"Ollie, have you tried the pickles?"

My grandson, age 6, is vacationing in Mexico. I heard recently he is having a very good time. But I had a couple of questions for him (sent via iMac):

Hi Ollie, I hear you are having a good time and with your Mom and Dad in a country far away from London. I think you are about 3,000 miles away where the food is quite different. You can tell me about fajitas when you get home. Do they make you burp?

Today maybe you will go swimming or play on the beach. Let me know if it is fun. Maybe I will go to Mexico someday and let you pour buckets of water on my head.

Tell your dad I had a funny drink yesterday - after the Knights second home victory - called Rogue Hazelnut and it cost $7, not a great deal but OK. Soon Grandma will wake up and I'll take her to the Roaster. Then I'll finish painting two blue birdhouses. Have a great day, Ollie, and tell your Mom and Dad to have fun too and to chill out. See you later, Alligator.

Love, Grandpa Gord

PS "Do the pickles taste funny?"

Ollie fiddles with an iPad, so maybe I'll hear back. Can 6-year olds type?

Photo by GH

***

Grand kids supply grandparents with energy when they are young. Then they become teenagers.

Please click here for more Ollie and Me

I nailed it!

I remember the moment well. I was holding a few small bits of wood together with one hand and lining up the brad nailer with the other. I pulled the trigger.

 ["Handle with care. Little bits can make a fine birdhouse"]

Stooosh. Compressed air rushed through the nailer. Shtunk. A thin nail, travelling almost at the speed of light, hit another nail inside one of the bits of wood and immediately turned left. Sting. I yelped and jerked my thumb back. Spurt. Bright red blood that I preferred to remain inside my body squirted from a painful thumb wound. (The thin brad nail had penetrated the top of my thumb and hit the back of my thumb nail).

"Stink!!" I cried.

Fortunately, I had a bottle of beer cooling off in a small pail of snow so I removed the bottle and stuck my hand into the pail, then finished nailing the bits together with my good hand. When the thumb stopped bleeding I bandaged the wound with dry wall paper and red duct tape.

["I now keep snowproof adhesive tape in the shop"]

Dr. Kindale, relax. The snow was 95% sterile, the duct tape was 95% waterproof, and now - here it is several days later - the thumb nail is no longer black and works at 95% efficiency. I don't think the medical profession could beat those results.

Photos by GH 

***

Watch out for blood spatter.

Please click here to read 'a contest I could win'

hands and knees to the rescue

The soapy bucket of water soon looked like mud. On my hands and knees, gripping a gritty, blackened sponge and scrubbing like a Trojan, I spent Saturday morning removing decades worth of dust from old, valuable lumber (in my opinion) that had been unceremoniously tossed out the back door of (formerly) Lamont's Antiques in Wortley Village.

["What looked like gray paint was a thick layer of grime"]

["Brown paint was removed on the table saw. Beautiful lumber reappeared"]

["Piles of newly rescued lumber upon my workbench"]

["More log cabins are in my future"]

Allow me to humbly say, the rescue was well worth the dirty effort.

Photos by GH

***

Please click here to read don't throw that out

from sketch to salesroom?

Over the years I've been finding the process of making modifications to the way I do things (my birdhouses, my behaviour) has been getting easier. If I want to try something new on a birdhouse I'll patiently make preliminary sketches and then try things out in the shop. If I want to look more the strong silent type - and not be so blurty - I'll imagine various scenarios and mentally practise new behaviours in the shop while I'm alone.

["Go to the edge of butt?" Yes, it's important]

You might one day say to me, "What's the solution to this problem?"

I'll say, "Let me think about it for a minute before I say anything. Hmmmm." (Then I'll stroke my beard. I've been practising that one all week. I've almost got it).

Fifteen seconds after the final picture was taken, the large birdhouse was placed in the back of my car. After coffee this morning I'll head to Tacks - a feed store and birdhouse emporium at Wharncliffe and Baseline in London - to see if I can make a sale.

"You might like this one," I'll say. Then I'll shut up and wait for a response.

I've been practising that one too.

Photos by GH

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Please click here to read two at a time

a contest I could win

I've won few prizes in my life. I'll never win the lottery. I think the last ribbon I was awarded was for defeating all comers in the Grade 7/8 sack race, 1962.

Recently, however, I've been feeling I stand a chance if the following categories are ever contested:

"Best use of a salad fork purchased at a Thrift Shop"

"Best use of something lethal your mother

chased you with when you were a kid"

Photos by GH

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Please click here to read don't throw that out!

don't throw that out!

I call them 'bits and bites'. They rest in a small plastic container on my workbench. And when a birdhouse is almost done I'll reach for the bits. Maybe a bite.

