In which is a mighty screw-up.

fter the demise of the Mutant Garage from Hell, there was a pressing need for a garden shed. Getting a garden shed involves a crucial decision: build from scratch (slow, frustrating and expensive) or buy a kit (also slow, frustrating and expensive.)

The choice is obvious. The kit includes the chance to cuss at the stupidity of the designer and builder. This is a refreshing break from cussing at your own stupidity, and well worth the money.

So, seats were removed from a van, in preparation for the pickup. This is a job for two large men, or one cornet player who played football without a helmet. Removal of the seats was accomplished without actual loss of digits, and deemed therefore to be a success. A journey was made to the nearest branch of the BORG (Big Orange Retail Giant) which had the relevant shed in stock.

The journey was not short. It had the quality common to Wagnerian operas and all other journeys in the Eastern province  of being much longer than you would imagine possible, and happening fairly late at night, while you wish you could just go home about halfway through.

(May I pause to mention how admirably the Eastern Province has risen above the traps of materialism? In some places, a man seeking a shed would be overwhelmed with the importunate offers of a crowd of shed-merchants pestering him with multiple redundant sheds. Not here. Here, the purchase of anything from a slow-cooker to an ordinary Northumbrian Spoke-shaver's Coracle involves something like a pilgrimage, and many hours of slow contemplation behind the wheel. Sometimes a sort of lectio divina of the provincial road maps as well... but I digress.)

Having acquired the shed, I assembled it with much help from Number 1 Son. There's a interesting "blame the victim" approach to the instructions that come with shed kits. The instructions are written with an assumption that shed parts are made by the factory, and mistakes are made by the customer. This assumption is poorly supported by reality. (Naughty, naughty reality!)

The assembly is actually fairly straightforward, rather on a level with teaching a rhinoceros to play scrabble: First, a foundation was assembled, and shimmed until we were too bored to shim it any more.

Dude, did we use enough shims?

Then, bits were screwed together, in an order as rigid as the court protocol of the Kingdom of Absurdly Rigid Protocol.

World's tallest midget for scale.

Then more bits are screwed together.

Something something house begins to close upon the growing something...

Until it looks like this:

Not Shown: Assembly of Floor Kit. Because madness.

The kit contains about 400 parts, of which approximately 370 are screws of different sizes. The customer also needs a number of things not supplied with the kit, or mentioned in the quadralingual (English, French, Spanish, and possibly Klingon) instructions: Unearthly patience. Meticulous organization. Fair weather (strangely, unavailable from the manufacturer, even as an optional extra). A complete lack of wind, (unavailable even as a third party aftermarket add-on.) And most of all, multiple drill bits of a size to re-drill the 47 mis-aligned pilot holes in the parts provided.

It does not matter how meticulously you level and square everything, some of those holes are determined to stick it to the man, and will never fall in line. Don't sweat it, don't stress, and never try to negotiate with them. Just drill more holes.

Eventually, the shed was up.

As Plumbun Major put it: "Dadats 'ome."

Tune in next time for the greatest hits of the 15th century, I kid you not.

In which A-WAY

When last we saw our hero, he had gained the upper hand on the the Mutant Garage from Hell, and had wrestled it to the ground, without injury or damage.

Almost. 

He now had to induce it to leave the premises Vigorous persuasion was required, so the demonic contract with the Saw of Reciprocity was extended. It's called the Saw of  Reciprocity, because the damage it does to the target is balanced by the damage it does to the hands of the user.)

We begin with the Dumpster of Unusual Size, seen here in the background.  (Visiting Anglican Cleric for scale.) There is no larger in the Valley of Apples and Wine. Notice that it sits crosswise in the driveway. This was the best the delivery guy could do without accidentally putting his rig into the creek across the street. It is 30 cubic yards. (The cubic yard is the equivalent of the metric measurement "kindofalot." That would make this dumpster the equivalent of the metric 1.5 helluvalots.)

And so the long week wore on. As the days slowly disappeared in a welter of sweat, frustration and trashed saw blades, so did the garage,

bit

How do you eat an elephant?

by bit

 by bit

One bite at a time.

 by bit.

And now for shovel and broom...

It did not go without a fight. As the battle progressed, it resisted by slowly turning, in places, into something like topsoil. Kind of hard to pick up and drag to the dumpster. Here we catch it part way through the transformation.

30 seconds later, you could plant daisies in it.

Eventually, the last of it was here:

That's right. The Dumpster of Unsurpassed Largeness was not large enough. We filled another 10 yard dumpster.

In the process, it destroyed one circular saw demolition blade, dozens of recip. saw blades, and a pair of brand-new leather work gloves.

It didn't do the cornet player a lot of good either.

Cornet player. Portions of warranty no longer valid.

But, Plumbun Major perhaps summed it up best:

"Dadats. Saaaw. Uh-oh. A-gain. BOOM! A- Way."

Watch this space for a quick one in which there is an almighty screwing up.

In which it all goes sideways.

hen last we saw our hero, he had completed Phase the First of the Project That Lurks in My Nightmares, and was on his way to the second part of the project, which was removal of the garage. 

