It’s back to school time!

And once again, time for Uruguayan pre-schoolers to dress up as 19th century Chinese peasants (sans chapeaux), while elementary dress up as…as…as something somebody 100 years ago decided would serve social equity by making all students look equally ridiculous?

Dunno. I’m open to suggestions.

And, oh yeah—there, I fixed it.

El pico

Off and on over the last few months, I’ve been doing maintenance at our little country place. It becomes a little inconvenient, such as today when I needed the pressure washer and realized I never brought it back after cleaning out there. Off we go!

But at least I knew where it was. The pick was different. It’s my weapon of choice for uprooting thistles, and it had disappeared. Not in the house, not in the galpón (shed/barn). I sometimes leave it in the middle of the yard when cutting grass, but I hadn’t seen it anywhere. Would someone have stolen it? Hard to imagine.

So, after washing frog turds off the kitchen sink, I grabbed the power washer, turned to leave, and voilá.

Almost like I’m playing tricks on myself.

Nice legs!

14 years ago, we had a New Year’s Eve party in our parilla, which we had turned into a barbacoa by enclosing it. 10-12 people, and LOUD! Unbefreakinglievably LOUD in that little, masonry-walled closed-in space!

So I decided it would work better as a workshop, and added bits of 2×2″ wood to the L-shaped legs of the dining table I had thrown together for the occasion, raising it to workbench height (you can see remnants of legs lower left).

A few days ago I bought some mostly-clear 4X4″ pine, cut to length, and a 1×2″ strip to create a better overlap on the top front for clamping, and 8cm lag screws (imagine – not just smacking it together with nails as I did before!).

Finally, sturdy support for the workbench.

But it raises a significant question: Why didn’t I do this (at least) 12 years ago?