Ottoman Empire

My Beautiful Bride and I were recently at the Garvey Ranch (Or is it the Henny Penny/Too Little Ranch?) and were enjoying some great family time with her parents discussing the joys of raising teenage girls, and the prospect of having yet another small boy child around the house when my bride propped her feet up on the foot stool in front of the couch for some well deserved rest. After about 5 minutes of this position, my Sweet angelic faced Darlin told me that she wanted an Ottoman. Now I admit, the first thought that ran through my pitiful mind was "Why on earth does she want a Turkish native?", but was put at rest when she explained to me that an ottoman (lowercase "O", apparently) was the footrest that my size ten Ariat ropers were resting on. As always, I told this wonderful woman of mine that she could have anything she wanted (except the Turkish native) and THAT was when I learned not only was I going to assist her in obtaining the footrest, but  I was going to build it with my own two hands...

Now to some men, the thought of any sort of domestic labor that is suggested by their wives brings about moans and groans of despair, and thoughts of all the past season's football highlights that they would miss on the Tee-Vee, but not me. It meant I get to create; to turn raw lumber into a useful piece of household furniture for us and our progeny to enjoy for generations to come. So off to my favorite hardware store to purchase the needed supplies (It just so happened that Lowe's sent me a $50 gift card for a recent purchase...It was meant to be!) and then returned home. The next two days were spent turning 1x3's into sawdust that covered the garage in a fine...well, dust, followed by glues and screws and a few minor adjustments. The result was a functioning footrest with functional storage!

So to my Darlin..here's your footrest. Please don't let the Ottoman's use it. I hear they're almost as messy as teenage girls...


Until next time,

Dinner bell's a-ringin

Well, my Beautiful Bride  and I recently moved into the 21st century and got cable TV (pronounced Tee-Vee, in a very enunciated manner). We have spent the past two and a half years without it, so why the sudden move to city-fication? Well, money of course. We found that it would be about $50/mo cheaper to have cable, internet, and home telephone with our current provider than to have internet and telephone alone, so like any red blooded American who is out to save .50 cents, we joined the masses of individuals who have 194 channels of absolutely nothing. Not that the 200 channels we get with our package are nothing but static and white noise, but out if the 200 channels, only about 6 are worth watching. Shows such as Duck Commanders, because they are a very family oriented show of people who remind me of my family (minus the Santa Claus beards), my Darlin's favorite,  Ellen Degeneres' show because, well, she's dang funny, and my favorite channels, RFD-TV (Rural Farm shows) and the Outdoors Network (fishing shows, of course) because they show people doing the things I enjoy, but don't have the time or money to do. 

My Bride and I have one channel in particular that we watch almost every time we turn on the television; Food Network. Between Bobby Flay (a Yankee who specializes in BBQ) and Paula Dean, a Southern gentle-lady whose recipes include things like Butter fried Bacon with butter and cream sauce (read: cholesterol enhance coronary events), we pick up recipes here and there that we like to try at home. Another one we enjoy watching is Chopped, a show which pits four different chefs each episode against each other with baskets of the strangest ingredients. The chefs will find combinations of things like black truffles, beets, fish roe in a tube, and juniper leaves, and have to use it for a one course meal. And this happens three times during the show; once for an appetizer, once for an entree, and once for desert. It's enough to make Julia Childs faint!

Anyway, while watching these shows, my Bride and I decided that we would do something similar in the real world and cook things for each other that we have never even attempted before. I decided tonight was my night, and offered to cook supper for my sweet wife. My gut told me that tonight was going to be a fish night, and we went to the local HEB grocery store where I found fresh caught salmon and farm raised mahi mahi for a really good price. I have cooked salmon before, but only in the oven. I've never even touched mahi mahi, and to be honest, I don't even know what it is beyond some water dwelling, scale-bearing, gill-breathing critter. But I know one thing for sure; a bit of oil and some herbs and you can make a sturgeon taste like food!

