After months of sawing and chiseling mortise and tenons the time has finally come for some assembly. We had all hands on deck as there were lots of large timbers to move around. Positioning the sill plates Pulling the joists and sill plates together. Our fittings were usually a little tight so we often had to do some planing to get for a better fit.   Our female representation at the work day. Joists on the first bay all installed. Looking very level. Kevin persuading a joist into position. More tightenting and squaring. There was some learning curve on day 1 of assembly. Day 2 should be much smoother. A photo posted by John (@carpenterinaustin) on Jan 25, 2017 at 4:44pm PST A photo posted by John (@carpenterinaustin) on Jan 21, 2017 at 4:32pm PST

Heating wax and comfrey'lavender  infused oil In the spirit of contrarianism I thought I should try to get something useful accomplished this inauguration day. First thing in the morning, I performed the not so glamorous duty of rotating our compost bins. The bins are twenty gallon plastic trash cans with holes drilled in the sides and bottom for ventilation. Over the course of several months we'll fill a bin with alternating layers of kitchen scraps and leaves or shredded paper. When the bin fills up we rotate it to the back to allow the contents to break down. I moved the recently filled bin to the back and decanted the bin that had been sitting up. Apart from some egg shells and bits of fabric, the contents had broken down into a soil-like substance. The compost from the middle down was wet and sour smelling meaning it wasn't getting enough air and anaerobic decomposition was going on. Perhaps I'll drill some more ventilation hole.  I was also disappointed to

Being mostly office bound of late, I've really been missing my weekly cob building workout. And with all the rain we've been receiving Barton Springs pool is probably rife with a bacteria cocktail. Since my disease fighting skills are only imaginary and it's cold I went in pursuit of a bit of productive exercise. I thought to myself, "Self, what better exercise is there than digging a trench in heavy clay." Now, just how to make that trench useful in some way. Hmmm..... .... My parent's backyard slopes down towards their house. When there's a heavy rain their porch gets flooded. I have shovel. I have a mattock. I have 50' of perforated drainage pipe left over from the rubble trench foundation. The pieces were beginning to come together. Build a french drain. Ha Ha! And as an added bonus I could sneak a little swale and berm in and no one would be the wiser. Ha ha ha!  Jean joined me on the French drain foray but opted to subjugate the vegetatio