["What to do with bits and bites?"]

Nuts, bolts, washers, odd bits of dowel. Not much goes to waste in the shop.

If Rule 1 in most shops is 'measure twice, cut once', Rule 2 is likely 'don't throw anything out'.

Photos by GH

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Please click here for more from the shop

almost 'not in the picture'

People have made a few remarks about the telephone poles I've added to the backside of several of my birdhouses.

"What's it for?" "Hey, neat." "Why a telephone pole?"

I've said a variety of things: "It's a perch. Expensive decor. To supply hydro for the big screen TV."

Recently, a new feature has been added to half the birdhouses I slap together inside my small workshop.

["Take a peek at the back of these cedar houses"] 

I.e., a tiny birdhouse atop a tiny pole. When asked about it I will likely make a joke of some kind, but the real answer is found in the black and white below:

["Take a peek at the back of Grandma's house in Norwich"]  

In 1941 or 1943 my dad - in his tidy RCNVR uniform - posed for a picture at the side of his mother's house on Spring St. In the upper right, atop an odd bit of wood, sits a wee birdhouse that almost didn't make it into the picture. That would have been a shame, in my opinion, because it bears witness to the fact that there may be more than two birdhouse builders in the Harrison family. E.g., Dad, me... maybe Roland, one of the grandfathers I never met, a man who died when Dad was ten years old.

I'll never get to the bottom of it in this lifetime, but for the time being I'll add wee houses atop my own as a salute to the slim possibility that I'm a part of - and continuing - an interesting, rewarding family tradition.

Photos by GH

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Please click here to read two at a time

wear red shorts

In a marathon photo from Niagara Falls, 1996 I can be seen approaching the finish line on, as I recall, a very cold and windy day. The shot takes me back.

I liked my red shorts. They didn't show the sweat

I liked my bib number. Easy to remember

My hair and beard were black!? Not so today

New shoes. I may still have them

Itchy blue shirt. I still have it

I was no Saint. It was fun, however, to hear people yell, "Go Saints!"

I changed into street clothes while inside a portable toilet. I almost lost my medal

I don't marathon today. Looking at dozens of old race photos is plenty good enough for me.

Photo of race photo by GH 

***

Please click here to learn how Coon St. got its name

"Mr. Harrison, do you have a pen?"

The other day, I have a few nails in my mouth and a hammer in my hand when the phone rings inside my workshop. I'm Mr. Responsible. Of course, I pick up.

"Humm, hiya," I say.

"Mr. Harrison?" the caller says.

 I nod and say, "Uh hum."

"Is Pat there?"

I shake my head, and spit out the nails. "No. Sorry about that."

"There's been a change in her appointment time at the dentist's office. Do you have a pen?" says the receptionist.

I did have a pen. But no paper. I grab the first item handy with a clean surface and jot down the message.

And to this day, the message - with much love attached - remains a permanent fixture on my drill press.

Photo by GH

***

Please click here and kick up your heels

proof is piling up

I keep a notepad and pen handy at all times. I wear old tired clothes in the shop all week, sometimes the same shirt - bearing soup stains at times - four days in a row. Not that these things bother me or are in any way unusual in many countries... but they do point to something.

I build birdhouses, write a story or two on a regular basis, live frugally, question most everything and when a new idea pops into my head when I'm out and about, and my notepad is back home on my desk, I jot it down on any scrap of paper at hand. None of these behaviours bother me but proof is piling up. I'm turning into my father. And my mother. Maybe my great-grandmother as well.

["This scrap of paper is about more than a beehouse"]

With my hair growing grayer and longer as we speak, I'm slowly turning into a person that simultaneously is still like the kid that was a childhood resident of Norwich, Ontario (a village I consider my first hometown) but growing more like the adults in my family and extended family. And though London is my second hometown, and the one I've lived in the longest, I've been thinking more about Norwich and my connection to my father and mother and great-grandmother in the last few months than at any other time in my life.

Something's going on and I'm not fully sure what it is.

Do we have a homing instinct like a pigeon or Coho salmon? (Cohoes lived in Norwich when I was a kid. I wonder if some still do?)

Do we think more of our roots or want to return to them as we grow older? (The roots of the old maple that stood for over a century behind our house in Norwich likely reached all the way to China.)

Do we slowly morph into people similar to dozens of our ancestors as years are added onto our age? (I realize now I possess my dad's outward stature, my mom's skeleton, a blend of my parents' natures, my great-grandmother's name (Gordon) and facial features (lovely, but wrinkled) and the Harrison desire to have people look at what I'm doing. Want to see my new birdhouse? Come on out back.)

