Bumper Magic

If you haven't heard the big story, Pat was called out to a job across the inlet that was supposed to last through spring. I had worked myself up to be able to handle his absence and even went through the toughest days without him and then he called and came home after a couple nights! So much for all that drama.

On a bright note, through all that, he got a little job building a bumper for an x-ray truck! It's a trial run and he may do more, but that one bumper has been an interesting project for the last week. In case you were wondering, the x-ray truck is a mobile dark room that processes x-rays taken of pipe welds. It's fascinating, really!

Since I know you are dying to see the photos, I've got some smashing ones of the Man working in his shop! (we've decided the garage is no longer. it is now a shop.)

Simple does not always equal easy. When it's done right, it looks easy.
Perfection. The bumper looks good, too!
Rough finish. All it needs now is the step and paint!

The step is a pretty ingenious idea of...um...ask Pat about it. It's really great, I just can't explain it well. It's got to do with bolts and threads, and it was really cool to see, but don't ask me to explain it. Just believe me, it was very smart.
Painted and the step is flipped up! This is necessary to allow the step to swing while driving. It's even equipped with the license plate tag.
Installed! Yep, that's me in the green coat. I was an extraordinary helper. Actually I had no idea what to do, but I tried. I don't think I was fired, though. Now that I think about it, I may have some traits that put me on the "keeper" list! Seriously, people, it turned out really nice.

The Rookie

We have this garage that doubles as a shop. (Pat has informed me that it is a shop that doubles as a garage!) This to say, WORK goes on in this space. I'll leave Pat to tell about his woodstove project, but let me share my little project today.

Since you know we live in Alaska, and you probably know we have snow, this all leads to the conclusion that you must know we have our studded tires. We normally have the tires switched by now, but our weather has been unseasonably warm and gorgeous that we haven't felt the need. It's now becoming much colder, and though we don't have snow as of yet, it will be here before we know it. Worse we may have ice. So Pat has decided that since our stud's are on rims, it's time I change the tires. All of them.


Yes, it's a little bit cold in there, but it didn't take long before I was warming up.
I learned a few tricks to make it easier and also learned where to put the jack, etc. It was a good reminder in case I need to do this on my own someday. Of course, I plan to bat my eyelashes as much as possible to avoid it, but you just never know when all the drivers are women or it's just too dark to see me. Moving on, I was an obvious novice to the shop work concept, and Pat let me know that one can always tell the rookie by all the dirt on the face!

How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck?

This is what we've been up to the last week or so. Last weekend we were able to borrow a splitter from friends and we've been at it ever since. The stack on the left was started a couple months ago with Dad's help. We were able to make a decent dent in the stack by the end of the weekend.

By the end of this week, we've just about filled the now named woodshed with split and stacked wood. Pat is so excited! We've put up about 14 cords of wood, though some is birch that has to wait to cure until next year.

The stack under the tarps are birch for next year, where the stacks in the woodshed are for this years' use. The birch stacks were helped with Mom's visit! Nothing like making visitors work for their stay! We left a "hole" for Pat to use for his wood stove. This stove will heat the fluid that will run in the floor. We hope we have enough wood to keep that one going as well.


On a different note, here's a glimpse of what our evenings look like. Pat likes to tell the dogs who's boss. They don't listen very well. It's a little dark, but still funny!

Projects Galore

You all know how Pat cannot keep from doing projects. He has been home for a few weeks and has had the opportunity to get a lot done! A week or so ago, he brought a selection on cabinets home from a certain drop off location. Yes, it was the dump. Anyway, they were outdated, but still solid, more than our current kitchen cabinets, so he brought them home. Yes, they are on our front porch. I know. High class. We know you want to be like us.


After a little bit of paint and Pat's penchant for doing things as well as possible, we put a couple cabinets together to form a type of hutch/cabinet for the bathroom. Since there is no storage in the bathroom, this works so much nicer than my shower curtain-covered shelf-over-a-shoe-storage-thing. I couldn't take a picture of that part of the before. It was just too frightening.

Gosh, it looks so nice in there! It's much nicer to open a door to access supplies rather than lift a shower curtain and search through a cubbyhole.

Oh, there's much more!
A few days back, Pat started the project of the stairs to eliminate the ladder of death to access the loft in the garage. He's been diligently progressing on the project, and it came along very well.




The finished product has been a gorgeous sight to behold! He did a great job and the steps have the grating to prevent snow/ice from building up. He was quite the carpenter and made several difficult corners. I think his Grandad would be proud.
While Pat was preparing his steps, I got going on a few of my own. Beware of starting gardening projects. They grow, too! I guess I should've watered less. Actually, it was a fun project of creating a much needed path of steps down our yard.

