Another Lifetime to go

2nd September 2026

I had a full day of socialising, starting with breakfast with Lloyd, then I was due to meet up with Henry at his house and then back to the New Holland to meet up with Tom Verkiek.

This was a consolidation of all the meeting that were strung out over the full week, meaning I would have no time to work on any furniture.

Therefore I rescheduled them to take place today instead.

 The breakfast went well, that lasted just over an hour, then it was back home to do a bit of paint stripping. 

My next appointment was with Henry. I left at 2.00pm and arrived at just after 2.30, I noticed a strange car parked near the house, where I usually park. This is when I checked my phone, there was a message from Henry saying the today was off because he had visitors. Bugger!

So I turned round and headed home annoyed with myself for wasting my time.

The meet with Tom went as planned, he gave me an insight into life at HM. True to form they are spending a lot of time and dollars on a product that will not sell, seems I heard that before.

1st September 2026

Sometimes I am ashamed of myself.  when I drive home after a day with John, where it’s been a bit challenging, and I have showed my frustration, I feel bad. 

Today we wanted to test the sawmill after all the work that was done, I wanted to see if it was working.

I had reminded his wife, when I called her checking if John was okay for today, to see if John had any hydraulic fluid in his garage, John kept forgetting to check.

Anyway once I got down to his house he had stacked up out side containers that I thought were the fluid we needed. When I checked them I round them to be engine oil. I loaded them into the truck and set off for the barn.

Once there I set about sucking out the bad stuff we filled the tank with a couple of weeks ago. I had bought a large syringe to do that job.

And it worked well. I then tackled John about using the engine oil in the tank. He insisted that his son had told him that it would be okay to use it. Still uncertain, it went against everything I knew about hydraulics.  

Against my better judgment I did it anyway.

Now I wanted him to start the thing up, and that is where my frustration started. He had to find the key. After many minutes, and a handful of different keys, he found the correct one.

He turned it over, many times without it firing.

I asked him if there was a throttle or choke, he didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.

He kept talking about the key, and maybe there was a different key. I told him firmly that it was nothing to do with the bloody key.

I climbed on the saw to trace the fuel lines trying to understand the configuration. I located what looked like a choke cable, and instructed John to turn it over. This time it fired up, now I wanted to know if the saw worked. That was another confusing time. All I wanted to know was how did you turn on the saw blade. He kept saying that he wanted to change the blade, and despite telling him that it didn’t matter, he trotted off to find a new blade. In the mean time I had to work out how to remove the old one. By a series of elimination I found the lever that released the tension from the blade, now it was a matter of removing a couple of guards and removing the old blade. The new one was fitter, but I was no better off trying to get it to move. In the end a call to Bob at Woodmizer cleared it up. I missed there was a long lever with a black knob on the end, I had to pull it down and the whole engine moved to engage the blade drive motor, so I learned something else today.

That is when I gave up, it was unbearably humid, my eyes were stinging with the sweat from my brow, and I had enough. Next week I will buy the bloody hydronic fluid myself.

We did a bit of clearing up and then headed back, I hope next week will be more successful.

31st August 2026

I was determined to get the newest dresser prepared for painting, mainly because Kelli had secured a possible buyer.

My aim was to strip the top back to raw wood, but my first attempt with the scraper showed my worst fears, under the hand painted surface was a powder coat. That suddenly made the job ten times worse.

Getting the latex paint off was simple, but the powder coat required the use of some heavy guns, the belt sander. I fitted an eighty grit belt  

and went for it. Gradually inch by inch the wood substrate came into view. It must have taken a good hour of grinding to remove that surface. 

Now I was left with surface that required sanding to bring it back to it naturally wood colour.

Out came orbital sander number one. A new disc was fitted and off I went. It was going well, the natural cedar appeared, and as I continued some black marks appeared, as I lifted the sander off the surface, the pad fell off. The foam rubber had perished, well it was an old tool inherited from Dave.

