or other. We tend to complain a lot in our daily lives… but when you think about it… do you really have anything to complain about?
About a month ago I spent two hours outside in the cold, while it snowed, trying to take pictures of the lunar eclipse. Towards the end of it I was getting a little bored and remembered an old trick I used to do with night shots and street lights. I had a flashlight with me so I shot a 25 second exposure of myself bouncing it around. It reminds me of those Sprint commercials that have been out for a while now… which I recently found out was most likely inspired by these guys: PIKAPIKA
Oh, and the shots of the eclipse… they turned out pretty bad.
Domenick Naccarato is a creative director, an amateur woodworker, an artist, a photographer, a husband, and a father. When not otherwise busy working in front of a computer, building some piece of furniture, fixing something around the house, painting, taking pictures, or making wine, he is usually found with his wife and two daughters at their home in the Lehigh Valley.
