Fruits of our labors

Now we’re well into summer, the back yard looks a lot different. All those empty veg beds are now overflowing with green!

The small beds in the foreground are our herb garden. Several varieties of mint trying to escape the first one, then what we call the “poultry bed” - sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano amongst others. Parsley, green and red onions, and chives, and several varieties of lettuce spread out among them all.

The long bed next to them holds raspberry canes – no fruit this year but hopefully next summer – and strawberries. Then we have 8’ high archways of wire mesh across the last two beds supporting a variety of beans. Runners, French beans, and a purple variety, along with snap peas, broad beans, and several tomato plants, and a monster zucchini taking over one corner.

It’s been marvelous in the last month popping out to pull a lettuce for salad, or handfuls of herbs to liven up a meal. One thing we’ve sorely missed since moving out here is our fresh beans. French beans are available but usually not very good, and we love fresh tender runners, which I’ve not seen here at all.

 

 

All decked out for summer

Last summer we realized that we would soon need to do something with our deck. Spanning the garage and wrapping around the living room and kitchen to the front and rear, the deck is a vital part of our living space for at least half the year.

Trouble is, the railing was starting to sag alarmingly to the point where I wouldn’t have wanted to put any weight on it, and there were a few places where there was a noticeable bounce under foot. Not good.

So we resolved to put things to rights this Spring before the fine weather kicked in. A builder friend managed to squeeze us in between jobs - and in between spells of rain that dragged the process out a lot longer than it might have taken, but we’re there now and very pleased with the results.

The most nerve-wracking part of the operation was having the garage open to the weather while they ripped off the old decking and put down new plywood. We had to clear the place out beforehand and do our best to shield the freezer and shelves the that remained. Here’s how they left it that first evening. Luckily the next 24 hours stayed dry and the garage was covered again by the time the next showers hit.

And here is the finished work. We’d debated going for aluminum railings (zero maintenance) but opted for cedar in the end, and we are both happy with that decision. They were able to salvage the glass panels that were in place originally and put everything back very much like it was.

Yes, that’s our barbecue sitting lonely in the corner. I had to take off one side shelf to maneuver it through the door and into the kitchen while they worked. There was no way we were going to get it down the stairs, remembering the battle we had years ago getting it up there in the first place.

There's life in that old tree house yet

It's Spring Break, and it's amazing what the kids will get up to when they've got time on their hands.

I built this tree house back in 2006. It's not seen much use in recent years, but this evening I got home to be told I had to check it out.

It's half hidden in the undergrowth nowadays, compared with when I first built it.

And that ladder is starting to look a bit dodgy. Luckily it still takes my weight!

But inside, they've made a cozy nest complete with TV and DVD player

P.S. No, that fireplace isn't actually on, just the lights for effect. They've not that daft :)

So this is where November went

No - not NaNo :)

Just over a month ago, we started on a renovation project that we've been talking about for a few years. The kids' bedrooms open out into a basement room that we turned over to them as a playroom. There was a bathroom in one corner, so they had a small self-contained part of the house to themselves.

Trouble is, the main room was also where all the plumbing for laundry was too.

Not good for them. Not good for us, shoveling piles of crap out of the way whenever we needed to do laundry. The situation needed to be remedied.

This is the playroom right now.

We have professionals doing all the tricky stuff, but to save cost we are doing whatever we can - mostly running around buying materials, and things like painting. Their bedrooms are relatively inaccessible, so they are camped out in our room, and we are in the guest room. With all the upheaval, November seems to have disappeared in a blur.

The laundry-room-to-be is taking shape. You can see that we don't hold with the typical Canadian interior decor of "fifty shades of beige". We like our color, and we've learned to trust our instincts and be bold.

And next door, a rather stylish bathroom is starting to emerge.

Things are starting to come together. Trouble is, we are wondering what to call this newly-revamped space. Somehow, "playroom" doesn't seem right for teenagers. Any suggestions?

Signs of life

The Bald Patch wakes. Slightly.

I've enjoyed a break from blogging, it really brought home just how much time the online world can soak up if you let it.

OK, I did weaken before the end of May to take part in a blogfest, and I have been lurking and commenting occasionally, just not quite as obsessively as previously. And it's been good not to hear the siren call of blogger and comments and visitor stats for a while.

