Monday

It was very windy overnight. The weather radio went off once sometime during the night, warning of thunderstorms, but since I didn’t hear anything and the radio is set to report on three counties, I’m guessing it was for somewhere else.

At lunchtime, I went to Home Depot, looking for a sheet of copper I could line the edges of the squirrel feeder with. There was nothing prefabricated (I thought they might have something to nail on a 3/4 inch board as a decoration for a shelf or something). They suggested going to Michael’s (a craft store just down the way in the same strip mall). I did and they didn’t have anything like it. So, I went back to Home Depot and bought a 1 foot x 1 foot sheet of thin steel. I made sure it wasn’t galvanized, so it would at least rust (the copper would have eventually turned green as the cedar turned gray, which was the look I was hoping for).

I barely had time to stop home, treat the cats and eat the last two chicken rollups for my lunch. Naturally, there was some sort of hold up on the Inkster railroad tracks, so I did a U-turn and went to Middle Belt to get to the expressway and back to work. I was five minutes late, which ticked me off.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to check the rain gauge before I left for work to see what my total rainfall was, so I did when I got home after work. It was just over one inch of rain for the weekend! So, the new grass and the fresh grass seed should be happy.

I did treat the cats and took the garbage can out to the road, but I didn’t even bother to change clothes before I got started on the squirrel feeder. I mean, how dirty can you get, using tin snips to cut thin steel and stapling it to wood edges? Oh, on the way back from taking the garbage can out, I picked up a LOT of bark pieces that had blown off last night from the dead maple in the vacant lot next to me. It must have been REALLY windy!

Now that it was all put together, I didn’t think it would be smart to use a hammer and bend it around edges so, other than the front, I just cut 3/4 strips off, cut them to length and, as I said, used my air stapler to attach it. The front of the tray I did bend the metal over the lip and it does look “better” but none of it looks “good.” It looked much nicer when it was just wood, but I have seen first-hand what the little buggers will do to it if I left it that way.

I drilled three drain holes in the bottom of the tray (the other one didn’t have any, but it dawned on me that left rain and/or melting snow no where to go but into the wood). I took it, the drill motor and screwdriver bit, two stainless steel 3-inch deck screws and the level out and put it back onto the pine tree. It was too dark to take a picture. After I got everything put away and changed my clothes, it was almost 8:00 PM.

I heated up the last of the meatballs and spaghetti for dinner While it was warming up, I washed the slow cooker insert and lid that I’d left soaking all night. When I finished eating, I had enough dirty dishes to run the dishwasher, so I did.

I watched another episode of Breaking Bad (Sidebar to Jake: Badger got caught and they paid the lawyer to have another guy take the fall for Walt in this one). Then I switched to DIY shows, but fell asleep halfway through the second one. When I woke up to go to the bathroom, I turned off the TV and light and went to bed for real.