"Weekend Doin's"

[Steve Kolbe]

I'll be putting the finishing touches on a new privacy fence and making a new stepstool for the kids' bathroom. First use of the new scroll saw!

[Peter Quinn]

Karl, at this exact point I am a mole. My whole basement shop is pushed to one side so I can move dirt between the front quarter of the house and the bilco at the rear. I'm excavating about 500SF where some previous owner put most of the dirt from the first 1500SF they poured in concrete. I'm hoping to pour a slab next week so this weekend involves me, 20 5 gal buckets, a 20 yard dumpster and 12 yards of dirt. Its all going out by hand (and back, and shoulder, and legs which all hurt after three days of digging and moving dirt.) A conveyor would have been useful but the rental is a bit out of my budget for this project. I considered hiring NAFTA laborers but the local police have been cracking down hard on day labor sites and most legal laborers don't want to touch this kind of work. My screed board is fir so I guess this sort of counts as wood working?

I passed the half way point this afternoon on the excavation so I'm celebrating that milestone with a beer and half a bottle of advil. When its all done it should add about 325SF of much needed space to my shop and gives me room to build a nice wine cellar/cold pantry. I'm sitting on about 1000LF of walnut T&G to panel the wine cellar, and I have a new slot mortiser sitting in the garage taunting me. I determined not to set it up till the new slab is in cause thats the space it sort of needs to go in and its good motivation when going up ten stairs with 50# of dirt for the 2000th time.

If you have any dynomite left after whacking those moles could you send a little my way? Some of this old hard pack is tough to break up! I was born on ground hog's day, so maybe I'm actually more of a ground hog than a mole?

[Steven Beam]

Kill the grub and other burrowing insects and the moles will be gone