Dawn of the Mustache

It is hard to believe that it has been just two short weeks since I lost my original manstache. It seems like I can't grow these new whiskers fast enough. As you can see by the picture I have gone from clean shaven to the dirty, Pioneer Park, homeless man style. I can already feel my strength increasing again. Although I am but a shadow of my former self strength wise, in comparison with my mustached self, I am definitely feeling stronger. This other picture is of what happened when I decided to trim some hedges over the weekend. In my clean shaven past I would have barely been able to fill a single wheelbarrow. As you can see, a little stubble makes a whole lot of difference in man strength. Clean faces are for women. I am sure glad that I did not decide to trim the hedges with a mustache. There might not be any yard at all!

Hand Made Heavy Duty Dog Collar

We had a problem for a while. Our 135lb. rottweiler Zeus kept climbing our fence to take afternoon strolls through our neighborhood. I thought it was pretty funny when I would go to get him and see him cruising down the side walk like he was the king cock of the block. Unfortunately the people who were crossing fifth east when they saw him headed their way did not get the same laugh out of the whole thing that I did.

I just love aircraft cable, pulleys, and rigging. You can trap anything with the stuff! This being the case I decided I would make a tie off to keep Zeus in our yard. I drilled a hole into one of the roof beams for our porch and put a 4" long hook bolt in it. To the hook bolt I attached a spring shock absorber, up to 800 lbs. I then strung a piece of 1100lb load cable to it with bolt clamps. I secured the other end to our fence post across the yard. To do this I used a piece of chain with connector link to loop around the post and connect to a 400lb load cable rigging ring. I then secured a carbine clip to the other end of the cable and hooked this to the rigging ring to make the cable removable. A pulley is threaded onto this line with another cable running off of it. It is the cable that runs off of the pulley that attaches to Zeus' collar.

I thought we were good to go. It took Zeus a week to bend the rigging ring from a circle to an oval, bend the hook bolt to angle, and snap his supposedly indestructible store bought collar. This being the case I decided that if I wanted a collar made the right way I would probably, like most things, have to do it myself.

The pictures you see here are the finished product. I used a 1 1/2" 9oz. piece of latigo leather strap, the same thing the use to make the strap on the saddle that goes under the horses belly. I punched a hole for the buckle and doubled the whole strap over to make it twice as thick. This collar is held together with heavy duty copper bur rivets, 16 in all. These are the same rivets used in saddle making. Noted the nice D-ring for securing him to the cable. you guessed it! more saddle hardware. I know he is not breaking this collar. Now I am just waiting for him to rip the fence post out of the ground or tear my roof off.

The Betrayal (Murder of a Moustache)

(A lion of a man displays his mane! ROAR!!)

Today a great act of brutality took place. Loyalty has been repaid with bone chilling, cut throat treachery of the vilest sort. I can no longer look in the mirror without seeing that I must come clean and confess that I alone am the perpetrator of this hideous crime. Yes friends, it is true. Last night I went to bed with the trust of a devoted companion and this morning I woke up and drove my electric sheers deep into his back. In a selfish fury I hacked away tossing him into the waste basket and putting him out to be picked up by the garbage man like piece of burnt toast. I must come clean. The whiskers are on my hands and the guilt is to great of a burden to bear for one man without being crushed. I did it! I cut off my beautiful lip curtain. Now, ashamed and mustacheless, I realize there is only one thing that I can do to set this right. I must grow once more my mustache and document it here for all to see!

Along the way I will do some serious soul searching in order to try to understand this tragic event. In the process I hope to inspire you to grow a moustache of your own. I am doing this in the memory of my late moustache and for all of the young men and women who have thought about growing a fury companion before but have not done so because of fear of the unknown. I hope to lend you support in your endeavor so that you too may be a proud and Mustached American. Please see my before and after picture above and make sure to check back weekly for updates on project Moustache Revival.

A man without his mustache. A shadow of his former self!

Spring is coming!

I do not doubt that we will have another snow storm or two, but we have had plenty of sunny days lately. This week I took part of the day off work to come home and watch my son so that my wife could try to rest and recover from the stomach flu. Looking for a way to entertain young Thorfinn I decided we would go out into the backyard. So i got home and changed out of my office clothes, put a jacket on the boy, and headed out to our backyard.

Looking for away to focus the boundless energy of a 19 month old and keep him out of the dog poop lead us into the containment of our fenced garden area. I lead Finn in and he immediately began throwing handfuls of dirt into the air. I grabbed the hand trowel, a small spade, and the garden weasel. I began turning over the dirt with the hand trowel but was soon relieved of this duty by Finn so I went onto turning the soil with the spade then running through it with the garden weasel, Finn trying his hand at all of these activities but being most successful at the hand trowel.

I was filled with pride looking at the soil full of organic matter and earth worms. Just three short years ago the soil was hard and clay. We have succeeded in changing it into a nice loamy texture. We managed to prepare 1-4X4, 2 -4X8, and 3- 1X3 raised beds. Finn loved helping throw the rocks and branches to the side. In the pictures you will notice the Swiss Chard beginning to sprout up out of a bed still covered in leaves and grass clipping for its winter nap. Swiss Chard can be cut down close to the soil in the fall and covered with mulch to protect it from the winter. It will produce another crop in the early spring before bolting to seed with the warming weather. It is a great easy to grow alternative to spinach and can be used in any recipe calling for spinach. It is a heavy producer and one of our favorite vegetables to grow and eat.