The strength of a beam

As every good engineer knows, the strength of a beam is related to its thickness, not its width. So said my father in law Pat Todkill when I consulted him regarding having slats cut for an antique wooden bed. We settled on maple 1 by 6s from Adams & Kennedy, a local lumberyard.
https://wood-source.com/company/
Adams & Kennedy allowed you to have your boards cut once for free, but Pat ran them on his table saw, because I didn't have the dimensions handy when I was at the lumber yard.

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Day's eye

About a week ago what is left of the natural landscape in Ottawa--and a number of lawns that have been let to run riot--gave over to the annual dandelion pride. Dent de lion . The teeth of a lion bite a place for themselves and parade their yellow banner for a week before exploding into puff balls of parachuting seeds. But even before the seeds have blown to their new homes, their place on urban hills is taken by ever so slightly more respectable daisies that open most precociously at dawn. Daes eag . Day's eye. A suitable opening for a near Summer's day. Now these are honest bloomers--not sophisticated with heavy petals like potted mums. These showboaters of Summer overshadow their fleabane or aster cousins, who compete, blinking their eyelash petals when the sun is done, bundled in a royal mauve or a flirtatious pink. Also showing now are the heroes of the hedgerow, the bluebells or foxglove from which we have derived the heart medication digi...

Up along (for Charlotte)

The day is yet young there where you are and I have just been to a screening of You Are Here about the stranded passengers who were fed and found shelter in Gander Newfoundland when American air space was closed in the wake of 9/11 and jumbo jets descended on the town like waves of locusts or bombers returning from sortie and run in stacked formation one atop another as they landed and parked nose to tail as if on some aircraft carrier preparing the way for an assault by land from the start the locals had her skald (for those who know nothing of witches and cauldrons to have her skald means to know your fate and have it in your hands) and sprang to action as seafaring people do used to missing bodies lost livelihoods and death and disasters at sea housing passengers from hither and yon in schools and churches and meeting halls and billeting them in their homes for 24 hours they made sandwiches fried fish and chicken threw toget...

We're past that now

First to arrive and last to leave the robins make you think you're in for an Indian Summer but I believe we're past that now still it was nice to see a group of four splashing in a puddle on the driveway when leaves have already been raked and first frost settling in to nightly routine unlike the English robin these are apparently a species of thrush still dainty in their own way their russet breasts matching the pumpkins on the steps I had a silly thought perhaps with their entreating chirps they were trick or treating perhaps they were old residents of the street come back in disguise to tease and remind us they're still here though much changed and diminished in size but tall yet in spirit as they tugged at the lawn for worms or whatever was going when life was already draining from the trees and the whispers of the dawn.

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