The utterance, courtesy of The Redneck, indicated to all within a quarter mile radius that he really didn’t want his tools in his truck, nor did he ever wish anyone to put them there going forward. Glad we cleared that up.
More importantly, it reminded me why I spent a weekend sweating in the glaring sun.
If only it were also soundproof
Almost sufficient to block out the view, which hopefully the new clematis will one day accomplish.
A very subtle barrier
Our present relationship with the neighbors notwithstanding, the openness of this particular section always bothered me. Line of sight to our deck from other houses is at least partially obscured, except for this one, and I never much fancied the idea of them being able to casually look out any window and monitor our recreational activities through the summer. The shed business was just the final push.
In all, the design was pretty simple. The original 4×4 fence posts, upon 3 of which this is bolted, are buried 3 feet into quickcrete. I’m hoping that’ll prove sufficient to support the additions, or I’ll be digging some more post holes soon.
Unfortunately, the city limits fences to 7′, and since this trellis is on the fence, it’s a de facto fence extension. So I couldn’t quiiiite block out their upstairs windows. But I didn’t see any restrictions on what I can put on top of the trellis, so there’s a creative solution forthcoming.
And no tools were put into trucks in the making of this trellis.
Order is Man’s mastery of the universe. By applying logic, reason, and patterns to that which lies unstructured, I manipulate my surroundings to suit me. I am a creature of my environment, but anomalous in that I organize for aesthetics and not necessarily practicality. I defy evolution, expending caloric reserves on tasks which offer no definitive gain to the species. And in that sense, I have invoked a programmatic syntactical error. I follow directives which were not properly defined. Variables do not exist in sufficiency to meaningfully direct input. And so my output, devoid of complete genetic programming, is self-destructive.
***
The delineation between garden and yard is transitory. I wish it to not be so. Therefore I installed edging! But as all is ephemeral, its lackluster construction quickly deteriorated, rendering the boundary once again ill-defined. Another means was required. Materials which stand the test of time!
Bricks!
Evidenced by the apparent brick mine beneath the property, bricks don’t break down–they simply become buried over decades of subpar landscaping.
And so, after acquiring somewhere around 250 bricks and multiple tubes of construction adhesive, and shooing Liz away for her inability to effectively use a level (despite this project being her idea, I’ll note), I reforged that which was once broken and shines anew!
…with some extra dirt and grass seed…
+$5000 more in property taxes forthcoming, no doubt. The price for rule and order!
It’s always high on the list of recommended things to do when you move in to a new residence: change the locks. The reasoning is obvious: there’s no way to tell who has a copy of the key. And for all of my various incremental home security improvements, they’d be mostly rendered moot if some acquaintance of the former owner had a key and chose to “visit”. So I finally prioritized a deadbolt swap.
Of course, if I’m doing that, why wouldn’t I take the opportunity to go beyond a simple lock change with a standard residential model and explore something a little more high security?
Introducing, the Mul-T-Lock Cronus Junior!
Grade 2, so a step up (I’m assuming). I think grade 1 would have been a waste of money. (I recently reinforced the door hardware with oversized strike plates and 3.5″ steel screws, but the supporting structure is ultimately wood.)
And the tumblers are actually doubled–tumblers inside tumblers. Cool idea. Having explored lock-picking in my youth, I can’t imagine the difficulty here. This isn’t just adding more tumblers, it multiplying the complexity. How do you bump pins when each pin is two pins with different shear lines?
And the price point was 3-4 times that of a standard hardware-grade variety, so not crazy. All in all, a good match for a residential application.
However, the bolt assembly was anything but user-friendly. And while that wasn’t necessarily attributed to the manufacturer, it does have a certain intolerance if existing cutouts aren’t perfectly true–something a residential-targeted product should have.
For example, the bolt hole and lock holes weren’t quite aligned. I could still feed the parts together, but the internal shield then put sufficient tension on the bolt assembly that the bolt wouldn’t extend to the final locked position. A fair amount of trial and error was required before I isolated the problem, which involved some additional boring and filing.
