I brought the Silverado quickly to a stop this morning in the middle of the county road, right where it enters the bottoms. To my right, I spied a monster whitetail buck sprinting across an empty hay field south of Crooked Creek.
He finished his 150-yard dash maybe 30 feet in front of me, vaulting up the steep wooded slope to my left and disappearing into cover.
It’s that time of year — whitetail rut and gun season, this being the third day of the latter. Today’s encounter happened just a couple of crow-flies miles from The Mountain.
Here’s hopin’ that big ol’ boy makes it up our way.
Deb and I have The Trash Thing under control now, I think. This morning’s trip to the transfer station was our first in ten days, thanks to regular use of the burn barrel.
I’m sure we can do better, but we’re a lot more efficient these days.
On my way Home, I stopped in at Miller Hardware for carriage bolts, flat washers and hex nuts, 40 pieces in all. I picked what I needed from old-school bins and dropped it into a small plastic bag, which was weighed at the cash register.
Two dollars and fifty cents. Can’t beat that.
I wanted to check a couple of boxes today — nothing major and, since my back is still giving me trouble, nothing strenuous. Basically, my plan was to finish setting up our stationary saws so they’ll be ready when I am.
I flipped the old Craftsman table saw onto its top and set to work digging the crud out of its mechanisms. Every surface got a rubdown with 000 steel wool, and everything that’s supposed to move got shots of either WD40 or white lithium grease.
The bolts joining the tool to its stand were so rusted that they no longer could be tightened. They got tossed, replaced with four of those new carriage bolts.
Our chop saw needed to be fitted to its stand, too, but first I had to build a platform to adapt the saw’s base to the “universal” stand. That was a simple matter of cutting a 16×24 piece of 3/4-inch plywood, drilling eight holes and, using the rest of my carriage bolts, mounting the platform to the stand and the saw to the platform.
Really, that was all I had in mind to do today. But I kept going.
The deck of the loft I’ll build in the shed will measure 48 inches deep by 113 inches wide. That’ll require one full sheet of plywood, plus a 17-inch-wide piece. I figured that as long as I had the plywood out and the circular saw warmed up, I may as well cut that narrow strip.
I also cut the full sheet in half, which will make it easier to hoist into position. I staged all three pieces in the shed.
After that, I got to thinkin’ that it wouldn’t be too hard to knock out the corner nailers for the cabin. So I cut down four eight-foot 2x4s to 89 inches each.
Then I sat down with our DeWalt framing nailer, cracked the owner’s manual and took myself to school.
See, I’d never used a power nailer. I’d never even been around while someone else used one. Putting such a tool into my hands was like presenting the chief of a previously undiscovered tribe with an Android phone — my very own “first contact” moment.
Nailing up the initial corner stud was a little comical. I had to twiddle with settings — depth, power — and I ended up having to pull two nails that I totally FUBARed. The second 2×4 went up a little faster and turned out a little better, and by the fourth I was showing off.
I do believe I like it, even though this evening my right hand aches as if I’d spent the afternoon firing hot handloads from a snub-nosed .357. But it sure beats the hell outta swingin’ a hammer.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB