Category Archives: Troy

Troy’s Christmas Crafts

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Jingle bells, shotgun shells,
Double-aught buck!
Don’t just pack number 8,
or you’ll be out of luck.

Inspired by something I saw today on the interweb, I decided to rewrite a Christmas jingle and do a little Christmas tree decorative craft. So today we are going to make some shotgun shell Christmas Tree decorations.

For this project you are going to need some spent shotgun shells. If you don’t have any laying around, get out there and shoot some targets until you have enough empty shells for this project.

Remember to use high brass for a more festive, classy look. I’ll be using 12 gauge, but go ahead and use whatever you have.

There are two ways to do this: crimp the shell around a light; or knock out the primer, drill a hole and put the brass end over the light. Here I have two empty slug shells and two empty buck shot shells. Not going to crimp the the slug shells in enough, so these are going get a hole in the bottom.

For the crimping method, just start squeezing the top back in…

 

and slip it over a light. Tighten it up to hold it in place.

For the slug shells, knock out the already fired primer.

Hold tight and make the hole bigger with a drill bit about the same size as your lights.

Apply bandages as needed.

Lock and load!

Remember, you are going to have to make a bunch of them. She is going to find a few and throw them out right away. So leave a few in an obvious place and get the others hidden in the thick brush.

Sit back and enjoy!

Don’t forget: Holiday wrapping tips: clear duct tape!

Fish n’ Chips

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When you travel to the UK, you need to experience some fish n’ chips. Not the McDonald’s variety, you need the real deep-fried-goodness of authentic fish n’ chips. We found some at the “Chippy” in Holyhead, Wales.

Sandy and I were travelling from Derby to North Ireland via the Holyhead ferry and stopped for lunch just outside the ferry terminal. I had told Sandy I was really looking forward to some fish and chips, so he kept an eye out for a good place.

 


We had to pay more to eat in instead of “take away”, but it was a really good meal.

Now you see it…

Now you don’t.

Holiday wrapping tips from Troy

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Today is Christmas Eve, so that means it is time to purchase and wrap those gifts for the lady.  And remember, men, when its time to git-er-dun, not all the ladies appreciate classic gray or cammo duct tape. That is why some smart dude made duct tape that is clear!

Clear duct tape allows you to still wrap like a man while not upsetting the ladies. So this Christmas season, take it up a notch this year with clear duct tape!

Clear duct tape – a classy solution.

A Sea of Cellulose

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After our first year in our 1960’s house, we have learned that it is a bit on the cold side in here during Alberta’s frigid winters and we want to start doing something about it.

One thing we discovered shortly after moving in was that the overhang on the front of the house had very little insulation in the floor. It looks like the floor was insulated with some asbestos-based insulation when the home was constructed 40+ years ago and it seems to have settled, leaving no insulation for parts of the overhang.


The old asbestos in the floor was doing nothing for retaining heat.

This helped make our living room, the kids’ bedrooms, and basement much cooler. This summer I tackled that with lots of spray insulation. I took down the aluminum soffit that was under the overhang and drilled many holes and insulated the overhang with expanding foam insulation to fill in the area and lock in the old asbestos.

The asbestos is fine as long as it is undisturbed and doesn’t get airborne. It is all now safely encased in foam and the extra insulation seems to be making a difference in the house!

 

We also took a look in our basement above the ceiling and discovered that the header is not insulated all the way around the house. So the basement and upstairs walls are insulated, but the space between the floors wasn’t.

No insulation here either…

Fixing that problem.

Getting the basement more comfortable is a priority this year as Naomi is spending more time down there homeschooling Ellie. We also have an uninsulated concrete wall in the laundry room we hope to address soon.

Recently Naomi and I had one of Canada’s EcoEnergy audits done on our house and we learned some more ways to keep the house warm. We already knew our attic was lacking insulation – about 10 inches less than there should be. All that was up there was 4 to 8 inches of 40 year old fibreglass batt insulation. We learned we could get a grant for insulating it properly, so we set out to learn about blowing in insulation. I’ve been up in the attic a lot getting it ready for insulating, including hooking up the bathroom exhaust fan so it vents outside and putting in insulation dams for the soffit vents.

 

 

Last week we filled up our attic with a sea of cellulose.

This is a two-man job, and Steve was sucker enough kind enough to offer to help out by loading the blower.

I don’t think I can move my legs anymore.

Thanks for the help Steve!

We have a number of other projects ahead of us to do as we can afford them, but the next step in our quest for heat is a wood insert for the living room to replace the drafty old  fireplace. Hopefully we will be able to get it installed in early December! We are thankful for the Lord’s provision for what we have been able to do so far and look forward to what we can improve here in the future.