Well, the boat is officially in the shop, and it isn’t as big as I remember. Or rather, it isn’t taking up as much space as I thought it would, leaving me with a good size open area to work. That being said, the stands that I built for a few of my tools are…
Author: JP
Charcuterie Paddles
Learning to make cutting boards and paddles has been a bit of a backwards learning for me. I jumped head-first into making end-grain cutting boards, having never made a cutting board before. I just loved the look of them and all the different patterns that you can do. Now that I have done a few,…
Dominos Strategy
Playing the long game with our yard, is like playing with dominos as a kid. I’m not talking about playing the actual game, but rather stacking them all up and then knocking them over and watching the pattern it makes. Our plans for our yard has been the stacking and knocking over of dominos. Certain…
Old & New
This last week, Kurt and I have been on vacation, which during COVID and travel restrictions meant a staycation. Not a problem! We live in a beautiful area with lots to do outdoors, so we made varying plans that would depend on the weather. One plan we also made was to be spontaneous and NOT…
Spring Growth
It has been almost a month now since we started a few plants inside the house. They are happily growing big and tall and are on-track with being ready to go into the garden beds in mid-May. Over the next week or so, I will begin to put them outside on the deck for the…
Fence Panels For a Slope
Building a fence on a slope can be a challenge, especially a slope that has different and changing grades throughout the full length. Purchasing pre-built panels is not an option as those are only applicable on flat surfaces or in areas with a very minimal slope. We used an option that gave a very professional,…
Hidey-Ho Neighbour
Since we moved into our house, almost 8 years ago, we have had a very open backyard. Although it is a nice large space, privacy is something we have lacked due to short 3′ high fences. Anytime we did want something close to privacy in the yard, we had to retreat to the top grassed…
Sifting
Ah, spring, the time that we go from chilling on the couch or enjoying cross-country skiing, to massive amounts of work and projects in the yard. We tend to hit the ground running in the spring, trying to accomplish as many projects as we can before the desert heat hits. This often leaves us exhausted…
Checkers And Stripes
Despite all the time I have been enjoying in the yard, I have also been finding some time to get out in the shop and play with my tools. I decided to try some more cutting boards. This time around, I picked up some Padauk, Walnut and Maple (not ambrosia this time). With those, I…
Preparing The Grounds
With Excavator Kurt back at work, we needed to do some clean-up and remove some more of our temporary garden pieces. In order to be able to dig in the new wall terraces, we needed to remove all of the tomato towers that we had built and dug into the hillside. Those sturdy towers have…
JK Building The Dream 