I started the meal by making a white wine garlic reduction and added a bit of butter (1/2 cup, to be precise)  and cooked that down into a sauce, which I refrigerated a half hour while everything else cooked. Next, I cubed and seasoned some potatoes with rosemary, cilantro, garlic, sage, and thyme and roasted the potatoes while I fixed the rest of the meal.  I heated olive oil in a skillet until it was starting to smoke  and  then threw in some fresh rosemary, more fresh garlic, and some diced white cap mushrooms. Once the oil was infused with the seasoning, I placed the mahi mahi and salmon in and cooked them for about 4 minutes on each side. They crusted nice and brown, and the seasoned oil made for one decent meal. It wasn't biscuits and gravy, but by George, it tasted downright fancy!

Beautiful Salmon for our favorite market: HEB

It really isn't a smoky as it seems....

The finished product: Pan seared Salmon and Mahi Mahi with herb roasted

potatoes, a dinner salad, and a side of white wine garlic butter.....      

And of course, Lone Star beer, lest I forget my roots and get too

fancy for my Wranglers....

And if you're interested in the rest of the story (ie. cleanup of this mess), pop on over to my Sweetheart's blog at acountrychickinthehenhouse and see what olive oil and fish does in a shallow pan at high temps....

Oh, and just in case you didn't know and were curious, this is a mahi mahi BEFORE dinner...

(Ugly son of a gun, ain't he?)

Until next time...

Why we have kids....

Well, once again I sit here putting fingers to keyboard in order to enlighten the world to the higher functions  of my synapse. In other words, I’m gonna lead y’all through the muck and mire that is my mind’s inner workings, and hope that it is all somewhat lucid!

This past weekend was a busy one for us, considering we had no children with us for most of it.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous Saturday and Sunday so we decided to plant our garden, or at least part of it. My Beautiful Bride wanted to put the lettuce and spinach in the ground so off to one of my favorite stores (Lowe’s) we went.  Now bear in mind, leading me into a home improvement store is like taking a toddler to the Hershey’s Chocolate Factory…I want it all! We walked around the garden center for a while where my Darlin picked out several different types of lettuce (cause they were pretty), spinach plants, and I selected some jumbo jalapeno plants. After placing the salad-to-be in our cart my Best Half asked if we could look at some decorative plants. Now I enjoy a well maintained yard as well as the next man, but my mind suddenly clicked to the fact that (a). This was a three day weekend, (b).  I was not on-call, or even in queue for on-call, and (c).  My wife had big plans for me that apparently did not include sitting on the couch napping. Now I realize that “nap time” loses its appeal sometime after kindergarten and remains distasteful for many years thereafter, BUT, with the Monkey around, napping is not even an option. When it appears to him that you are entering that ever-so-blissful state of total nirvana he brings you back to reality in his own gentle way; he screams.  Now I’m not talking about an “I’m across the room and want to wake the old fella on the couch up” scream, oh no, I’m talking about a five year old creeping up like a Navy SEAL until he is two inches from your face and unleashing a caterwaul directly into your eardrum that makes your spine tingle and your brain shrink. It is an effective way to wake one’s father, I’ll grant him that.

While planning this Eden-like paradise, we decided it might be in our best interest to build a fence to protect the garden from harmful creatures. Not because we were concerned about rabbits and other wild animals eating the fruits of our labors, but because we have two canine companions living in our back yard who apparently believes it is their mission from on High to cause me a stroke.  To this day I firmly believe Clementine is not a thoroughbred Bloodhound, but a mixed breed of bloodhound, chicken, and Case track hoe. That dog had managed to trench our yard to such a degree that a light rain storm make the yard look like the Amazon River immigrated to Texas and took up residence behind our house. She sleeps in a hay nest in the garage and runs from everything. (I’m not real fond of the eggs she lays though. They have a kinda crappy flavor).  And as far as Jack goes, well, he’s supposedly a black Lab but I don’t think I buy that either. I think he also was some geneticist’s experiment gone wrong in which a Lab was crossed with a kangaroo and a goat. This dog can jump a 6 foot fence and never even nick a belly hair, pretty much coming and going as he pleases despite my best efforts to contain him. He chews up everything in sight, whether it is edible or not. Not just the kids’ shoes that are left in the garage or my wife’s softball glove from when she was much younger, but he eats cardboard boxes and tin cans, and chairs. He even tried to eat a table. Not a small coffee table but a whole dad-blamed kitchen table.