That problem solved, I mounted everything and tried to throw the bolt. It wouldn’t budge, despite working fine before threading the screws. So I disassembled everything and worked the bolt manually with a screwdriver, which worked fine. I took a break before smashing something.
It saves everyone after you a lot of work if you’d just do the job right the first time.
Additional experimentation revealed that the bolt assembly was being pushed down slightly too far, so the bolt was catching on the strike. The door, having been cut wrong, protruded the strike slightly into the jamb, and when mounting the strike it bent the jamb, causing obstruction. So I shimmed the strike against the door to prevent bending, reassembled the lock, and tried it again.
The thumb switch. Note also the aforementioned extended strike plate. All hardware upgraded to 3.5″ steel screws (hinges included).
The key worked, but the thumb switch didn’t. Not very useful. I disassembled the lock again and pondered the parts, eventually concluding that I needed to rotate the internal metal sheaf once so that the neutral position aligned with the thumb switch neutral position. I reassembled the lock and tried again, both key and thumb switch, in all possible combinations between the two…dozens of times. Finally, it worked as expected.
In conclusion, the door’s inconsistent cuts combined with the lock’s low error tolerance made what would normally be a 2 minute project a 2 hour one (additionally, the instructions didn’t cover installing the cylinder into the lock, or adjusting the bolt between its 1 3/8″ and 1 1/2″ settings, but those were reasonably intuitive with some observation and tinkering). But at least the lock is finally replaced and upgraded. Though in all fairness, after removing the old one, it was a really solid lock. All metal, thick parts, and lots of shielding and reinforcement. Had I possessed a tally on all the keys made for it, and were it not a decades-old standard 5-pin system, I would have left it as-is.
No weathering yet, but it matches the existing hardware pretty close.
Still, it’s nice to have one more security upgrade completed.
I love meat. I hunt. I worked in a butcher shop. I clean it, cure it, season it, cook it, serve it. I’d raise it too, but city ordinances take a dim view of such practices. And with hunting seasons limited and public lands far away, I’m generally relegated to the suburban method of procurement: grocery stores.
And the problem with said stores is that they tend to only carry cuts that are popular, or at least reasonably in the public knowledge. The hangar steak is my favorite, but was impossible to find…at least until the public became aware of it. Of course, when that happened, when I could find it, it was unreasonably priced. Supply and demand I suppose.
So it goes. But on the other hand, the general public’s growing curiosity towards alternate cuts has also increased the supply part of the equation. And so I’m able to find “junk” cuts, like pork belly.
Pork belly is, of course, the part used to make bacon. And bacon, being a holy gift to us mortal men by powers beyond my comprehension, sat on my shopping list were I ever to see it offered.
And lo and behold, one day it was indeed! I bought a 10 pound slab.
Of course, acquiring was only the first and smallest step. I needed to cure and smoke it. But how? I’m sure this is the burning question in your very soul at this moment, no doubt also sharing my analysis of bacon being a boon of divinity.
Lacking experience, I needed a baseline, so I followed this recipe. I take no credit:
However, I will offer my suggestions, learned through trial and error.
Use a Food Saver bag for the curing part. This was very effective in removing most of the air, so the meat remained completely immersed in brine. Not much massaging needed. Just time.
I don’t have a smoker, but a charcoal grill worked just fine. It was hard to avoid temperature swings, so be diligent with the fussing. Better it stay cool than get too hot.
I added wood chips, placed in a foil cup and filled with water. As the water evaporated off, it steam-smoked flavor into the meat before the dry heat finished the cure.
Reduce the salt by half. I wasn’t going to leave the bacon sit out, so I’m pretty sure this is safe. Also regarding salt…
After cutting and before final cooking, soak the bacon strips in water for a half hour. Otherwise it’s just really salty, even with the reduced salt brine. I don’t know how they do this step commercially, but if you don’t, your family will complain.
And there you have it: bacon! “Healthier” bacon, and manlier because I made it myself (I’m in agreement with the above cited article). And now that I know what I’m doing, I can create my own custom cures. Experiments!
