A Place for Everything

(note: first entry without blog mentor's over-the-shoulder guidance, time to cut loose)
In the time that my significant other and I have shared a home it's come to my notice that, surprise, we don't share a common philosophy on everything. She likes to wake up early and get a lot done by noon. I think that many significant improvements can be made between 8:00pm and midnight, or later. I believe that my older brother has been most inspirational in this perspective. Two years ago we bonded by garage building in a December snowstorm by tractor light.

Given the differing philosophies and close quarters of City Cabin where is one allowed to accomplish such tasks without disturbing the early riser?

The Man Cave, (coined by the blog mentor) of course.


I'm not a big car guy, building guy, mason, blacksmith, ornithologist or agronomist but I enjoy dabbling in all of them. Kinda like writing words and putting them on a compewter. So I guess by default of gender I'm the director of garage space at City Cabin. With other distractions the garage didn't get a much attention in the past 10 months we've been here. I installed a garage door opener. It's the far one, Craftsman's updated aerodynamic model for more better opening.



And I like to hang things up, bag things and stack things. Ready for action!

The silver pipe to nowhere is the chimney, minus a heating source. Word on the street is that the city of St. Paul and insurers don't approve citizens installing wood burning stoves in garages, even if they're not attached to the house AND mostly made of cinder block buried half way into a hill. I can get a kit for a barrel stove for less than $60 and it would be complete in a day. Maybe if the fall is unseasonably cold...

Last week while transporting fall's yard waste from our still-in-development composting site



my first garage art installation happened.
On the first sticks-and-leaves-stuffed-into-a-tarp-lined-Neon-trunk-trip I spotted an interesting item abandoned on the road. Two trips later and without its proper owner coming back to claim it this found its way into my backseat .


With my profession and family agrarian connections I've had some time to devote to admiring and driving semi trucks. While I'm typically critical when it comes to brand loyalty and human-as-billboard marketing, I'm a hypocrite when it comes to Kenworth trucks. I pushed the toy version around as a kid and now, essentially, I do the same.



Pssst. Don't tell anyone but instead of doing man stuff at City Cabin today I saw the season's first oriole.


And word from my associate working at the horse barn was that humming birds are in the area so I made WAY too much nectar mix and chose an interesting container. I'm still learning.





But I found a way to get it into the feeder. And a new oriole feeder arrived home hours after this adventure so hopefully the Cabin will have few new guests to report in the coming days.