Corn Sweat

 Still hot and humid around here. One of the contributing factors is the "corn sweat". All green vegetation gives off moisture during the growing season, with corn being one of the worst. I've got corn growing in the front field and south of me, along with other vegetation that surrounds the house and outbuildings. If you follow the above link, you'll see a map of where the prairie grasses used to grow. I live right on the eastern edge of the tall grass area. Below that, you'll see a timeline of when the corn sweat levels are the highest. So, Shop Teacher Bob is surrounded by vegetation sweating at its peak with dew points in the seventies and heat indices of 100 or more. Not at all pleasant working conditions but sitting around the house on my fanny is not all that enjoyable either. 

I have a hard time relaxing knowing I've got plenty of things that both need done, and many that I just want done. One of the reasons I didn't fully retire was I couldn't sit still for very long and my projects require folding money. I'm just happier whether that was working for wages or tinkering on things at the shack, doing some hiking, biking, or spending time in the boxing gym. I enjoy reading but not spending all my free time glued to the recliner, especially for days on end. It's supposed to be cooler in a couple of days, that should help my mental health and increase the output on the projects.

Speaking of which, Surly and the youngest grandson came down Monday afternoon and went home with all the boxes from the SR500 Yamahas. The young-un is going to scope everything out and make a decision if he wants to tackle building one out of two or look at just buying something that's a runner or needs a lot less work for the same kind of money. Whatever he decides is OK with me, but I would like to see those Yamahas get moved out, especially since now that I'm an old man if anything's going to get done, the temperature's going to have to be between 35 and 80. 

I did make it out to the shop yesterday early evening. I bent up the pieces for Jimmy's dog sled - only took a few minutes. I bent the first couple cold and had them on hand to show Jimmy when he came by the other day, but I bent the remaining ones hot. The hole on the left end of the bar in the photo was drilled to the proper depth, so I clamped the torch in the vise, held the pieces in a vise grip, got them hot, stuck the end to be bent in the hole, bent them down and gave them a tap with the hammer to get a little tighter bend, and Bob's your uncle. 

It didn't take much longer to bend them than it just did to describe it which was a good thing. I was getting past the point of being sticky and going into a full-blown sweat when I finished. I'll braze them on the tubes today and put one in the win column.