Look Where We Live!

Building Kayaks for Three Little Pirates

2011-01-30T22:05:00.013-05:00

Please read this post as if I actually posted it when it happened, July of 2009. Yes, I am a bit of a procrastinator, we all know it. I will be attempting to get up to date on all the major events(as I see them) since May 2009. Be patient , they might be out of order or not even accurate, but who said true stories have to be factual!

Cheri and I are going to have visitors for the Summer,(well part of the Summer) three very active and adventurous little boys. One of the responsibilities we feel we have to fulfil as grandparents, is to get these three littluns doing things they would not normally do. Take them out of their usual rhythm so to speak. We have taken them hiking, camping, fishing, rock-climbing, berry picking, sledding and snow-boarding, all sorts of stuff, so that when they get older they will have great memories to look back on.

One of the things we have planned for them this Summer is kayaking. So with that in mind, our front porch became "Paul-Paul's Boatyard". Well if you were going to make three plywood kayaks wouldn't you do it on the front porch so that all the neighbours could see you when they drove by.

I know you, dear reader, are going to be wondering how on earth a welder with minimal woodworking skills is going to manage to make three kayaks that will be good enough to risk putting boys in and sending them off to the far reaches of the seas. I plan on using a method that all the experts say,"any idiot can master". The method is called "Stitch and Glue" and works exactly as it sounds, you sew some pieces of wood together in the shape of a boat, then add fibreglass tape and glue and resins to make it waterproof. Simple no? Actually, yes!

I did not go to the trouble of purchasing plans/blueprints etc because, as many of you know, I am a cheap bugger. Anyway, who doesn't know what a kayak looks like? The other reason for not buying plans was that I had my own ideas of what these particular kayaks had to be, quick to build,simple to paddle, and most importantly, stable. Did I also mention cheap?

The material cost for three eight foot long kiddie kayaks was about $89. :

5 Pieces of 1/4 inch cheap plywood @ $10 each.
2 Rolls of fibreglass drywall tape @ $5 each.
1 Can of "El Cheapo" outdoor white paint @ $14
1 Epoxy resin sealing kit @ $15

Anything other than the above listed materials that was used, you may consider to have been scavenged from places I work, or they were laying about the house and I appropriated them for my own ends.

Unfortunately I did not take any pictures of the earliest part of kayak production( all the drawing, and sawing, and piecing together), so you will have to take my word for it that everything went well. It really is easier to make three kayaks than one, every time you make a piece just make three of them!

Two of my nautical works of art. Lovely lines don't you think?

Taping and glue-ing. The dark smears you can see are the result of the resin drying on the wood.

Paul-Paul's Boatworks.
So not really a canoe, not really a kayak. A Canyak maybe, or a Kaynoe? You decide.

By the time I reached the, "wow these really look like boats " stage, the three amigos had arrived for their summer at Nana's . After I had done a little more sanding and prep work, we were ready to paint our boats. The unspoken rule was, "If you want to paddle it, you've got to paint it", so the boys took turns at painting kayaks. Each little guy picked out his own boat and set to painting it with a helping hand from Paul-Paul. I do not know what sort of thinking process went into choosing each boat, cos , as far as I could tell, they were all identical.

Here's Christian Giovanni Hall putting a coat of barnacle resistant paint on his boat.

Sometimes it is hard to tell if he really is into this, or if he would rather be inside watching cartoons.

That section of the hull is definitely gonna be barnacle free!

I think he is really concentrating here, don't you?

Here are a few pics of our next pirate, Cade, ARRRRRRR! Cade needs absolutely no convincing to join in and build something, he even stepped up and helped me in the sanding process. He really seems to enjoy doing stuff with his hands and seeing an end product.

Judicious application of paint by Cade. Paul-Paul just slops it on. The thicker the better!

The Roger Federer two-handed method.

Almost missed a spot.

Having fun painting the "pointy end".

A beautiful afternoon to paint a boat.

Now for our third and most fierce pirate.....The Dread Pirate Austin. Austin, as you will see, is much more thoughtful about how to apply paint. No matter how much I urge him to slop it all over the place, he carefully spreads it out in just the right amounts in just the right places.

"Paul-Paul, you're not doing it right".

Now there is a young man concentrating on what he is doing. Ten out of ten for good work.

"Paul-Paul, you are painting my side of the boat, move over.....".

I think he is singing "Row row row your boat, gently down the stream......", you know the rest.

The last two pictures here, show the finishing touches being added to all three boats. Speed stripes are being added for effect, and to break up the mass of white paint that is the sides of these vessels. Notice how we went from "boat shaped bits of wood, glued together, to boats, and now VESSELS". Aren't we a bit full of ourselves?
Well yes, I am a bit proud actually. I built three boats in about twenty hours, using simple tools, and spending less than one hundred dollars!

Pin striping, with impatient boys looking on.

No, I am not concentrating, I have to lean forward like that so I can see what I am doing.

I just noticed, three identical boats on three identical chairs, what a laugh. The boys did want their boats to be a little different from each other, so I grudgingly let them pick through my trash/treasure boxes for stuff to decorate them with.

Cade picked a Lincoln Continental emblem for the prow of his boat, and a dinosaur of some kind for right in front of the seating area/cockpit.

Christian chose a stegosaurus for the cockpit area, and an old Saint Christopher medal that was once on the dashboard of an old sports car, for the pointy end of his boat.

