Animals Among Us II: dead things

Dead animals, their nests, etc. are generally easier to deal with than the living version, but there have been exceptions. It is not unusual to find a dead mouse when renovating an old house and I feel lucky I have never found a dead rat. Yesterday, I found a chipmunk in a rain barrel which had drowned and was 2x normal size. That freaked me out a little bit and I will spare the reader the rest of the details. In our first house an enormous dead yellow jacket nest was found inside a living room wall. The guy replacing some damaged drywall called me in and there it was, perhaps 5x5 feet in size,  four inches thick and wedged between the inner and outer wall. It was abandoned, perhaps sealed in with a good caulking job on the exterior. To us it seemed a miracle, because if active, the nest would have released hundreds of the small wasps many call "bees" directly into our midst. Once when I was about twelve, a pet newt escaped from an aqua-terrarium. I mourned, recovered and forgot it existed. The following spring, cleaning behind a cast iron radiator,  I found a mummy newt!  My brothers and I thought it was cool, but it bummed my mom out, so I buried it in the backyard.  In 2007, in our current home, an old mouse nest caught fire inside the wall next to our fireplace. It's presence was unknown to us and the resulting fire put us out of our house for 4 months (an ordeal- don't ask).  On a lighter,  but still unpleasant note: shortly after buying a house my friend had an awful skunk smell emanating from a  concrete slab poured by the previous owner. Rest assured- it did not smell this way when he purchased the home. This was in an area they had completely filled in, connecting the house with the porch. In the end it had to be broken up and revealed an entombed skunk. Apparently, it was alive when the cement was poured and had begun decomposing.  Dead or alive, the scent of our most beloved member of the weasel family is indeed a powerful thing!

Tool Care and Repair

I am adding this topic because I am good at it. It is also one of the few things I can feel at all superior about, so there. Tool care was an obvious no-brainer  prior to our present throwaway culture. Now there are even stores which specialize in cheap tools that don't last. Conversely, I savor antique and odd tools, some which were passed down from our families' rural roots. My mom turned me on to Naval Jelly when I was a kid and we saved some steel tools from the landfill. It's disgusting scary stuff, but the results can be amazing. I try to spray the "business end" of gardening tools  with wd-40 before I put them in the garage for the winter. I sand and stain the wood on old long-handled tools. I still have aluminum cased 1950's power tools from my Grandpa- they scare me too much to use them, but they are so pretty! To me a tool is sort of an extension of the body and it has to be in good shape to feel right. I don't have money to blow,  so I figure out methods to repair equipment that many would view as overboard or perhaps creative. My gal is urging me to use recent examples of my wacky work, so here goes. The photo below is the recently repaired "leg" of a plastic Garden cart.

Glue, Plumber's tape and stainless steel bolts

On Being "Handy" (and dissuading others from following my lead)

I know it's a complement when folks tell me I'm "handy" but it's not the case. I believe they may be conflating the sheer volume of my attempts at home repair with some illusion I'm successful. I do not put on airs and rest assured I know handy when I see it. A fair segment of our male friends chose to go into a trade or one of the manual arts. Many of them are quite skillful and have thoroughly enjoyed my sporadic, discombobulated attempts to join their ranks. I only claim any level of mastery with shovels. I am also decent with rakes and brooms. I will close with an infrequent but terrifying scenario suggested  by the occasional party-goer at our home. They propose that their friend or spouse get guidance from me on a project !  Below is an analogy to this provided with the permission of a super cartoonist:

http://www.matthewdiffee.com/

Measurement

Measurement in home repairs needs to be precise. I don't do precision. I do creative, wacky, original, fun.  Even accurate is a challenge and certainly never exact.
I measure 3x and cut wrong. I am also a little shaky when I cut a "straight" line with tools such as reciprocating or circular saws. Apparently, getting the knack requires regular use and as previously stated I generally avoid power tools. Due to all these constraints, I compensate by cutting things slightly larger than needed. The rationale is as follows: if cut too short, a piece of lumber, metal or roofing material may become useless, while a slightly longer section can be wedged in (caveman style) or whittled down by hand!

Levels are fun. but I often get so carried away that I forget to use them. Plumb bobs are really cool but I mainly just play with them during breaks in the action. I got pretty good at using chalk lines when a friend helped me re-roof our first house in the late 80's. In the backyard of our current domicile I made a four posted "Love Arbor" with bench for my lady. Years later, while a buddy was helping me build the tree-house, he took a level to that structure. He then categorically stated there was nary a level surface anywhere on it!

Power Tools I

Overrated and expensive, I tend to shun power tools when I can. Anything using gasoline, motors or electricity has the tendency to be dangerous, loud or both. I have a penchant for hand tools, in part because the injuries incurred tend to be more minor. I also feel more strong when I use them and this can boost my ever waning confidence a little. When I dig a big hole to plant a tree,  I feel like a king! If I can, I substitute a feared power tool with a less scary one. For example- after replacing almost all our lawn with garden beds, I now use an electric mower for the small area which is still grass. Why would I rest easier now you ask? Well... as a young teen I was preparing to clean the clogged up underside of our power mower. As always, thinking SAFETY FIRST! I needed to unplug the spark plug. However, the 4 stroke motor was still "chugging" along.  The sketch below crudely portrays my horizontally zapped experience.