Author: peterb51

13th January 2026

I had a surprised phone call from John the wood.

He has never called me before, other than returning a call, so I was intrigued.

I usually call him at 11.00 every Tuesday morning just to check if he is okay to work in his barn.

He just was checking that it was on for today, which I confirmed.

There were a couple of errands I had to do before I drove to Byron Center, first to deliver the dresser that we had just finished and then to collect a pair of side tables.

Once that was done I headed out.

I had a couple of jobs I wanted to complete, the first was to glue up the second side panel, and then start with the back panel.

I had joined two pieces together last week, and I needed to do it again to another piece.

John’s barn was remarkably tidy because all the pieces for the church project had finally gone.

I am still interested to see what the final thing looked like. John did say that the entire structure weighed close to a ton.

This allowed the pastor, who is wheelchair bound, to enter the structure at ground level and then be elevated to the preaching level.

There is alway a bit of pressure working with John, I generally talk to myself, thinking out loud, so he get confused thinking I am talking to him.

I do explain what I need us to do, and he duly follows my instructions. I think he’s coming round to using biscuits instead of dowels, after seeing how easy it is to clamp up.

We actually finished a bit early, I swept up the mess I’d made, and probably someone else’s mess as well, then I took him back home, another adventure over for the day.

12th January 2026

The relationship between Phoebe and Winnie is very strange. Phoebe was not dominant when Dharma, the boss, was alive, so we didn’t know how she would react to the new puppy.

Winnie is alway full of beans and maybe too energetic for an older dog. Sometimes there are moments of affection, then a fierce exchange as Phoebe gets annoyed. It’s not enough to draw blood, and strangely their tails are wagging.

We have moments of frustration especially when Winnie is hungry, she gets spikey, and bloody annoying. When that happens I have to get on my hands and knees and play with her. We have a basket of dog toys, many looking worse for wear. They all show injuries, and some have no stuffing by often the squeaker still works.

After twenty minutes of intense playing, both Winnie and myself are exhausted, she curls up in a ball and drift off to sleep, that is the best time.

The adults now have their chill time.

11th January 2026

It wasn’t my intention to be driving to Grand Rapids at 9.30 on a Sunday morning , but here I am.

Kelli had a bad night with little sleep because she didn’t have the correct supplement.

The store didn’t have her usual one last week, so she had to have an alternative, this obviously wasn’t good for her, hence the bad night.

Of course the stores in Holland are closed on a Sunday, the closest that were open was in GR.

I scraped the ice from the windscreen and as much as I could from the bonnet, and set off.

There wasn’t much on the roads and the surface was ice free, so I could manage a reasonable speed. I was on the clock as I was expecting Chris at 11.30 for a recording session.

I managed to find the store, and with the help of a store person found the correct supplement.

Then it was back the way I came.

The price of fuel in GR was averaging $2.75 which was $0.30 more expensive than Holland.

I managed to find a station selling petrol at $2.49, now being a tightass this was just what I wanted, even though it might have been mixed with deer piss, I was prepared to take the risk.

The rest of the drive was uneventful, I arrived back home at 11.32 but no Chris.

Not that I expected him to be on time, but when 12.30 came and went I had doubts he was coming. A phone call confirmed that, with a sick child, and domestic issues we decided that today wasn’t going to work. 

We went up to Kelli’s mums as usual for our ice cream treat, came back and took the girls for a walk.

Winnie is changing, she has put on some weight, I know I still have to carry her outside at some unearthly hour of the morning. We are still curious to know what she breed mix she is.

Kelli has been doing some research and found that she could have some Great Dane in her, I just hope it’s the small parts.

10th January 2026 

Well it’s back, the snow, you know the white stuff that had just gone away. It was pretty heavy, when I let the dogs out it was just starting. I then prepared breakfast, looked out again and everything was white. 

This was annoying because we wanted to take pictures of the latest dresser, but that meant I had to move all the other pieces outside and take pictures of the piece inside.

I waited until the snow stopped, I had covered everything with sheets, but in the short time I needed to take the pictures it started snowing again. Now all the covers were wet and I was worried that the pieces would be spoiled, but I was fortunate, they survived.

Now Kelli had said to me a while ago that there was a spot on a wall that she wanted touching up. We had run out of the original paint, but what remained she took to the local paint supplies and got some more matched.

At the time I did say that the chances of it matching were almost impossible, but she insisted. I was the designated painter, and got up on the ladder and did the job. 

When it dried, it stood out like the preverbal sore thumb, so guess who had to do the entire wall?