I went to the cupboard to get orbital sander number two, this was a newer Makita, I continued on, sanding back most of the surface, with just the last corner to complete when the second sander failed.

It was not the end of the world, I finished it off with a hand sanding block, but now I had two useless sanders.

I managed to find a replacement pad on eBay which is simple to fit. The Makita was harder to locate the problem. A trawl through YouTube showed me that the brake ring might be the answer. When I took the sander apart the piece that was supposed to be the brake ring had disintegrated.  Good old eBay had that part as well, so in a week or two I could have two working sanders again.

The two “children” had a moment of calm, and it was captured.

30th August 2026.

Holland has its first roundabout, amazing, it has just opened and it does what it should, keep the traffic moving. I get so tired of having to stop at a four way and wait for my turn to go, they should change all of them to roundabouts 

The first one I saw is in Zeeland, that’s quite a small one, but it’s a breakthrough.

My first delivery was on the north side of town. The person buying sent a picture of the current storage for her children were a series of plastic bins, along with a smaller offer. Eventually a compromise was met ( Kelli being a sucker for a sad story).

My second part was a collection of a dresser from West Olive, this is where I encountered the new roundabout. It must have been opened for a few days, but surprisingly there were no wrecked cars close by, so all I can assume is no one is using it, or there are more English people living here.

The dresser itself was of the kind we have had many times, basic, and hopefully easy to work on.

Then it was back home, and then the Sunday ice cream treat at Kelli’s mum’s.

29th August Saturday 

I finally got round to weeding the new flower bed at the front of the house. I had to take my phone in order to identify which were weeds and which weren’t. I was definitely in the gardening mood, I even managed to finish laying the edging blocks  by the new fence, and filling it with some of the surplus top soil I had left over.

The new area we extended last autumn still needs to be cleared, it still has all the old fencing panels to dispose of, a good old bonfire was on the cards

We finished the dresser that we were trying to get out before the end of the month. I took some pictures, it was posted, and sold within hours.

Winnie and Tateo are bonding well, if you call hand to hand, or in their case mouth to mouth fighting is bonding. The back garden looks like it’s held a horse race, the soil has been turned up, and I try not to get too depressed about it. There will be a time when they both have calmed down, that will be the time to rescue the garden.

28th August 2026

Today was a big test for Tateo to be left in the house whilst we did our shopping.

Kelli had read up on different ways to make the experience less like the shelter she came from.  

Apparently it can take up to three months for an animal to overcome the trauma that they have being kept in a cage with all the other animals barking and generally making noise.

As he seems calm in the bathroom, which is where he has his meals at the moment, we decided to make this his safe room, putting a gate to close it off from the rest of the house. We felt happy that this should make home less anxious. We slipped out without a noise and set about our tasks.

Apart from the weekly shop there were a few other stops on the agenda. These took a little longer than planned because of all the road resurfacing that is happening everywhere.

Constantly worried what we would find when we returned we held our breath as we opened the front door. 

As we entered all three dogs ran to greet us including Tateo, who should have been in the bathroom. There was a smell that hit us, probably he had left a steaming dookie on the floor for us. I was pretty sure it was his, because being an expert on our dogs toilet habits I can instantly recognise who has done what.

Everything else seemed okay, nothing broken, no cushions torn, I thought they did very well, but we will need to refine the process  for the next time.

I had to drive to Saugatuck to collect a dresser that Kelli had bought. It is an interesting piece, hand painted but structurally sound. The address was the perfect American dream estate, four cars in the garage, and grass cut at a perfect height. I felt a bit rough around the edges, would I be allowed into this private estate? I made it by following in the post office truck, I think I got away with it.

27th August 2026

There has to be a place in hell for the inventor of the leaf blower. The summer reverberates to the sound of these things, I have grown to despise them. This is because they are used for everything, if there is dirt on the driveway, out comes the leaf blower. 

