i agree. i wash my hands when dirty and before eating. i worked in direct care and know the need to keep your hands clean.i do avoid going anywhere public unless i have too and i minimize contact with anything. all the places i go are johnny on the spot for disinfecting so I’m relatively sure that i won’t contract any bugs.
1 Like
I am hired back to my job now, but am working from home mostly for the time being. Before that happened for a few weeks my son and I pushed to get a little tree platform built that I’ve been meaning to do for years On the right in below photo:
Framing is oak which I bought some years back locally as green rough cut lumber for garden stuff. But I had cut some parts for this project and then never got around to finishing it. Not having a job and not being able to leave the house much really gives you the chance to focus on moving something forward, even with a fair bit of cooking, naps, and netflix thrown in!
Connectors are fabricated from 1/4" thick aluminum angle held on with stainless lag screws.
I am an atrocious woodcarver, but we attempted to put some embellishments on some of the wood members to dress it up a little. The scrolls face our yard and are pretty easy to do. The gargoyles face the church pedestrian walk as a sort of tongue in cheek tribute to the grandeur of their building. I roughed them out on four faces with the bandsaw, then used a rotary carving tool on an angle grinder. We followed up with hand work using chisel, rasp, knife, and sandpaper.
We put the thing together level and square on the ground, then took it apart and got it in the tree, which was tricky since I couldn’t really have anyone over to help. But we got it up about 2.5 meters above ground level, which is enough to feel dangerous and exciting.
The top framing is held in with 1" stainless all thread through bolted to each of the two trunks. Our drill was not really up to the job but eventually succeeded.
The cantilever support posts on the bottom are made from cedar posts leftover from our fence project. It was tricky to cut the features in the ends to be able to accept the platform framing. I ruined a $100 black locust post right off the bat before I got more careful and decided to use the easier to work and less expensive cedar.
The bottoms are through bolted through the tree with 3/4" stainless allthread.
We made a little ladder and some footholds to get up into the hole between the trunks.
Decking is ipe leftover from when we redid our front porch.
Kids think it is pretty cool.
Probably need some railing at least on some of the sides. We have a vision of running a zip line in future to the other side of the yard from this platform.
25 Likes
Thank you for your kind reply. I realize that sometimes I sounded so harsh when I posted something late at night. Sorry.
1 Like
no problem. you didn’t sound harsh at all. no need to apologize.
1 Like
Today two of my brothers stopped by to give me some hand sanitizer that one of them just got online. They haven’t been to my house for a while so I waited on the driveway to make sure they know where to stop. They were in separate cars, and after they stopped I saw them put on the masks. I ran into the house to put mine on before running out again. They are doctors. They said they have been to the hospitals and wanted to protect me and my family. They didn’t wear the N95 because those are reserved for active interaction when they are at work. They didn’t want to eat with us so we bought individual to go “pho” for them to take home. I guess that would be a “normal” family meeting, until the crisis is over.
They stayed for nearly an hour and we had a fun time walking and talking around the backyard. I did stay away a little, while they took off the masks and ate the peaches from the tree.
8 Likes
I just started participating in a survey Stanford University is doing.bb
2 Likes
I sent the link to my family. Thanks for posting.
1 Like
My big project was fruit research in France. How it all works here is far different than in RI. So this winter was spent researching pruning, fertilizing, soil mixes, and the right pots. Sun-no sun. Etc. Its been great. The rest of the time has been spent getting my house in order. I moved with no furniture, so started at ground zero. It has been great to do it all in French. I admire all of the projects I have seen listed here. They are great! Good going on that fab treehouse!
4 Likes
My home was built in 1938 so about 1/3 of it was wired to 1 outlet. A short somewhere took out the kitchen, dining room. some of the basement outlets and ceiling lights.
I ran a lot of new wire and replaced 1 circuit with 4. As a bonus I
added power and lights to my storage room. I finaily have a place for my heating mats with out getting in the way or being next to the boiler all winter.
6 Likes
Spring is here or will be soon, and with it comes the need to monitor development of insect pests. I spent the winter updating the software for my backyard weather station.
I use the the WeeWX software suite by Tom Keffer and Matthew Wall, which runs on Linux operating systems, and I have written an extension that tracks Growing Degree-Days.
I used to call my extension “Cydia” for Cydia pomonella (codling moth) because I needed it to tell me when cover sprays were due. My recent work has broadened its applicability to over 200 different developmental models for over 100 different insects. I now call it the WeeWX Phenology Extension. WeeWX Linux Users are invited to download the “tarball” from:
Complete and utter documentation is at:
Here is a sample of the kind of charts the WeeWX Phenology Extension can produce:
2 Likes