This isn't quite "normal service" resuming, because I still have lots in the Real World to do, but I will endeavour to post once a week or so.

Meanwhile, here's a quick check-in on what's been going on behind the scenes.

By far the biggest chunk of time has been spent critiquing. I'm pushing novel chapters through CC's queue one every week or two. And so are some of my regular critics. The main limitation on throughput is how well I can keep up with critiquing other people's work in return for critiques on my own.

The answer is, not very well at all. It is a struggle.

I wrote an entirely new scene for Ghosts, to replace an ugly slab of summarisation at the start of one of my chapters. Wow, that felt good. It's been well over a year since I did any real new writing and I'd almost forgotten what it feels like.

I also roughed out an opening for an entirely new novel, or rather a series. It's aimed at younger readers, which is strange because I've never tried appealing to that audience before. I know I won't have time in the forseeable future to expand on it, but the idea came out of nowhere and I just had to get something down on paper for future reference.

I signed up for a series of exercise classes twice a week after work. That's limited the amount of cycling I can do, but that's something else I've not done for years and it feels good.

Now we've got some decent dry spells, it's time for outdoors maintenance. The big task this year is to repaint the deck.

Look at all that woodwork...

And more around the back...

The tarp strung up is to shield the painting from all the crap dropping from the arbutus.

Arbutus: Lovely tree. Pain in the butt when it overhangs a deck.

And I've found time for some reading. I'm getting near the end of the Darkglass Mountain trilogy by Sara Douglass. Mind you, I almost stopped in exasperation when I reached the end of the first book, 600+ pages, to find it just stopped in mid-story. I assumed each (rather thick) book would be a self-contained story. No such luck. Not even a secondary resolution like the battle of Helm's Deep in LOTR.

It caught me by surprise and annoyed the heck out of me. But it had caught my interest enough that I went back to the library and took out the others. I think if I'd bought, rather than borrowed, the first book I'd have felt rather more cheated and this would have tipped the scales from curiosity to anger. As it is, I will be more cautious before starting anything else by this author.

Moral: don't piss off your reader!

Now back to writing...

The planets align!

I was preparing another post on writing tools, but have some news to report on the pirate ship instead.

I blogged last week about things co-incidentally going right all at once, but yesterday was an exceptional example of this.

Things didn't start off too promising. Weekly grocery shop OK, except for duck breasts. Nothing on the shelf at my usual store. Popped over to the butcher at Brentwood. Nope. Came home and unloaded, then set off in the other direction to Sidney. First attempt, no luck.

Oh dear!

But on the off-chance (and on a totally unrelated mission) I stopped in at a boating store nearby. This is the kind of place where you have to rummage through heaps of odds & ends to find what you want. And I found a ship's wheel. Right size (although I was worried it might be a few inches too big) and reasonably priced.

Flushed with that success, I tried one more store for duck and found exactly what I was looking for.

Now I'm on a roll!

Got home and started building a pedestal to mount the wheel on. Finished that in record time, and realised I still had time to get to the builders yard for some hardware to attach it. While there, lo and behold, they had the rope back in stock that I've been looking for since October.

So today I finished off the rigging and the wheel. The last two planned items on my list. Anything else now is just incidental. The ship is officially finished!

Oh, and to round off a beautiful day (yes, it was sunny as well) we all drove downtown to Boston Pizza and had a delicious meal. Ali and I shared Thai chicken bites to start - sweet and hot - then both chose the most meltingly mouth-watering pork ribs, with fries and salad. Mmmmm.

Nearly there!

With the sun finally out this unseasonally cold Spring, I was able to get out my paintbrush for some finishing touches. Cannon hatches and windows now complete, and some photos, as promised.

I still have to sort out a wheel. It definitely needs one. As I'm pessimistic about being able to buy anything suitable, I am having a go at making one. Not an easy task. We'll see how that goes.

On the move again

Isn't it funny how often either nothing seems to go right, or everything seems to tick along nicely? I know the human mind is always on the lookout for patterns, but those kinds of periods in life always seem to stick in the mind.

Last week at work was way less frenetic than any other time this year. There's lots going on, but I found time to breathe, time to think. Yesterday, especially, I was able to sit down and apply some uninterrupted thought to some of the problems facing the team. Whether any of that thinking was worthwhile or not is still to be seen, but it was a refreshing change. Something I have badly missed.

