My Trusty Welding Fella

Posted by liz on

I have now encountered my first completely and disintigratingly rusted steel tube. It’s a crucial tube on a chair that Deb likes a lot. That’s the killer part. I began disassembling it yesterday so she could soon sit in a metal chair of her own that she enjoys, and then this tube simply turned to dust in my hand.

The question: Can my trusty welding fella fix it?

The second question: Is it worth my paying my trusty welding fella to do it? Because this is not a simple fix.

So, this is my guy. He owns Cinn City Choppers—a very dark and cool back-alleyish motorcycle service and body shop. It’s a seriously dark and cool and hidden place. But Chris is very nice and personable, and we get along famously. (I don’t know if I should put his full name in this blog or not…I don’t know if he wants the publicity. I’ll ask him when I see him next…which should be tomorrow when I haul a couple of these steel-tube problems to him).

At Chris’s feet in this image is the chair I found in a wet and crumpled heap in a woman’s backyard. This chair is now beautifully welded back together (NO KIDDING…the welding work in spectacular. I was astonished by it) so that it stands on its own. I’ve sanded all the rust and flaky paint from it, and it’s sweet and clean and waiting for a nice day in which I can paint.

 

Patty Grady: She Knows Stuff

Posted by liz on

You’ll need a Patty Grady, too.

Patty is one of Deb’s high-school friends, and she now works at the Home Depot on Highland Avenue. Sometimes those huge stores can sap the strength and energy from you because they’re so overwhelmingly big. Finding a little nut or bolt or screw in a big place like that can send me into a tailspin, but Patty pulls me right out of it.

Whenever I enter my Home Depot, I go straight to the Pro Desk and find Patty, who leaves her station to walk me all over the store and collect whatever I need. She steers me from bad decisions. She figures solutions. She’s saved me bundles in time and money, and I love following her up and down the aisles because she’s fun. And friendly. She knows everyone in that place. And if she doesn’t, then she’s sure got us all fooled.

Everyone needs a Patty. Especially if you build top-bar hives and restore metal lawn chairs.

Patty Grady at Home Depot

 

My New Green Metal Lawn Chairs

Posted by liz on with 7 Comments

I’ve been handing out the coolest business cards ever. Seriously. Ever. And they all contain the address that leads to this blog. Which will (honest-to-goodness) eventually be a full-blown website. Jerod and I are working on it. But for now, that web address leads folks right here. So I’d better provide something worth finding once people get here, yes?

Today I want you to meet my new chairs. For some reason I’ve become a little bit obsessed about metal lawn chairs, and I’ve begun to carry cash in my pocket so I can offer people money wherever I find them. (Reader, if you’ve got a metal chair anything like this one…or a metal glider…please let me know. I want it.)

A couple of days ago, I discovered these on a front porch near a local Starbucks. There was a very threatening (for some reason I read it as hyperbolic) note taped to the front door, so I went ahead and knocked. No answer. Knocked again. Nothing. But there was a truck in the side yard (to say it was in a driveway would be overstating it), and this note led me to indicate that whoever lives at this house isn’t planning on answering the *effing* door, so I went around to the side and knocked on a door I found there. Waited. Knocked again. Then, the side door creaked open and a most interesting looking man walked out in his stocking feet. I liked him.

I asked him if I could buy his chairs. He said I could have them. He doesn’t like them. Never has liked them. It was his mother who liked them.

I asked him who painted his house those two shades of blue. He laughed. Said he and a friend did it a few years ago (I’m betting they were high when they did it. I’m betting he was high during our conversation). I told him that whoever chose the paint color for that house would also naturally love those chairs, but he said, no, take the chairs. I paid him $20 for the pair and put them in my car. As I put my beauties in my car, I worried a little bit if it was okay to do business with someone who is high. Then I decided that it’s his business if he does business while he’s high. I thought it was a fair deal. Heck, I don’t even know if that guy lives in that house.

I wish wish wish I’d taken his picture. And a picture of the sign on the front door. It may be worth going back to get the pictures. But, you know, Reader, sometimes you just want to let things be the way they were because they were so good. That’s sort of the way I feel about meeting this guy and getting these chairs.

What does all of this have to do with bees? A lot. Every beekeeper needs a good chair to sit in while she watches her bees fly.