Author: doug

Gang’s all here!

Morning, New Year’s Day. The weekend neighbors have crammed five cars inside their fence.

The brown rectangle to the right perhaps indicates the pozo negro, or septic tank, so it’s understandable one might not choose to park on top of it. But why not park on the lawn outside the fence?

Worried about New Year’s Eve fireworks? Well, there are some, but they’ve diminished significantly in recent years.

No, I think the real reason is simple: they’re city people.

Nowhere near as noisy as in years past, so no complaints. Just curious.

Single use plastic?

This is a plastic egg carton from Tienda Inglesa.

We have not bought eggs from Tienda Inglesa in years – five or six at least. I discovered eggs are cheaper in the street market (feria) so bought eggs there, but because the best feria packaging for a dozen tends to be a plastic bag, I started carrying this with me. Now I buy them next door in recycled cardboard trays of 15, and put them in this container for storage (actually, we have two of them).

Five or six years? At least, and quite probably more.

And why the one egg on the lid? Because this single use container, meant to be opened 12 times at the most, has been opened and closed hundreds of times and is still springy enough that without a weight, the lid will pop back over the rest of the eggs.

And most people will simply throw it in the garbage.

The birds

Last couple months I’ve been spending some time with the little fixer-upper house in the country which we thoroughly redid eleven years ago, briefly lived in a couple times by others, but otherwise gradually regaining its fixer-upper status. as poorly-built structures in the country tend to do.

The last time I had been there, I was painting the rejas, or metal bars over the windows. This time I noticed bits of organic matter in the kitchen sink.

Looking overhead, I saw more in my overhead light fixture.

And more in the refrigerator.

Whatever birds they were had either not gotten very far, or were frustrated with the inadequate environment. Which is good. Nesting birds inside the house just doesn’t seem like a desirable thing.

Of course I made a note to myself: the next time you open all the windows and screens in the house for painting or cleaning or whatever – close the damn things before you leave!

At the lumber yard, Uruguay

I’ve been on a bit of a roll lately, refinishing kitchen cabinets, fixing and cleaning things, and looking at the ugly kitchen light fixtures I threw together 15 years ago, thinking, “What if I did that right?” So off to Aserradero Rocha, ten minutes away, to buy 1 x 10 x 240 cm clear pine –that’s less then 1/2″ thick and almost 8 feet long.

It’s a “take a number and wait” place, so there’s time to wander around. The rough bits always stoke my creativity. Elsewhere they have larger pieces – two inches thick and a couple feet or more across – that are obvious tabletops. Much less imagination required.

I see a clear pine eight foot 1 x 20″ board. No immediate need, but duly noted. Certainly not something I ever saw at Home Depot as I picked through their tortuous-but-cheap 2x4s.

I further note that, if a fella’s willing to put up with a knot or two, the same is available in 4-meter (13 feet) lengths.

No, we’re definitely not in Kansas anymore.

Doggifying with class

Eight years ago (can it be?) I started walking our dog with Syd and his five, in a wonderful wide-open setting that involves driving a few kilometers. It quickly became clear that the back of the folded-down rear seat was not designed to support a dog, so I glued some old door mats to a scrap of thin plywood and have been using it to doggify the vehicle ever since (removing it to accommodate biped passengers I call de-doggifying).

Somehow recently I got the idea I could do better. Got the lumberyard to cut to fit a piece of MDF (medium density fiberboard) which I sealed with various products that have been sitting on a shelf in my workshop for years, used the last of a caulk tube of glue to attach new doormats (felpudos) ordered from Mercado Libre, and voilà.

A little easier on the eyes, for sure.

The plant experiment

I took two cuttings from the same branch, put them in identical soil and pots, each with a copper antenna. The only difference was that one antenna was wound clockwise, and one counterclockwise.

Several days later, nothing but the stalk remains of one. No signs of the leaves, snail trails — nothing.

Why would something eat one cutting but not the other?

Nor touch the three cuttings from the same bush right next to it?

I will definitely have to repeat this experiment.