Today, in a rare break in the un-Spring-like weather this year, I got out the paint and started some finishing touches on the pirate ship. Photos to follow when I have more progress to show.

And also today, I finally got around to submitting more novel chapters to Critique Circle. I've resigned myself to the fact that revisions are going to lag way behind the critiques, and decided to push more through the queue. This is going to be a long process, and right now it's standing in between me and some real writing.

Miscellany

A brief and rag-tag collection of updates.

I got my paints out again last week. That brought back a whole new load of memories as I wrestled with long-unused painting techniques once more.

No, this is not the Death Star (as Ali insists), nor is it the planet around which Pandora from Avatar orbits (as Matthew thinks). This is the mining moon, Jemiyal, from Ghosts of Innocence. This is unique for me, as it is the first time I've started a painting actually trying to illustrate something specific. Normally I am just getting a pure image out of my head onto paper, an image with no story behind it other than what the viewer wants to invent.

Also checking off finishing touches on the pirate ship (see the Pirates Ahoy! tab). Rope ladder and halyards done. We got a set of signal flags to brighten things up, but still have to find a proper pirate flag.

I'm still taking a break from writing submissions, and find myself looking for excuses to avoid tackling the next round of revisions, but I've been able to fit in a few critiques in the meantime. Limiting my blogging time seems to be paying off.

More progress

Another little bit of progress to check off the list (I'm very much a lists person, by the way). The lanterns on the stern posts add some finishing detail to the pirate ship.

You can see I had a bit of sunshine to work in. In between showers. And I was working outside in t-shirt and shorts today, after we had snow earlier in the week. What a week of contrasts.

My CPU needs an upgrade

Once upon a time, in the days when most home computers required a soldering iron and hours of patience to assemble, a fresh-faced and hairy-headed Botanist reported for duty at his first job as a programmer.

In those days, we shared three terminals between the whole department and you had to book time to use them. And you soon learned which times of the week were good to get work done, and which were not. During the latter times, the mainframe had regular batch jobs to process and the CPU's time was split many ways. You could sit at the terminal, type a command and go make a cup of tea before you got a response.

The machine hadn't died, it just had very little time to devote to any one task and it took a long time to make any progress.

That's a bit how I feel.

When I added the "Words and pictures" page to the blog (link above), Jean Davis observed that I had several projects to keep me busy. True, I have several novels in various states of completion, but I have to come clean here. They are mostly gathering electronic dust waiting for a slice of my time.

The only writing project active right now is Ghosts of Innocence, and even then work on the novel itself is limited while I try to keep up with critiques. I have at least managed to knock out a few critiques over the holidays, and I hope to post more chapters soon.

Another long-neglected project vying for attention is the pirate ship. I took advantage of a dry and bright day today to get back to some of the finishing touches before I can put that to rest.

Finishing touches include: Finishing off and painting the windows at the stern; adding and painting gun port hatches; planking out the rest of the hull at the stern; adding lanterns to the tops of the stern posts; finishing off the rigging (waiting for the builders store to have the right rope back in stock); adding halyards for flags; adding a rope ladder over the bow; and finding or making a wheel.

Whew!

Just to complicate matters, my visual arts neurons have been twitching lately. Putting that "Words and pictures" page together, and adding some of my old paintings to the mix, got me thinking about taking up painting again.

Oh no! I remember all too clearly just how time-consuming that used to be! If I pick up a paintbrush again I am sure that will put paid to any prospect of revising Ghosts by the end of 2011.

I think I need an upgrade...

A long way from the Caribbean

Now that the leaves have fallen, I can see properly into that far corner of the yard. And today was the first time in ages that I've not been scrambling to get to work and have had the time to look properly out of the kitchen window in real daylight.

And there was the pirate ship, peering around from its berth behind the tree fort, looking a long way from home in the lingering snow.

Take a bow...

Bow section finally finished, and I'm pleased with how it finally shaped up. I've been worrying about that part for ages, with planks going at all sorts of funny angles, but it was remarkably easy in the end.



You can also see the planking starting to extend down to the stern, and the rope ladder up to the crows nest.

My, how you've grown

The pirate ship has much more of a ship-like feel to it now that the masts are full height and partially rigged.