Austin managed to snag a toy Space Shuttle before the other boys saw it. That will go on the front of his boat.He chose a golden frog ornament for the cockpit area of his boat.

As we were going to be launching on July the 4th, I made sure that the stern deck of each boat had an American flag glued in place.

Stay tuned for the next thrilling instalment; Will the boys,

Be able to paddle,

Be swept over the giant waterfall,
Drown as their flimsy craft break into pieces,
Or eat too many hot dogs and Nana won't let them in the water.

All the best,...Paul-Paul.

Gold Fever

2009-05-17T17:55:00.005-04:00

A different kind of blog entry today! As the subject is treasure hunting and shipwrecks I guess you could say it's a "Captain's Blog". Have you ever noticed that your list of favourite books is almost completely comprised of books that you have read at least twice? Well the same is true for me and in the genre of true adventure books, this one ranks right up there with Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. The book I am speaking of is....Ship of Gold(in the Deep Blue Sea) by Gary Kinder and it tells the story of the sinking of a ship, theSS Central America, in 1857. Approximately450 lives were lost when the ship sank in an Atlantic storm, 149 people were saved(mostly women and children) but from the point of view of most modern day treasure hunters the bigger story was the loss of 21 tons, lets say that again TWENTY ONE TONS of GOLDMove forward to 1980's America and a young adventurer named Tommy Thompson enters the scene with a novel idea or even a whole new philosophy on how to find profitable shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean. This engrossing book tells the story of the SS Central America Treasure from two time-frames so that , as the reader, you have the vicarious thrill of finding the gold and artifacts not once but twice. The hard work and strife of the original miners and grub-stakers is juxtaposed with the modern day struggles of a band of ingenious treasure hunters and although some of the text is technical it never gets so far into techno-babble that the reader loses interest.
For anyone who loves a great adventure story or who owns a metal detector or just loves to "dig for stuff", this is one of the best reads you will ever find.
The picture above is part of the wreck just covered in gold coins and bars. Oh by the way 21 tons of gold at 1000 dollars an ounce is 672 MILLION dollars, but that is just the value of the gold in the coins. As collector coins they are worth anywhere up to 50 times the amount of gold in them!!!

Now then, what else has the Garden Geezer been up to besides re-reading old books? Well I am still working on the side of the house that needs trees cleared off so that we can put in a workshop on the property, its untelling (real word.ask the locals) how tired you can get climbing up and down trees and piling up firewood for next winter. Still have not got the garden going yet, other than some lettuce for Cheri, because the weather is not really co-operating with my desire to get my fingers in the dirt. Maybe, as everyone around here says, I'll just have to wait for Memorial Day to pass before I do any real planting. My seed taters are ready to go in the ground so those will probably be the first pictures you see of the garden. I also have about a dozen Strawberry plants started in the house and they will go out as soon as the ground warms up.
Cheri and I put wallpaper on the ceiling in the Library/Living room today, now THAT was an adventure. I'm sure we looked like Laurel and Hardy what with the paper sticking to us and having to climb around each other on a very narrow scaffold. We had to put up 8 pieces that were 14foot 6 inches long AND make the patterns line up AND work as a team...aarrgghh. By the time we were on our 3rd piece we had a system worked out and we could actually grin as we worked instead of growling. Oh and did I mention that when wallpapering a ceiling you have to use a special kind of plaster that has clay in it! So not only are you working overhead with a 14 foot long piece of paper but it is weighted down with clay paste! What a pain. The end result after 3 or 4 hours of hard slog is quite nice, really.
Now all I have to do to make the room "complete" is , add cornices, replace the furniture, touch up/clean the walls, sand and paint the kickboards and make bookshelves. Cool, wonder what I'm gonna do after lunch!
We also taught dance, 3 classes, yesterday at the Crossnore Academy and after the 1-o-clock class finished we had the massive pleasure of going out for lunch with some of our students and 2 of their counsellors. We drove down to Boone and all 11 of us ate at the Mellow Mushroom pizza place. Brilliant food, good company and a happy time was had by one and all.
More to come later.
Garden Geezer

A special blog entry for Faith and Walter

2009-05-05T22:17:00.008-04:00

Hello Faith, Hello Walter. I felt as if I had to do a special entry just for you two. I know Walter is quite concerned with my tree chopping activities , so I decided to show you both some of the area where Cheri and I live in order to put your mind at ease about the massive number of trees around here.
As you can see from this first picture we are not short of the tall brown and green stuff. In certain places you can turn360 degrees and see nothing but trees. Admittedly most of the trees around us are not "old growth" the area has been harvested and replanted a coupla times probably since America was first colonised. And there certainly arent many(if any) Elms here since the Dutch Elm Disease hit some time ago. The sight of all these trees is beautiful though and they do support a lively ecosystem even if some of them are sacrificed once in a while to keep people warm in winter.

This second picture is of my lovely wife Cheri, who, like me, really enjoys the great outdoors. We actually met on a camping and canoe trip in the Okeefenokee Swamp which is on the border of Florida and Georgia.
We have hiked and canoed many miles together and I am sure there will be more stories on here in the future about some of those adventures so that you can gasp in awe, shiver in fear and laugh out loud at some of the silly predicaments we get ourselves into.

Once again walter a massive abundance of trees.

