Good Morning!
We are halfway through March and we have 3 feet of snow! I cannot remember when we had this much snow with very little signs of melt in March. We are not going to let that slow us down. My wife has organized her seeds and mapped out our garden for the year as well as blocked our first set of vegetable starts. We are trying something different this year by doing soil blocking. So far it has been an interesting process to watch as she figures out the correct dirt recipe. I'm going to attempt to melt snow away in the garden by laying out some dark/ black tarps and spreading topsoil around with the hopes I can get it to melt and have it start thawing/ drying out, and become workable. This year we are also going to start heavily into some no till gardening using thick layers of mulch and compost to block out the weeds and help retain soil moisture. I hate weeding. Least favorite part of gardening.
In the woodworking world of things I signed up for A Spring Boutique craft fair. This will be my first one and I'm both excited and nervous. I have a good list of items I want to bring. Meaning I need to finish a commissioned twin bed frame and jump into production on the craft fair items. As well as stands/displays for all the items. I may have bitten off more than I can chew but we shall see. I have till the end of April when the event is held. After the fair I will be adding what items didn't sell to the online store.
Last month I added a new tool to my shop, a drill press. I have been wanting to add one to the shop for some time but have been concerned with the space I have available. After some moving around in the shop and some layout plans in place I decided to get a Wen 12in Variable Speed Bench Top Press. It had good reviews for a small simple press and that's all I need to get started. All it really needs to do is make perpendicular repeatable holes better than I can freehand. Which is not hard as my free hand abilities are not great.
At the beginning of month I started the build on a twin bed frame with canopy for a friends daughter. I have been recording shorts/reels of the build for Youtube and Instagram. If you want to watch that process you can follow the links there. I may do a post on the full build after the craft fair.
You can also find my DIY video of a building wooden whisk on my Youtube page @house_mercantile.
I believe that wraps it up for this post.
Thank you for reading
Gavan D. House
Here are the Affiliate links for the new tools added to the shop and garden. I hope to have the garden tool page built and loaded by next month.