The Cannon

When you live in the woods you have to develop or learn skills. Lots of skills. You need to know a little bit about plumbing, building, welding, and carpentering. If you don’t, you just won’t get anything done and you’ll have an unhappy wife. Nothing makes a wife unhappy as having to use a thunder bucket because the plumbing to the toilet don’t work. We have a plumber or two out this way but if you don’t have the money to spend on the plumber you better know how to fix things.

Well, I weld. Been a certified welder for years. I repair things with my welding, make a little art, stuff like that. My wife, who can’t weld, does what most wives do, finds things for me to do. I could be perfectly happy working on a boat or truck (I just love the smell of grease in the morning) when she’ll come out and say, Hon, can you make this? then bats her eyes a little bit.  Appeals to my masculine side. You think I’d be on to it by now but she catches me off guard sometimes. Sometimes, though, I just nod and try to let it drop, like most men I know do.

Well, we were driving somewhere and passed an armory. Don’t even remember where it was. “Wow, look at that!” my wife said. “Turn around.” I thought she saw a yard sale (she is forever having me stop at yard sales) but this time is was a cannon. “Yeah, it’s a cannon” I said. “You could build that,” she answered. I thought, I probably could but what would I do with a cannon. It’s not like I can use it to hunt. She won’t let me shoot it in the back yard. I just let it go.

Well she didn’t. She grabbed on to that cannon idea like a dog with a bone. “That would be so cool. The DAV would love that. They could pull it behind the truck during parades.” This went on for days. I just nodded my head, would say a few things and thought that would be the end of it. It was until my buddy came over. We were scrapping some junk metal when he looked a something and said “There it is, the base for the cannon.” She’d be talking to him, too. “Go see if she can get a picture of a cannon off the internet.” The wife was on the computer, always is, pulled up several pictures. I wanted a military looking one, the kind from World War II or Korea. Well, that gave us a start. I had the scraps in the yard, the pipe for the barrel, the ignition, everything to make it work. We even painted it OD green with white stars on the side. 

The best thing about the cannon was it worked. I loaded it up sort of like a big potato gun and fired her off. Made me a bit proud.

Well, the time came to dedicate the cannon to the local DAV chapter so they could show it off in parades. I loaded it up and brought it to town. The sheriff arranged for an escort with lights flashing. It was a sight. And it finally made it to the parade.

Can’t wait to see what my wife finds for me to do next.

Here’s a picture of the cannon. Not too bad.

Post by Dan Patterson of MetalWoodsnWater.etsy.com

Recycling- One Man’s Treasure

There’s a lot said and written about nowadays about recycling. It is the fashionable thing-to-do in the world. Here in the woods we’ve been recycling as long as I can remember. Nothing gets thrown out after just one use. Doesn’t work the first use, fix it. Doesn’t work the 2nd use, repurpose it. The repurpose doesn’t work, it goes to the scrapper. It isn’t because recycling is the thing to do now, it’s because it’s the thing to do all the time.

I am always amazed when I drive through a town and see stuff set out on the curb for the trash man. There is enough stuff in the dump without adding perfectly good stuff that someone could use. My wife is totally into this. A few years ago she bought a little red truck and would drive through a town on her way to and from work and load up the truck while roadside shopping. That girl had to keep ropes in the truck to keep the stuff from flying out as she drove. The only difference between her and the Beverly Hillbillies was Granny wasn’t sitting up top and she didn’t have a road kill bucket hanging on the side. She once came down from up north with a load on the truck precariously tied down. She said she got blowed at by drivers all the way down the interstate. She just waved back, thought they were being friendly. When I saw the load all I could do was shake my head. She was lucky not to have an unsympathetic lawman stop her.

Well, that’s her. I don’t roadside shop like she does and I am a bit better about loading my trailer for a run. Recycling to me is a paycheck and getting parts I need at a reasonable price. Finding an old vehicle that has parts I can use then turning that vehicle into a BMW next week means cha-ching in my pocket. I have a few vehicles and boats around the garage waiting for the parts to roll in by way of a junk vehicle.  A hunting truck needs a transmission, another needs an engine, still another needs, well you get the idea. Finding the parts I need off an old scrapper is exciting and hearing the engine come to life is a thrill.

Ah, the smell of grease in the morning. Almost as good as the smell of coffee.