Anyway, back to Lowe’s, my Sweetheart was kind enough to let me peruse the tool and lumber sections before hustling me out the door. I admit, I had no intention of buying either tools or lumber at the time. It was nothing more than a stall tactic similar to the kids suddenly having to go to the bathroom when it’s time to do the dishes. (Shameful, I know). When we got home, we marked out a 10x12 area where we wanted to till the ground and then the fun began. I borrowed a tiller from my sister last week and finally got to use it. There is nothing in the world like tearing up the ground with spinning metal blades driven by a gas powered motor (except tearing up the ground with a diesel powered tractor/backhoe, but she wouldn’t let me get one of those).  I did enjoy the ten minutes of ground chewing action, even if it felt like I was wrestling a greased midget for a bit. The ground was actually pretty easy to turn since that area of the yard used to house the chicken coop. Talk about fertile! After the tilling was done, we grabbed the hoes (garden type, not ghetto slang) and made our rows, then planted our seedlings and a few seeds. Once we finished putting these things in the ground I started building the fence, which could have been an easy task except I ran out of welded wire fencing about 10 feet from the finish line. As a wise man once told me, you gauge a project not by square footage, but by how many trips to the hardware store. This was apparently going to be a two-trip experiment in patience. It was too late in the day to go back to Lowe’s, so we fashioned a make-shift barricade out of two sawhorses, a wheel barrow,  two plastic lawn chairs, some leftover chicken wire, and a hope that the genetic mutant dogs were too stupid to figure it out. There’s something to be said about redneck engineering; it ain’t purty, but it works!

The following day we returned to Lowe’s and bought another 50 yards of welded wire fence (because they don’t sell it any smaller…) and some more plants then finished the project. I’m pretty pleased with it and hope that this time the plants grow, unlike last year’s attempt at gardening which yielded nothing more than some cilantro and a zombie tomato plant that wouldn’t die. I did get to use the tiller again, this time to grind up the Amazon River banks back there and level out the ground some. We planted 20 pounds of grass seed over this area, hoping that it will look more like the amber waves of grain than the deserts of El Paso….

The best part of the long weekend came Monday morning when we had the distinct privilege of being at the doctor’s office exactly one hour before the sun woke up. This was the day we were to learn the gender of the new ranch hand and although I was surrounded by people who assured me it was going to be a girl, I kept the faith and hoped for a strapping young man to handle the lawn mowing and trash removal. This is why we have kids in the first place, isn’t it? (Be honest…). Once we got my Darlin checked in, they put a wrist band on her. This concerned me because I wasn’t sure if they were planning to keep her there for an extended period of time, or planning to introduce so much radiation into her system that she would forget who she was.  Neither prospect was acceptable in my book. We have a garden now and I would never remember to water it without her. She is my rock (and my memory).

Anyway, soon after the application of the tracking device (I mean, wrist band), we were led back to a room where there was a bed, a large device that looked like something out of an Orson Well’s book, and a small radio playing Big Band music, which was a pleasant surprise since most doctor’s offices play nothing but that despicable Muzak (or as I like to call it, imitation music). After taking what seemed to be thousands of images of our infant’s arms and legs (two of each, by the way), spine (only one), and face (again, only one) the tech showed us what we were looking for. Right there on the flat screen were our baby’s (to put it in her words) “man parts”. Yes folks, we are having a boy. And if the sonic induced images of the tech’s magical machine are any indication, a big boy. Ah yes, I am a proud papa. We left the office with hearts full of joy, pride, and a CD-Rom filled with evidence of my new son’s masculinity.

We were finally  able to lay down on the couch to nap for a couple of hours that afternoon before the Monkey came home… but I couldn’t fall asleep until he got there to keep me up. (By the way Honey, I really will get the saw horses out of the yard, or at least send the boys to do it….)

 

Until next time….

Never own anything you ain't willin to drill into...