That was my afternoon job, taking down pictures, moving out the furniture,  cleaning the skirting boards, and removing the curtains and rails, it wasn’t a quick job.

Then everything had to be moved back, and then the brushes and roller had to be cleaned.

That is a horrible job, but there is no easy way, just lots of water.

It looks like the snow will continue tomorrow. The only consolation was it was the watery type and turned to slush very quickly, but that means ice tomorrow morning.

9th January 2026

There many things I don’t understand about what’s going on. I restrict my access to the mainstream media, but every so often something crops up that confirms what I have been thinking, and Kelli has been saying, and that we, as a population are continually being divided.

“ Oh he’s off again” I hear you say, but think about it, all of us have chosen sides without thinking about it. Political parties, football/rugby teams, even religion, but what started out as harmless competition has grown into fierce division.

The latest thing that everyone over here is talking about is the shooting of a lady in Minneapolis by a member of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE)

This agency has been very active in the state because of the massive fraud carried out by the Somalis , most of which have been  brought to the city as part of the sanctuary city movement.

The incident occurred when this lady was in her car and was blocking the road, in a passive protest, she was confronted by an officer of ICE, and after a exchange of words the lady was preparing to drive away. Unbeknown to her another officer stepped in front of her car as she was driving off, he fired one shot through the windscreen and another through the open driver side window, the cars then carried on and smashed into some parked cars.  The poor lady was dead.

There were multiple videos played on every available news outlets.

Now she may have been in the the wrong, but often when you drive off, the driver will look left to make sure the roar is clear, and not immediately see someone who had moved in front of her.

This in my opinion was unnecessary force by the officer, and this could easily applied to so many other situations involving the police.

The problem was Trump and his government condemned the lady as an urban terrorist, and the stated that the officer involved was hit by the vehicle and had to be taken to hospital, a total lie because video showed him walking away afterwards.

This has lit a fire, and the streets have been filled with protesters.

Is this another distraction? Did this happen, or was it staged? Did the ICE have to kill somebody to create a conflict, stir up more hatred ?

8th January 2026

It was back to the same house to collect the taller of the two dressers.

The house has so many rocks and boulders in the front garden I expected Fred Flintstone to live there.

This lady had saved us a bit of effort by bringing the drawers upstairs and setting them out  in the garage.

This was a small contribution to the expected effort I would need to exert to get the dresser carcass up to floor level.

I set about getting it into position at the bottom of the stairs with the aim of sliding it up on its side. There was little Kelli could do at that time except watch me struggling.

It took a lot of my energy to start the lifting process, inching it from one tread to the next.

As I neared the top, kelli sprang into action, she made an effort to grasp part of the leg. At this point she was sitting down, as she tried to get up, to get a better grip, she reached for the bannister. All this time I was holding the entire weight of the carcass, this was the critical part of the lift, my arms were shaking, my past life flashed before my eyes, and all I could think of, apart from lying dead at the bottom of the stairs was “Get a bloody move on”.

As she pulled herself up, the bracket broke, it was a casting, and it snapped like a carrot, a little embarrassing as the lady was watching.

“ Oh don’t worry about it “ she said.

Now I was still holding the weight of the world on my shoulders, Kelli was still apologising, I had gone past reliving my life, now I was looking down at two paint cans strategically placed to snap my neck, just in cast the carcass failed to do the job.

Just in time Kelli took the strain, and the dresser was now fully extracted from its dark resting place, now we just had to get it outside to the truck.

We finished to loading of the piece and the drawers and headed back.

Earlier I had unloaded the first dresser and inspected the drawer that had come apart.

I am often amazed that the strange lengths people go to repair something that gets broken.

One of the drawer sides was damaged and someone had driven a series of screws along its length, and that is what the drawer had run on.

In fact they used screws to hold most of the drawer together.

so that drawer will require a lot of repair.

Kelli managed to get a coat of paint on another dresser that we need to sell.

There is a lot of rain forecast over the next couple of days, that restricts what we can do, now that the garage is full again.

7th January 2026

I met up with Lloyd for breakfast at the Southside Inn. After the new year pleasantries, and a recap of things since the last time we met up, we started on our discussion subject, Did the holocaust actually happen. Needless to say we spent the hour going back and forth.

Lloyd is a stickler for the history as written, and not prepared to widen his horizons.

I challenge everything, so this leads to quite an active debate, but the end he is exhausted, I bet he goes home to have a rest on the sofa.

I, on the other hand had to deliver a dresser to an address in Hamilton.

It took about twenty minutes to get there, and what I found was a housing development straight out of the American Dream catalogue.