["I'll make the hardware myself," says the Catton-side of my brain]

These thoughts ran through my head this morning as I opened a bit of paper in my wallet that contained a week-old sketch of a beehouse. (I'd seen one at a birdhouse store and felt I could make a few in my shop.) While I'm putting a few together I'll enjoy a sense of companionship with the parents, aunts, uncles and grand-parents that are somehow connected to the ancestral wiring that exists between my brain and fingertips.

Though proof is piling up I'm not myself anymore, I think I'll be able to live with the wrinkles.

Photos by GH
 
***

Please click here to read about and view great-grandmother Gordon.

two at a time

I spent last week adding trim to a pile of birdhouses so tall  - twenty-seven houses tall! - it blotted out the sun. I enjoyed the process but, as I added a chimney to the last one in the pile, I told myself to do things differently next week.

Next week has arrived and yesterday I finished building two at a time, not six or eight. The slower pace was a treat and I promised myself I would do that again. (Maybe today).

["The cabins sit in sawdust, some of it their own"]

Once the final bits of trim were in place I set the wee log cabins in a sawdust pile outside the shop door. They seem to look right at home, don't they?

I think I'll have my own red cedar cabin one day, but without the hole over the front door. 

(Hmmm... how big is my own backyard?)

Photos by GH

***

Please click here for more from the workshop

right place, right time

One of my favourite hang-outs is found at the corner of Talbot and Carling in downtown London. When I'm there I'm usually found snug in a corner table with a notepad on the table. Ideas and my pen fly. My camera comes in handy too on occasion.

["Keep a lid on it? No, let 'er rip!"]

Last week, after attending a presentation at Wolf Hall, I popped into my hang-out, jotted down a few notes, drew a few sketches of this and that, paid up and walked outside just in time to see the sidewalk vents outside Chaucers blow their stack.

Several people standing nearby stopped what they were doing to marvel at the sight. They were momentarily enveloped by the steam - along with much of the street - and their conversation stopped.

They soon reappeared and began to chat excitedly.

I say, simple pleasures are often the best ones of all.

Photos by GH

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Please click here for other famous photographs

kick up your heels

Sawdust usually adorns the shop floor and music usually blasts from my dust-covered CD player. And oft-times conditions are ripe, the two go together and I bust a move.

["Nudie appeared at Alex P. Keaton a few years ago"]

The music filling the shop recently was East Coast style. Fiddles, slide guitar, down-home lyrics. Hand-clapping, toe-tapping music. I spun around on more than one occasion.

Good times in the shop. And nobody saw me.

It feels great to hop about. Kick up your heels.

Photo by GH

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Please click here for time to dance

caught by surprise

For several years after I retired from teaching I would have dreams at night about being in a classroom with no supplies, no plans for the day and wall-to-wall students intent on paying me not much attention. Sounds like ingredients for a nightmare in any language, doesn't it?

Now, in my eleventh year of retirement (and looking more youthful than ever), I awake many mornings thinking about my next shop project. My thoughts or remnants of a pleasant dream could be about an ordinary birdhouse, tall triplex or custom chair. I awoke this morning to thoughts about building classy, aromatic frames for three pieces of rustic metal, two of which hang under a clock in my small workshop. The third is still attached to the shop door (formerly my dad's barn door).

Two days ago I prepared some wood, also from my dad's in-town barn (which was demolished several years ago in Norwich, Ontario) for the art-like project. When I 'booked the lumber' on the saw, i.e., cut it open to reveal two symmetrical pieces, like facing pages in a book, part of the experience caught me by surprise.

Fresh aromas and colours from the century-old board leapt from the page, so to speak, and I savoured the rare treat. Simple photographs do not do justice except to preserve the moment in their own way.

Soon the frames will be complete and the hinges will adorn my shop walls, preserving the hard, muscular industry of men long gone for a future generation.

Photos by GH

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Please click here for related matters forging an idea

Will it be worth it?

I look at price tags closely. Used jeans. New car. Box of brad nails. Pile of lumber, and so on, and I always say to myself, "Will it be worth it?"

Used jeans are always worth the price. I wear them for several years as 'my good jeans' before giving them their final designation, i.e., 'shop pants.' My four Honda Civics have always been worth the price. Brad nails the same (a box of 5000 lasts a long time and one birdhouse sale buys at least two boxes). But concerning piles of lumber one must be careful.

Recently I spotted 16-foot lengths of pine barn board, gray on both sides, covering piles of cut lumber at an old mill in Fenelon Falls. I loved the look but I raised an eyebrow at the price. I can get barn board in London for less, but not gray on even one side. In spite of the 25% higher cost I bought 96 board feet and filled the trunk of my Civic.

