Good morning, friendo. It’s awfully nice to see you this morning. I hope you had a terrific week.
‘Twas a lovely week on the Island, and it’s only getting lovelier, so long as we keep “very very rainy” within the parameters of what we consider to be lovely.
I made a pot of coffee this morning. You want a cup? I can make tea, if you like.
Grab a mug from the cupboard and meet me back here. Let’s catch up.
Rain barrel
The summer we moved into this house, Erin saw an ad that said the city was selling rain barrels as part of a promotion to conserve water. She made a quick call and within a day we had a fancy-schmancy rain barrel under our downspout. It’s served us fairly well. I regret not installing it on a higher surface to make gravity our friend and to give more space to fill a watering can under the spout. I was also a little disappointed by the water pressure from the tap. It always takes a couple minutes to fill a watering can.
This past fall, I must have waited too late in the season to drain it and move it inside for the winter, because when I opened the tap, nothing came out. I gave the whole barrel a jiggle, and it was light as a feather. Empty. I turned it over and found a wide crack that went from one side of the bottom to the other. Either it had just given up after 8 years of service, or a certain Old Davy accidentally left water in the barrel past the freezing point. Freezing water expands and breaks barrels.
The rest of the winter, Erin kept her eye on Marketplace for a replacement. People were definitely selling rain barrels, but they were awfully expensive. One day this spring, Erin found a fellow who was selling food-grade barrels for 15 bucks a piece.
“Could you turn one of these into a rain barrel?” she asked, turning her phone to me.
I took a look.
“Yeah probably,” I said. “It’s worth 15 bucks to give it a try.”
In what later became the absolute smoothest Facebook Marketplace experience ever (seriously. I messaged him at the end of the conversation with Erin. Within a minute, we had arranged for a time for me to meet him at his house. I drove there and the barrels were ready, cleaned, and ready to load into the van. I gave him money, chatted him up about the weather, and was on my merry way. WHY CAN’T IT ALWAYS BE LIKE THIS."), I was soon in possession of two bright blue plastic barrels.
The internet is home to loads of videos on how to convert these barrels in to rain barrels. I used some instructions from Home Depot (did I feel a little guilty purchasing my supplies at a rival store? Reader, I did not.)
When I finally had time to get down to do this, the job was done in about 20 minutes. I installed it last weekend. Yesterday was our first real rain since, and I’m happy to report: it does it’s job and the water pressure from the tap is fantastic. I may actually be able to attach a hose.
The mighty mighty oaks
I’m pleased to inform you the oak saplings Erin may or may not have stolen from a forest in a public park last year made it through the winter and are thriving. Now we just have to wait 40 years. Easy peasy.
No DS9 spoons. Sorry.
I shan’t linger on this. I just wanted to say I have a couple spoons in our cutlery drawer I’ve unconsciously (and now consciously) thought of as the Enterprise D and Voyager starships from their respective Star Trek series. It’s just exciting to me to have both Galaxy- and Intrepid-class vessels in my fleet.
It only took 3 years
Hello. My name is Dave, and it took me 3 years to figure out how to properly wind the replacement line in my weed-whacker to ensure the line advances automatically as I whack weeds.
I still whacked weeds with the best of them over the 3 years of my ignorance. Despite the clear instructions on the top of the spool, I always wound the line clockwise on one level and counter clockwise on the other. I had not even considered any other way was possible or reasonable.
The line is supposed to un-spool a little bit at a time as I’m working. It’s supposed to advance a tiny bit ever time I release the trigger. And I do recall it working the first time I used it. It was pretty slick. But it never worked after that. Periodically, as I whacked, I had to stop to manually advance the line so I could keep whacking.
Anyway. It hit me in one of those sudden moments of clarity what the instructions actually (and clearly) meant. I wound both the top and bottom layers of the spool clockwise, and now it works great.
And we never have to discuss this again.
Tell me why-ee
I had a few days last week where my life’s soundtrack was almost exclusively late-90s and early 2000s boy band hits (with a bit of Spice Girls in there for… spice).
Incidentally, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the phenomenon of the “cold open” on television shows: the short scene before the opening credits which is usually unrelated to the plot of the main show and exists almost exclusively for one good joke to lead into the show’s theme song.
A lot of shows are terrible at this, which is always disappointing. Comedy is hard, but some shows don’t even seem to be trying (I’m looking at you, Gilmore Girls). I don’t think I’m saying anything controversial when I say this scene from Brooklyn Nine-nine is the absolute best cold open ever.
Our bread game is strong
This week, the Davy Sourdough Bakery produced a couple of loaves of caraway rye and a loaf of simple white. I might also point out this is also the week my scoring patterns on the top of my loaves really popped. (insert smug smiling emoji)
And finally
Fellow spike picker-uppers, you know what to do. Keep your eyes on the ground. This is a movement.
(I also picked up a couple finishing nails and a deck screw this week.)
Once Old Davy starts yapping about bread and the pointy things he picks up off the ground, you know he’s heading towards the end. We’re just missing a cat photo to hit the Quack trifecta.
I hope you have a great week.
Be good. I mean it.