Another picture below, this time of the happy couple doing what we do best. Hanging out together and having a great time.This shot and the one above are taken from high on
Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina. On a good day they say you can see Virginia, South Carolina and Tennessee as well as....North Carolina.
Grandfather Mtn is also home to the Mile High Swinging Bridge which is really over 5280 feet high and when the wind is blowing, which it often does, really swings. It swings enough to scare people into not crossing it even though that was their main reason for going to the top of the mountain. There is also a wildlife preserve/zoo on the mountain where you can see bears,eagles,otter,deer and mountain lions or as they are called hereabouts mountain cats or cougars.
Well thats enough for now I suppose except to tell anyone reading this that Walter and Faith are friends of mine in England, both are retired although they do work hard at their favourite hobby which is Managing and Maintaining a nature reserve called Paxton Pits. Faith says she is going to start a Blog and I'm sure Paxton will be a large part of it. So if she does(hint hint Faith) make sure you have a look at it. Or you can click here http://paxtonpits.blogspot.com/ to have a look at some eccentric English folk looking after their little corner of the island.

All my best to Walter and Faith,
and any other wandering bloggers
Paul.

Pining for attention

2009-04-20T22:33:00.011-04:00

More tree work. Above, cut a wedge. Left cut the back of the wedge. Watch and listen carefully, prepare to run.

Above. Cut more of the back out.

Left. "I wonder why this tree won't fall?"

Left. Chain saw is stuck in back cut of the tree."Now what am I gonna do?

Left. "i'll use my massive woodsplitter axe to lever the tree a bit so I can get the saw out"

Then saw some more of the back cut and TIIIIIIMBERRRRRRR.

Is that a smile on my face? Ohhh yeah!

Now I just have to make the big bits into smaller bits then let them season for 2 years before I can burn them.

A man and his green and purple chainsaw...it's a beautiful thing.

More Woodwork

2009-04-20T19:30:00.008-04:00

The title of this post might be a little bit misleading. I am sure you expected to see pictures of me making fancy cabinetry or carving life size bears from big logs! Nope not going to happen. What is going to happen and did in fact happen, is that Paul of the weary back is going to reduce this large pile of logs to a managable and tidy pile of split wood with a simple swing of a heavy axe. Well several hundred swings, plus this isn't all the wood pile either. The more I split the more wood kept coming my way, either from generous neighbours who wanted fallen trees off their land,(if I wanted to move them) or from my own back yard where trees were in the way of building my future workshop! The above pile became this rather tidy woodcrib,(see below) made by yours truly with pallets scavenged from behind the local hardware store. Each half of that crib holds about 1 cord of firewood for next winter, the stuff on the left will be used 1st as it is the oldest and most seasoned wood. The stuff on the right might be good for winter 2009 or I might let it sit 'til 2010 to be sure it is well dried out. In case you are wondering why there is no roof on my woodshed, my extremely clever wife advised me to fill the crib with wood first and then add a roof so I don't ruin my back bending and twisting to load the wood to the top. Now thats what I call thinking, thanks honey.Oh a CORD of wood is 4 feet high x 4 feet deep x 8 feet long, and thats a lot more wood than it sounds like.

As I mentioned before some of our firewood will come from our own trees. Unfortunately I have to cut down a really nice Maple tree that is in my way. (See below) They say that timing is everything and I unknowingly decided to chop into this tree at just the right time. Apparently the first warm day after lots of cold nights is a good time to tap a Maple tree and collect the sap to make ...wait for it........MAPLE SYRUP. So I was cutting off a largish lower limb of this tree and all of a sudden it started spewing sap all over me so I quick ran into the house and found a 5 gallon bucket to hang under the Niagara like flow. While the sap was filling the bucket I looked on the internet to find out how to collect and refine maple sap. I learned that true professionals do not chop off a tree limb and let the tree bleed to death in a bucket, they actually have a little tapping tool that you push into a hole that you drill into the tree. I did know some of this stuff in a general sort of way from reading books and seeing documentaries. Our local hardware store that has been around for 100yrs and looks like anything you could ever want is on its shelves somwhere did not have maple tree taps, but they did manage to give me advice on how to make some. I adapted their advice to my needs and available materials and made 4 quite servicable taps. A tree the size of ours should only have one tap in it or else there is a good chance you will kill the tree. My tree was coming down anyway so I went a little bit beyond 1 tap. I had made 4 taps and so I added all four to the cut off limb that was already there. 5 taps in all. Again not being a professional tree-tapper I only managed to collect 4 gallons of sap, a lot more I think dripped down the tree trunk and fed the ants and other sugar loving insects in the neighbourhood.

Maple syrup is made by boiling down the sap until it is about 1/40th of the original volume (no wonder pure maple syrup is sooo expensive). 1 Gallon is128 fluid ounces, divide that by 40 and you get 3 ounces of syrup. Let me say that again 1 GALLON gives you 3 OUNCES of syrup, its more expensive than gasoline!

I boiled down my first gallon on the stove in a saucepan, it only took 2 hours, and the resulting syrup tasted awesome.I have never tasted such a strong maple flavour in my life. According to Cheri's friend Beth, who has made maple syrup before, it was a good batch.(If you can call 2-3 oz a batch) She did say however that she thought I had reduced it a little bit too far and sure enough she was right because 2 days later it started to crystalise. It still tasted good but it was a wee bit crunchy!!!!

