I recently ordered a new pair of lightweight logging boots to replace my old ones, now 20 years old and very high mileage (not to mention they weigh seven pounds apiece). Somewhere in my search I came across this fascinating video of handmade boots.
Our little corner of paradise has many idyllic features fitting my “Want List,” compiled over 30 years, almost perfectly. Remote? Check (as the realtors have advertised, we are three mountains back from the nuclear blast zones). Sparse population? Check (reputedly the lowest population of any county east of the Mississippi River). Isolation? Check (nearest permanent neighbors a mile away). Geographic beauty? Oh yeah.
Rich, loamy soil perfect for gardening? Uh, not so much. I actually think that the primary “agricultural” product of our region is not cattle and sheep but rocks. Even now after a dozen years of gardening the same spot Mrs. Barn gathers a new pile of rocks every Spring during her pre-planting preparations. By the way, this has to be done by hand as the “soil” will beat the ever lovin’ snot out of a garden tiller. I once rented a trencher to bury some electrical conduit. Didn’t last five minutes.
Recognizing the nature of the “soil” here I built a series of raised beds for gardening before we moved here. I ordered a truck load of “topsoil” that had to be screened to remove all the gravel, then filled the boxes with that screened dirt. Soon enough there were green shoots popping up.
Early on I affixed PVC hoops ribs on the boxes so they could be netted in the summer and covered with plastic in the winter. On two of the boxes I built removable screened hoop covers for the beds, and this past winter I was informed that the two screened covers were plumb wore out and needed to be replaced.
Given the importance of the enclosed raised beds I decided to make some first-class hoop covers for them. I began by taking the time to make a form on which I could assemble laminated curved ribs. Then the work got serious.
Perhaps I should call this series, “Fun with scrap wood” as many of the projects are derived from the piles of leftover wood laying around the barn. Such is the case with this one.
Using pressure treated southern yellow pine and some cypress boards I fashioned this movable/removable shower seat for the bath tub. I hand planed all the boards before assembling them with decking screws. The seat slats are cut to fit between the bathtub walls and screwed to underlying battens, and top end elements perpendicular to them to rest on top of the tub walls.
I planed chamfers on the tops of all the seat slats, thinking it would eliminate any discomfort while sitting and taking a shower. That has not worked out so well as the corners still press hard against flesh; I may go back in and round the upper chamfer corners.
Otherwise, the bench works perfectly. I will keep an eye on the top piece to see if cracks appear along the screw line. If so I will have to retool it. But for now, when I need it I can grab if from the space behind the hamper, and when finished I put it back.
Labor Day weekend will be the inaugural 18th Century Craft shindig here in Highland County, where I have been asked to demonstrate tortoiseshell craft. Events | Fair Lawn Farm (visitfairlawnfarm.com
Since tortoiseshell is a restricted material I will be focusing my efforts on the making and working of tordonshell, a convincing substitute I invented many years ago so that I could make Boullework, starting with a pot of hot hide glue and a few select additives. At the time I was contemplating patenting the formula, but then I con$ulted with a patent attorney and found out how much it would co$t to go through with it. Phooey on that, I just published the paper and moved on. (The estimate wa$ for a completed application and patent to co$t $25-50k.)
Along the way I made a lot of tordonshell things to make sure it mimicked tortoiseshell accurately, which will be of great interest to the powder horn crowd.
For the rest of this week and into next week I will be gathering the materials and rehearsing the demonstrations, beginning with discussions of the materials themselves and the making of tordonshell so that all the attendees can go home and make it themselves to use in their own craft work. It will also be a dry run for my next video project which I hope to begin filming this winter. I keep telling myself I cannot start a new one until I get the Gragg Chair video edited and posted on line.
As I gently ease myself back into the routine of life on the homestead, especially a life of work in the barn studio (I find that each day adds another few minutes to my naturally recovering stamina), my first few projects are ones that do not require any special level of precision or strength.
Those first few outings to the barn were spent at mundane tasks like tidying up the workshop and organizing my product inventory. I hope this makes it easier to be prompt in my fulfillment, even though I will still probably only mail things out once or twice a week.
What was most important about these tasks is that I could accomplish them while sitting down.
A second undertaking revolved around the fact that my entryway “steps” to the barn had been, for the past fifteen years, two hunks of southern yellow pine 8x8s left over from the original frame raising in November 2007. Could it really be almost fifteen years? In recent time the timbers had become aged and their corners rounded, making them unsteady underfoot.
Using some pressure treated lumber from the inventory I fashioned a new platform, one much steadier when I step up and into the barn. Nothing fancy, just pure crude utility. I will probably appreciate that even more when this coming week I attempt to hoof it up the hill rather than taking my little truck given that my legs are only now gaining adequate strength and muscle mass. I’ll take it slow, probably 4-5 minutes to ambulate the almost 200 yards, and hope my legs don’t turn to jelly before I get there. It’s quite amazing how much muscle tone I lost with nearly a month of inactivity.
This will almost certainly be my final comment on my recent bout with the engineered bioweapon. My previous post evoked enough response, mostly privately, that I just wanted to wrap everything up, and unless there is some dramatic change in the recovery trajectory this should suffice.
In the final 48 hours of hospitalization when it became clear that my release was coming down the pike and my full recovery was simply a matter of time, one message from the nurses, respiratory therapists, doctors and even pharmacists was clearly presented with great emphasis and zero ambiguity. To whit, “You cannot ‘power your way through this.’ Recovery will take its own path and you cannot speed it up even if it is your tendency to try. Resist the temptation to work harder because that route is the path of relapse.”
We took them seriously and it was a large part of our decision to stay an extra week at a local motel to rest before flying home. It was the smart thing to do and worked exactly as the hospitalians had exhorted me.
Last week at The Fortress of Solitude I spent a good bit of time simply resting, napping every morning and afternoon for 15-20 minutes, punctuated by gentle activity including a few hours per day in the shop. Even then rather than walking up the hill, my commute is normally a 150-yard stroll up a 15% incline, I drove to the barn and spent virtually all of my time there sitting. You can do a lot of cleaning and organizing while sitting down. I made no attempt to do anything remotely resembling productive work, although I did get out to run errands in town every day. Just to do something different.
I can honestly say that my strict adherence to the post-hospitalization instructions have resulted in me feeling better every day. Literally. Every day. Yes, my legs are sorta tired as you would expect from almost a month’s inactivity, but even their muscle soreness gives me delight.
On Thursday I saw my local doctor, whom I like and trust a great deal. He is temperamentally an old soul; when he comes in to examine a patient he sits down and begins a conversation that will last as long as it needs to be for him to come to a solid understanding of the issue. He even writes down his observations by hand and pen on a legal pad! None of this breezing in and out for a few seconds and punching a few places of a compewder tablet. He spent a good long time with me as I recounted the whole harrowing tale and he checked me out completely. After listening to my heart and lungs, he said, “This is remarkable. If I did not know already that you have been sick I would not know that you had been sick. Everything sounds clear as a bell!” He reiterated the warnings about over exertion, reminding me that my recovery to full strength and stamina is nearly a 100% likelihood but also the timetable for that is 10-12 weeks.
I go back in a month for some follow-up testing that is not possible until the pharmacological cocktail coursing through my veins gets purged (I took my very last pill with breakfast this morning).
At this point the only peculiarity is my sleep pattern. I have suffered from sleep dysfunction (insomnia) for over 50 years and am currently on a curve that is unfamiliar to me. Beginning in the motel after release from the hospital I began incorporating melatonin into my night time routine, and the effect has been remarkable. For the past two weeks I have been falling asleep easily and promptly, but thanks to the now-completed course of steroids I’d been waking around 3AM. Last night I fell asleep around 10.30 and slept through the night until 4.56AM. With steroids now in the rearview mirror I am hoping that I regain a more congenial sleep pattern.
Thus ends my final report on this matter.
NB – I have no intention to turn this post into a rant, but I will be expressing some observations rather pointedly, observations I believe are borne out by the public record. Regardless, this will be one of the most personal postings I’ve ever made here, so if that is of no interest to you I am fine with that.
Finally, it is worth noting that I ascribe to the Mollie Hemingway aphorism, “My spiritual gift is that I do not care what you think about anything.”
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Those faithful 300 readers of this blog have assuredly noticed my long absences from these pages over the past 5+ months, and I wanted to give you a bit of the back story on that.
Our timeline trajectory was in great part established by the birth of our new grandson, Li’l T, in early March. The trauma surrounding that blessing was one which lingered for a long time. He was in deep distress and retrieved from the womb by emergency surgery, emerging limp, blue, the umbilicus wrapped around his throat five times, and his respiratory system fully engorged with bodily waste. Th neonatal specialists in Labor and Delivery had a couple dozen seconds to bring him to life, which they did. Li’l T proceeded to spend ten days in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit while Mrs. Barn and I did what we could to support, encourage, and assist his mom and dad with excellent home cooking (her) and projects around the house (me).
Since coming home Li’l T has made steady progress, even beginning to flourish. As near as anyone can tell he is a healthy, bright, developing little boy who is still on the small side but growing steadily.
In the five months since then we have been traveling and spending extended time with our family, doing whatever we could to help the little guy out. While there, I frankly had near-zero interest in the blog so my presence here was scarce.
Meanwhile I did shoehorn in a couple of SAPFM presentations, but other than preparing for them until this week I have spent only a few dozen hours in the shop since the beginning of March.
Once our routine settled with Li’l T came the unrelated news that Mrs. Barn’s sister’s husband was in the later stages of terminal pancreatic cancer, which eventually took his body in May. The logistics of the funeral arrangements in Kalifornistan were daunting, but right after the Fourth of July we winged our way west. The trip was to be a short whirlwind, I think 4-1/2 days in total. A couple days on the ground with all of Mrs. Barn’s siblings, the military interment one day, the worship celebration at church the next day, one more day for family time then a flight back home. The trip was expected to be so fast I did not even take my laptop, only my Kindle. It turned out to be a life saver.
