Hahaha. Plus Ramble On Cedar, Etc
Nov. 14th, 2005 04:31 pmI quote:
Estry and Greenie dominate the world! One boy at a time!
With that out of my system, I will talk for a bit.
Today is an utterly fantastic day-- it's sunny, real, true, clear sunshine, for the first time in too long. I haven't worked outdoor plant maintanence for a little while, so I haven't been getting the full day of leaking-through-clouds sunshine. I'm glad (this is unusual) that I have a boss who smokes-- we go outside for lunch when we can, and so I get my sunshine and he gets his nicotine. It works out.
I go to my guide potluck tomorrow. I am officially a full-fledged VanDusen Guide, after two years of training. Go me!
I'm home right now. I haven't been home forever and ever and ever, and, of course, I'm heading out again as soon as the rats are babied and the fish fed and water-changed. I need to remember a ton of things-- my timesheet (oops, forgot that today), pretty clothes for the guide potluck tomorrow, CrazyChris' keys and chili, I know there's more...
I made popovers last night with Juggler. I haven't done that for over ten years (look, mama, I can talk about stuff I did over ten years ago now!) and they are just as yummy as I remember them. Score one for hollow eggy-milky shells filled with honey or jam or even just sugar.
We cut a WHOLE TON of strips for the kayak. Now, I don't know if I've described this before, but I'll do it again. We get these 16 (18?) foot long pieces of 2x8 western red cedar (actual dimensions eighteen feet by one and a half inches by seven and a half inches, I hate this 'nominal dimension' stuff or whatever it is) and we cut it the long way into 1/3"x1 1/2" pieces that remain eighteen feet long. One gets about eighteen strips per board, which means about two and a half inches of the board's width end up as sawdust.
Maneuvering an eighteen foot long board through a tablesaw with the sort of precision required to do this is kind of tricky, especially since if you wobble too much or otherwise mess up the tablesaw ejects the board at high velocity back at the person feeding it though. We've finally developed a setup involving flat slippery surfaces and rollers on either side of the tablesaw. It's going pretty fast now, but it was immensely frustrating trying to do it before we hit on this setup. We've got two more boards to do, they should just fly through.
I really love working in cedar. The wood is immensely variable, from purple and pink to cream to latte-brown to cardboard-brown and sometimes with darker markings. The wood we have is pink-light brown-tan speckled with some slightly darker figuring, and it's very fine-grained with no knots (necessary, for the long strips to bend around the kayak properly). Each strip is a joy to discover, as it comes off the saw with new patterns and colours. The wood is green, and will likely change a bit as it dries. I'm interested to see how that works.
I am, however, very allergic to it. I need to shower and change clothes after the work, otherwise the dust in my hair and on my skin causes blinding headaches. I don't get blinding headaches, normally, so I was woefully unprepared for this.
Got Juggler a fabulous Norfolk Island Pine for Christmas from work-- it had been removed and set outside for the summer, and now it's back inside and it's mine/his/ours. Haha! This is funny, because I got one last year for CrazyChris. That one was about a foot high, this one is about four, though.
The thing about my job is that I get lots of free plants.
Speaking of my job, soon it will be poinsetta season. This means installation and maintenance of over 600 extra plants in the Pan Pacific hotel alone. I'm looking forward to it. Don't ask me why.
I'm also just really happy lately, again, yay! I think it's likely directly related to exercise and sunlight. Um, duh, maybe I should do that sort of thing regularly? I'm all 'up' and 'on' and powerful-feeling and I live right here in my skin again. It makes me smile.
Yay smiling.
Estry and Greenie dominate the world! One boy at a time!
With that out of my system, I will talk for a bit.
Today is an utterly fantastic day-- it's sunny, real, true, clear sunshine, for the first time in too long. I haven't worked outdoor plant maintanence for a little while, so I haven't been getting the full day of leaking-through-clouds sunshine. I'm glad (this is unusual) that I have a boss who smokes-- we go outside for lunch when we can, and so I get my sunshine and he gets his nicotine. It works out.
I go to my guide potluck tomorrow. I am officially a full-fledged VanDusen Guide, after two years of training. Go me!
I'm home right now. I haven't been home forever and ever and ever, and, of course, I'm heading out again as soon as the rats are babied and the fish fed and water-changed. I need to remember a ton of things-- my timesheet (oops, forgot that today), pretty clothes for the guide potluck tomorrow, CrazyChris' keys and chili, I know there's more...
I made popovers last night with Juggler. I haven't done that for over ten years (look, mama, I can talk about stuff I did over ten years ago now!) and they are just as yummy as I remember them. Score one for hollow eggy-milky shells filled with honey or jam or even just sugar.
We cut a WHOLE TON of strips for the kayak. Now, I don't know if I've described this before, but I'll do it again. We get these 16 (18?) foot long pieces of 2x8 western red cedar (actual dimensions eighteen feet by one and a half inches by seven and a half inches, I hate this 'nominal dimension' stuff or whatever it is) and we cut it the long way into 1/3"x1 1/2" pieces that remain eighteen feet long. One gets about eighteen strips per board, which means about two and a half inches of the board's width end up as sawdust.
Maneuvering an eighteen foot long board through a tablesaw with the sort of precision required to do this is kind of tricky, especially since if you wobble too much or otherwise mess up the tablesaw ejects the board at high velocity back at the person feeding it though. We've finally developed a setup involving flat slippery surfaces and rollers on either side of the tablesaw. It's going pretty fast now, but it was immensely frustrating trying to do it before we hit on this setup. We've got two more boards to do, they should just fly through.
I really love working in cedar. The wood is immensely variable, from purple and pink to cream to latte-brown to cardboard-brown and sometimes with darker markings. The wood we have is pink-light brown-tan speckled with some slightly darker figuring, and it's very fine-grained with no knots (necessary, for the long strips to bend around the kayak properly). Each strip is a joy to discover, as it comes off the saw with new patterns and colours. The wood is green, and will likely change a bit as it dries. I'm interested to see how that works.
I am, however, very allergic to it. I need to shower and change clothes after the work, otherwise the dust in my hair and on my skin causes blinding headaches. I don't get blinding headaches, normally, so I was woefully unprepared for this.
Got Juggler a fabulous Norfolk Island Pine for Christmas from work-- it had been removed and set outside for the summer, and now it's back inside and it's mine/his/ours. Haha! This is funny, because I got one last year for CrazyChris. That one was about a foot high, this one is about four, though.
The thing about my job is that I get lots of free plants.
Speaking of my job, soon it will be poinsetta season. This means installation and maintenance of over 600 extra plants in the Pan Pacific hotel alone. I'm looking forward to it. Don't ask me why.
I'm also just really happy lately, again, yay! I think it's likely directly related to exercise and sunlight. Um, duh, maybe I should do that sort of thing regularly? I'm all 'up' and 'on' and powerful-feeling and I live right here in my skin again. It makes me smile.
Yay smiling.