That is why I experimented with only 1 gallon 1st. (Thats MY story anyway) So my next 3 gallons will be done in a bigger pot on a hotter fire and hopefully it won't take me all day to make 10 oz of liquid gold. Also I will stop reducing just a little sooner so that the syrup stays as syrup
As a side note, my neighbour Mike has 7 Maple trees in a row and they are starting to crowd each other, soooo he and I will be dropping 3 of them(I get a bunch more firewood for helping him) and next March or April he says I can tap his trees to my hearts content, plus Cheri and I still have 3 very large Maple trees

Absolutely Floored

2009-04-20T17:48:00.010-04:00

Here, as best as I can show you, is the dark and dingy floor of MY library as Cheri and I found it in 2006. If you enlarge the pic you can actually see where the people used to polish and wax AROUND an oval rug. Now being a bit of a lazy bugger myself I will not criticise anyone for not moving the furniture and rug out of the room to polish the floor properly because I cannot truthfully say that I would not do the same thing!!

The above is a picture of the wooden flooring in the house as it looked after I sanded away about 80 years of wood floor wax and oil based polishes and grime from the oil fired furnace. Who knew that there was gorgeous wood underneath? It seems that the first two rooms in the house, the posh rooms or, entertaining guest rooms, were floored with really nice Oak planks/strips about two and a quarter inches wide, and the back rooms or living quarters were floored with cheaper pine wood. The dining room and bedroom must have had grade 1 pine and the kitchen and hallway had grade 2 or 3. I am sure you will be seeing pictures of pine floors on here sooner or later.

Below are 2 pictures of the same floor after fine-sanding with 220 grit and coating with a clear urethane finish then waiting 5 days and repeating the process. After kneeling on this floor only a foot away from the details whilst sanding and coating it is a real surprise to stand up, walk away for a cup of tea then come back to see the big picture with a fresh eye. It just made me smile(well grin really) and say "WOW".

The next three pictures show the floor 1 week later after a third sanding, very light, and another coat of clear urethane. I can't help but say that I am very impressed with myself but I know that a real carpenter/floor guy would have probably done a 10 times better job

Well there you go. Only four more rooms and a massive hallway to go. Good thing we have a 10yr plan. Oh by the way did I mention there were holes in the floor that needed to be fixed before i could even start sanding and coating. All part of the adventure I guess.

Is it spring?

2009-03-09T23:27:00.003-04:00

NO not quite yet, however we have had 3 or 4 days of exceptionally fine weather. Exceptionally being the operative word of course. It has been so nice in fact that I have been tempted to scrap my idea of making cold frames to start my veggie seeds growing in, and just sow the little buggers straight into the garden. I have been forewarned by concerned neighbours who tell me horror stories of how they planted early a couple of times when Mother Nature tricked them into believing Winter was really over. Their dire warnings are rife with stories of stunted tomato bushes, deformed mushy beans, still-born strawberry plants and corn so weak it couldn't hold it's own head up.....ohh the humanity. So, I think I shall continue on with the cold-frame plan and keep my little offspring sproutlings warm and comfy under glass until Mother's Day, which is the usual time of year around here to put things unprotected in the ground. Oh for any non-gardening types that means we should have had our last FROST in the middle of May.
In case some of my 3 followers out there(isn't it great to be popular) don't know I spent a LOT of time last September and October collecting apples from generous friends, neighbours and complete strangers. These red, green and golden fruits (the apples not the neighbours) gave me countless hours of fun making such things as apple sauce, apple butter, apple pear chutney apple juice....and har har har HARD APPLE CIDER. I made four or five seperate batches and bottled them in 1 gallon glass containers. Some of the batches I brewed were to be sweet some dry and some medium. They were all supposed to turn out perfect buuut with this being my first attempt at home brewing some of them had to be poured down the sink after the first tasting, bleuuuhhh yeuuch. Enough of them came out right that I could actually give them as presents to people or even have guests drink them when they came for dinner. Cheri of course sticks to that California grapevine rubbish that people like Mondavi et al have been putting out for the unwashed masses for nigh on a hundred years, HA what do they know about wine making. Anyhow , earlier today I was at the local hardware store giving some of my Sweet Cider to one of my neighbours and he introduced me to another local feller named Charlie. It turns out that Charlie was in the store buying buckets to catch the sap from his Maple trees. He's tapping his trees to make Maple Syrup!!! Guess where I am going to be tomorrow night about 6 o-clock, thats right , learning about maple syrup. We happen to have 4 Maples in our yard and I remember seeing them seeping last year , hmmmmm.

Jimmy Mack....When are you coming back.

2009-02-09T01:15:00.005-05:00

Jimmy Hulme an old workmate from England died last week. Jimmy was just one of a multitude of characters that worked for and with my Dad in the 1970's in England. I had the pleasure of working with him for a while in my early teens when I would work weekends and school holidays for my Dad.

Jimmy was always a cheerful fella, quick witted like a lot of northern working class guys back then and with a little larceny in his soul. He was always good to my kid sister and younger brothers whenever he came to our house, teasing them and laughing and joking with them. He didnt have to be nice , he could have just popped by to pick up his paycheck and leave in a hurry for the pub like some of the other guys did, but he would hang around a bit and have a laugh. He was just that nice.