Everything was perfect, oversized houses set in woodland, with small lakes. The lane snaked uphill and down into valleys, with a speed limit of 15 mph I could appreciate the landscape.

I reversed up the driveway, and rang the doorbell, no answer. I rang again, still no answer, this time I consulted the message sent telling me that I should leave it in the porch. That meant I would have to manhandle it on my own.

Well I strained my greens, but I managed it.

Then I made my way back along the yellow brick road to reality.

My adventure didn’t end there. Kelly had found a matching set of dressers on the north side.

These were free, so what better incentive than that. Unfortunately they were in the basement, and were heavy. We could only manage one, some of the drawers need a bit of work, but that’s we expect.

We will go back again tomorrow to get the tall one.

6th January 2026

Happy birthday Dad, he would have been 118.

I was back with John the wood at his barn.

The weather was damp, drizzly and misty, it’s slowly melting the snow, but it’s wet slush.

The countryside is hidden by this veil of mist, spooky, even a photograph would not do it justice.

I hurtled down almost deserted roads, a route I am so familiar with, but there is still excitement, what will I achieve today.

John was ready and waiting as I pulled up, he seems to have trouble with the seat belt every time, but once that gets sorted we set off.

We chat about things we’ve done since the last time,  he often wanders off track,  which is confusing, and I often check him, to get him back.

The barn felt empty, the big steel and wood construction has gone, but a few parts still remain. All my pieces are still on the cart where I left them, after clearing the bench, I set about the first job.

Once I laid out all the parts that had to be glued together, we stopped for a coffee and a slice of freshly baked pumpkin bread.

John’s eyes lit up at the sight of it, I explained what I wanted to achieved, really for my benefit as there was a lot of information that I’m not sure John understood.

I gave him a task to look in his stock for planks of white oak that were 96 inches long, these I would need for the back panel.

He shuffled off downstairs whilst I did my glue up.

I later went downstairs to see what he found.

Without digging down into the piles of planks, I made the executive decision that I would join shorter lengths together, although we did find two planks that were the full length.

The cleaning up of the planks took a bit of time, but finally they were sized and cut to length.

We stopped for another coffee and another slice of pumpkin bread, and assessed what was achieved.

I could say that I would make more progress if I was left to my own devices, but that’s not the reason, I know John wants to be useful, and what I’m doing is keeping him interested, so I’m happy to take, probably, twice the time to get it done.

We finished the day by joining two pieces together to see how they fitted. All the final machining  will be done later , so any mis-alignment will be corrected.

We left a bit later than usual as I alway sweep up any mess I make, which is only expected.

after dropping John back home I had to drive to Dorr to collect something that Kelli had found on Marketplace.

This entailed driving through uncharted territory.

I survived, and with a garment neatly packed inside a bag, I headed back to my warm home.

5th January 2026

The first shop day of the new year, and I can confirm that there was no difference, although some shelves were noticeable empty, the place was the same as last year.

Having done that, we headed up to West Olive to collect a croqueted jumper for Winnie. That puppy is slowly accumulating more and more clothes, soon she will need closet space of he own. 

So we arrived at the address, but no jumper, that is when Kelli re-read the message only to find the person had left, and wouldn’t return until 4.00pm, so basically, a wasted trip.

It wasn’t all a waste because she had also arranged to collect another bed for the little one.

I swear that soon there will be a bed in each room, I think she is being spoiled.

She is getting better at the house training bit, we’ve had no accidents for a couple of days, and she waits by the patio doors possibly signalling that she wants to go potty.

Once that was done, we’ve headed home.

I had to go to Megan, the lady I built the kitchen island for. 

She was the one with the water damage, I had agreed to re-coat the island top with Wax oil, mainly because the insurance assessor had thought the top was damaged, fortunately it wasn’t.

Then I had to collect a dresser, it was getting dark, and as usual it was difficult to read the house numbers. I eventually found the place because of an odd window up in the eves.

It was a bit battered, but it was solid and a quick paint job should do the trick.

We also sold the dresser that we posted yesterday, that was good.

4th January 2026

We have so many gates in the house to climb over I feel like I’m competing in some Olympic sport.

We have to close off the spaces that Winnie is not allowed into, that means climbing over the one to the bathroom, or the bedroom, it’s cramping my style.

I swear that she is growing, and getting heavier, or I’m getting weaker.

She is definitely dominating our lives, but we get revenge by putting her out in the snow every ten minutes to have a piss.

Things on the furniture front has been slow, Kelli picked up a dresser from Goodwill yesterday that doesn’t need too much doing to it other than one drawer runner.

We did some touching up, and posted  it straight away

We still have one big monster in the garage that we need to get started on.