Cabin Fever

  I have discovered that the more I think about what I want to do - the less I seem to accomplish.   January in Iowa seems like a miserable time of year.    Cold weather seems to make me want to slow down,  snuggle in, be lazy, and skip the idea of any kind of shop work.   Top that off with Green Bay losing their division game last Sunday and I am a little down in the dumps.   How could that have happened?   Who wants to watch anymore football this season.  

   This week I took a little trip and went up to a cabin by the lake.   By lake Okoboji there is a bible camp that has some new and some older cabins on the premises and over the past few years I and a few other fellows have spent some time going up and fixing up some of those older run down cabins.   This will be my third year of helping out.   Of course I went up with some of my tools but forgot to take a camera.   So I took some pictures with my cell phone and today as I tried to copy them over to the computer I ran into problems.   File size is to big or something.  Something that normal people can correct, but for me it's a common situation that I seem to be haunted with.   I don't know.   Tech stuff.  (Plus it is January.)    

 Most of what was done during this visit was demolition.  (The mood I was in - This was a perfect project for me to work on.)   We took down all the inside walls, the ceiling, the wiring, removed the bathroom fixtures, and removed the attic insulation.   When we were done - (about 7 hours later) -  all that was left was the shell of the building.   We even removed every exposed nail.   When starting a project like this, you have to wonder if it is worth saving the building.   The floor is a little warped, the windows don't fit very well, you can see air around some of the sides of the outside door,  and the cabin is really not that big.   I would say it is 16 feet wide by 28 feet long.    My understanding is that so long as you are remodeling the original structure you can avoid some of the building permit resrictions.    With a little pine wood panelling, a new kitchen counter, a lot of cosmetic surgury to the bathroom area, new shingles, a fresh coat of paint, and a window air conditioner one can end up with a pretty nice little family cabin.   Once fixed up, it will be something that the camp can rent out weekly to generate a little income.  

  For the shop I worked on making some table saw inserts.  (What a thrill...)  The table saw comes with an insert such as the one in the red.     It is made out of metal and works great.    The problem that can occur sometimes is if you are cutting some thin material, that material can fall down between the blade and the hole in the insert.   If you want to cut a dado track, than the slot on the standard insert is not wide enough for all the blades to pass through so you have to remove the insert.   That is why sometimes it is handy to have a few wooden inserts around that can be used as a temporary fix.    To make these you just cut out a rough pattern out of wood that is slightly larger than the original insert.   Then attach the copy to the insert and run it by a flush cutting bit on the router table.   In the picture to the right, I have two done and the two on the far right are still in the rough stage.    When I need to use one of these I will lower the saw blade in the table, replace the red insert with a homemade insert.   I then power the saw up and raise the blade through my temporary wooden insert.   You can buy inserts made out of plastic, but they can be a little spendy.   (Plus I have to keep working on that scrap pile.)   

  Another discovery for me this past week is my ability to comunicate with cats.  (Oh my gosh!  What is happening to me!!)    I have figured out that if the cat makes several trips down the basement steps toward her food dish she is trying to say "Hey - place some food in my dish.  Can't you see that I'm hungry?"     If she runs toward the patio door and meows and salivates over some bird perched outside by the feeder she is trying to say "Hey - open this door!"   She will do that until I finally give in and let her outside.    So the other day I see this dirt on the floor as a result of the cat scratching around in the flower pot.   It wasn't anything that could not be cleaned up with a broom, but I wonder if that really was a message to me saying "Hey - if you don't clean out my litter box soon, you know what will happen next".

How much longer will January last????