Insulated dog pillows

Well it's started getting cold and the dogs are getting grumpy at night so Griselda decided to make them these cool insulated pillow for the bottom of their dog baskets.

The pillow has a space blanket sewn between it and is amazingly warm.

Motorcycle shed: Part IV

Finally we are at a point where the shed is actually functional! The doors are up and the ramp is installed! I still need to complete the interior and finish some of the trim and flashing before it is finally complete.

The ramp is made of two 2x12's and one 2x10 that have all been coated with non-slip (sand and polyurethane) as well as ribbed with 1x2's.

Motorcycle shed: Part III

Day 3 of construction and we have the shed up at last (although the trim is not finished and the door still needs to be put up). I have to say if I knew what I do now I never would have bought this shed. It would have been quicker and a hell of a lot stronger to make one ourselves from scratch.

Motorcycle shed: Part II

And then it rained :-(

It was supposed to be hot and sunny all weekend. At least we managed to get the most of the walls and stabilizing supports up. Still this has taken us two days so far and now we are moving onto a third.

Motorcycle shed

Here you can see some pictures of our motorcycle shed under construction. The storage area we have decided to build it in was quite a mess so took a while to clear out.

Picnic table construction

I decided to build a picnic table for entertaining in the yard. Here are a couple of pictures of the construction and first use.

The table is pretty cool as it's made out of recycled decking and saved wood.

Paintball preperations

Griselda and I are playing our first Paintball game next week. Today we went and purchased our camouflage for it. As you can see we have gone "super tactical" on it! :-)

Here are some more pictures


This is a Realtree Hardwoods HD sweatshirt and Realtree Hardwoods Green HD pant. The pants are kinda nice as they have map pockets on the side and drawstrings as well as an adjustable waist band.


And here you get to see the same outfit with the matching Realtree Hardwoods Green HD bush jacket. This is the outfit that I am wearing in the top picture.

Let the mulching begin

Today we started mulching the garden beds. Thankfully Warren brought his tractor over and did most of the heavy lifting.

New bike stuff

Chris if you are reading this you will be proud!

Not only did I finally go ahead and purchase a new set of wheels and install them myself (including news discs, cog, tires et al), I also went and replaced all the cables on the bike.

Now I am not going to get into pricing but needless to say the wheel set was more than the last bike and the tires contain lots of cool materials such as Kevlar should cause a cold quiver or two.
Now to make things even more exciting we got Griselda a new bike (that you would approve of as well), heck even Shelly would be proud (it is hot pink after all).

Of course now that we have totally over achieved in the bike department I must deliver the coet de grace and tell you that not only did I go ahead and purchase all of the relevant tools but also went and installed two bike pulleys to keep the bikes up off the deck.

Fence painting.

Tis that time of the year again. Here is a before and after picture.

As you can see we still have some finishing work to do.

Fence building

Well we finished the second fence pannel today. When we built the fence 5 years ago we didnt realize that the good old Pacific Northwest environment was quite adept at destroying wood.

Anyway slight design change and the fence will be good as new after it has had a new coat of paint. Here are some picture of the two replacement pannels adn the fence after it has been pressure washed in preperation for the new paint job.

As you can see the fence is now a litle shorter (we had to trim the rotting sections off) and is raised further fron the ground to prevent future rot. The cross beams are also stronger pressure treated 2x4's so it is quite a bit stronger.

Biltong

The raw product

Our very own spice girl

Mixing the spices for the Biltong

Meat rubbed in rock salt. This will now be placed in the fridge for 40 minutes to remove any extra moisture.

Washed in vinegar, rubbed in spices and ready to be hung

Biltong hung in drier.