My faithful Redneck Malinois and I have two go-to sittin’ spots. South of the cabin, it’s the “porch” near the shed; north, it’s the picnic table. Each trip, we take care of her business first, and then flop.
The routine is familiar now. It works for us.
Scanning the trees surrounding the picnic table early this morning, I was surprised to see a broken branch on a nearby red oak — live and still attached, apparently a casualty of recent winds.
It had to come down. Because it drooped low over the edge of the fire ring, sooner would be better than later.
The 20V pole saw was the right tool for the job. Done.
Then I moved on from tree surgery to furniture repair.
I have several folding camp chairs. The two I use most often are cheap, bright green and, after 15 years of use, well-worn. Not long ago, one of them gave up — a pivot pin sheared off. I relegated it to the scrap pile and pressed the matching chair into service.
Last week, I noticed that its seat fabric was splitting and about to let go.
Instead of dropping ten bucks on a new “beater” chair, this morning I fished the collapsed one out of the scrap barrel. From that chair I salvaged the seat sling and the right armrest. The other supplied the left armrest and the frame.
It meant completely disassembling both, swapping-out bad parts and creating one good chair from two broken ones.
That was a very satisfying thing to do. For me, anyway.
Mid-afternoon, I got a wild hair. An idea came together quickly. I gathered the following items:
- Two scraps of plywood;
- Two 2×4 cutoffs;
- The rectangular piece of T1-11 cut from the cabin siding last year to accommodate the through-the-wall air conditioner;
- A small scrap of metal roofing;
- A wire coat hanger;
- Two pieces of steel salvaged from a broken bird feeder; and
- Four plastic lids I’d saved from canisters of Sun-Maid raisins.
What could I possibly do with such an odd collection of things?
Modify my target stands, that’s what. Here’s the one on the handgun lane:
And this is what I did with the rifle stand:
The strip of roof metal and the plates from the busted bird feeder are rudimentary reactive targets. Those red Sun-Maid lids won’t last long, of course, but they’ll be easy to replace with something else.
Fun stuff. I’m still grinning about doing it.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable