Author: peterb51

14th May 2026

It was a warmer day, thank goodness, it was a relief to work outside for a change.

I worked on cutting more thin strips of oak for another lamination after the failure of the last one.

What happened there was after bending the strips wet I didn’t allow them to fully dry before gluing. As I released the clamps so the laminations came apart. There wasn’t any point trying to fix it, so it ended up in the scrap bin.

Kelli finished work on the pine dresser, and I sealed the top. We took advantage of the weather to take pictures and get it posted.

Work on the big black dresser/buffet continues, it will take a long time to get it to the right quality to sell.

Kelli is into electro culture, that is using the power of the earth’s magnetism to help grow things. She patiently wraps copper wire around a bamboo stick then plants it in the same soil that she wants the plants or vegetables to grow. There has been noticeable progress so far, as the experiment continues I will report on it.

But that led me to recall the work that Tesla did recovering electrical energy from the ether. His work could have provided free electricity, but he was shut down by his investors because there was no profit in it for them. Tesla proved that it was possible, it is still possible, we just need another one like him to finish the job, then all the power companies can get stuffed.

13th May 2026

There was a trip to Kelli’s doctor where she experienced the stomach moving routine.

This is difficult to watch because the stomach is physically pushed down into its correct position, not something that I’ve had, and have no desire to. This, in Kelli’s case is brought on by stress, which is caused by the liver, that is a work in progress. 

We all live with stress in one way or another, we learn to live with it, or try way to relieve it. 

I realised how stressful my job was, always focused on deadlines, once one was completed the next one was there to start again.

When it affects your sleep, life is not the same.

Kelli has been affected by sleep problems for the last five years, different foods cause digestive problems, but she has learned what her body can tolerate and those it can’t. This is not ideal, especially going out for dinner, if the food is cooked in seed oil, that’s a problem, she has also taken her own salad dressing to restaurants.

I have been educated in all these things, although I can process most foods there have been times when my own sleep has been disturbed, and I had no reason why, but now I understand what is best for nighttime digestion, and try to stick to it.

12th May 2026

We did something completely different today at John the wood’s barn.

I had come prepared with a rough model of the leg structure for the Michigan coffee table.

The top was still lying on the bench where we left it last week.

There was still the edge sanding to do, but it appeared the main order of the day was the planer. John tried to explain the problem, but he made no sense, I listened patiently, as you would a foreigner asking for directions, but it was making no sense. He then trotted off, ran a plank through the machine and showed me the result. There was a deep groove all the way along, then I understood the problem.

This had to be investigated, this piece of kit is the workhorse of the shop.

Together we removed the cowling exposing the helical cutter, I rotated it until I found the problem. One blade was missing, the attached screw was still there, and loose. It has unwound enough to be raised above the cutters causing the screw head to cut its own groove.

The mystery of where the blade went unsolved, possibly shattered, but now the cutters were exposed it was the perfect time to service it.

John went off to find the boxes of new blades whilst I started to loosen the screws.

The screws themselves were Torx head, a star shaped recess, so looking round for a T20 wench was the first challenge.

Some of the screws loosened easily, some not so.

These I marked so that I could try again after some penetration fluid could work its magic.

We did some work on the table edge, had our coffee and biscuits, then had another go at removing the stubborn fixings.

Working my way through the many Torx wrenches John had I found some newish ones, sometimes they wear and some of the star features break off, but these looked like new.

That’s what it needed, one by one they broke loose, the strain needed on some made me fart, not something I like to admit, but as you get older certain functions are linked together.

Anyway, with all the screws loosened, John returned with many small boxes of cutter blades.

Now each blade has four cutting edges, so normally the blade is rotated, but as it hadn’t been touched for years I thought it would be good to change them all and start again.

So that is what we did, I removed each one in turn replacing the blade, keeping an orientation dot in the same place each time. To speed the process up I had John working ahead removing the screws, but he kept tightening them, and I had to remind him which way they had to turn.

This was a long and arduous task, it felt like there were hundreds of screws, however, the very last screw fell out and disappeared into the wood chipping. Now I had to find it. I carefully searched through everything, almost ever piece wood chip, I could not believe that I couldn’t find it. I sent John off to look for a magnet, he was gone for ages and returned with nothing. By now every piece of wood chips was laid out on the floor, I was patting it like some eastern religious ritual, suddenly I found it, the little bastard was taunting me, I picked it up victorious, by then John had forgotten what I was looking for, I fixed the final blade in place. By now most of the day was gone, but it was fixed and ready to be used In earnest.

We had our final coffee, and a clean up, and I took John back home, my fingers oil stained and bleeding. 

11th May 2026

It was the usual shopping day, Winnie was sitting on my lap viewing everyone, sometimes barking at those that looked a bit unsavoury. 

Things are back to normal after the past week of the Tulip festival, the free flow of traffic was welcomed.

Whilst we were out we stopped at the bicycle shop to get a longer spindle (they call it a skewer) so that I could fit the bracket for our dog trailer. Fortunately they had one of an expended length, perfect for what I needed. 

As soon as we got home I took the old spindle out and fitted the new part. 

Now I was ready to try fitting the trailer.

Kelli was eager to try it out with both dogs.

Now this either work well or be a bloody disaster, because Phoebe has never settled with Winnie, so the thought of putting them both into a confined space was a bit risky, but we had to do it otherwise the trailer would have been a waste of time.

I unzipped the back door, and coaxed Winnie in, with Phoebe the approached to be different. 

I unzipped the front window taking care that Winnie couldn’t jump out. Phoebe was then lifted and lowered into it, I quickly zipped the window closed and waited to see what might happen.

There was calm, that surprised both of us, there was no blood or gnashing of teeth, they both settled ready for the inaugural journey.

I led the way, I had to use a bit of battery power as the extra weight I was carrying was noticeable. We headed up to Kelli’s mum’s house, which might have been a wrong decision because both became excited and I was afraid that Winnie, with her large claws would rip her way out, so we cut the visit short and headed home. On the face of it, the ride went quite well, now we are ready for a longer jaunt.

10th May 2026

It was a beautiful sunny morning, the sky was bluer than I have seen it in a long time. It was a relief to see that there were no trails cris crossing that wonderful clear sky.

Probably because it was a Sunday and these bio engineering bastards don’t work on the sabbath?

It is surprising that many people haven’t caught on to what is happening, these trails are laid largely in the morning before the sun is at its highest. Michigan seems to get a lot of this activity. I look up a lot, I know the flight paths that aircraft take into Chicago from the UK and Europe, they travel from right (east)to left (west) in a diagonal, there are no commercial paths from north to south or in any other diagonals direction.

This activity is part of all governments to push the climate change hoax, they are desperate to keep us all in fear that we are destroying the planet, but so many people I talk to don’t believe it, they have seen and heard the lies that have been told.

The electric vehicle mandate went down the toilet, sure it’s an alternative, but it’s really not the future, and the manufacturers know that

 Covering the sky, obscuring the sun slows down crop growth, foods become scarce and prices go up, more fear, it is so obvious.

Unless many more people take the time to study, and learn what is happening, and rise up against it, they will keep doing it. 

On a different subject, it was Mother’s Day, when all kids buy their mother a plant that will last a month, and dry up and die, great for the shops, sad for the blooms.

9th May 2026! 

Everything was leaving the house today, the pool, the bedside tables and that bloody heavy dresser. 

 A couple drove for two hours to buy the dresser, hardly checked it out, just handed me the money, and I helped them load the piece. The chap was a bit scary, he hardly had any front teeth, not someone I would want to meet on a dark night.

The side tables people drove from Hudsonville, funny that, because I think we got it from there in the first place. 

The pool was collected by Mandy and Husband Hunter, this was the size they were looking for, but too expensive to buy new.

Oh, the other thing we got rid of was a child carrying cart that we got free a couple of weeks ago. Originally we got it to transport the dogs, but apart from not fitting our bikes, it would have had the dogs facing behind, so Kelli reposted it on the free page and it was snapped up by a chap who arrived on his bike. He hitched it up, and cycled off into the distance.

8th May 2026

The decision was made, we decided that the pool was too large for our garden. The additional paved area would have cost well over six hundred dollars, and quite frankly that money could be used more wisely.

So Kelli managed to give it to her niece, Mandy who has far more space, so it will go to a good home.

Kelli was on fire with the spray gun, painting two side tables, and we repaired and cleaned up the heavy dresser that we got from Goodwill.

I dropped round to see Randy, the upholster to give him some cash to get started on the cushion covers, it will be so exciting to get that project finished.

7th May 2026

It started as an ordinary day, we had to deliver the bookcase to Hudsonville, Kelli always looks for things that we could get making use of the time and saving petrol. She was on a mission to look for a dog trailer that would attach to our bikes. We don’t like putting Winnie in the cage more than we have to, that is the reason why she travels with us on most journeys. Well she found one in Hudsonville, not that far from the delivery address. So we scooted over there to take a look. Having Winnie with us would allow us to check how she would react to being in the trailer. The place was in a trailer park, not my most favourite place, but this one looked well managed and clean. The young girl who was selling the dog trailer didn’t know too much about it, but between us we worked it out.

However the piece that was missing was the bracket that held it to the bike. The girl told Kelli that she was selling it to give her money to buy food, so that took away any option to bargain the price down, she needed the money.

We were confident that we could buy an attachment bracket somewhere, with that I loaded the thing in the back of the truck, and headed home.

But the story doesn’t end there.

Kelli is a member of a “ Buy nothing” page and advertised was a free above ground swimming pool. She responded to it, and to her delight, she was chosen. We had no idea how big it was, even the person who was giving it away didn’t know. All we could find out from the manufacturer’s website was it could be between 10 and 26 feet in diameter.

It was my job to go and collect it. After the sixteenth minute drive, I pulled into a driveway that led to a large barn, there in front of me was a cart with what looked like a dead whale draped over it, that I guess was the pool liner.

Next to that was a bin full of tubes and connectors.

When I got back I was keen to build the structure just to see what the actual size was. The paved area was only twelve foot square. I believed the pool would dwarf that easily.

I opened up the back of the truck and attempted to lift and carry the pool into the truck. That proved impossible, so the only solution was to wheel the cart over and then try to lift and slide it in. The thing resisted all the way, and took super human strength to do the job. Next was the ladders, yes it was that tall. Finally all the metal parts, and hardware.

So the construction began, Kelli tried to support the frame as I extended it, I had to add the fixing pins to help with the stability. 

Finally it was up, we stood back to observe the sight before us, it was effin huge. The diameter was about fifteen feet, significantly larger that our current one, I’m sure you could have trained horses in it. When the liner was attached and filled with water, apart from the lake level dropping you could practice deep sea diving in it.

Now is the big decision, do we keep it?

I would have to extend the paved area by another four feet in both directions, a total of another forty two block, plus the foundation, so in the end it would cost more than buying a larger new pool, we need to think about it.

6th May 2026

There was a bit of action taking place today.

First we had a couple arrive to collect five chairs that we posted yesterday, that was a quick one.

Next we had to go to Goodwill on the north side to collect a dresser that Kelli found yesterday.

But before we could do that, the one that I collect from the Byron Center yesterday had to be extracted from the truck, luckily it wasn’t heavy. The only thing wrong with that was a missing drawer guide.

Going to Goodwill was a good opportunity to donate a few bits of furniture that we have had stacked in the garage taking up valuable space, and because we now would have two large dressers to accommodate, they had to go.

They took three out of the four pieces, which was okay, the last piece will have to be broken up and burnt.

The dresser we loaded was heavy, and normally Goodwill employees are not allowed to assist in the loading things into people’s vehicles.

Fortunately the guy did help us this time.

Once back I proceeded to make noise, cutting, sanding and planing. I repaired the drawer guide, and sanded the top of the dresser from yesterday’s pickup.

5th May 2026

I took my paper pattern down to John’s barn, I was excited and apprehensive at the same time.

In the back of my mind was “Does it fit the blank that we laid up last week?”

Knowing my track record, I had every reason to doubt.

The blank was still on the bench where we left it last week. I took off all the clamps, and stared at it, certainly it looked smaller than my pattern, but I also had allowed quite a bit of excess.

I laid one half of the pattern on the board, that seemed to fit fine, then the second half, that fitted as well, I was shocked and amazed.

I sprayed some contact adhesive on to the surface and stuck the pattern down.

Now the difficult bit, the cutting. Armed with my trusty jig saw I started to follow the line. I had brought different blades because I knew there were many sharp corners. Bit by bit the waste fell away, but inch by inch I worked my way around. John was smiling, this was interesting for him, it had been quite a while since he had used a jig saw, that was the best reason for me to do it myself.

As the last piece of cherry fell away the final profile was revealed, there on the bench was the shape of the state of Michigan.

There is a lot of edge sanding to do, but John was there with the sander to smooth the top.

I don’t know if it will sell, but Michiganders like to boast about their state and buy things like breadboard and flags, so why not a Michigan shaped coffee table?

Once I cleaned up the mess I had made, we headed back. Kelli had arranged that I pick up a dresser on the way back, and as it was only a few miles away from the barn, John came along for the ride.

I think he is getting pressure from his family not to get involved in the business anymore. As I have explained before his ability to communicate clearly with customers is almost nonexistent. Although he feels betrayed by his sons who do a lot the heavy stuff, they need to take over the day to day basis even though they have jobs of their own. What future do I have working with John on our fun projects? That I’m sure will soon be decided.

Then it was back home, eating my lunch on the way.

As soon as I walked into the house I knew something was different. The chairs around the dining table were not the same as when I left hours earlier. 

Kelli sometimes wants different dining chairs. I have lost count of the number of different chairs we’ve had since we moved into this house. The last ones were all painted different colours and quite different, now we had black ones.

These were acquired a few weeks ago with the intention of repainting them and selling them on,  but they were put in the storeroom and forgotten.

Now they have pride of place, and I took pictures of our old ones and Kelli posted them.

You can’t leave her alone for a minute 

We took the girls for a walk around the block, just a few yards up the road we saw four young deer staring at us from the wood, they were perfectly still for many minutes, so were our dogs, a sort of stand off, no barking, then the deers ran back into the darkness of the trees. That was pretty amazing, to see them that close at that time, does not happen that often.