Making New Shed Doors. 10.11.2020

 This shed was on the verge of demolition.  However, it's quite close to my garden and orchard.  It would be nice to store tools in it.  I would spend a lot less time and effort carrying tools across the road from the house.  That would make gardening more pleasant.  We already store straw and some kindling in it.  The door is huge, and very heavy.  It pulled the hinge screws out of the frame.  The door itself is 4 feet wide, 6 feet tall, and has its own frame made from 2 X 4s.  

I think that a scraping and repainting would preserve the shed for another several years, if not a decade.  It needs a new plywood floor.  I can do that.  The inside framing seems fine.  The siding is T1-11, which is bad, but it's a shed, not a house.  I can clean up or replace bad pieces, seal and paint them to last a few more years.

The main problem is that door. It's incredibly heavy, and re-installing it was a temporary measure.  It just pulled the screws out of the frame again.  I decided to make a new one but make two doors, half the width, and without that 2 X 4 framing.  So they will probably weigh about 1/3 to 1/4 as much.  I found a 4 X 8 foot sheet of siding, stored in another shed.  I cut it down to 4 X 6 foot , then cut that into two 2 X 6 foot sheets.  I bought some 1 X 4 boards from Lowes during my last trip there, to cut for framing / trim.

I've been kind of dreading doing this.  It's too many infrastructure projects this year.  However, once starting, it has gone quite fast and not really difficult.  The worst part was moving the big sheet of siding, and cutting it.

Here are the sheets of siding, with the cut 1 X  4 boards arranged like I wanted them.  I used these to add some strength, and help flatten the siding which had a slight, subtle warp.

I numbered the boards and their locations so I wouldn't mess them up when they are glued and screwed together.  One door got numbers, the other got letters.

I used outdoor grade wood glue, and drywall screws.  I screwed them through the back so they would be tight and make a good glue-bond and not show or be exposed to the elements.  Then I used outdoor, paintable caulk to seal all of the nooks and crannies and edges so water wont soak in.

This morning I painted the doors with some left over house paint.  I think there is enough for a second coat, plus paint the entire shed.  Then it will match the house.  It's a darker grey than it looks in the photo.

 

 

Next I need a good dry day to repair and paint the siding above the door, install the new framing, and install the doors.  That will be a good start at having a usable garden shed.

 

Here is the shed as it stands now.   It looks decrepit and shabby.  I think putting on new trim, scraping, applying new paint, and installing the new doors will help a lot.  As it is now, I just lean the old door against it's opening, which is unsafe and looks like something out of Fargo.

Kitchen Curtain for Halloween. Sewing Project. And a Face Mask. 10.6.2020

 I decided to do a little sewing project.  We didn't like the kitchen curtains.  It's just a valence - we don't want to obstruct the view of the back yard and Rufus.  I made these from a Halloween theme cotton fabric.  When Halloween season is done, I'm planning on a set for Thanksgiving.  It's a way to acknowledge and enjoy the holiday and season times, without going all out on buying stuff.

 These were fun to make.  I didn't have a pattern, so I reverse engineered them from an old set.  I don't think I made a lot of mistakes, but there were some learning points.  Next one should go even more smoothly.

I also made some coronavirus face masks using extra from the fabric.  It makes a nice Halloween theme face mask..

Rubinette Apple. 10.2.2020

 This was the first really good crop for Rubinette.  It fruited a little for the past three years, but not much and they were ruined.  I think they had San Jose Scale, which I treated last winter with dormant oil spray.  It worked.  I don't see effects of scale, at least not yet.

Rubinette has a reputation as the best tasting, or one of the best tasting, apples around.  I know, each year there seems to be a new "Best Tasting" apple.  This one really was excellent.  I would at least say it is among the best tasting apples in my orchard.  Truly delicious.  Decent crop this year, too.

Grenadine Apple. 10.2.2020

 These were the first of the Grenadine apples.   They have red flesh, as marketed.  They seem fairly scab susceptible, like Airlie Red Flesh.  Also similar to Airlie Red Flesh, the skin is mostly green, although some redness shows through as a muddy color.  The main difference is Grenadine is round and very tart.  Maybe leaving them on the tree longer will sweeten them up, but Wowza, this one was like a lemon drop!

This first photo compares Grenadine to Fuji Beni Shogun.  The Fugi was much sweeter.  I may have noted a little "Red Hawaiian Punch" flavor in the Grenadine.

Chestnuts. 10.2.2020

 These are the first of the chestnuts this year.  The Marivale and Precose Migoule both bore some nuts.  Marivale drops them in the husk.  Precose Migoule seems to drop the nuts before the husk, meaning that browsing deer or squirrels get them.  I knocked off the ones that I could, to let them finish in a bucket in a shed.

I'm keeping the nuts for a while in the fridge to see if there are more ripening that we can roast.