A Fun Project

We visited the Morikami Gardens about a year ago and I was inspired to replace an ugly, rotting stockade fence between the garage and house with something a bit more interesting.

Not sure what it would look like, we built a small fence first using pressure treated 4x4's and bamboo.

The bamboo poles were nailed to horizontal stringers mortised into the side verticals. After cutting a slice out of the larger bamboo pole, the nodes had to be cleared to allow it to seat cleanly over the verticals. Esthetically pleasing, it also helps keep the rain out of the ends of the verticals. Once assembled, we gave it a coat of clear, UV-resistant sealer. Something we hadn't planned on was how the sun, as it moved to the West, shone through the bamboo with soft yellows and greens.

Liking the outcome, and making use of what we'd learned, we moved on to the gate. We used red cedar, white cedar and bamboo.

A forstner bit was used to drill holes to fit the bamboo into the grid pattern. The verticals were fitted to the bottom bamboo, then put in place.

It's not quite finished. I'll be adding a door and a light. The door might look something like this:

Sometimes, Art is Garbage

and sometimes, garbage is art. Cantaloupe, corn cobs, ephemeral - headed for the compost bin.

Creative Problem Solving – 1

A friend of mine has MS and is confined to a wheel chair. He has no control of either his legs or his right arm. On a visit, I watched his legs start to move, rise about 3 inches, move to the left and come to rest on the floor. He asked me to put his legs back on the foot rest. He can’t move his legs back to the foot rest by himself, and so can’t move around in his electric wheel chair without the risk of hurting his feet.He's stuck until his feet are back on the foot rest.

The problem - how to keep his feet on the footrest. Here’s the solution:

The clamps (One on each side) keep the basket attached to the foot rest. The height of the basket is greater than the motion of his feet. 

An effective, adjustable and removable solution for about 6 dollars and an hour of work.