Well, I’ve put off posting for a couple of weeks now, just pondering things at the Coop, and decided that it is once again time to share some insight into the inner working of this delicate film of gray matter I call my mind. When I first started posting I thought I would never have a problem coming up with a topic, or some form of wordy prose to share with the masses who were clambering at their computers to read the next burst of cyber-wisdom, but I have recently realized that while I could put lots of words into cyberspace, they would be just that…words. No feelings, no contemplative explanations, nothing that I wanted to use in this elegant slice of thoughtful enlightenment.

While thinking about this issue, I realized that pretty words and thought provoking twists of logic aren’t always the best form of reading entertainment (not that you’d actually ever get either of those here; but I thought I’d toss that out there) and decided to write today about the words of our fathers. No, not the words our fathers used when they accidentally broke their small toe changing pants at work, nor the words mine used upon realizing his youngest son was in the basement experimenting with the flash point of 10W-30 motor oil (about 420F-485F, if you must know), but the words of wisdom that we all thought were insane until we grew up and started using these exact same phrases with our own kids.

“Never own anything you aren't willing to drill a hole in”.

I never really understood what my Dad meant by this until recently. A couple of years ago my beautiful Bride and I were in a position to buy a new bedroom suit and went to our local purveyor of fine rustic furniture.  Three of them actually, before we found exactly what we wanted at the price we wanted to pay. After having spent several hours and gallons of gas, we decided on a nice dresser with a mirror, two matching nightstands, and an amazing bedframe/headboard combination that had more storage in the built-in drawers underneath than a politician has excuses. We loaded all this up into my ole Dodge truck and make the trip home.  Being the smart fella I’d love to believe that I am, I suggested we stage all of the new items in the living room until the old bedroom furniture was removed to the garage. Once that was complete, I carefully removed the plastic coverings from the beautifully stained pine wood bed frame, taking care not to mar the finish with my pocket knife. I mean for Pete’s sake, we just spent $600 on a bedframe; I might have actually shed tears had I scratched it!

 Once the plastic was removed (with surgical precision, I might add), my lovely bride and I pushed it down the hallway to the bedroom, already picturing how this one piece of furniture would transform our little 11x13 bedroom into a suite that would make a king fit to be tied. As we arrived at the bedroom door, a sudden dread filled my heart, based on the realization that simple physics had defeated me. The bedframe was too large to turn in the hallway, making it impossible to get it into the room. Now I am normally a calm man, seldom prone to panic, but this time was different. My mind began to race as I tried to decide whether or not I should take out the doorway of the bedroom, or remove the window and put the bed in from the outside. Apparently I was listing these options out loud because the Love of my life began getting a rather odd look on her face. I realize now that look was that of a person trying to remember the number to the local asylum.

I decided that since I had never installed double pane insulated windows, I should widen the bedroom doorway (been there, done that), and started toward the garage for my trusty circle saw. My bride stopped me and calmly suggested that we cut the bed instead. It was my turn to wonder about the current rules for commitment to a ward, until I realized she might be right. It might actually be better to cut the bed (which we own) than to alter the design of our residence (which we don’t own).  A half hour and two pounds of sawdust later, the bed was cut apart and reassembled in our room. It might not be fit for a king, but my Queen sleeps just perfectly on it. (Oh, and the doorway is still intact).  

Now that I have kids of my own, I catch myself using these very same phrases, such as when one of the kiddos transgresses in such a fashion that it only requires a light-hearted scolding such as “I’m gonna stomp a mud-hole in yer butt, then stomp it dry”.  I knew, upon hearing this, that I had committed an act of utter stupidity and had been caught at it, yet at the same time knew I wasn’t in any real danger of said mud-hole creation. Another classic that my kids hear is “Your mouth is gonna write a check your butt can’t cash”. This is usually when we are play-fighting and my 14 year old decides to challenge the old man to a “wrasslin” match.  My dad and I play fought often, and it was always in fun; not only because we enjoyed it, but also because I knew in my heart of heart that if I ever challenged my dad to a real fight, he would accept and that scared me. My dad wasn’t a big man, but he was strong as a Missouri mule and didn’t back down from anyone. Besides that, he kindly reminded me that my body occasionally grew weary and I would eventually have to fall asleep. He never finished that thought (and he didn’t have to). My young imagination filled with nightmares of the tortures I would endure when sleep overcame me and that fear kept me from many stupid decisions. Not that Dad would have done anything to me in my sleep; I really don’t believe he would. But it is the fear of the unknown that keeps wise men honest.

