A carpenter’s house is never finished

A famous line I will agree with. I installed my petite gas fireplace in December of 2011. I closed off that post with a glass of wine and pondering the finish facade.

A mere ten months later and I have finished the corner wall … mostly. In the end I decided on sheetrock and paint to match the rest of the walls on the first floor. Of course, unless you do it for a living, sheetrock is not a simple or quick task. Still the end results are good enough.

I still need to build a corner drawer that will go below the fireplace but given if will not be a standard drawer, I’ll save that for when I have a few days in the shop!

Most of the beds at the farmhouse take a chapter from my experiences in Europe – they are all made with a bottom sheet, duvet, and pillows. Why? Because they are so simple, a child (*or eccentric bachelo*r) can make the bed each morning!

The problem is that most duvet sets come from fancy pants stores or they come with some cheap “comforter top”. It’s easy to buy nice bed sheet sets almost anywhere but not duvets.

Thankfully, it’s easy to make your own …

Buy any sheet set you like and then buy a single flat sheet that matches or accents the set. (For example, a burgundy sheet set could be paired with another burgundy sheet or a nice ivory one.)

What you will do is take the flat sheet from the set and sew if to the single sheet purchased separately. However, there are a few hints and tricks along the way.

First, lay the two flat sheets “under-side to under-side”. Check that they are the exact same size. Odds are good they won’t be the same size even if they are both for the same size bed. That’s OK.

Align the tops and then center the larger one under the smaller. Pin them together. Now sew down the sides, starting about 8″ from the top finished hem and as close to the edge of the smaller one as possible. The 8″ gap will come in handy later. Now, find the center of the bottom and measure 10-12″ to either side and mark with pins. Sew across the bottom from the corners to the pins – again, using the smaller sheet edge as the guide. Finally, sew across the top – either at the very edge or along the finished hem (typically flat sheets have a 3-4″ top hem).

At this point you could call it “done” but you will find that your duvet, comforter, or puff (aka the “filling”) will float and may sag to one side or the other.

To keep make a nicer finish, measure your filling. A typical queen size duvet or comforter will be 82″x82″. The queen size flat sheets are noticeably larger.

Measure down from the top seam you created in the sheets the same distance as the length of the filling. Pin a line across the bottom. Sew this new bottom seam but remember to leave the same opening as before. Find the center of the sheets – width wise – and measure out half the width of the filling to each side. Pin a line and sew down the sides but remember to leave the 8″ openings near the top. Finally, to help finish it off, sew along the sides of the bottom openings to creat a “channel”. This will make it easier to stuff the filling in (and remove it on laundry day).

You may be asking what those 8″ openings were on either side at the top. They help with putting the duvet cover onto the duvet “filling”. First, take the top of the duvet and crunch it together so you can stuff it into the channel in the bottom of the duvet cover. Still the entire duvet into the cover. Now, reach into the 8″ slots at the top and grab the top corners of the duvet and shake! The duvet will flatten out inside the cover!

There are not a lot of tasks to accomplish at the farm ahead of severe weather. Yesterday, they harvested the soy beans. Today, I loaded the freezer, filled some water jugs, pulled the vehicles into the garage, and got all of the mowing done.

The last outdoor task – and the one that truly signals fowl weather – is lowering the windsock. (*The last time it was down was for hurricane Irene.* )

I’ve just finished a new website for The Salmon Farm airport (53VG). It was a much larger undertaking than expected but it has a few very important tricks up its sleeve.

First, the site is fully responsive, meaning it works on desktop browsers, tablets, and smartphones with equal grace. It is resource efficient so even on typical cell phone coverage, it will perform well – the total data load is under 100KB.

For pilots, the METAR weather is live from an airport less than three miles away.

For those who have seen prior projects, the biggest deviation is that Fly 53VG is not a WordPress site. The decision was not because it was difficult. On the contrary, I recently finished a 501(C)(3) site that is also responsive and coupled to WordPress as its content management system. I chose to keep this site simple since the odds are high that I will only update a small section of it with any regularity. The "Advisories" box will get updates to runway conditions and flight hazards. Each section is represented by a different PHP file and my iPad has a nice FTP client with a built in editor so making those small changes will be quick and easy.

But wait. There’s more !

There is a complete introductory video of the traffic pattern for both runway 03 and runway 21. The video gives an overview of the airport and includes full length video animation flying the traffic pattern with inset video footage from an aircraft. There is the complete sequence for both runways. This training video gives a pilot’s eye view of what to expect when flying into 53VG. For those with good internet bandwidth, the video is available for download at different resolutions.

As Hurricane Irene approached and it became evident it would be a close call, I sent out word that the hangar at the Salmon Farm Airport had some extra space and could accommodate a couple more airplanes. By Thursday afternoon, two pilots had called in "reservations" and on Friday morning the planes arrived. About an hour apart, first a Piper Cherokee 140 and then a Piper Cherokee 160. Perfect landings each and they were under cover in no time.

The hurricane cause more chaos elsewhere on the Eastern line of the United States. I think a good portion of the difference was that the South-Central coastal area has been very dry this year so there was excess capacity to sponge up the heavy rains. Still, Irene did have some winds – topping over 65 mph here at 53VG.

Within two days of Irene passing, the runway and taxiways were cleared and was mowed and the pilots came back to un-nest their airplanes.

It was fun having other airplanes use the little grass runway. The pilots both said it was easy and fun. I guess they will have happier memories of Hurricane Irene than some folks.