The day we were scheduled to fly home I had a little sore throat and tested positive for the bioweapon plague. We rescheduled our flight and hunkered down in the hotel. In a little over 24 hours from that point I digressed from having a scratchy throat (never did have a sustained fever, severe headaches or the wracking cough) to being gravely ill in critical condition with bacterial pneumonia, hypoxia, dehydration, and disorientation so extreme I could not find the bathroom in the hotel room. Mrs. Barn and her sister got me to the ER ASAP the next morning, and I was admitted for what turned out to be almost two weeks.
I found out later that when I first arrived in the ER the plan was to intubate me as soon as I could get into a room. Fortunately, it took several hours to get me a room and by that time the antibiotics and high flow oxygen had revived me to the point where I was fully aware and engaged even if I did not feel particularly sparkly. What followed was 13 days of conscientious and competent care with a remarkably successful outcome.
In my last 48 hours in the hospital I was overhearing conversations between the nurses and doctors that over the past 30 months this hospital was concentrating on being a Front Line Covid Critical Care facility (they literally dedicated over half of the hospital to this undertaking) I was only THE SECOND PATIENT out of hundreds(?)/thousands(?) to make the recovery I did. From near-100% intubation candidate on Day 1 to being released on Day 13 with no external oxygen needs after Day 10. When the doctors and nurses asked me to what I attributed this recovery I replied simply, “In addition to your care I had an Army of Saints raising me up in prayer from coast-to-coast.” That is what I truly believe.
After release from the hospital we stayed at a nearby motel for six more days, “just to make sure.” The flight home was entirely uneventful, we arrived back in Shangri-La last Sunday afternoon. I have been slowly and carefully easing my way back into gentle activity including a few hours in the shop every day, mostly sitting and organizing and cleaning.
Since the beginning of this historical episode thirty months ago I have never doubted, not even for one moment, the risk that this engineered organism posed for some cohort of humanity, particularly for those with multiple co-morbidities, the worst of which were extreme age, compromised pulmonary systems, and obesity. Any of you who corresponded with me privately know this to be true. It has killed millions, disrupted and destroyed the lives of hundreds of millions, and destroyed ten$ of trillion$ of human flourishing due primarily to the unrestrained totalitarian impulses of political “leaders” and public health “experts.”
What I have doubted was virtually every “official” pronouncement regarding the nature, genesis, source, and response to covid. As time unfolds it becomes increasing clear to me that my doubts have been more than well-deserved as the posture of the “experts” rnged from outright deception and untruths, ass-covering, blame shifting, and leveraging benefits. As an informed, critical-thinking person I can only wonder about how differently the trajectory of this history might have been had Fauci obeyed the explicit directive from President Obama to discontinue gain-of-function research. Instead, using nefarious subterfuges Fauci outsourced the projects to the Chinese Communist Party Peoples’ Liberation Army bioweapons program at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Who could’ve seen a problem with that?
I cannot say that before thirty months ago I ever wonder about the nature of a theoretical chimera formed by merging Josef Mengele and Josef Stalin. Now, I no longer have to wonder. Watching the “establishment” medical bureaucrats especially choose a path of explicitly discrediting, defaming, and destroying any honest scholars or even common citizens who disagreed with them, I’m thinking there should be a special residential wing underneath Leavenworth Prison.
So now you know a bit about my recent “lost” months.
I am definitely on the road to.recovery from my bout with the
Fauci/Wuhan bioweapon. With that in mind I expect fulfillment of outstanding orders for polissoirs, waxes, and any other products by this coming Tuesday.
Your prayers and concerns expressed mean more than.you.will ever.know.
I’ve got a few orders pending in The Store, but please be advised I remain in a covid pneumonia ward in LA for a still undetermined time. I will attend to all matters whenever I return. Came for a family funeral, stayed for the bioweapon plague.
In other related news I will be suspending mfr and sales of Mel’s Wax for at least a year or I can figure out the problems with turning black for no apparent reason.
Some version of this post is presented annually at this time. Despite dozens of recitations, I can never read the last line out loud because I am overcome with emotion.- DCW
As our nation is seemingly rife with incurious, gullible and servile inhabitants, we would be well-served to reflect seriously on the document encapsulating the mission statement for the greatest nation ever known to man, the only nation ever founded on a creed rather than geography or lineage. I am unabashedly proud to be a partisan in the cause of Life, Liberty, and Property (the original wording) and find The Declaration to be the most noble civil document ever created by mankind. I pray you will read and reflect on the ideas expressed by men who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to pursue the path of liberty. Reading it is much like reading the Minor Prophets of the Old Testament; more up-to-date regarding the human condition than tomorrow’s headlines.
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IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
John Hancock
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
Matthew Thornton
© 2024 Don Williams
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