Rouge River Workshop: The Shed Chronicle

Here follows the ongoing story of the construction of an 8' x 12' saltbox style garden shed.

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The shed's site is at the bottom of our property's back yard. The site is low-lying and poorly drained, but I'm not going to let that stop me from building there; I think the site will do in spite of its flaws. Here's a view of the site.

The site used to be quite a productive garden some years ago, but neighbouring evergreen trees grew and grew and shaded it too much. The garden was let go, and now it's just a mess of miscellaneous growth run rampant. Here's another view of it.

Today I started in on clearing out the vegetation. I was making progress, then I decided to get my two-stoke engine powered string trimmer in on the action. That got me a tiny bit of work done; then the string trimmer died. I mucked about with the string trimmer's carburetor for quite a while to no effect. All I managed to do was to waste time.

Anyway, I did get some work done. Here's a view of my progress so far.

At the rate that I'm able to go, it may take me all this summer just to get a foundation laid. We'll see.

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The loss of my string trimmer's use is really bugging me. I may see about getting a new diaphragm kit for its carburetor tomorrow.

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2330 Hours

It's late in the day, and I got the string trimmer to start after another round of dismantling and mucking about with the carburetor. I can't run the machine now; the thing is very noisy and it's much too late. I'll try it again tomorrow, and see what happens.

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Progress -- THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 2018

Most of the vegetation is cleared out.

There are a couple of cedars left to be taken down, and some gooseberry bushes to be removed.

The String Trimmer

This morning, the machine started easily and ran fine. It's been ok all day. I have no idea what it is that I finally did that corrected its problem. Diaphragm type two-stroke carburetors are pure voodoo.

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A Visitor To The Site -- FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2018

Robins are very discerning birds. Whenever they see soil churned up at all, they're right there to feast on the worms and whatevers that turn up. The guy pictured above has been making frequent appearances since I started pulling up vegetation.

Site Cleared

I have a place to build a shed. Next up is to draw up a list of foundation materials, and get them delivered.

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Nothing Done Today -- SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 2018

We had a funeral to attend.

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Cedar Stumps Right Where I Don't Need Them -- SUNDAY, JUNE 10, 2018

In several places, I'm left with cedar stumps/root-wads right where foundation tiles have to go.

(The knife is there for scale.)

The stumps are firmly rooted; I've no way of pulling them out. I guess I'll have to dig down some alongside them, and chainsaw them off as low as possible. That'll likely be death to my chainsaw's chain, but so be it. I'll fill the resulting depressions with crushed limestone.

Anyway, I've got my foundation tile locations crudely staked out.

I didn't do a precision job of that. The Dek-Block-on-tile method that I'll be going with has a fair bit of leeway for error to it, so my staking job will serve.

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Not Much Done Today -- MONDAY, JUNE 11, 2018

Other commitments. I managed to chainsaw a couple of cedar stumps out of the ground.

They're not very big, but they're tenacious. I've at least one more stump to deal with, then I'll be out of excuses for putting off ordering material, and getting on with actually constructing my shed's foundation. Once the material is ordered and delivered, I'll be well and truly committed.

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Last Cedar Stump Out -- TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 2018

It was a tandem model.

'Disgusting what that did to my chainsaw.

I've since cleaned up that mess and gotten the saw fit for use again.

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Bogus Weather Forecast -- WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 2018

There's been a severe thunderstorm warning out all day which has come to naught. I let it keep me from leaving the house, for fear that all hell would break loose at any minute. It's now 1730 hrs, the sun is shining, the storm warning has ended and I've accomplished nothing.

I had meant to go the Home Depot today and order up foundation material. Now that can be tomorrow's doing. In all honesty, I must admit that I was a little glad of the excuse not to go out; I'm not looking forward to constructing the foundation. It's going to be an ordeal.

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Home Depot Weirdness -- THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 2018

I went to the Morningside Home Depot this morning to order up my foundation materials. I had with me a neatly hand-written list of what I needed, like so.

I was thinking, "This ought to be a breeze."

I went to the 'Pro Desk' where one orders materials to be delivered, and one of the Associates there offered to help me. I handed him my list, he looked at it and asked me to read it to him. [!?] Somewhat taken aback, I began to try to oblige him and read him the first item, the patio tiles. He proceeded to muck about at a computer, searching for patio tiles. I could scarcely believe what I was witnessing. It dawned on me that with this man's 'help', I'd be there for over an hour just to execute a straightforward materials order. I didn't want to cause a fuss about getting someone who knew what they were doing, so I blurted out something to the effect that I'd rather do this some other time, and hastily left the store and went home, wondering if God maybe has something against me having a shed.

After a smoke and a cool down, I went to the Home Depot in nearby Pickering, and was served promptly and competently by the Associate there. The materials will be delivered to my driveway tomorrow morning.

The Morningside Home Depot has a problem, and one less customer. The Pickering store is virtually the same distance from my home, and it's a bigger store. I won't be going back to Morningside.

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Foundation Materials Delivered -- FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 2018