Palette Progress

The bluish flower above is a weed that grows profusely here. I love how it bundles its blossoms where leaves protrude from the stem. I’m going to find out what it is because its leaves have a truly heavenly lemon scent. A Verbena? A Hysop? I’l find out.

These white ‘flowers’ are Queen Anne’s Lace. It is the most beautiful ‘weed’ I’ve ever seen. I’m going to try to seed it in my Fern Garden..

Ethel and Fred both want increasing interaction with me as they age. Fred talks; he is constantly calling for me to play with him. Ethel, on the other hand, has discovered value in making my desk and the window in front of it ‘her’ territory. She finds it very easy to get my affection here.

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A painful right wrist (I’m right-handed) made palette destruction difficult and slow, but I slogged away at it. I did my standard eight hours. Oh what a good boy am I!

I’m inclined to neither construction nor destruction; I’m not a hammer and nails kind of guy. As with any new task, experience is a good teacher; yesterday was much easier and more productive thanks to what I learned doing the work. Still, it’s still nasty work. 

I’ve now finished six palettes; I did four yesterday and have five more to go. I’d be hosed without Jay’s tools. Rain is due Sunday so I plan to finish the deconstruction on Saturday and move all the timber into the shed where I can clean it.

Cleaning the rescued lumber involves removing all the nails. Then the planks must be trimmed. I have a skill saw with which to do it but no proper safety equipment or sawhorses so I’ll likely saw them by hand—with my painful wrist!  Then each piece has to be drilled at each end and treated with preservative before I lay them in place and fasten them with landscape pins.

It seemed like a nice simple idea but it’s turning out to be a lot of work. And unfortunately I ‘m working where there’s a lot of hot sunshine so I’m sweating like a racehorse. I do one palette in about an hour and then I shower, change into clean clothes and then I have a short rest before beginning another. 

There were upright nails protruding from wood everywhere so I moved with caution. (I kept thinking of my pal Mike Wilmot who died a week after treading on a nail.) But at 3:00 pm, I gave my left wrist a crippling blow of the hammer and quit for the day. Both wrists down!

Sheba and I went for dinner with Patsy at Drumbeg. It was the perfect way to relax after a day of hard labour. We arrived at the same time and went to eat at my favourite place overlooking the straight between Gabiola and Valdez islands. It was a truly stunning night.

And today I’ll be back at the palettes after the community dog walk this morning. I’m actually really looking forward to it ... and doing the rest of the project.