In Cliff's shop

I took a little walk around Cliff's shop with the camera and made a slide-show.  Because he's out there right now working on a project, it isn't as neat as it ordinarily would be.  Still, you can see he's an organized person.  It's a shame he married out of his element the way he did, because I'm a clutterbug, as I'm sure you've noticed.





You might wonder why Cliff has two similarly-sized John Deere tractors.  

The oldest grandson's girl friend's dad (whew, that's a mouthful) owns the one on the far side.  He moved to Arizona and couldn't get it sold before he moved, so Cliff has it here; he uses it every once in awhile.  He also has the St. Louis brother-in-law's Mahindra here; it's good for the BIG jobs.  

This particular storage unit is famously known as "the thing with the holes in it".  I asked Cliff where we lived when he first acquired it, and he can't recall.  We know he used it in the little garage from the time we moved here in 1975 until we had his shop built.  


I should have taken a picture of the satellite radio that's perched above the bench where Cliff is working. That's one of the best gifts I ever bought him.  If Cliff is in the shop, that radio is playing; it's always set on Willie's Roadhouse.  It costs us $15 monthly, but it's commercial-free and, to Cliff, worth every penny.

In Cliff's shop

Cliff washed the car yesterday.  Today he is waxing it.  

When we were newlyweds, he washed and cleaned out his car every week or two, and waxed it every month or so.  These days tractors get most of his attention, but he still keeps the car looking pretty good.  

Twelve ounces of this stuff costs $34.95.  Cliff says it's worth it; he makes it last quite a while, using it quite sparingly.  That's Glare polish, in case you are interested (and wealthy).

I bought this hair-remover glove at the Walmarts today for three bucks, hoping it might get rid of some of Iris' loose hair.

It got rid of some hair.  I also have a Furminator, but it seems to hurt Iris, so I hate to use it on her often.  

If you click on the above picture to make it larger, you'll see Iris dozing in her favorite spot in the shop, right beside the wood stove.

 See how shiny the car is looking in this picture?  You can see my guitar case in the background; Cliff always has his satellite radio going, and I decided to strum along to the country music on Willie's Roadhouse.  My fingers need to get toughened up.  By the way, this is not where Cliff parks the car; it is kept in the garage next to our home.

On the way back to the house, I noticed the two young cats all snuggled up on the cows' hay.  

Enjoying the shop

In July of the year 2000, I actually went to work.  Now, we live in the country and I don't drive, so it's always been difficult to find a job, although I've had several:  The trick is finding someone to ride with first, then putting in an application where the potential ride works.  Kohl's Distribution Center opened in the spring of 2000, starting with a skeleton staff of "associates".  (What ever happened to employees?  Now everybody's an associate.)  
My ex-daughter-in-law, Kat, went to work at the D.C., and when they needed more people, it was time for me to go to work. Kohl's bribed their employees with a gift certificate for each person they recommended who ended up getting hired.  A neighbor across the road went to work there the same time I did, so I had my transportation to work.  
Now we actually had enough money to buy Cliff more toys for his shop; not only that, we went and bought a John Deere tractor, the first almost-new tractor he's ever had.  
At this point I really wanted to see Cliff get everything he needed or wanted.  You see, he'd gone all the years we were raising a family with hardly any funds to spend on himself.  He'd always had a decent vehicle and a tractor or two, but for the most part when he got his paycheck, it was gone.  Now it was just the two of us and I was working, so I intended to make up for lost time.  I actually had to insist he buy the John Deere; he just didn't seem to feel as though he deserved it.  It was the same with power washers, air compressors, and other things we bought.  He always thought it was too expensive, or that he should wait till later; I always pushed him in the direction of getting it.  I still do that, even with small items; we'll be at Walmart and he'll be eyeing something he needs, and he'll say, "Twenty-five dollars is too much for that; I can do without it," and I'll say, "Now Cliff, you know you're going to be at home needing that and you'll kick yourself for not buying it."  
He's learned over the years that I'm right about that, and he'll go ahead and get it, but he'll gripe all the way home about how much he paid for it.     
Back to the shop, the 38' by 40' shop that looked so huge when it was first built.  Cliff had it full in no time, and wished he'd made it ten feet deeper.  
In April of 2006, he decided to add a lean-to on the side of the shop, a place where he could park tractors and lawn mowers so they would be out of the way.  Our son-in-law was working at a lumber yard at the time, and sometimes a buyer wouldn't take all his stuff, or the lumber yard would be shipped twice as much stuff as they were supposed to have; they'd price these things at a cheap price, just to get them out of the way.  Kevin would pass the savings on to us, so Cliff really didn't have to spend a lot adding the wing.  