As I was only 13 and Jimmy was over 20 yrs older than me it was really easy for him to convince me that anything he said was true(after all there was a bit of hero worship going on here). He had me believing that the song Jimmy Mack by Martha and the Vandellas was written for and about him, so for the past 35 yrs or so that has been true. So true in fact that when Mum told me about Jimmy's passing the first thing I thought about was the chorus to His song.....Jimmy Mack when are you coming back. You should be able to hear Jimmie,s song by clicking on the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8vvjdArzic&feature=related

There are a couple of other things I remembered about Jimmy too, one of them is how good he was to an old man in a hospital where Dad's company was installing a fire escape. I suppose the "old feller" would slip outside to have a smoke ,even though he was supposed to be bed-bound, and over the period of time that we were working there Jimmy befriended the old guy and shared ciggies with him. 'Course being Jimmy he had to have his little giggles too so he had this poor old war veteran convinced that the words of a particular song were somewhat different than they actually were. The song went ..."Woman take me in your arms , Rock me baby." Jimmy had told his new friend that he was very upset about a song on the radio and the bad language in it. The old boy wanted to know what the problem was and Jimmy told him the previously mentioned line from the song but he changed the RO in rock to F U. Well the old fella wanted proof and so the next time it came on the radio while they were on a smoke break Jimmy took the radio to the old guy and told him to listen, but every time that line came round Jim would sing along inserting his own version and of course thats what the old fella heard. The old man spluttered and gasped in outrage..."I didn't fight in 2 world wars so that people could put stuff like this on the radio, by God I shall write to my member of parliament". He was quite upset and Jimmy of course was peeing his pants laughing. I don't know if Jimmy ever explained things to his hospital friend, maybe he didn't, maybe, even now there sits a letter in the mail room of the Houses of Parliament denouncing the modern generation and their loose morals and the lowering of standards by the BBC to allow such stuff on the radio. The link for that great song is here too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So2cvXkbiI0

As I said before Jimmy had a little larceny in his soul too which was hard to contain when working for my Dad. Dad's work involved going into other people's factories and servicing old equipment or installing new equipment. These factories all seemed to produce consumer type goods: irons, towels, shoes, washing machines, tv's, food mixers, refridgerators, cars etc etc. As you can imagine the temptation to take home a toaster or a food blender for the missus was quite strong and although Jimmy and lots of other of Dad's guys tried valiantly, they sometimes failed in their battle with temptation. We were working in a factory in Stoke that made dinnerware, and I mean NICE dinnerware, 12 and 24 place setting type stuff, just the sort of thing you need when you live in a 2up 2 down house off Huddersfield Road. Dad's work vehicles at that time were little austin marina vans and for some reason there was a space like a locker behind the front seats but under the van floor, probably for tyre tools and a fire extinguisher. Jimmy managed to finish work at this place shortly after the employees of the place had finished their shift, so there was no-one to see him slide a whole dinner set into the van, pack up his tools for the night and drive past the security guard at the gate and go home. Jimmy was nice to everybody and even the security guards became mates of his after chatting with him every morning and waving at him as he left every night. Apparently after 2 weeks of Jimmy working at this place some one noticed the alarming amounts of dinner services that were going missing and the guards at the gate were told they must search everyone. So that evening ,as usual ,Jimmy loaded up his truck after the regular employees had left and started driving out of the factory grounds. As he approached the security gate the uniformed guard stepped out and held up his hand in the universally recognised palm forward HALT position. Jimmy chose on that day to not be of this universe, cos theft charges did not agree with him, so he held up his hand in the universally recognised palm forward side to side byeeeee gesture and drove right on past the guard shack never looking back. The next morning as Jim arrived at the factory gate the guard once again stepped out, this time in front of Jim's van. Jim stopped and the guard walked to the driver's side...." I waved at you to stop last night" Said the guard.
"Get out" said Jim"I thought you were saying goodnight"
"No, I were supposed to search your van. Stuff's been going missing"
" Yer kidding, bloody hell I am sorry mate. Did you get in trouble?"
"Well I didn't get to search you did I?"
"C'mon then" says Jim" search it now mate, I'll help you. Wouldn't want you getting in trouble would we"

And that is why, if you were driving past a certain pottery factory of high repute on a certain morning in 1974 you would see a really nice guy helping a security guard search a work van on its way IN to a factory.
That is also why a few not so middle class families in and around Oldham, Lancs., have some very high class Dinnerware in their 2up 2 down terraced houses.

One of the last clear memories I have of Jimmy is of him and me and my brother Craig driving to a job site and we had to drive past Jimmy's house or maybe his Dad's house. Anyway it was out in the countryside near a town called Todmorden. As we passed this house Jimmy said "See that house, see the field next to it, see the big rock in the field, well thats the Rock Of Ages" We didn't know what he was on about and told him so."Look " he said "Can't you see it?" Sure enough there was a massive boulder in the field and it did have one heck of a split in it. He said "Don't you see that big split in it....its the Rock of Ages , cleft for thee" , and he sang that song, that hymn and we looked again and it was the Rock of Ages ,in his bloody back yard. That was Jimmy he could convince you of anything.

Some of you folks reading this might remember Jimmy a little differently than I do but I think I'll remember Jimmy Hulme laughing and telling jokes and singing Rock of Ages and being somewhere around 35 yrs old.

R.I.P James Hulme

Thanks Craig for keeping us informed and representing our family at Jimmy's funeral.