A bit of history: The garage in question started life as a happy little garage, with an ordinary peaked roof, on an ordinary concrete pad, in a totally normal residential neighborhood in This Eastern Province. Then, one of the previous owners decided to turn it into a body and fender shop. It was too small for the purpose, which might have prompted a more reflective man to open a body OR fender shop, but not him. "Go big or go home!" he cried. "In both bodies and fenders I shall deal, 'though hell should bar the way!"

And he proceeded to double the size of the garage, by adding a couple of flat-roofed sections. Now, there are ways to build truss roofs which have multiple different slopes. He, apparently, did not know any of them. Agriculture Canada (among many, many other knowledgeable outfits) has published a number of free and authoritative pamphlets, brochures, short courses and webpages on building such trusses. The information is clear, consistent, and expressed at the technical level of a music major. He bravely disregarded them all. He had his vision. He had his courage. He had no damn clue what he was doing. 

And so, a cornet player appeared on the scene with a reciprocating saw and a grim sense of being in the unfeeling grasp of cruel fate...

Now the roof, as previously established, was unsafe to walk on. Or under. Or to investigate from too short a distance. Hell, you should probably be wearing Green Patch boots and a hard hat while you read about it. So, the cornet player evolved a strategy. 

First, remove all the sheathing that's removable, leaving something like this:

 New Reality Show: The Naked Garage.

(more sheathing got cut off after that picture). Along the way, cut out this

temporary support, while there's still enough walls up that it won't kill you (you hope.)


Then, cut out about two thirds of the studs, and all the studs on the front wall, leaving this:

You're goin' down!

Recruit the resident Visiting Anglican Cleric, and begin pushing on the two back corners. It rocks, and comes back. It rocks a little farther and comes back. Continue until it lands on Canada, about seven feet west of where it started:

Yeah, you.

Strikes dramatic Big-Game-Hunter pose just like Ernest Hemingway.

Notice weapon of choice. Notice Official Smug Look. Notice the damn garage is now lying on the ground!

Come back soon to hear What The Cornet Player Did Next.

In which we take a fence...

This is the situation so far:

marks the spot where Plumbun Major lives with Number One Son And DIL, (recently joined by Plumbun Minor.) Y marks a flowing body of water which is MUCH bigger than it looks on the map. And so, there is to be a fence. And there is learning.

     The first thing to be learned is that the makers of post-hole diggers are sunny, happy optimists, who live in a different world than the rest of us - a better one. And apparently, a world populated by astonishingly large people. Do a google on John Grimek, or Magnus Samuelsson, you'll get the idea.

     There is a thing called a "One Man Post Hole Digger." It can, ideally, be used by one man. If he's a very big man. Preferably with a very large friend who just wants to hang around and help. Similarly, there is a machine called the "Two Man Post Hole Digger." It has four handles, which should tell you what you need to know.

     The next thing to learn is that This Eastern Province is a place of deep roots. Large roots. Many roots. Also rocks, some of them the size of Kanye West's ego. So, when you start the project with the placement of perfect, round holes, exactly vertical, in a perfect straight line... yeah. That's not going to happen. You also learn that, while the makers of post-hole diggers have a cheerful, indomitable outlook on life, they do not pass this attitude on to their creations. The holes are supposed to go down below the frost line. In reality, they go down to where the machine gives up, sometimes because of rocks, sometimes because of roots, and sometimes, apparently, just because of a deep, existential despair.

     So, you have your holes. You insert your fence posts. You insert the concrete mix, and the water, and hold the the post vertical, as it starts to set. There's a nifty device that shows that the post is vertical. It's called a level, which is kind of a bizarre name, if you think about it too long. Fortunately, by this time you're tired enough that you're not really thinking too deeply.

     The next day, you go looking for a fence stretcher, which, it turns out, unlike the fabled board stretcher and rail stretcher, is a thing. It's just a thing you can't find for love or money. So, you go to plan be. You insert a tension bar into the chain link, and enlist a holidaying cleric to attach the nuts and bolts, while an ordinary Presbyterian Flugelhorn Player reefs on the fence. You lose the mechanical advantage of the fence stretcher, but you gain the moral advantage over the materials, and they gradually cease to give you trouble.

     Then, there's a few trivialities of attaching gates, and negotiating corner posts, and dealing with the manufacturers assumption of a perfectly flat earth (they're hilarious, those guys) and then you have this!

Not quite as straight as it looks here.

Anyway, that's part one of the project done, after delays for rain and organization... and part two comes soon.

In which things fall to pieces.

Well, one thing anyway. The garage roof in Kentville.

The story so far: Living in a company house, as it were, we took some of the cash on hand, and bought a house in Kentville. We rented to #1 son, with DIL, and Micah.

Now I knew that this was a problem in the garage:

I knew that this summer I would have to get in there and replace a chunk of the south wall. What didn't register at the time, is that the header seems to have been put together out of 2x4's (!???!) with the 4 side down.

I cannot explain this thinking.

So, I knew that I would have to fix it, but it would be relatively straightforward: Support structure, remove bad bit, put in good bit, drink beer. Happy times...

Back in the shining, innocent, carefree days of about a week ago, I got a call from DIL, saying that the garage roof didn't look right. (Her assessment was perfectly correct.) She sent me a picture of the garage from the man door.

 

As you can see, just above the rusty old wood stove, some of the beams look... not quite right. I had to run the Local Anglican Cleric to Truro the next day, so I boogied on to Kentville afterwards, and had a look. 

Now, how to explain it? As I explored it, or as the problem arose? Let me just put on the Beeb, and I'll show you what I found, with the explanation afterwards. 

Observe that the eaves of the house in the background are as near level as no matter. The ridge of the garage roof, really is that far off level. But how bad is it, really?

...and we did. And now, on a certain level, we're kind of sorry we ever got involved.

Well... that's not good.

You can see a little more clearly that the end of one beam is completely rotted out. You can also see that at least some of the beams were apparently cobbled together by a chimpanzee with a nail gun. And not one of those smart, cigar-smoking, piano-playing chimps, either. (More about the implications of this, next time.)

From the outside:

On the outside... it doesn't look any better. So, what caused all this?

Observe the roofline: Here we have two roof lines that each can work pretty well: On the right is a sloped, straight shed roof. It has its own problems as a concept, but it'll work. It'll need some massive beams, but it'll work.  On the left is a peaked roof. It doesn't need the massive beams. What it needs are some carefully assembled trusses, but you can build them from 2x, and it'll work.

What you can't do is put the two shapes together, and hope that somehow it'll work.

First, and I say this without fear of contradiction, a flat roof is the work of the devil. Observe the roof from above:

 Observe the remaining snow: That snow is on the SOUTH side of the roof. The north (cold) side of the roof is clear; it's the flat side that has caused the problems. So, flat roof versus peaked roof, somebody had to make a decision. A decision that's about this complicated.

He made the wrong one.

Second problem:
Where you see the kink in the roof line, there are similar kinks in the trusses. The joints at the kink are pretty much just scabbed together. It looks as if, every time a beam sagged farther, somebody just nailed another board to the side of it. With some decisions, (and this is one of them) the signs were pretty clear...

There he goes again...

Then, this winter, you may have heard, we had a bit of a snow load...

 ...and that roof is toast.

Now comes the fun part: How to get the old roof off, so that I can survey the rest of the structure, and decide whether any of this can be saved. Watch this space for What the Cornet Player Did Next, and whether it involves a chainsaw.

In which territory is claimed...

or the past six months or so, I've been taking the flugelhorn round to the local brass quintet in the Wee Town, and pretending to be a french horn, a deception in which the leader and arranger fully co-operates. The regular horn player has been out of town for a year, and I've been trying to fill the french-horn-shaped gap. This has led to a few developments:

Development the first: Deep in my heart, despite all my efforts, I am still pretty much a saxophone player, but I'm starting to get over it. I still long for the days when I could blow for a couple of hours straight, and then go on with my day, secure that I had gotten better. Brass, while utterly addictive, is not so tolerant of enthusiasm. You will develop your stamina and ability in a properly, respectfully, gradual and tedious manner. That said, some progress has been made.

Development the second: I have actually played some gigs, and not stunk the joint out completely. My re-introduction to brass playing came a few years ago in a sheltered environment, among musicians who,  (God only knows why) tolerated my tendency to produce clams, and protected me from the consequences thereof.
      Landing in a quintet has put me in a very different sort of place. Toto, I have a feeling we're not in the shallow end any more.  There is no Cap'n to bail me out when my chops suddenly refuse to produce a sound. There's nobody else playing my part, to pick me up when I forget which beat comes after two. (Memo to self: three.) I'm now working off a straight lead sheet, and I don't have a full score to find my way back into the piece when I get wandered.
     Notwithstanding, I have managed to carry my end of the load, more or less, and I've continued to be invited back.

Development the third: Under pressure of a number of (for me) gruelling gigs, the latest on Easter Sunday, I've actually started to develop a better understanding of technique. I'm getting away from just trying to muscle it when I get tired, which is good because, um, oh, right IT DOESN'T WORK. I've figured that out in a mere six months. This morning, I managed to get some parts right that I never got in rehearsal. The trick consists mostly of backing off the volume, and saving something for last sixteen bars, where arrangers throw in all the nasties that they haven't found room for earlier.

     Other developments in technique have come from  several sources, including Chase Sanborn's Brass Tactics, which has been invaluable.

Development the fourth: I asked the boss when the real horn player will be back. Apparently, that is no longer a significant question. The chair is mine, for as long as I want it. This means that, finally, there's a Thing That I Do here. It's been long coming.

Development the fifth: Since it seems that I'll be a horn player for the next several years, the next question is whether I actually try to get my hands on something like a french horn. That would ease the problem of arrangements quite a bit, but it raises some further operational questions: E flat tenor horn, or french horn? Single french horn, or double? New or used? Horn or Mellophone? Kirk or Picard?

When I find the answer, gentle reader, you'll be the first to know. Meanwhile, I have a nice, velvet lined box in which to put the next clue I get about this, which will coincidentally be the first.