Whilst we were walking the dogs we passed a guy with a blower strapped to his back removing debris from his driveway. The petrol driven appliance was so loud, the dogs were frightened and tried to run away. It was louder than some of my wood cutting machines, almost made me want to go and tell the bloke to switch the bloody thing off, he was polluting the peace and the air, and it’s not necessary.

I had a much better day in myself, I let the dogs play in their way, although it looks rough I am assured that’s the way they do it, and as long as there isn’t any blood and bits of ear about, I’m fine with that.

We had to deliver the dresser we sold yesterday, another quick sale.

26th August 2026

I was feeing a bit stressed today, I put it down to the activity of the two black dogs. Tateo is slowly getting used to living outside the of the shelter, but Winnie just won’t leave him alone.

All the time the two are engaged in physical conflict, Kelli tells me it’s normal canine jostling, but it looks so violent, and I can’t settle.

This put me on edge for most of the day, I disengaged myself and tried to get on with anything that would occupy my thoughts.

It’s not that I didn’t have a lot of to do, but again it’s ramping up the energy to start, I guess I’m like an old vehicle needing a decent run up.

I think Kelli was feeling the same, making our communication a little difficult. She would say something, I wouldn’t hear what she said, but I put this down to the tone of her voice.

Anyway we struggled through.

Later in the afternoon a return customer arrived to deliver a rocking chair that had a broken rocker, that wouldn’t be a difficult, but she also wanted the paint removed and taken back to natural wood. I knew this was a labour intensive job, and did I want to do it? 

I gave two prices, the full job was set high (I had learnt from previous jobs that I tended to underestimate the work involved.) The second price was a repaint which was considerably lower, but in the end the choice was made, the full restore and refinish, oh well I tried.

25th August 2026

We heard back from the vets, Tateo does not have any parasites, which is brilliant news.

The bad news is his farts are deadly. I kept getting whiffs of them throughout the evening, and it reminded me that the dog I had living at home was a boxer called Turk. He was a damn champion of farts. He would lie in front of the hearth sleeping, his tail would lift and “foooot!” 

It was silent and deadly, my dad’s eyes would water, well everyone’s eyes would water, so I do know all about this.

It is probably the change of food, it might take a while for him to settle down, until then it’s gas masks to the rescue.

Of course it’s Tuesday so down to Byron Center I did go.

I was a little late, John was sitting in his rocking chair waiting. Outside his garage was a wheelbarrow with a large piece of tree in it, along with a stack of plastic buckets and a bin full of ash. This he wanted transported to the barn. Once I had strained my greens lifting the chump into the back of the truck we set off.

I always sense, when I talk to his wife every Tuesday morning to check if John is okay to go to the barn, she almost feels relieved that he is away for the day.

It must be hard for her to be with him all day everyday, she looks forward to Tuesday as well.

We got the lounger side frames glued up, and even laid up some cherry wood blanks laid up for some tablets for his church.

As I say regularly, it is tiring checking that he is okay, and explaining what we need to do, or help I need, like a child he has to be watched all the time.

I don’t know how his condition will deteriorate, there may come a time when he can’t be allowed out, I hate to think when that will happen.

Whilst I was away Kelli finished a tall dresser, I took pictures when I returned.

24th August 2926

We survived the first night with the new pup.

He slept with us, because we wanted to make sure he did not disturb the two girls in the spare room. As it was he slept like a rock, no dreams, it was a good night.

Kelli had concerns about how thin he was, and if it was the result of bad feeding or something worse, so she made an appointment to see our vet. 

Typically, animals who come from shelters will suffer from parasites, we had problems with Winnie, it means a strict schedule of powders and pumpkin seeds, and several poo tests.

The vet thought she needed more food ( we give three meals a day) so lucky Tateo will get four.

 Earlier, an awoke to the news that one of my old school friends had died. He had been suffering from a rare blood cancer, and I thought he had beaten it, and I was looking forward to seeing him again next year. It knocked me back a bit, this is close to home.

Rest in peace “Donks”