The New Twig Box

The Fuzz has not been very good at keeping up with things here in cyberspace.

Oh well.

One of the projects he has been up to has been a new "Twig Box".

Out here in the woods, the trailer is heated with a Wood Stove, as many followers of Kinda Fuzzy no doubt realize.

Well, when The Fuzz and His Sweetie are off on one of their frequent forays out into the wide world, the fire may burn out.

So it is necessary to keep a supply of kindling handy- and out of the weather!

Trying to start a fire with soggy twigs is a pain.

(you know where!)

They were keeping an old bucket of twigs in there near the heater.  But it didn't really hold much, and tended to be very messy.

The Fuzz's Sweetie wanted to start keeping the stuff out on the porch, which would be handy enough,

But-

also exposed to the weather.

So they came up with the idea of this

Twig Box!

There was an old chest of drawers that had been retired from bedroom duty.

So The Resourceful Fuzz disassembled the thing.

He then used the sides and drawer fronts to put this thing together.

The bottom is a piece of old fence wire, so any tiny bits and dirt can fall through.

An old piece of tin made a reasonably weathertight lid.

The interior was divided into 2 sections.  One for "small stuff" and the other for "Twigs".

Firewood Followup

The Fuzz took advantage of an offer from the #1 Son and Son-in-law to help with a bit of wood cutting.

And it was an excellent opportunity to try out his brand new chainsaw.

There were a couple of rather large trees at a neighbor's place that The Fuzz had been offered.

But they were a bit much for The Fuzz to handle on his own.

But with all this good help, things would be different.

The trees were dropped with no complications. 

(thankfully)

And the rest of the day was spent in cutting them up, and hauling the wood home.

Unfortunately the early darkness cut the job off before all was finished, and this sizable piece of the main trunk remained.

The Fuzz will take care of it later.

The pieces will be pretty big, but he should be able to roll them up the ramp into the trailer with out hurting himself.

In the mean time...

It was time to fire up the old log splitter.

The Fuzz will have to use the vertical configuration for these big guys.

That way he won't have to try and lift them.

But the woodpile is starting to look a bit better already.

Saw Situations

Well, the winter weather has seriously moved into the woods.

So that means a fire,

Which means.

Firewood.

The Fuzz was working on this the other day when his cheap chainsaw finally tanked on him.

This thing has been aggravating off and on over the years, but he had always managed to patch it together somehow.

The Fuzz suspected the carburetor this time.

But after he took it apart and cleaned it, there was no improvement.

At this point he suspected the fuel pick-up in the tank.  Perhaps it was clogged.

So he got a piece of wire and fished the thing out of the tank.

Something was missing here!

He managed to get the filter thing out finally.

But there seemed to be no problem, other than it had become detached.

So...

He put it all back together.

But the thing still refused to do more than spit a few times before it quit again.

A new spark plug didn't help either.

And so The Long Suffering Fuzz finally gave in.

It was time to "bite the bullet" as it were, and get a new chainsaw.

This time he decided to go for quality over economy, and went to the Local Stihl Dealer.

He did get to break it in on a couple of large trees over at a neighbor's place.

And it cut good!

Well, they say you get what you pay for.

Let's hope they're right in this case.

Power Tools

It is sort of a long term project, But The Fuzz is still working on getting his shop together.

One of the things on his wish list was a Drill Press.

Not having a lot of room in there, or a lot of money to spend, he had decided to go with a bench top model.

Having come onto a bit of cash, Our Fuzz decided now was as good of time as any.

So after checking around a bit on line, he headed over to the brand new Harbor Freight Store.

I guy could spend a lot of time in there, just looking and lusting after guy stuff.

Well, here's what he came home with.

Step 1 was to unpack it all.

Actually it was not all that difficult for The Experienced Fuzz to assemble this brand new piece of equipment.

There was a bit of a complication in mounting the thing.

Amazingly enough, in his whole collection of bits of everything, there were not any bolts suitable for mounting it to the small work bench.

But he was able to improvise something for the time being.

He will have to do this properly in the future.

But for now, here it is!

The Death House

Sounds pretty sinister.

At first glance it seems to be just another picturesque old country house that has seen better days.

So one day, whilst The Fuzz and His Sweetie were out walking, they decided to check it out.

That's when the creepiness factor kicked in.

As they got closer, the bad vibes intensified.

The destruction and debris spoke of foul deeds and a dark past...

Blackest murder !
Who knows what evil lies in the Hideous History here.

And so, we will slip silently by and leave these spirits buried in the past, hopefully, undisturbed.

Muddy Paw Prints

A bit of rain this morning here in the woods.

In case anyone wonders why The Fuzz's motorcycle is always so dirty-

The Fuzz does have a place to keep it out of the weather.

But these guys like to get out of the weather too.

Muddy cat paws!

Oh well.