.....and dream of sheep , or polar bears

2009-01-11T17:04:00.010-05:00

Two days ago , Friday January the 9th, my wife woke me from a dream. It wasn't that I was thrashing around or screaming or anything, it was just one of those co-incidental time to wake up and it synchronises with a dream sort of things. Fortunately she woke me just as a polar bear was about to bite my head off. I wasnt screaming ,thrashing about or running away because I was heroically(in my dream) covering my wife's body with my own , in the belief that after the bear had devoured me he would be so full that he would let Cheri just wander off to the safety of our log cabin in Greenland.
Why, you might ask ,were we in Greenland. Well it was all my Dad's fault. Dad ,Mum , Craig, Chris, Janet, Cheri and myself were flying from England to America ( I don't know why I was the only child travelling with a spouse, maybe the other spouses didnt feature so I didn't remember them) Anyway for some reason(Dad) we were late to the airport and a lot of the passengers were ticked off at having to wait for us to board, they were so ticked off in fact that after take-off a delegation of them approached the flight crew and demanded we be removed from the plane. Our removal could only occur if the plane landed, well there was one other option but that would be murder wouldn't it. So the pilot put down in Greenland and we were booted off, the whole family. Apparently there was a very nice hotel at the airport and everyone opted to stay there, everyone except Cheri and I that is. We went for the romantic log cabin in the forest with beautiful views choice. However there were no taxis available at that time sooooooo we hoofed it. Well the next thing you know I am about to be eaten by a polar bear whilst saving my wife's life and she takes away all my glory by waking me up and effectively saving my life. There was a movie once that posed the question, "If you die in your dream do you die in real life?" Anyway I have so far never died in my dreams but I have come quite close before.
So you might now be asking yourself "why is this good for nothing so and so blaming his Dad for all this". Well here is why, and this is only my version of events whilst looking back about 36yrs. I do hope my brothers and sister will read this and add comments and memories of their own in order to give a more complete picture.
The year is 1972 give or take a year and the place is Manchester Airport (Ringway?). Picture a family of 6 probably in their Sunday best, because that is how you dressed to fly in those days, Mum is running to the gate holding a suitcase in one hand and dragging my sister along in the other, Mum's hair , that probably spent the night in rollers so she could look beautiful on her first airoplane ride, is all over the place from running ,dragging kids,loading cars and frantically pulling at it 'cos we were so late. Janet, my sister, was probably crying from having her arm pulled out of the socket and having to carry one of those old fashioned(now) make up/toiletry bags that came as part of a matched set of luggage, I am sure that case was heavy ,as hair dryers and roller sets were MUCH heavier then than they are now.
Running in front of those two was Dad, dragging the biggest suitcase of the set and carrying Christopher the youngest and therefore the slowest brother(7yrs old ,8?) I can hear Dad now"c'mon, bloody 'urry up, just a bit further" I think he was wearing a 70's style Steve Austin(6 million dollar man) safari suit, but that could actually be two years later. A bit further seemed like miles to Craig and I bringing up the rear,(there were no moving sidewalks in those days,well not at Manchester airport anyway) we were carry/dragging 2 suitcases each with me of course responsible for the bigger ones and Craig taking what was left.The thought of missing the plane AND our first holiday abroad, not counting the Isle of Man lolol, kept us moving as quickly as possible but at the ages of 10 and 9 +/_ 1 year we didn't have much chance of keeping up with Mum and Dad. By God your arms can ache at that age when you are carrying a two week supply of everything except food that a family of 6 could possibly need in a foreign country.And don't forget we also had to manoever through the masses of people that are always at any airport at holiday time.
Back in the dark ages of air travel, (early 70's) there were no jetways for boarding a plane, you actually walked out onto the tarmac, after someone opened a"gate" to let you through, then you walked over to the plane and climbed up some stairs that were built onto the back of a big truck. Well, we were soooo late that the truck had been removed and the plane was actually heading out to the runway. Unbelievably (today) the plane was stopped and the stairtruck was brought back, just for us. Of course the plane wasn't in its usual boarding/parking area so we had to run out after the stairtruck halfway to the runway WITH our baggage still in hand. When we arrived at the plane I suppose our baggage was taken from us by the ground crew and we mounted the steps up and into the plane. If you think that our adventure was over you are sadly mistaken, I wonder if you can remember back to a time when blushing from embarrasment would make your face feel like it was burning. I can't speak for Craig,Chris and Janet, or Mum, but I for one was burning up, every one of the 200 or so passengers on that plane was looking at us and our seats were of course as far from where we boarded as possible so we had to pass every one of those people in order to take our seats. I can say Dad was probably not the least bit embarrased although he was more than likely angry at someone or something that made us late. In the thirty years plus that have passed since that first flight I have come to realise that my Dad has a pretty lax attitude about other peoples schedules, I have also come to realise that it is one of the main things I have inherited from him.
Years later (early eighties) Dad's comments on that event were something along the lines of"Damn right they held the plane for us, we paid for those seats didn't we!!!" Back in those early days of British International Travel the customer still was a customer with all the rights and privelidges that entailed, service was better, people dressed to fly as if they were going out for a play or a meal at a fancy restaurant. We even applauded the pilots after a plane landed and more-so if the landing was extra smooth. Now airtravel is like taking a bus, no-one dresses up, the customer can be forcibly removed for complaining too much about mistreatment by the "flight crew" and you are treated like cattle being herded from one place to another without much thought for your comfort or whether or not you would ever want to fly their "friendly skies" ever again.
Wow I really ranted on there didn't I, and it all started with my wife saving my life! I hope you enjoyed reading this and if you were one of the participants in our "mad dash" to the plane back then why dont you send a comment with your memory of what happened on that first day of Spanish Vacation.
By for now,
Garden Geezer

Sunflowers and Pumpkin.

2008-09-17T04:04:00.005-04:00

Late September, so that is about six weeks after planting all my seeds in the garden, and look at these sunflowers opening up. Bloody hell they are big and bright. The funny thing is you can actually see them follow the sun across the sky, in the morning they are facing east and at the end of the day they are watching the sun set in the west like a bunch of Florida sunbathers. I think the word for what they are doing is "heliotropis". Anyway whoever really thought of flowers twisting their necks to look around, sounds a bit scary that way doesn't it, like one of those portraits in a haunted mansion
Below are some more of my yellow squash (courgettes), its possible I may have planted too many and won't be able to eat them all, but part of the fun of growing your own veggies is giving them away to friends and family. Everyone always says how much better the taste is than the stuff bought at the supermarket. I did not know it but everywhere there is a flower on a squash plant there will eventually be a squash, what a surprise, I thought the flowers and the produce were seperate items on the same plant, truly I am a "Witless Gardener".

Heres some corn for you to look at. Really looks different when its not sat with you watching a movie don't you think? I have learned that corn is a grass and that it self pollinates, doesn't need bees or anything in order to propagate. Good word that, propagate. When you see a sturdy iron garden gate or castle portcullis you can say " Now thats a propagate" LOLOLOL I'll be here all week folks, tip your waitresses. Last but not least a Pumpkin.....TaDaaaa. I know ,I know it is green, but my ex-hippy wife has promised me it will turn orange. Just be patient she said. There is that P word again, time to go look for the orange spray paint. Oh and pumpkins grow right out from under the flower too, just like a squash, amazing what you learn.!!!!
Well time to toddle off to work so hopefully all you bloggers and friends and family out there will have a great day. Next time you see a flower look under it, there might be a surprise right under your nose.
Keep on digging,
Garden Geezer

Big Garden, Small visitor. "P" is for picking.

2008-09-17T02:19:00.011-04:00

As you can see from this photo the garden is really growing now, and as you can see by my stylish attire, visiting the garden is almost the first thing I do when I get home from work. The other thing you can see in this picture is a little visitor. Nope we did not grow him in the garden (although when he becomes a handfull I often think it would be a good idea to bury him in it) he arrived from Atlanta for a visit to Nana and Paulpauls house. His name is Christian and he loves to visit his Nana. Being from the mighty Metropolis of ATL, the whole gardening thing is quite new to him, actually at his age almost everything is quite new to him. He couldn't wait to go outside and have a look at everything and even though his feet are tiny compared to mine he did manage to squish a few of my plants. Ah well I can't get mad at him I've squished a few myself since taking up this garden hobby. Anyway Christian and Iwandered all over the garden, he asking questions like "what was that I just stepped on Paulpaul??" and me saying "well son, that used to be a cucumber plant" and on and on just substituting cucumber for whatever else he was trampling on. I think it might be a good idea to grow grapes then we can put those feet of his to good use !
In this picture you can just tell from the body language of us both that Christian is about to go Godzilla on more of my plants and I am starting to reach out to grab him and explain that if he keeps squashing them there will be no food to eat next time he visits.
Almost managed to get a picture of my lovely wife on the Blog but didn't pull back far enough.
O.K. these are my yellow Squash which I believe are called Courgettes in England ( a much fancier name don't you think, ) they are getting to the point where they are almost ready to pick. Cheri says to be patient and give them a day or two more. So I shall try to practice the "p" word, how do you think I will do?

Well if you thought Paul was going to Pass the Patience test then you are Pitiful.
As far as I am concerned P is for Picking, and look what I picked !
Now I did manage to restrain myself and only pick two items but" aren't they beauties mate, crikey"
A courgette and a marrow or as they say here in America yellow squash and green squash.(zucchini) I have to say here and now that I have spent most of my life doing anything I can to avoid eating veggies but, I did grow these myself so for the first time in my life I uttered the previously unimaginable sentence"Honey, let's eat these vegetables tonight". D'you know what, those things tasted great. I didn't even have to cover them in mashed potatoes or drown them in ketchup to mask the taste. (childhood tricks)
It was almost a shame to eat them, I mean look at the colour and size and shape, those were perfect squashes...squash...squiiii...veggies.
This blogging stuff is fun isn't it, but hey it is 3:30 in the morning now , so its off to bed for me. I hope all your squashes are perfect too and all your kids and grandkids have really small feet.
Gnight
Garden Geezer

Pickles and Princes, Cabbages and Kings.

2008-09-15T01:49:00.004-04:00

Here is a good picture of the other half of the garden The back row is Sunflowers then Cukes, Squash, Zucchini,Pumpkins. Nearer to the front were the carrots lettuce, beets, and something that didn't come up 'cos every time I walked through the garden to look at stuff I managed to step on it. Oops ! Weeeelll we didn't expect everything to come up, lolol.
I am not quite sure what it is I am so happy about in this picture, it could be anything, 'cos life is grand when your garden is "coming up roses". It seems that I am standing over some of Miss Cheri's lettuce if I remember correctly. I'll bet some of you didnt realise how big the garden was because I only showed y'all 3 rows in the previous couple of posts. Well let me fill you in, we actually had Squash, Zucchini, Lettuce, Carrots, Beets, Cucumbers and Pumpkins. We also had Sunflowers and even though I had seen sunflowers before and knew they grew very large, I figured someone had been pouring "Miracle Grow" on them, and I truly did not expect a massive size from ours as we were trying to grow our stuff without chemical assistance. Oh, a word of advice to all you new gardeners and veggie eaters out there...... do not go to your local garden store or hardware store and ask for pickle seeds, apparently pickles are made from cucumbers! Who knew? Everyone but me it seems. Mike Davis my neighbour and the local hardware store guy, managed to keep a straight face when I asked him, in front of a store full of people, for pickle seeds. He had me repeat it a couple of times so all the locals could get their jollies laughing at the idiot "furrner" in town, then he calmly faked a phone call to a "seed supplier" and told me he could have some for me in two weeks. I will say he was kind enough to educate me before I left the store with all the seeds I needed that he did have in stock. I suppose we all bring joy and entertainment to people wherever we can, even if it is by accident .

Here is the "Garden Geezer" himself looking all smug and content, not feeling the least bit stupid after shopping for pickle seeds. Its really nice to sit on our grassy embankment with a cup of hot or iced tea and watch the garden growing. Usually my lovely wife is sat beside me but someone has to be behind the camera recording this stuff for posterity. I have a picture somewhere of 3 tomatoe plants that my friend Charles' Nana gave to me, I'll see if I can find it and post that on the next entry.

Bye for now,
Keep hoe-ing
"Garden Geezer"

The Miracle of Growth....aka "Look What I Did"

2008-09-15T01:04:00.003-04:00

Can you believe it, just three short weeks after the hoeing and prep work, furrowing and seeding I actually had stuff coming up out of the ground. The smaller row to the right is a row of beans, the one in the middle is also beans .I was very impatient last year and just jumped at the chance to put up a couple of stakes and run some string between them so that my little "sproutlings" would have something to climb. Little did I know they weren't even crawling yet , never mind climbing. The row to the left is corn, I know, it just looks like bits of grass but you won't believe how big it grows. Its like having a garden full of Triffids....(a little bit scary at night)

The rocks you can see around the edge of the garden/patch are all from IN the garden, I did not realise when we moved to the mountains that I was going to have to actually move a mountain to grow some veggies.

Here are the same three rows just a week or so later, l-r beans, beans, corn. As you can see they were getting bigger and it was time to do a little weeding between my rows. Judging by the smile on my face I must have been "reet proud" of the progress my little sproutlings were making. Like the hat?? That is my "its drizzling a little bit but I'm going down to the garden, hat"
If you click on the picture it will enlarge and you will be able to see the raindrops clinging to the cornleaves. That was about the only rain we had that summer and I spent every other evening watering my plants with a hose 'til I installed a sprinkler on a post high enough to give the whole 400sq feet a soaking. Growing up in a mostly urban part of England we never really grew anything for eating and such, although as kids we did of course slice the tops off carrots and put them in a saucer of water to watch them grow. Mum said us boys, Paul, Craig and Chris were growing potatos in our ears some of the time but she never dug 'em out and cooked them.
I am going to post this now so that i can continue the next entry with more photos

Look Where We Live.

2008-09-02T01:51:00.004-04:00

Time to get started on this thing , soooooo ,here goes. What better title for the first entry than the actual name of the Blog. Shall I say it one more time....Look Where We Live. We being my wonderful gypsy dance teacher wife,Cheri, and me the wannabe gardener himself "Garden Geezer". Where...being the beautiful mountains of western North Carolina, home of millions (literally) of Fraser Fir Christmas trees, moonshine stills (probably, though I haven't seen any yet) and friendly hillbilly folk who all seem to have a little garden in their back yards.

As a result of moving to an area where it is almost a law to have to grow something you can eat, and being married to a woman who eats more veggies than anyone I have ever met in my life, I became an unwitting gardener. You will find out how unwitting I actually am as this Blog progresses i am sure . When people around this part of America say "garden" they are almost always talking about their food gardens not their flower gardens, although they are "right proud " of their flowers too. Most flower gardens are in the front yard so everyone driving by can see them and most food gardens are in the back yard so that the neighbours don't have to cringe at the sight of you using an old bedframe to grow your cucumbers on. There is an awful lot of "making do" up here, especially amongst the old timers, so you can see some wild and wonderful uses for worn out or discarded objects as they are salvaged and put to use in gardens and yards.

Today's photo is of "the Geezer" himself hoe-ing through his first ever garden, or 400sq/ft of dirt. I suppose it isn't really a garden until something other than your footprints are planted in it ! I must admit I did feel a bit like Neil Armstrong when I looked back and saw all those workboot prints in that virgin expanse of turned and hoed soil. That first garden was last year 2007 and the gardening bug hit Cheri and I a little late in the season so we did not even sow our first seeds 'til the middle of July. Everyone told us nothing would "make" because we started late, but we weren't really bothered by that, we just wanted to get our first years practice in.

I should say at this point that it was MY first years practice, Cheri had of course done all kinds of gardening in her hippy/commune living youth and proved to be a great advisor and prompter for me in my first garden. She is still prompting and guiding me this year too, although I do not mind getting gardening books from the library or chatting with locals to find out what works best where etc. I think that will do for a first Blog entry, what do you think? Yeah , maybe I will continue with this story tomorrow night, either way whether I write it down or not the story will continue. I hope your story is as happy as ours.

All the best

The Garden Geezer