Here he is with granddaughter Natalie, starting the project in early April, 2006.  

Natalie is in the bucket with Cliff in this shot, handing him the drill when he needs it.  Kevin, our son-in-law, is operating the John Deere.  

Things were humming along smoothly.  Now keep in mind this was April, so we took time out for a motorcycle ride every once in awhile.  


(To be continued)






     

Cliff's shop

We had Cliff's shop built in 1999.  I went through old paperwork to find out for sure.
It began as an idea, a dream of Cliff's.  We had the little two-car garage that was here in 1975 when we bought the place, and that's where all the tools were kept.  There was a wood stove in there, and Cliff painted a few tractors in that garage during some long, cold winters.  He even butchered a cow and a goat there.  He had added on a sort of lean-to on the north side, so he had a place to park the car if there was a project going on that took up too much space in the garage.  We'd never had a garage before moving here, so he was in hog-heaven.  It was his man-cave.  
As usual, we were living payday to payday.  We sometimes talked about how we'd have a shop built when it was time for Cliff to retire so he'd have room for all his man-toys and projects. 


At some time after 1990, my friend Dona Smith had a stroke; it didn't kill her, but it disabled her severely.  She's only ten years older than I am, and when this happened it woke me up to the fact that I could never know what to expect from one day to the next.  It occurred to me that Cliff might not even make it to retirement, or me either, for that matter.  OK, I wasn't working; Cliff always said "retire from what" if I mentioned retirement in connection with myself.  It's a moot point.  
After Dona's stroke, I realized that if there was something we wanted to do, we'd better be doing it, because guess what?  WE'RE GONNA DIE!  
I bought a Tennessee Walking Horse named Pleasure Boy from the breeder in town, because now I realized I might have a stroke some day and not be able to ride.  I started thinking about Cliff's futile dream of having a shop, and admitted to myself that even if he made it to retirement, we wouldn't have the money to get it built.  We never had any big amount of cash laid up; all we had was our good credit.  So I made a suggestion to him.  
How about we redo the mortgage on our house to finance building a shop?  Because after all, WE'RE GONNA DIE!   
Some friends of ours had just started a winery; we looked at one of their buildings and decided it was the right size; indeed, it seemed huge.  We agreed that it would be the perfect size for Cliff's dream shop, and asked Tim, the owner of the winery, the dimensions.   We called a local guy who constructs pole barns and got an estimate, then went to the bank and signed on the line to extend our house payment for another twenty years.    

In Cliff's shop today

Now that there's a wood stove in the shop, it's become the place to hang out.  Left to right, that's Cliff's next-door sister; then Phil, the brother who recently suffered a heart attack; Cliff; and the son-in-law taking a break from the all-day job of putting a starter in his wife's car.  She'd better be good to him; he's had a grueling several hours.  Iris is chasing her shadow, as she's wont to do.  

Took us awhile to figure out why Rena's Doxie, Angel, was chewing on a tractor tire; turns out there was a hunk of manure on there.  The dog has taste for... well, you know.

Iris seems to be enjoying the new wood stove in the shop.  
Now here it is almost my bedtime; Cliff is finally eating supper and has settled in to watch the two playoff games on DVR.  Don't anyone tell him the scores, OK?

What Cliff's doing today

The weather is nasty cold today, with strong winds.  That doesn't keep Cliff from having his fun; there's a propane heater in the shop.  He's hoping to find a wood stove to put out there by next winter.

He's doing something-or-other with the steering on the 550 Oliver.  He told me what, but it was Greek to me.

Cliff's nephew Mike, who has moved in next door with his mom, is helping.  That truck in the background belongs to our oldest grandson; he had to replace the U-joint, and what better place to do that than Grandpa's shop?

He got done with his truck and stuck around awhile, watching progress on the tractor.  He and Mike had fun laughing at Cliff's old-timey country music, "Howlin' at the Moon" in particular.



Don't they know that's a classic?  I fail to see what's so hilarious about this fine song.  Why, Hank Williams is practically the father of country music!  


Watch the following video and you'll see what happens to me today, every time I step out the door.  Thanks to Wil for this one.