Re: What made you feel good today?
 

I just cooked for the first time a roast and vegies in a camp oven on the coals, 3 hours later yum. Poured flour in the bottom of the pan for gravy, fed 5 hungry people, now sitting around the fire drinking port.

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

Hot gunna lie Jaydee pretty jealous of you at the moment its been wet and freezing here and your building good memories from a perfect break away enjoy mate.

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

wet!!! did you say wet? yee gods CHCH usually 61mls July, this year 268mls hells bells that is wet and the rest of the country.

make sure your all tied down, Id hate to see you float out into the Pacific.

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

My brother has a cheap grill/smoker that can do some pretty amazing things. Its just everything takes a long time. So its not like say set an hour or 2 aside to do a rotisserie roast over gas, its more like 4 hours for a comparable sized hunk of meat.
So in the smoker once the coals are going to add flavour you put wood chips in. Personal favourite is hickory. Its made even better if you get the cheapest bottle of red wine and soak the chips in that first. Things do taste a lot better from the smoker compared to over gas, however gas is way more convenient as you turn it on and its on, plus its easier to regulate temp.

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

Wife's homemade pizzas.
Had a bruschetta-ry thing bit earlier and I see 2 pi sitting in the oven. I can see one is chicken and pineapple with chilli spread all over it and other one looks to have bacon, olives and maybe capsicum or sundried toms (will update :lol ) on it.
Not her usual base though, its normally fatter than that but gonna be nice I reckon :dance

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

The only Pizza I eat is homemade, I can scoff a whole one after a big day.

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

Was good!.... and the meat one had caps AND tomato.

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

I could totally eat a pizza right now after these descriptions. :lol But I alternate dairy and dairy-free days so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

Had a fun night.
Felt tops that my brother who is away for the weekend told me to go and pickup his 500 HP twin rammed XD and take my missus out for the night in it and have some fun.
To be trusted with something he has built himself and has a sizeable financial investment is definitely gives you a good feeling.

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

The bees. It’s bittersweet because realistically their time is probably limited, but at present they are beautifully docile and quietly busy. No aggression at all, think I could slap the top super with my hand and they’d barely get annoyed.

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

they are too bloody cold

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

Righto; when I’ve nowt else to do, I’ll crochet some hive-cosies. :P

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

Went barra fishing this evening in the Fitzroy River at Giekie Gorge.
Didn't catch any, but who cares.
https://i.postimg.cc/501zNsVt/20220731-173420.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/PxPCq97T/20220731-170859.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/kMWny7KL/20220731-170908.jpg

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

So tonights plan was dinner with my mum for her birthday which was last friday. So last minute i thought i should get her something. So she is the first one to say she has enough stuff. Last year she didnt directly ask, but a few months of hearing about how her phone battery didnt last as long as it used to and standard issue things about an old phone, i dids her a new phone. She still often carries on about stuff it does that they all do.
Anyhow, so for the longest time mum hasnt had much to complain about.
So clearly i was always going to pay for dinner, but i needed something for my kid to gift.
As i have been married before, appology flowers are the same as birthday flowers, so you know the good florist. My go to has a hand written note on the door saying closed untill further notice.
So a bit of searching and a bit of a drive, yeah flowers happened.
So dinner was also very nice. I had to poke and poke to get mum to ignore prices and get what she really wants.
But she thoroughly enjoyed her lamb shanks, the mushroom bruschetta we got as a starter as odd as it sounds was actually brilliant.

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

Had a visitor out in my alfresco area this am. (S)he even sat there and began warbling to me when I stood right up against the window. (S)he then turned around and stole the piece of wire that my daughter used to use to hold the water feeders in place on her piggie cages. Someone, somewhere is going to wonder how that bent piece of wire ended up where it did :lol

https://i.postimg.cc/fWY6B9SP/IMG-20220802-092413.jpg

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

Probably is part of a new nest somewhere.

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

Yeah, most likely. (S)he tried eating it first, but I guess it didn't taste as good as it looked. :lol

Came back this arvo for another gander whilst I'm sitting out here, about 2 feet away form me. Looks like someone may have tamed it a bit already? Was all going well until the dog realised who I was talking to and chased it away, pronto. Clearly the similarity in name (the dog's name is Maggie) doesn't mean that consideration is given.... :lol

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

Don't get to friendly, otherwise inside the door is next. This one at the motel likes cyclist.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.for...410c9e58d3.jpg

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

Another happy client.
Managed to fix this mess post install I was bitch*ng about previously.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.for...6f76905beb.jpg

Piers just needed to grow along one side. Owners were so happy I could hide most of his mistakes.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.for...af60671c60.jpg

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.for...1c05599705.jpg

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

roK, as you know I love seeing your work......
I wonder how long you gonna keep up lifting these varying weights ?
I imagine collecting a bundle for x job is by pallet load ? or do I picture you in a quarry with various size chisels hammering sizes needed :)
Serious question ? my bro was a landscaper, I used to be one of the hired help between jobs for I loved the fitness but know doing it 5days a week for x years would have its use by date as much I still love doing my maintenance work and minor hard jobs by I decided on my limitations :)

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

Thanks mate. I once thought working with around Sydney with sandstone was hard until venturing further afield into Basalt and Granite country.

Granite is approx 3 times the density (read weight) of layered stone so you soon build strength building with it. Just the tools required are twice the weight to work it. A 3lb masons hammer used for sandstone doesn't cut it (sic) with igneous stone, swinging a 5lb lump hammer all day on a 1kg tungsten chisel but like anything, you can soon train yourself to work with your brain and not overly exert energy over the course of a day.
At the quarry, every stone you see is handpicked and loaded, I'll look for stone from the fresh blasted area's. This stone is of naturally a better quality than something that has been pushed around by machinery.When I see better than average stone there, I'll usually pick a few loads to stockpile at home for jobs down the line.
On fitness, one of the best things to do, to build strength is mountain bike, it compliments the job and the job compliments MTBiking.
A few jobs a year are in restoration of old buildings, which keeps my carving skills in demand.
Beauty of being a Bankermason is being able to turn more to carving for monuments and sculpture, something I do at home on commission. Consultation work is always available in stone building restoration.

Sorry for the long winded reply.

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

Can’t get over how snotted the top of that hidden post was. Is it driven 1200 deep? Also waiting to hear how the owners snagged their cars on the protruding threads before the gate goes on - hopefully they’ll put some temporary battens over the ends…


Definitely didn’t feel good about the dentist casually saying I was looking at “50-100K”. And they wonder why people get teeth done overseas!

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

What a neat job, passers by will look at it and go WTF, how did they do that?

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

Whoo, 50-100K.

Posts are 1mtr deep in concrete. Usually get whoever puts it in to leave them high so I can cut them off 120mm below the top stone level.
First thing I do when I get there is stick a couple of old work gloves over the protruding ends (mainly so I don't impale myself) but easily spotted driving in.

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

Good idea on the old gloves. I once nearly lost an eye to a podger someone had substituted into an Acrow prop instead of the usual pin. Right at face (eyebrow) level, and a colour that didn’t show up easily in the gloom. We ended up with a Coke bottle jammed over it.

Presently queued at Aldi for the specials. Somehow I ended up the only person stuck in the airlock between both sets of doors. :yelrotflm

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

Did they have the DIY dental surgery kit you were after ?

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

Sold out, apparently. Sydney Tools didn’t get back to me on dental burrs with an SDS+ fitting, either.

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

Did you try "every tool every trade" jokers.

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

Total tools.... i find they typically have less tools on their staff then the aforementioned places.

Re: What made you feel good today?
 

They don't even know what a Stonemason is, much less sell stone working tools.