It’s November. November, people! Wasn’t it just November not too long ago? I’m telling you, Father Time is rolling the seasons out way too fast for me. And the colds. I mean really. Is all this coughing and carrying on really necessary? Last year it felt like we were sick all winter long. I hope we’re not in for a repeat of that.

My mom gave me a tin of Badger brand chest rub this year, and I love it so much that I hardly ever break out the Vick’s any more. It smells delightful and not at all medicine-y, but it works just as well. I try to always reach for this and hot tea before I break out the “real” medicine.

I hope you’re all enjoying your Halloween. Gavin barely fits into the zebra costume I made for Olga two years ago, but since I was too lazy tired to make new ones this year, he’s wearing it anyway. Olga opted for Magical Angelina Ballerina Fairy Girl, thankfully pulled together out of things we had. Next year, there will be something new. I promise.

And this year, after many failures, I actually looked up directions for roasting pumpkin seeds, rather than winging it, and I’m happy to report that they turned out delicious.

I know I harped on about painting the fence in my last post, but you really can’t appreciate just how long it takes to paint pickets until you’ve done it. I think painting probably took twice as long as everything else combined, including digging and setting new fence posts, hassling the lumber yard, and hanging the gate (although we all agree, we’d rather paint another fence than hang that gate again).

The weather has been a little touch-and-go here, so some days we blew off work to paint. (Of course we always make up for it… )

We used a taught string as a guide for the tops of the pickets (you can barely see it in the photo above to the left of my head) and a 2×4 scrap as a spacer between pickets. I held up a spirit level every few pickets and made adjustments when needed. We’re using special screws that are “dactrotized” and apparently won’t rust or corrode in our marine environment.

We’re not quite finished putting up pickets, but many of my neighbors have already stopped to say how much they like the fence. I love it.

Way back in July we started working on beefing up the existing fence in front of the house. I wanted an enclosed yard so the kids could play out there. The boundary fence on the north side of the house was also not in the right spot, so we moved it and reclaimed about 500 square feet of our yard.

This has really been my dad’s project, but I’ve helped as much as I can.

In order to get the kind of pickets I wanted, we had to make them. We ordered 1×6 and 1×8 8-foot premium cedar fence boards. We ended up hand picking through them, because a lot of them came in warped, cracked, etc. Also any boards with large knots down the center were put aside. First we cut the boards to get two 3.5-foot-long boards. (The extra cedar we put aside as scrap wood.) We ripped all the 8-inch wide boards in half, and 1/3 of the 6-inch wide boards in half. We ended up with an equal number of 6-inch-wide and 3-inch-wide pickets, and twice as many 4-inch-wide pickets. I wanted to alternate pickets – narrow – medium – wide – medium – narrow – medium – wide – medium – …

To get nice rounded tops on three different sized pickets, I hunted down three suitable templates. For the wide pickets, an empty paint can worked. For the mediums, a large can of tuna, and for the smallest pickets, a can of peaches was right. I traced the template onto the best end of each picket, and Dad cut most of them out.

Then we painted. And painted. And painted–that tedious and never-ending job. Cedar that is going to be painted has to be sealed. It’s something about the sap staining through the paint, or whatnot. Anyway, I didn’t want to worry about it, so we primed all the pickets with oil-based exterior primer. That stuff stinks and takes forever to dry. I finally got the last of it out of my hair this morning, and I haven’t used it in about a month. Also, it transfers to couches quite easily. We used up an entire 5-gallon bucket and had to buy more. These boards just soaked it up.

But once everything was primed, the top coat went on pretty quick. Gavin got to help with this part. He really got into it, although Grandpa made him the scapegoat for most of the grass that ended up painted to the boards. I know he looks very paint-free in that picture, but I assure you it is entirely a trick of the lens. He managed to paint his overalls to his boot at one point. Luckily, he’s about to outgrow those clothes anyway.

Part 2 tomorrow when I get around to it…