Can I just say how much I love spring. The last week, after the deluge of rain, was one of the prettiest weeks we’ve had in months and I was able to take full advantage of it. With the onset of spring weather means the shop gets used more…and the shop likes that. The garden planting has begun with onions and potatoes in the ground and it’ll be time to mow in less than a week! I’m so excited (I know it’s weird to be excited about mowing). So, here’s a little run down of the projects that are done, in progress, or to be done.

I kicked things off by making some baby furniture, a dresser/changing table and chest of drawers, for our good friends the Feezels. (they are my 1st paying furniture customers) The furniture turned out very nice and Tiffani is loading it up with baby gear and will forward me pictures soon.

Next, I decided to finally do something about my dust collection, or lack of, in my shop. I spend enough time woodworking that not having dust collection means a real danger to my health in the long run. My friend Scott Sutton and I tackled the task on Friday after he got through working on his kitchen doors. I then spent most of the day fitting all the runs in and making the “drops” and hooking things up. Saturday night was the inaugural run for the “octopus” as Steph calls it (you’ll see why in the pictures). It turned out great and I’ve been amazed at how well it picks the dust up so far from my big tools.

Finally, today, I began work on the adirondack benches that were promised to our mothers last mothers day. I am excited to finally complete these so our moms can begin enjoying them. (no pictures of these yet…they will follow by the end of the week hopefully).

The next projects are: working on trim in the house, building 2 more benches that my friends want to buy, planting more stuff in the garden (mom and dad are coming down for easter and dad “the garden king” is going to help me with irrigation and planting more stuff).

We are trying to find things to do to raise money for the impending adoption…and although time consuming, I thought building some furniture for “auction” might be a cool idea. This is where we need some INPUT from the BLOG READERS! Let us know what you think about me making a few pieces of furniture for auction and what pieces you think would be best and appeal to the largest crowd.

Below is a picture of the “octopus” and a shop tour! Enjoy!

You should all go check out our friend’s webpage that are in kaZ right now getting their little boy Sam.

Aaronandcharity.wordpress.com

A little synopsis of the Pokes going to the tourney!

Man, I can’t tell you how much I love daylight saving time. Today, after church, we came home and took a 2 hour nap…and still had time to plant in the garden today. Ayan was such a big helper planting potatoes. He would go to the bag and get me one at a time and bring it to me and say “Here nudder tato daddy”. Seriously, I love living in the country. It was SUCH a beautiful day today and it made me so excited about spring. New garden…woodworking…oh daylight is great!

Like a scene from the office, my coworkers and I travel to the local wings joint every Wednesday for lunch for discount wings. Today will be no different, and I wanted to share my affection for wings with you, my faithful blog followers. Please feel free to express your wing love here as well.

Our good friend Lauren Brand (lwnphotography.com) took our family portraits recently and we just got them back yesterday.  They turned out GREAT!  We were all a bit amazed at Ayan and his smiling antics which makes it appear that we have him well-trained for potraits…(we’ll let you believe that if you want to).

Thanks so much Lauren.  I’m a very proud husband of a gorgeous wife and father of the cutest little boy ever!

(this is my favorite) – the rest are below…enjoy.

It was quite an eventful weekend at the Hamilton Acres.  It all started with me taking Friday off to do a little work around the place.  Little did I know that a 50 MPH wind and a cold front were rollin’ in and it would make my day not so fun working outside.  But, I prevailed.  I tilled up a garden spot about 80ft X 80ft out in the old corral area beside the barn.  Tillin’ this black ground was not too easy, but I bought a tiller at a farm sale about 2 years ago that wasn’t running.  It is a big 6 HP rear-tine tiller and it took me about an hour of work to get it up and running like a beast.  So, we have onion sets and potatoes to plant this week and we plan on planting corn, tomatoes, green beans, peas, okra, yellow squash, lettuce & zucchini so we need all the space we can get.  (pics will follow when plants are in the ground)

The next big event…was on saturday.  I got up at 7am to go to Ft Worth and pick up a load of lumber that I’m using to make my friend’s baby furniture.  As soon as I got back, my friend Brian Weir and his father-in-law, Mark, were here to help me chop out the mammoth hackberry stump that had grown for years right up against the foundation where we will be adding the add-on.  The stump measured about 24″ in diameter and was SOLID.  So, we took at it with chainsaws and 2 axes and a whole lot of manliness.  After almost 3 hours of work, we had the tree about 70% chopped out to 4″ below ground level.  And that is where it sits now…I will finish it this week (because the foundation goes in in 2 weeks!).  Below is a pic of Brian in what I like to call his “axe murderer stance”.  Brian is holding his prized wood chunk of the day.  With one powerful blow, a 6″ chunk of wood flew off and Brian was pleased.  (note the giant tree stump by his left foot)