I had one heck of a job capturing the end result on camera, though. I settled for a close-up from each end to try to show both the height of the masts and some of the detail.


Even so, it's not too easy to see properly in these photos. As usual, if you click on an image you can see it full size which might help. You can see the new steps in both of these shots too.

I spent most of yesterday clambering up and down ladders, and I can feel the effects today so I think it's time for a day off.

It'll never fly, I tell you!

It's three weeks since I last posted a progress report on the pirate ship, and just over three months since I started building.

Wow! Is that all it's been? It feels a lot longer. Three months of sometime intense effort, with many breaks and interruptions.

Not a huge amount accomplished in the last three weeks because both time and conditions have been against me.

This month, of course, is dominated by return to school, and all the usual after-school activities ramping up. Now that Megan has started in middle school we had, not one, but two "meet the teacher" nights last week. Fortunately on different nights.

Then, shortly after my last post on the subject, the weather turned. Not many opportunities to work on the side planking that you can see here. You can also see how damp everything is; all that previously clean decking is now covered in leaves and bits from the trees. So this is going to be slow work from now on.

I decided a long time ago not to try planking everything solidly, and I'm glad I chose not to. When I started on the bits above deck, I realised how much it would emphasise the flat planes of this only-moderately-boat-shaped structure. Leaving gaps lower down, and subtly varying the widths of the gaps, helps to hide the true shape and give an illusion of roundness.

Luckily there's still plenty of pieces I can work on in the shelter of the garage. This weekend I'm making sets of steps to lead up from the waist deck to the raised platforms fore and aft. Then the top masts will take a bit of work before I'm ready to lift them into place. And I've started drawing up plans for the wheel and working out how to go about making it. Making large round things out of wood is not easy.

Decked from stem to stern

A milestone reached today. The last ribs in place and the last deck plank nailed down.


I thought this last section would be plain sailing - rectangular area, and 8' long so most of the planks wouldn't even need cutting to length - but I should know better than to be too cocky. This last bit of decking put up a fight and took me all afternoon.

It started off hopefully enough. Once I'd cut the middle planks around the masts and nailed them in place, I measured the remaining gap across the width. It looked like I'd struck lucky and ended up with an exact multiple of plank widths. Once I started laying them out, though, I realised I had to chisel out notches along the sides to allow the side planks to snug into the ribs, and then I still had to plane 1/8" off two planks (one each side) to squeeze them in.

Planing a strip off an 8' plank isn't difficult, but it is time consuming. Anyway, I finished with a tight fit, which is good because I know from experience that they are likely to shrink a bit over time.

Fisticuffs on the quarterdeck

Looks like the crew are getting fractious, captain!

Well, at least it gives us a chance to see the decked stern section. Now very close to having a fully useable play structure, with only the waist deck to rib and plank. Still loads of work to do, but everything after that is really cosmetic: side planking, top masts, rigging, and (of course) we need to find a wheel.

Avast behind

And other bad nautical jokes!

After two weeks hiatus work has resumed, and the bum end of the ship is now taking shape. Here is an overall view, where you can see a definite galleon shape emerging.
And a closer view of the stern section.

Can you see what it is yet?

Bow section nearly complete. The fore deck and forecastle is now decked - and well-trodden already! - just waiting for some hull planking. I don't intend to butt the planks up, they'll be spaced out a bit, really just enough to give the hull some shape without making the structure look too heavy.

And the second mast is in place in the background. If the masts look a little short, that's because they are. I still have to add top masts to both.

Pirate ship week 4

Apart from a few supports to give some shape to the bow, the front third of the ship is finally ready to be decked and planked.

The crow's nest took a lot of work, with some complicated angles to cut, but I'm pleased with how it's turned out. With all that weight up there, lifting the mast into position was a team effort. Thank you, Ali!

In case you're wondering, there will be a rope ladder up to the front of the crow's nest from the raised fore deck. Not nautically correct, but a lot safer access than traditional style rigging.

I got held up a bit at that point because I couldn't attach those deck joists until the mast was in place. I needed access to the inside of the tower to tighten up the carriage bolts securing the mast, but when it came down to it I found the bolts I'd bought were just a fraction too short. I could get the lock nuts on a few turns, and I really don't think they'd ever have come undone, but I'm not taking chances. So that bit of assembly had to wait until today's trip to the builder's yard for my next batch of materials.