Progress & Peeps

Things have been going pretty good the last few days. The boys have been working on their resumes - that's interesting. For something that should take only an hour or so, they've been struggling. Lots of misspelled words, punctuation errors and basically sloppy work. After several rewrites most of them are at least somewhat presentable, finally. It's no wonder they do poorly on the "Big Test". At least they'll have put one together before they graduate. We do a unit on finding a job - filling out applications, locating employers who use welding, resumes - all the things that should have them ready to go to find a job when they graduate. Unfortunately, many of them don't put much effort into it. Might explain why so many young people can't find a decent job. At least I've done my part.

We finished up the aerator/dethatcher. It came out looking pretty sexy. Should work, too. He can aerate or dethatch, either separately or both at the same time.

The shop's just about bare. We spent the other day cleaning up real well. Looks pretty good in there now. Almost a shame to do any work and drag all the tools out again. I'm going to be working on the big ass log splitter next week and try to finish that up before school's out (He says, very optimistically). The owner hasn't been around at all this year to check on the thing so obviously he's not real worried. It sat at a local welding shop for a year before it came here. He's a nice guy and we've done several jobs for him in the past. He's been pleased with our work but usually we jump on his stuff and knock it out right away. This time he made the mistake of telling me it's a back-up for his other one and he was in no hurry to get it back - which is the last thing you want to tell me. It'll be nice to get it moved out and create a little more room, however.

We've only got three and a half weeks of school left so I'm not sure how much the Building Trades boys will get done on the barn but the trusses are just about all up. They've got the spiral stair where it needs to be, so the next thing is to cut one truss down to give that some clearance and header off the floor to strengthen that up where they have to cut the whole in the floor. As long as they get the roof on the barn, I can work on the rest of it this summer. I've already bought the garage and service doors. I need to get a big door for up on top yet but the job is looking good. The rain has really slowed the progress.

The Missus picked up the chickens late yesterday afternoon. They were a little ahead of schedule but the little darlings are doing swell. They eat, drink, poop, and make noise which actually sounds a lot like my retirement plan. Hopefully I'll be able to get my tomato plants and my trees planted this weekend in between the raindrops and helping Surly move some things.

Enjoy the weekend.