My regular readers will remember that I went to the auction a couple months ago and ended up with an old banjo clock. It runs, surprisingly, but is in terrible condition cosmetically. So, I’ve decided to turn it into a steampunk project, because I like that sort of thing.

One step along the way is to cut the center out of the clock face so that more of the movement is exposed. How exactly do you do that? I first went to Dunklee’s machine shop, but he said he didn’t have the right equipment and sent me to Kenny, shown below. Kenny has a 4-inch punch, which was a little smaller than I hoped for but good enough.

Kenny’s sheet metal shop is next to and behind the Jesus Superman church, and is completely invisible from the street. As it turns out, Kenny was the guy who made our stainless steel backsplash and range hood cover, but we didn’t meet him directly at the time.

Anyway, he set the brass clock face into a press the size of a camping trailer, turned some dials, lowered the cutting head, and pop! 20 tons of pressure created a perfectly round hole exactly where I wanted it. Magic.

This sad corner of our parking lot has been transformed over the past few weeks into a lovely little garden. We’re not sure why, but it’s cool. 
The pinwheels are given out to donors by Kidsplayce, a non-profit for kids, and we find them more annoying than cute… But in this spot they seem to work. 

On our first canoe trip of the year we saw this vignette…

This is a very pretty bike, I said to myself as I walked toward it the other day. I mean, I wouldn’t want a big hog like that, but it’s nice, I get it. 

And it’s a sign of the times that such a machine finds itself outside the town senior center. I’m good with a $25000 machine pulling up for a subsidized breakfast… Who knows how people should live their lives?

But there’s something about the handicapped tag that bothered me. I mean, if you can’t walk inside from the parking lot, should you be riding? Really?

We are blessed with a nice number of little wooded trails within walking distance. Unfortunately, the seclusion that makes for a nice walk also makes a good place to dispose of all the stuff that you don’t want to haul to the dump and pay to get rid of. 

I have a new weather app called Dark Sky, that tells me in excruciating detail something I already more or less knew: hour by hour, today’s forecast will oscillate between “overcast” and “mostly cloudy.”

So, a moment of sunshine this morning was extra welcome.

Q: What could cause Deja and Vu to share this rare moment of stillness and unity?

A: The Chuck Norris of squirrels. 

This guy has lost his tail and his right arm in some previous conflict, and he’s been hanging around beneath the bird feeders recently. I suspect the cats secretly think he would be an easy target, with the disability and all, but I’m not so sure… there’s a lot of cats out there and none of them has taken him down. 

A tractor, a tamper, and a few yards of sure-pack gravel, and the High Street house goes from 2 seasonally-muddy parking spots to 3 that are gloriously well-drained. No forsythia were harmed in the process of excavation, although some tulips were. 

Will this blog posting get more hits because I included the title of an extremely popular book? It was a good book, so if you’re here for that reason, sorry, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

My goldfinches, viewed through the kitchen window with my ghostly reflection, are unusually bright and numerous this year, as if the warm spring really agreed with them.