The television cabinet is finished and mounted in the shop.

September 10, 2016 - Saturday

58 degrees/rain/wind

Pentoga Road

Rain? Sure, why not. If we get the inch-and-a-half that Carl the Weatherman was forecasting last night, that'll make three-and-a-half inches total in the past week. If we had an ocean and few mountains to scatter about, I'd swear I was back in Southeast Alaska.

We were blessed with great weather on Friday. In fact, it was a little cool in the morning and I exchanged my usual shorts for a pair of jeans and flannel shirt. 

Another batch of tomatoes was processed in the dehydrator and more prepared.

The rest of the morning was spent finishing the cabinet in the shop. I mounted it later in the afternoon with Sargie's help and it seems to work just fine.

The most difficult aspect was making the cabinet from 100% scrap materials left over from other projects. Much of the lumber had already been used, deemed salvageable, and stored away for a rainy day. Had I used conventional, new, material, it would have gone much faster. Oh well, it was fun.

The entire cabinet swings out to gain access to the television

Sargie and I went for a day-off drive and after a quick trip to the grocery store, meandered all around the area, going everywhere and nowhere. 

Sargie had bought two candy apples and we really enjoyed eating the sticky things and talking about childhood days of simpler times with simple joys... such as eating candy apples.

No matter what comment I make here, I'm doomed, so I'll just keep my mouth shut.

Back home, I picked the Macintosh apples from the small tree in the back yard while Sargie continued doing laundry.

The tree was loaded this year and most of the apples were perfect.

One troubling aspect was that the yellow jackets ruined a dozen or so fruits by creating grooves in them. 

I've never seen a year of so many yellow jackets and as many know, I tangled with them for several weeks earlier this summer. 

A yellow jacket trap hangs near the apple tree

Still, I picked two full grocery bags of near perfect fruit. Those will be either eaten and used fresh or peeled, sliced, and dehydrated for future use.

The rest of the afternoon was spent running wires and hooking up the television. The wireless internet falls just short of reaching the Roku box in the shop. Of course, being inside a steel pole barn doesn't help. I've ordered a longer HDMI wire to run the Roku box to the window and if that doesn't work, I'll purchase a WIFI extender. An old Iphone, through which I play music via the wifi in the shop, receives a decent signal as it hangs in the window. Hopefully, putting the Roku box in the same place will have similar results.

I dug out an old HD television antenna and water pipe, more left over salvage items, in preparation for receiving over the air channels. Though I don't have a necessary cable, I hope to mount the pipe alongside the barn today so I can receive at least one local channel, probably the NBC affiliate out of Rhinelander, Wisconsin.

Sargie's back to work today. I'm going to venture out in the monsoon and pick another batch of tomatoes and get those in the dehydrator. There's a colossal mess to clean up in the shop and golly gee, with heavy rain and winds, accompanied by cool temperatures, I can already feel an afternoon grandpa nap coming on, maybe in that old recliner, the one that sits directly adjacent to the television in the shop.

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...