We plan on continuing the terracing all the way back to the tree in the background. That tree will be gone soon as well. Cottonwoods are not our friends. We love the tree we planted. It is a Thompson Blue Spruce, a dwarf variety, that won't get over 8 feet or so. We got it to commemorate our 7th anniversary! Speaking of that, those stairs mentioned above were used that night to take me to "Frank's Steak House." After dancing, we had a marvelous moose steak dinner with some fabulous ambiance! Alas, Frank's seems to have disappeared as many restaurants do. At least the tree will be here a while!

Monday Maintenance

OK, this actually happened yesterday, but it's close enough.

Yes, that is me down on the dolly. I told my husband that I would like to learn how to change the oil in our car. He's been working pretty solid the last few weeks, so I haven't had to give in to that request. I say these things, and I'm not altogether sure that I mean them. He finally finished this hitch of work this weekend, and we stopped by NAPA on the way home from church! Oh joy. I must admit, that as unsure as I was about this project, God had really blessed me this particular Sunday and I felt more confident and adventurous as ever! Today was the day. We made it home and promptly took a 45 minute nap that somehow lasted 2 hours. I normally do not function well after a nap that long. Again, God was blessing me yesterday and after a few groggy minutes of walking the dogs, I was awake and ready to tackle the oil change.

My fabulous husband got me set up with the car up on jacks and showed me where to unplug the oil pan. I took the socket wrench and rolled up under and proceeded to turn the plug. Nothing really happened. It turned, mind you, but never loosened. I alerted my love of the situation and he took a turn on the wrench as well. Same result. We then discovered that there was a nut in a bolt type thing that was the plug. The plug was eventually removed and the draining commenced. It commenced for a long time and looked a bit odd. After a large amount of fluid and time passed, it finally stopped and my stud-man took a look at it. He also noticed the odd coloring. Once he examined the fluid closer, he realized that it was indeed transmission fluid. We had successfully drained all the transmission fluid from the car. Oh dear. Perhaps that 2 hour nap did more damage than we thought.

When I realized that my honey thought it was a bit funny, I relaxed and we enjoyed the laugh! We refilled the transmission fluid through his ingenious funnel Macguyvering and proceeded to find the correct plug for the oil and, yes, I changed the oil in the car! It was not difficult, though I appreciated the loosening of the plugs and filter beforehand. What should have been a 45 minute to an hour job took several hours and we got very dirty. I was glad I put on a pair of my husbands Carharts. I felt pretty proud of myself by the end of it all. It was a fine end to a fabulous day.

I am so thankful for a husband who is willing to show me how to do things, and then have the humility to laugh when he's made a mistake! I enjoyed the opportunity to share with him more of the life lessons he has taught me and how his examples have helped me to mature and grow in the Lord. I am so blessed. I am a huge receiver of God's grace. I certainly don't deserve any bit of it.

Garage Update

It's practically finished! We've been told that if we leave the siding undone, we won't have to pay property taxes on the garage. I have to say, as appealing as the Tyvek is, I think I may still opt for siding and pay the extra taxes. I know, it's a time to save money and this would save on two different fronts! I guess vanity will win this one out!

Here is a photo of the homemade ladder that I do not care to climb. I should be more specific: Climbing up is less of a difficulty for me, but crawling down is where I become a bit panicky.

Pat has been working tirelessly on getting the inside of the garage to a workable state. He has gotten all the drywall up and though we need to tape/mud the seams when it's warmer, he's also gotten some benches up. This enables him to begin projects with solid work surfaces. Note the wood bench for wood projects and the steel table for his welding bench! It's a bit too cold out there for me just yet!

Birthday Surprise!

Pat gave me an incredible birthday surprise! He fibbed a bit (more than he needed to since I rarely question him!) and told me he was bringing home some garage stuff Saturday. He pulled in with a large box on the trailer. I thought it a strange size for garage door openers, but hey, I've seen stranger things. He wanted to bring it on the deck instead of storing it in the garage, which again I thought odd, but it wasn't important enough to argue against. He opened the box, just to make sure he got everything, and my jaw dropped! I kept saying, "What?" I was quite impressed with the range! I'd looked at them but thought we'd wait until ours died before getting a new one. This one has a huge window that you don't even need to light to see into! I love it!

On a different note: Pat is thoroughly enjoying our dogs. Somehow they have become indoor dogs. This is obviously not my doing. Our garage is also coming along. I just hope it's done by Christmas - at least closed up.

Catching up

Okay, here's a little update. Our garage is slowly going up! The walls are up, thanks to Pat's buddy, Casey who helped. As of now, the first floor ceiling/2nd floor is on as well as the end walls for the second story. It has taken shape, and we are happy to be parking out of the snow!
This is from a while back, obviously since the water is liquid! We had a couple visitors stop in! It was neat to watch them feed with their tail-feathers in the air!

Pat took us out to do some spruce grouse hunting. We headed out and hiked around, unfortunately not finding any birds. Rowdy sure tried!This was Rowdy after we'd spent the day hunting. Rowdy ran around 25 miles or so to our 6! He was tuckered!