So in closing, I leave you with this nugget of rural gold; I reckon good sense is scarcer than hen’s teeth, so don’t waste what you have.

 

Until next time,

 

 

Come and take it... (now that'll be $4 please)

So my beautiful Bride and I decided we were going to try our hand at bestowing some of her AMAZING jam as well as some of our yard eggs upon the citizens of this Great State in exchange for a small amount of their legal tender. We had a wonderful plan; prepare the jams a day before the Farmer’s Market so they would be the freshest and store the eggs at a perfect 40 degrees so they would match the jam in freshness and thus avoid that nasty botulism or salmonella. Why this was genius at its best! Do something we love to do AND maybe turn a small profit to boot. Our excitement was every bit equal to that of a 5 year old on Christmas morning and in our minds we were already the next Mrs. Fields, selling our wares across the country and putting smiles on the faces of our customers world-wide.  The only thing left to do was to look into getting the permit from the county to sell such succulent consumables to the starving masses. I jumped onto the computer right away and took a left onto the information super highway we know as the internet and…BAM, there it was. A detour sign immediately followed by a roadblock of tanks and men with machine guns. Ok, that may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but read on!

I spent literally hours on the computer reading through State and Federal food service laws (including some laws that I’m not entirely certain are even directed toward the human race) all to learn that any person is welcome to sell their food products, all you have to do is follow ten simple steps. Did I say ten? I meant ten thousand. The number of hoops that have to be jumped through to sell food would have made Evel Kneiveil quit his career as a stunt man and take up factory work.  And that’s not the worst part; in order to make jam, we would have to use a commercial kitchen to prepare it.  Now if you know my Darling wife, she is a bit of an obsessive cleaner. I personally love her for it because I get to live in a sterile environment, but apparently that is not nearly good enough for the federal government. I mean seriously, one inspection of her kitchen and the Mayo Clinic would send their brain surgeons to her to learn how to clean.  I find it humorous that a kitchen as well cared for as hers isn’t good enough to prepare small batches of heaven to share with the community, but the large restaurants (who, by the way have paid thousands of dollars to our favorite Uncle…Sam) can get away with cockroach parts in their prepared foods as long as it is under a specified “parts-per-thousand”.  Me personally, I am not ok with ANY insect parts in my food, and would sell food with that in mind.

I watched a documentary the other night called “Farmageddon” and unfairly assessed it as people who were trying to bypass their responsibilities to the public. It is actually interesting to watch, regardless of your opinion of the people shown, in that one can really see how much the federal government is willing to squash small farmers in the interest of the large production farms. There was one question asked during the show that now really stands out to me; Is it really fair to hold small farms, especially small organic farms, to the same standards as the larger, more industrial (read: filthy) farms. I completely agree that food safety is a must, no matter who the producer is, but it is so much easier to track where your food comes from when you buy it from Farmer Joe who lives next door than when you buy it from a large chain grocery store whose products change hands ten times before making its way into your cart.  Thankfully the Great State of Texas has the answer, essentially telling the Federal Government once again where to stash its restricting rules on production. It's known as the Cottage Foods Act  and was passed August 2011. In this act, Texas made it legal to sell certain non-perishable foods (baked good, jams, jellies, and seeds) at your residence as long as it is a face to face transaction. So, although it is not what we had in mind, the Rocking PMH Ranch is still in the business of selling the canned ambrosia we call jam. Typical of most real Texans, tell us we can't do something and we'll find another way to do it, and do it better!

 

Until next time,

 

 

And then there were five...

Well, since the world did not end this month as the Mayans allegedly predicted, I will yet again endow upon the literary world a small glimpse into my thoughts. Go ahead and set up your electron microscope for this amoeba –sized brain leak. I spend much of my day thinking and although much of the brain power is spent on work-related issues, there are times in which the synapses trip the light fantastic (Or something to that effect). Lately my thoughts have meandered across such wonderful topics such as the economy, politics, and interpersonal relations. (Get your mind out of the gutter, I’m talking about manners).  Among those rather depressing topics comes a ray of hope, a burst of sunshine through the mushroom cloud of human malfeasance. Curious? Well by all means, read on!

While I realize my lovely Bride has already posted about our wonderful news, I have yet to share my perspective of this glorious event-to-be; she and I are anxiously anticipation a new addition to the household. No, not another puppy like our Jack, saved from the clutches of the animal control gestapo. We are expecting a baby (As opposed to what, a new yacht? Sheesh…).  So to get the basics out of the way, yes, I am VERY happy about it, and no, it was not a surprise. All things considered, no pregnancy should be a real surprise, assuming the marriage follows the traditional definition of a marriage. Even those who did not plan for a baby should not be surprised when their um, actions, lead to an easy to read blue line, or pink double plus sign… but I digress.

I love children. (Well, at least my own children. I’m not always so terribly fond of the offspring of others). And it’s a wonderful thing that I do love them,  considering I am about to have another one. Who else can make you happier than a lark one moment, and then mad as an old wet hen the next?  Speaking of wet hens, our chickens will stand in the pouring rain for hours and seem to enjoy it, never once uttering a cross squawk.  Makes me wonder about that old phrase after all… Anyway, children are a source of great joy and great pain. For instance, the Monkey will be ever-so-gently cavorting around the living room making silly faces and laughing, just  filling the room with joy, and then run full speed across said room and jump into his Daddy’s lap…and well, enter the pain. It’s almost like small children are born with built-in targeting devices in their needle-sharp knees. The military should look into using little boys’ knees as models for the newest missile defense system. Knees NEVER miss their mark. 

Another exciting thing about having a new baby is all that wonderful potential wrapped up in such a small package. Now you might think I’m talking about the possibility of this freshly hatched bit of human tissue one day becoming President of the United States, but I’m not. I’m talking about the ability of this small person to produce prodigious amounts of poo, another of my Bride’s favorite topics. How can it be that such a sweet being can take milk and turn it into a form of matter that could weaken Superman himself?  And what is formula really made of, powered stink bug? I mean it smells bad enough when you mix it up, but once it has processed in the gizzard of that beautiful bundle of joy, it becomes more deadly than anything ever released at Chernobyl. Sarin gas, bah. We have formula poo. Even Marion Donovan, the inventor of the disposable undergarments for infants, appropriately named these poo packs DIEpers… (Yes, I know, its diaper, with an “A”, but that doesn’t fit into the pun very well now, does it?).  And while I’m on this topic, did ya’ll know that all diapers are falsely advertised? No matter what the package says, those doggone things won’t hold 30 pounds. Not even close.  

Quite often I an asked if I’m hoping for a boy or girl and my response is “Whatever I am blessed with, as long as he is healthy”.  And while my Darling and I are hoping for a boy, we sure won’t be disappointed if it isn’t.  A girl just means I get to buy more guns for dating season…Uh, I meant hunting season.  Not that I would ever actually shoot a boy trying to date one of my girls, but HE doesn’t know that for sure and the girls aren’t really one hundred percent certain. I’d like to keep it that way . All I know is, boy or girl, I will love and protect this child with all the fierceness in my being, and will do my best to raise it with the values taught to me by my Mom and Dad; Honor, Integrity, Kindness, and the sheer, unadulterated love of a 30 ounce porterhouse steak cooked medium. (Sorry, it’s getting close to dinner time and my thoughts strayed).

So as my beautiful Bride and I travel this path of biological wonder, I will continue to occasionally post about it and keep you up to date on the pregnancy, weight gain (mine, not hers), delivery, and which one of us gets woozy first in the delivery room…me, or the doctor.

Until next time,

 

 

 

 

Look,up in the sky! Its a desk, its a bar, its..its...nevermind, its a desk....

So my wonderfully patient Bride often agrees to humor me and my attempts at woodworking. Thus far, my resume only included building a bookshelf for our living room, which she graciously rearranged the living room to accommodate. The bookshelf worked out ok, although the finished product ended up much larger than I had first envisioned. Apparently I dream big and produce even bigger, which can be a good thing at work, but not so great when you are trying to fit the results into a 12x14 room.

