What A Sap…

August 31, 2016

All in all, our most recent visit to the farm went really well.  The weather was nice and dry, which translated to good working weather.  Charming was able to get the entire plywood layer on the shed’s roof, attach 2x4 extensions for the eaves, and covered the roof with a moisture barrier material.  He spent quite a bit of time walking on the tip-top of the roof with a rope tied to him, which means I spent quite a bit of time on the ground watching him and feeling sick to my stomach.  (He thought it was funny that I put my purse and keys in the truck before he climbed up on the roof in case we had to make an emergency visit to the nearest hospital.)  I breathed a huge sigh of relief when this phase was finished.

On the days when Charming wasn’t walking the ridgepole of the shed, I sat in the shade making dishcloths.  My store-bought dish sponge/cloth that I have been using on the farm was falling apart, so I figured I could probably make one that worked as well or better than the store-bought ones.  So I cut some nylon netting that I already had (the kind you might use to make wedding flowers/decorations) into a long continuous strip about 1-inch wide.  Then, using the strip of netting, I knit two squares that measured about 6 ½” x 6 ½” each.  I also had some micro-fiber cloths that I had purchased a while ago at Harbor Freight.  I folded one cloth in half and then cut that in half, making a double-layered base for the dishcloths.  From there, I simply stitched, by hand, each micro-fiber square to a knitted square.  The result is the best dishcloth I have ever used.  The micro-fiber side is soft enough to wash dishes and wipe down counter tops, without scratching, while the knitted nylon side is perfect for scrubbing pots and pans.  After I got home, I made more of these using my sewing machine to sew the parts together.  With very little effort to make them, these dishcloths will last much longer and do a better job than the store-bought kind.

An unfortunate result of sitting my luxury butt in the shade of the pines trees while the husband is hard at work on a building project is that pine sap can sometimes fall from the places on the tree where limbs have been cut.  And that is just what happened!  The ooey-gooey stuff could have fallen anywhere…on the ground or on my shoulder or leg or arm or even on the project I was working on and I really wouldn’t have been put out, but of course the pine sap landed just about two inches over my right ear IN MY HAIR really close to the scalp!!!  The worst part about it was that I didn’t find out about it until the next day.  (I have long hair that reaches just about to my waist.  When we’re at the farm, I brush it out in the morning, put it in a pony tail and wind it into a ball at the nape of my neck where it is secured with a claw-clip.  It stays like this until I take it down before going to bed at night.) So I was absolutely panicked at the thought of having to cut out a chunk of hair that would leave an obvious blank/empty/BALD spot.  That might not look out of the ordinary for a teenager, but for a fifty-something like me…oh, no!  Charming assured me that his trusty bottle of “Goo Gone” would take it out and that he would spray it on for me as soon as we got home.  Now, I’m not sure what the ingredients are in “Goo Gone,” but I was sure I didn’t want to end up with pink, purple, or green hair.  That would be almost as bad as a bald spot.  So as soon as we got home, Charming went to get the “Goo Gone” while I dashed to my computer.  I did a quick search on “removing pine sap from hair” and, wonder of wonders, there was a remedy that didn’t include “Goo Gone”.  Peanut butter!  The advice said to rub the peanut butter into the affected area then let it sit for 5 – 10 minutes.  I rushed to the kitchen and snatched the peanut butter from the cabinet just as Charming was coming towards me with the “Goo Gone” poised in the air.  Backing away from him, I said “Ummmm…let’s try this first, honey.  Nothing beats a try but a failure…and my hair might possibly stay the same lovely shade of orangey-brown-dishwater blonde that it has always been.”  Although he looked a bit disappointed about not getting to use the “Goo Gone,” he painstakingly plastered my sap-coated hair lightly with the creamy JIF (thank goodness, I don’t like the crunchy kind of peanut butter because that would’ve created an additional problem of trying to remove peanut bits from my hair).  He then suggested we watch a TV show while the peanut butter “worked”.  As soon as the TV program was over, I took a warm shower and the pine sap washed right out with the peanut butter.  As I grow older, I’m constantly amazed that you really do learn something new every day!

On our next visit to the farm, Charming is hoping to get the rest of the T1-11 on the sides of the building and some of the shingles put on the roof.  After that, he’ll just need to finish off the eaves, complete the trim work and paint.  Somewhere in the middle of all of that, we are going to build a new chimney for the house.  It will be just a simple cinderblock-type, but because we can only set a few blocks each day due to the required drying time, that’ll take a while to complete as well.  So stay tuned…I’m finding that there is always more work to be done on a farm!

  

The ball of netting, micro-fiber cloth, and knitting needles to make the dishcloth.

The dishcloth measures about 6 1/2" x 6 1/2"...not too big, not too small!

I stitched the knitted netting piece to the micro-fiber piece, by hand, using crochet thread.

Two dishcloths...one side has a nylon "scrubber" side & the other a soft micro-fiber side.

On the 1st side, Charming nails plywood over the trusses.

From a ladder inside the 2nd level, he pulled plywood up the outside wall with a rope & nailed them into place.

Next, he installed short pieces of 2"x4" for the eaves, to help shed water.

Finally, moisture barrier was nailed into place.  The tip-top of the roof was the scary part.

Ready for remaining T1-11 siding & shingles to be done during our next visit.