Gone to Winter

If you’ve been a regular reader of this blog (and who, in their right mind, would not be?) you may have noticed a dearth (shortage) of postings. So, knowing that many, many people are wondering where I am, I feel called upon to inform both of you.

At the moment, I am in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Yes…the land down under. I left the Northern Hemisphere Summer for the Southern Hemisphere Winter. Australia is my “other country,” to which I make yearly trips. I lived here once and fell in love with the people and the land. So, it is a pleasure to return each year to visit friends and churches, do some teaching & preaching, eat Aussie tucker (food) and hear the birds sing. So far I have been to Sydney, Dungog, Maitland, Newcastle and Parramatta. In few days I will head back to Sydney, then Adelaide, then New Zealand and back to Sydney.

I left behind my beautiful wife, Charamon, the Charamon Garden and loving family for a seven-week sojourn. Preparation took a lot of time and precedence over blogging. Getting the garden ready to leave in the capable hands of my family took additional time.

A phone call to my son, Tim, reassured me that all goes and grows well back in the garden. A phone call to my parents (90 year-old father, 88 year-old mother) says they are doing OK (at those ages, good days are treasures) and a phone call to my wife assures me that she still loves me and is missing me. Well, the feeling is very much mutual!

I Believe in Bondo

I really dig this stuff.

I’ve been using it or something like it for decades, starting in Australia with a similar product. In Adelaide (really, Para Hills) I lived in a double-brick house with the interior walls rendered in plaster over mortar (no straight walls!) and used it to fill holes to put screws in when attaching something to the wall. Just drill the hole, blow the dust out, fill with Bondo or something similar, wait for it to set-up a bit, then screw those suckers in.

Later on, in the sign business (hand-carved and sandblasted wooden signs) I used it to correct defects, mistakes (you can carve it with woodcarving tools) and for installations. You can sand it, prime it and paint it.

Today, I am using it to repair closet doors. We live in an old house and the