Anyway, my most recent project was a desk for work, which was a somewhat daunting task since I am not exactly a carpenter by any stretch of the imagination. I spent several days drawing, erasing and re-drawing the plans for the desk until what I saw in my head was somewhat represented on paper.

 

 

Once the drawing was complete, I made a trip to the Lowe’s store in Conroe where I bought all of the lumber and stain, then a short jog out to RND Rustics in Magnolia, TX, where I bought the cast iron stars for trim.  The lumber list consisted of whitewood dimensional lumber: (3) 1x10x6, (16) 1x4x10, and (3) 2x6x10 treated lumber for strength. Every cut was measured three times before the trusty Ryobi circular saw was even triggered, then measured again after the cut was made.

The desk top was fashioned from the 1x10 boards glued edge to edge, with ½” dowels every 6” for added strength, then clamped in a pair of pipe clamps overnight to dry (Thank you Aunt Judy and Uncle Jim, for selling those wonderful devices. I KNEW they would come in handy).

As the top cured, I began building the legs of the desk by gluing and screwing four 1x4’s together in a square tube 36” tall. My bride asked me “Isn’t that going to make the desk kinda tall”, to which I replied that it was. Since I’m 6’02” I figured the desk should be taller than average to accommodate my height, not to mention the fact a taller desk seems quite regal, like a judge on the bench…

 

Once the legs dried and were ready to be assembled I toenailed the 2x6 boards to the inside of the legs and checked everything for square for the first time. (I know, seems kinda late at that point, but it was actually dead on, so maybe not)

While waiting on the leg structure to cure I began sanding the desk top, starting with an 80 grit to remove all of the rough edges, then used a 120 grit, 160 grit, and finished with a 220 grit for a smooth finish that still left some of the rustic look (read defects in the wood…) without having to worry about splinters. I also cut twenty 30” pieces of 1x4 to use as trim and sanded it the same way as I did the top. By the time all of the sanding was finished the top and legs were ready to assemble, which I did by screwing a 1 ½ inch triangle cut piece of wood to the legs, then to the desk top. (Proof that I’m not a carpenter…I know there’s a name for those “triangles” but I can’t remember it; An example of knowledge in practice but not in theory!)

With the top installed, I used a countersink drill bit and wood screws to attach the trim pieces and a curtain to three sides of the desk, which made it actually look like a piece of furniture rather than a work bench and a collection of wood.

I was finally ready to stain the desk. I used an oil based Cordovo stain in English oak to give me a color somewhat darker than the natural whitewood as well as to bring out the natural beauty of the pine knots. Rather than follow the directions, which was to brush the stain on and then almost immediately wipe it off, my Darlin and I brushed the stain on and made sure all of the stray brush marks and bubbles were out, and then let it dry. I made this decision after experimenting with several methods of applying the stain, sanding, and re-staining on a scrap piece. Needless to say, the color came out exactly as I had hoped.

 

 

 

The final touch was to add the cast iron stars from RND Rustics. The smaller stars are attached by a nail made to the rear of the star, and the larger center star is attached by wood screws on either side. This was a fun project that turned out almost exactly like the plans I had drawn out.

 

Considering I am neither an artist (I couldn’t draw flies if I were covered in poo) nor a carpenter, I am pretty happy with the results. I attribute the success of this project to my beautiful wife, whose suggestion to take my time and “do it right” was instrumental in the outcome, as well as her willingness to wrangle our urchins while I stayed in the garage working on it. As a side note, it’s amazing how little you can hear in the garage when a circle saw is slicing through a 2x8. It’s even more amazing what you can hear when it stops, such as “Stop putting your chicken on that scab”, and “Monkey! Stop drinking the dogs’ water”. With such jewels as that being common fare at our house, I think it may be time for another project. Maybe new furniture for the whole house?  Just kidding Sweetheart. I couldn’t do that to you……

As a side note, the guys at work all asked me the same question my loving wife did.... Isn't it too tall, or is that a bar? Maybe I am spending a bit too much time at work...they're starting to sound familiar.

 

 

Until next time,