We never acquired much for the kids to play on outside around here when they were growing up.I think we had a little plastic thing with a slide on it at one time, but they never did much with that really. What we did have was these huge rocks  sticking up beside the driveway varying … Read more

Last Friday January 3rd, I was heading to town and saw a wolf with coming out of the sandpit two miles south of Ely on Highway 21. He seemed to pause and not be moving so fast so I turned around and went back. As I approached, he came down the bank into the road … Read more

This is a last minute project for a Christmas present for my wife. It started with a “stepping stone” project that my daughter did in 7th or 8th grade art class, about eight or nine years ago. It was a concrete disk with glass chips imbedded in a design she came up with of a … Read more

I guess we are not one of those homes where you see the tree up right after Thanksgiving. We don’t have a set time for getting the tree and putting it up… it just sort of happens somewhere along the way. …but it always does happen. So, this past weekend we put up a tree… … Read more

When I started building things 28 years ago or so, I had very little in the way of tools, or money to buy them. I remember when taking a hundred dollars and buying a tool required a long discussion between my wife and I.  The first raised panel cabinet doors I ever made where on … Read more

Someone was telling me the other day that I need to post some shots of these projects from the lake side rather than the driveway side. Once I got over the shock of realizing that there is actually someone who might occasionally read my blog or parts of it, I realized that that is true. … Read more

Just some pictures of the progress on the recent project.We have most of the windows in and the house wrap on.  Here we have the screen porch roof built: These pictures were taken over a week ago.This week was a bit slow with the holiday and all.As of right now, we have a few inches … Read more

Some projects are like a good book… you can’t wait to get it done bit it leaves you not knowing where to turn next…This is a snapshot in time from the 2013 Ely Minnesota VFW baseball season. A classic pause between batters, a warm sunny summer day, an adjustment of the face-mask and helmet, wipe … Read more

I was going though some old pictures the other day and came across these. They are some shots someone took of the Ely Bandshell in Whiteside Park as we were putting it together. The timeliness of coming across these pictures now is interesting… Over this winter or in the spring we will be doing some … Read more