It is just another day here in paradise, with the rain starting to fall outside the office windows.

The soft sound of car engines, occasionally punctuated by the V8 rumble of a built car or pickup with straight pipes, pervades my consciousness. I have decided to just sit here today and write the first thing that comes to mind. This is a dangerous proposition, inasmuch as it can be unsettling to learn the first thing on your mind is not so important. But this is pretty much the unintelligible drivel that appears to be the first thing on my mind.

So maybe I should go with the normal routine of writing about a subject. Since I can't think of anything really unique and poetic to write about, I will just update you on all the work I am doing. I know that really excites everyone, including me.

I talked to Danny Linker today. I told him he needs to start up a television show that helps people who are building things, like that Bob Vila guy. He suggested the name "The New Redneck Workshop." I like it. Perhaps we can get it on Channel 50.

Anyhow, he told me how to do my front porch joists (supports) and how to finish off my eaves. He also gave me some other tips, like how best to shore up a wall and how to seal my siding. I can always appreciate good advice, too bad I don't always listen to it like I should. Saturday I put his lessons in motion and everything worked just fine. I made a couple of minor changes to the plans, just so I could feel like I had a part in doing some of the work, but otherwise I used his general ideas.

I used old barn siding for floor boards, mostly white and red oak. I bet the porch will outlast me. Now there's a scary thought.

I got to thinking about it and realized that I have been working on this building for seven months now. I never would have imagined that it would take so long to get it done. However, I only work on it about three weekends a month, so I guess I should be pretty happy that the work is going as well as it is. I am just tickled pink that I now have a roof on it.

I spent the afternoon on Sunday staining the porches at the place and trying to put stain on the walls of the buildings. I had a couple of 'hired hands' on the scene, one of whom was the 13-year-old son of one of my friends. I had never worked with him before. I must say that I was fairly impressed with the boy. With a little direction, he pretty well stayed at it all afternoon.

I gave him a stain brush and set him to work with his own one-gallon bucket. Staining porches is nasty work to say the least, and that's if you're careful. At 13, I don't think anyone is careful.

I told him to watch out for the stain because it would get on his clothes and is hard to get off your skin. In short order he had painted his arms, his shirt and pants, run a nice brown stripe over one of his shoes and applied little dots to his nice new Starter hat. I told him I would get him an old hat before we started, but he declined. After I pointed out the little dots of stain on the nice blue and white hat, he took it off, looked at it, and said, "Wow, that really makes it look cool."

I really didn't know much of what to say about that. It took me a minute to try and get away from that perspective of "You've ruined your new hat," over to, "Look, you've created a new artwork on your head." If he thinks it looks cool, I guess that's all that really matters. I kind of felt bad to start with, even though I warned him. Kind of like I should have made him put on some other clothes. Then I thought about it a little more. He's on his way to being his own man, he might as well learn like the rest of us did. Then again, maybe I was just being too uptight about it. After all, the hat did look kind of cool.

After we had been staining for about two hours, another friend of mine stopped in and brought chicken and biscuits and then went to get drinks.

I believe that may have been the best chicken I ever tasted. You know how you feel when it is hot outside and you don't have anything to eat or drink? I was kind of getting weak, I guess you would say. When the food arrived, it was like a shot in the arm.

At any rate, we applied about three gallons of 'olive brown' stain to the new building porch and two of the porches on the house. Then we set about staining the sides of the building with a color called 'ginger.' Those aren't exactly my favorite colors, but I bought all the stain at a discount during the church auction.

I hope those colors are still available when I need more, but I guess I'll worry about that when the time comes.

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