It’s a little cooler today. Walking out the door at 6am didn’t feel like stepping into a warm bath. This weekend, forecasters say, we’ll have highs of only 80°F, with wake-up lows in the upper 50s. That’ll be great weather for working on the cabin.
After getting off the phone with Deb this morning, I finished the layout for the woodstove hearth. It’ll take exactly 156 bricks, and I’ll have to make six cuts. Provided I get those cuts right, we should have just enough.
We’re close on cement board. I’ll do the floor first, then the wall, and see what I have left for the ceiling. I’m not too proud to piece it together if I need to (and if I can).
I’ll pick up some construction adhesive, I think, to secure the bricks at the perimeter. Maybe under the woodstove, too.
Moving on, I wanted to surprise Deb by putting up the last two of our four bird feeders. Hanging the first, a spring-loaded squirrel-proof design, was easy — fashion a hook from coat-hanger wire, pick an overhanging branch, done.
The other feeder is the heaviest. It doesn’t have any squirrel-proofing, either. When we put it up before, it was feeding more furry-tailed rodents than birds.
But I had a plan.
I strung a length of vinyl-covered cable between two trees about ten feet apart, using pieces of bicycle inner tube to protect the trees and securing it with cable clamps. Near one end, I installed a turnbuckle to deal with the inevitable stretching.
To foil the tree rats, at the center of the span I incorporated two pieces of one-inch PVC pipe, which I’d painted moss green to blend in with the surroundings. Another coat-hanger-wire hook completed the setup.
I filled the big feeder and hung it on the hook. The cable sagged some, but not as much as I thought it would.
It looked great. Pure genius.
I decided to take a few pictures and spring the surprise on Deb when we texted at lunchtime — y’know, to brighten her day and all that. I’d just snapped the second photo and was looking down at my phone when I heard a loud CRASH! in front of me.
The whole thing had collapsed. Bird seed everywhere.
Channeling my inner CSI, I bent down and examined the carnage. Not only had the cable snapped near one of the trees, but the feeder’s own hanger had broken. There’s no telling which happened first, or why, and it doesn’t much matter.
I know it wasn’t the weight of a squirrel or a chickadee that brought it down — they never got the chance. It had been hanging for less than five minutes.
I gathered up the wreckage. The feeder, though dented, is usable if I want to try repairing the hanger. I can use the cable and hardware for something else.
All that seed on the ground will please doves and other ground feeders. And yeah, the squirrels.
My plan failed. Apparently, it wasn’t genius after all. And while it’s tempting to say that I have nothing to show for the hours I invested in the project, that truly remains to be seen — failure becomes futility only if I don’t learn from it.
I know I’ll take lessons from the exercise.
Go back to what I said yesterday about Democrats’ newly minted VP nominee, and you’ll see that I compared him to Crazy Bernie from Vermont. That was simply my initial reaction, based on what I was able to learn about the guy, his positions and his policies.
I didn’t know that a few days before, Bernie himself was actively stumping for Chuckles to pick the Minnesota governor. They’re cut from the same democrat-socialist cloth.
The Trump campaign is basing its first round of attacks on similarities between the two — no surprise there. Since the announcement, for example, we’ve learned that he committed the unpardonable sin of “stolen valor” by lying about his military service. He signed bills granting healthcare, free college tuition and driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. He’s made Minnesota a so-called “trans refuge,” advocating for the abomination known as “gender-affirming care,” including robbing parents of the authority to make decisions about their own children.
He’s a progressive’s progressive.
Now, what you’re gonna hear from Democrats over the next 91 days — and no longer, if we wrest America from the hands of these radical leftists — is that he’s all about “working families.” That’s code for “unions,” by the way. And though organized labor isn’t so organized anymore (with a few ominous exceptions, like teachers), there still are enough lever-pulling trade unionists out there to make this a potential problem for Trump-Vance.
I know, I know, no card-carrying union member with a mortgage, mouths to feed and a functioning brain could possibly want more of what we have now. Thing is, Democrats win elections because we can count on only two out of three.
This Chuckles-Bernie Jr. ticket is dangerous as hell. For true Americans, it reminds us that the time for talk is over — this is a moment to act, and we best be about the business of restoring our country.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB