Ice Cream Bicycle Basket - My OWN SCHNICKism

Hello Friday; Helloooo Weekend!

Okay.  So though I am a SCHNICK by marriage not by blood, I do seem to have SCHNICK ideas of my own and impressively they do work out once in a while.  :)

Last week our darling Krista with her armful of stuffed pets threw a little tantrum at not being able to maneuver her bike whilst holding her babies.   A whoooole lot of tears.  Draping her purse filled with her lovely creatures over the handlebars only caused her to really scream when she found she couldn't steer.  Okay... don the thinking caps.

What this poor child needed was a bicycle basket... and pretty darn quick.  Okay.  But have you seen how much WalMart and Canadian Tire want for those plastic woven baskets??  Not too mention the half hour drive to either store from home.  There's the little bit of dutch that has rubbed off on me mixing with my will to lead a environmentally-minded life.  I needed to come up with an idea.  Ice cream always helps with the brainstorming.

Thankfully the week prior our local grocery store had had ice cream on sale and so the freezer contained what I needed... brain food (aka sugar) AND a solution to our stuffy-toting problems!

This is what I came up with... an ice cream container bike basket.  But now how cool would one be tearing up the asphalt with Heavenly Hash splayed across the front??  Enter my yarn stash.  For those times when Derek has given me "the why are you keeping this?" look... this my dear is WHY.

Over a couple of days I found enough quiet moments to sit and hook.  I'm thinking of writing up a crochet pattern for this, but basically I used half-double-crochet stitches to mimic the shape of the ice cream container and cover it completely.  My tool of choice for making holes in the ice cream container to "sew" the basket cover in place was a handy-dandy two inch screw.

The next task was to consider HOW to attach the basket.  Crocheted straps would stretch with any item weighing more than a few stuffies - and the collection of rocks on my dining room table can attest to the treasures this one brings home.

I opted for plastic cabling zip-ties.  Finding my way around Derek's workshop had me raising my eyebrows though not questioning "WHY?  WHY are you keeping this??"  I completely get it... and I did find some.  Again, my trusty screw was the perfect tool to make the holes before threading the zip-ties through and attaching around the handlebars!

Voila!

Ofcourse, Sammy spotted my SCHNICK success and asked for one for her bicycle as well.  Never one to disappoint my children, I took to eating more ice cream.  ;)  A second basket has since been completed... in reverse colours so as not to match her sister of course!

A week of wind and rain has had biking on hold but today looks like the perfect day for a spin! And if anyone would like to treat me to a pint of ice cream; I'd be happy to hook you a basket.  :)

Jeanette

Friday Farm Update.. Barn Roof Complete? Check!!

Happy Friday All!

I am thrilled to be able to share another completed project here at home.  The barn roof has been moved from the TO DO list to the DONE and CHECKED OFF list!  Yay!

Derek began work priming and painting the roof the weekend of April 23rd.  Great progress was made and the end was in sight...

...until just one more quart of paint was needed to be ordered in.  May 4th - Check!  Ready to go...

And then a whole week of on and off again rain... and snow and hail in the middle of May.  Seriously!

Finally the sun was out and the ladder was back up!  One evening and the roof was complete.

I think it looks pretty fantastic, wouldn't you agree??  :)

Jeanette

**even with a homemade jig to stand on, no Schnicks were harmed in this project.  :)

A blog POST about POSTS!

Hey there!

Get ready for a photo heavy blog post... about, well POSTS!

Years ago, Derek and I had built a horse paddock when we lived in Southwestern Ontario.  Soft sandy soil, flat level ground.  We augured those holes and swore we would never do it again!  :)  Living now on the escarpment and KNOWING we do not have soft sandy level ground Derek looked into other ways to put in fence posts... much to his delight he found a rentable hydraulic post pounder that is towed along behind a truck or tractor.. it screams MAN-GADGET!!!

So, paddocks were planned on paper, wood requirements calculated and purchased and "post pounder" rented.  Yup, even the name is fun to say and chortle at.. "Post Pounder".. Ok, I regress...

Beautiful week of rain leading up to the big day(s) made us happy thinking if the little soil on top of the rock is softened that'll make things easier.  The Thursday morning before Thanksgiving was sunny and warm and perfect for making trips to pick up our orders of posts and rails.

Load... drive 8km...unload...repeat!  

We made five trips and the only trip that had me really white knuckling was trip number four that included the majority of our sixteen foot fence rails.  Yes.  Derek loaded sixteen foot, one inch thick cedar fence rails into his truck... and it handled them great - with the exception of just one SCHNICKism.  

Although not entirely a SCHNICK doing, the boards that were meant to take the weight of the rails were put onto the tailgate and not the truck bed and we ended with a crumpled tailgate.  Derek will tell you it needed replacing anyways.  But, boards made it safely and we were ready to go.

We had marked our fence lines the evening before and carried on well until Derek's question of "Honey am I straight?" had me giggling but when he next called out, "Jeanette, AM I SQUARE?"  I was in tears and it was definitely time to call it a night.  

Derek and I had a lot of help on this project.  I love how curious our chickens are.

But the real hero was my father in law that came down to help with the posts.  Friday was a holiday from school and I just don't know that Derek and I could have gotten the job done without Steve's help.

 

They got a real rhythm going.  Position and level the post, pull the lever.  Repeat.  I was expecting this machine to put a constant downward pressure onto the post to force it into the ground but it actually does what it says.. it POUNDS!  The heavy hydraulic weight moves to the top and then comes crashing down onto the post moving it down into the earth!  I had a slight case of MAN-GADGET envy at times.

So here is the back field all posted.  We had planned to have one acre fenced divided into two pastures for animal grazing rotation.  At about 6pm on the Friday evening, Derek and Steve found a vein of ROCK just eighteen inches under the surface.  Soooo... fence lines got moved out eight feet... and then another eight feet until they found the edge of the rock run and earth deep enough to sink posts.  What a job.

There were also some large rock beds in the front paddock that needed to be worked around.  This front paddock will have the fence rails and sand and be used for horse jumps and flat work.  Looking to get the couple of posts in the rock area deep enough, Derek rented a jackhammer and fired up the generator.  The rocks might have been a ploy to get out and play with more MAN-GADGETS... I'm not sure - after overhearing the word 'DYNAMITE" in the men's conversation, I'm not questioning the jackhammer.

And by Sunday we had posts in holes and turkey in our tummies.

No rest for the wicked as they say.  On Monday we began boarding the fence around the work-ring/front paddock.  Measuring 54inches the top rails were hung.  Sixteen foot boards really do help you feel muscles you forgot you had.

To do the second and third rails eighteen inches apart, Derek constructed a Schnick-Jig that would hang on the board above and hold the rail at the proper height!  

After a slight tweak to make it possible to remove the jig after the board was in place, the SCHNICK-jig was a lifesaver and we had the complete 100 x 70 ring boarded by nightfall!

The back pastures will be run with wire and electric fencing at a later time and the last thing to be done to the front paddock fence will be cutting the tops off the posts.  Last we time we did that, Derek stood with a chainsaw in the back of a pick up, bouncing up and down while I drove through the field to each post.  We were young and silly then... I'm sure we will find a  safer way to do it this time around...

 ...we've grown up a bit you see.  ;)

Thanks for following along,
Jeanette

Schnickisms and soffits

Happy Friday!

I realized the other day that I have alluded to our way of "SCHNICKing" things together but hadn't shared some of our recent SCHNICKisms!

A few weeks back when replacing soffit on the barn we found ourselves stuck.  We had worked our way around the barn roof overhang, replacing the rotten broken plywood soffit with lengths of new barn board using just our "muscles", 2x4 scaffold and a ladder to line up and level the boards.  I would hold the board and Derek would climb and anchor the board with the drill and then I would take a turn and climb the ladder to finish drilling screws while Derek cut the next length of board.

It was late afternoon, we had just two boards left to replace and of course.. these two boards did NOT want to go in straight AND both boards had a bit of a bow to them.  No amount of muscle or swearing would beat these boards into submission.  We stood back to think the situation over... it wasn't long before I spotted the lightbulb of a SCHNICK idea glowing bright over Derek's head.

I've learned this is my cue to stand back, watch with wide eyes and pray... oh and take a picture, just in case.

Derek pulled up with the tractor, positioned the bucket to apply pressure to the edge of the board that was out of position and lock it into place.  He then quickly attached said board to barn before swinging himself back into the seat of the tractor with a very satisfied grin on his face.

It worked.

I don't ever doubt my husband, but after 14 years of marriage I can still be surprised by the successful outcomes of some SCHNICK ideas.  :) 

Enjoy your weekend,

Jeanette