Since then I've used it as wall and roof slats on barn-style birdhouses and as logs on log cabin-style triplexes. My reactions are as follows:

Lovely shades of gray

It cuts like a charm

Easy to sand

It takes a nail, easy kap-easy

Very little wastage

Humbly I say, lovely birdhouses

4 - 5 sales will pay for the pile

Will I buy it again? 

["I used other lumber only for the triangle atop the main apt."]

Yes, whenever I'm in Fenelon Falls, Tim Handley (at the Handley lumber yard) can expect me to call and say, "Can I have another six 16-footers, please?"

Easy kap-easy decision about the price tag.

Photos by GH

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Please click her for a related anecdote 'old lumber mill, Fenelon Falls'

where did Coon St. get its name?

While driving to Fenelon Falls, which I do fairly regularly, I pass through Manilla, a hamlet situated on a lovely, hilly curve in the road. Recently, two questions came to mind about the place? Is the place known for its folders? How did Coon St., one block east of the four corners, get its name?

["Well, once upon a time..."]

I guess the answer to the first question is no. The place appears too small and humble to be the originator of a world-wide industry. I think the answer to the second is quite simple, and I imagine the following is 100 per cent true:

Over a century ago a man in a well-worn shirt and pair of pants walked his two coon dogs down a muddy path passed his neighbour's house and he let his dogs roam free while he stopped to talk with a man a-workin' in a wide, healthy garden.

"How's the cabbages?"

"Good."

"How's the taters?"

"Good. Youren?"

"Same. All done rakin'. Dogs needed a stretch."

"Looks like they're after sumptin'. Got it treed maybe." (He spits out the side of his mouth, then turns his boot heel on the gob.

"Two coons, I bet. Them been livin' along this path for years. But the dogs can't catch 'em."

"When the municipal fellers straighten this trail and lay some gravel down - make it a street - we should tell 'em to name it after 'em."

"Yup. That'd be a good one." (He gives his hinder parts a good long scratch).

"I better go chase 'em off that tree."

"Yup."

100 per cent true? Surely.

Photo by GH

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Please click here for sumptin' just as interesting.

old lumber mill, Fenelon Falls

The barn board I purchased in Fenelon Falls is lovely to work with in the shop, and while cutting or sanding it my mind returns to the day I bought it at an old mill - Handley Lumber, a half block from the river that cuts through the center of town.

On the side of the mill appears a large hand-painted mural depicting activities related to the lumbering industry of long ago. And though I'm short (and getting a bit stout) I feel akin to a tall lanky fellow perched upon a floating log.

Perhaps I've been inhaling too much wood dust lately?

Photos by GH

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Please click here for more from the mill

time for a 'trim day'

Birdhouses - almost complete - are stacked as high as the window and the sun can no longer shine into my shop. It's definitely time to stop building and add final trim.

["They're everywhere!"]

In other words, it's time for a 'trim day'. (Trim = chimney caps, windows, doors, perches, odds and ends, etc.) Then the triplexes will look like a million bucks.

["How about a perch from a salad fork?"]

More to follow, I'm sure.

Photos by GH

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Please click here for ready for all the trimmings

'the edge of butt'

Men and women who grow weary at the end of the work day and who use their last ounce of energy to sketch rough plans for the next day often create their own language. They say, I'll remember what I mean.

This happened to me the other day while assembling and stacking log cabin houses high enough to almost blot out the sun coming through the window in my shop. I wanted to modify the next project from the one before it, so I grabbed pen and paper.

["Roof edges can touch the edge of butt"] 

While sketching it became perfectly obvious that roof edges (of an addition to a triplex) can touch the edge of the butt ends of the logs. It makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

As well, if I want to conserve space - and I do - all I have to do is shorten the butt, i.e., the 'stick out'. Who wouldn't do the very same thing if they were in my position?

["One day, shorter 'stick outs' will be all the rage"]

Shop short hand. Cutting edge, eh?

Photos by gah

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Please click here to read 'pile it on'

forging an idea

Under the clock in my workshop are two pieces of ancient metal from barn gates or doors, and another similar piece of metal is also attached to the door - formerly a part of my father's in-town barn - to the shop. I like sets of three and an idea for their future use floated by the other day while I was sanding old barn board.

["Rare, hand forged metal hinges, older than Niagara Falls"]

I began to imagine the three pieces in sturdy frames, hanging in some prominent place. I recalled that a few fine boards from my father's barn were sitting in my storage shed, just a few steps away. I asked myself, frames... can I build decent frames?

I believe I can and will.

The one-off hinge below will likely receive the same lovely treatment... soon.

["Brass from Lamont's shop (now gone), Wortley Village"]

Some of my best ideas float by when my hands are busy, and catch me by surprise.

Photos by GH

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Please click here for one more brilliant idea