Bad, bad, bad things are being built in becks back yard!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

In a fit of weirdness Mr.Wrekker ordered this gigantic climbing play gym with swings, a fort and a slide AND a convienant hanging rope. Do kids under the age of consent really need a rope in which to hang themselves or others? I think not. YMMV.

I know I’m questioning that particular part of the MASSIVE play gym.

It was delivered this morning. Mr.Wrekker brought me the instructions and a looooonnnng page of disclaimers and warnings. Are these even safe for the Monkey exhibit at the zoo? Much less my backyard?

Well the grandwreks are over the moon. Ready to play hangman and other pursuits. They are pouring over the pictures.
Pop-pop Big Wrek set the legs in instant quik-crete. That took an inordinate amount of time, I thought. The rest of the afternoon him and Son-of-a-wrek stood around drinking beer and staring at the parts laying all over the lawn. I think they’re regretting this purchase.

god, I hope this doesn’t turn out like the failed catfish farming venture

I read and re-read the instructions. Even if NASA wrote them. Imma have to go back to University to get a degree in rocket engineering (or cake decorating :smack: ****)

Tuesday is the big ‘build-a-play-gym’ day.

Pop-pop estimates he’ll be finished by noon. Soooooo sad. Son-of-a-wrek doesn’t even wake up til 11am when he’s not working.

I predict it will mostly be assembled by July.
Good, I have time to hide the hangmans rope. They’ll never missed it.

I looked out in the barn and Pop-pop was sharpening his chainsaw.
No where in the instruction DO NOT mention a chainsaw being needed. At. All.

This oughta be fun for a few laughs.

Stay tuned.

2

I’d suggest anchoring the swing set legs in concrete. It’ll be more stable when the kids are swinging.

Rope climbing is good exercise. I was never very good at it. Never coordinated my arms and legs to shimmy up the rope.

3

My bad, I overlooked where you mentioned using quik-crete.

Glad you took that precaution. The swing will be much safer…

4

I was going to ask if it was constructed of metal or wood, but the chainsaw sharpening kind of confirmed wood construction.

I hope Mr. Wrek has a nice impact driver for all the fasteners. I’d recommend the Milwaukee 18 volt system myself.

5

What’s all this about failed catfish farming??? :eek:

6

**<<The BIG build>>
**Construction has been going on all morning. Yes the impact driver thingy is just the tool.

They’re up to the walls of the fort. The slide is proving to be an issue.

We’ve had work stoppage for lunch. I knew Pop-pops estimation of finishing my noon was pie-in-the-sky.

I have to say this thing is impressive. They really need two more hands to help. The lil’wrekkers boyfriend has been recruited to help. He’s about useless, it seems.

I’ve been sitting on the deck watching them work. This better is than TV.
I find I can still see steam coming out Big Wreks ears even up here on the deck.
One more kerfuffle and his construction crew is in danger of walking off the job.
Tensions were high in the kitchen while everyone was eating.
Son-of-a-wrek was poking around in the fridge. I asked what he was doing. He was counting beer. This is a mistake.
The hangman rope may get used earlier than I thought. Someone may get hanged, today! :eek:

b. waiting on the show to start again, well out of the way.

7

Yeah! Either link to that posting or write it, BD. Otherwise it’s rather like Bart Simpson’s Noodle Incident.

8

I’ve never told of the BIG catfish farm debacle.
That’s for another day. :wink:

9

How about a photo of the finished play gym?

I saw several on Google. They’re pretty cool.

But, a lot of work to assemble.

10

Oh, I’m memorializing it in pix. Yes, I am.
:smiley:

11

If and when this thing is finished, Mr. Wrekk and company should try it out–you know, to make sure it’s safe for the kids. Take photos.

If it’s any consolation, my daughter had one of those monstrosities when she was little (It came with the house we bought.) It was good and thick and had lots of knots in it to make it good for climbing, pretty useless for hangings, I’d think.

12

Yeah, I wanna hear about farming those failed catfish.

13

First day of construction has ended

The guys got the slide put in. They had to stop because 4 kids needed to test the slide, oh, IDK, 1000 times. It was deemed magnificent.

As we were eating Big Wrek was saying they were nearly done. Son-of-a-wrek asked him was he on crack. He sez, “Pop, we’re not even half done!” A bitter (I feel) argument ensued.
Hamza (bf) sez, “There’s half a redwood forest laying on the ground, out there!”
Pop-pop told him to shut-up.
I think he’s an official member of the family now. Pop-pop don’t tell just anyone to “Shut-up”
The plans are to get up early and 'get ‘er done!’
Son-of-a-wrek wasn’t happy hearing about the early start. He took a 6pack of beer home with him. We’ll see what time he shows up.

b. getting amusement from a poor Muslim boyfriends initiation. (:))

14

Wasn’t it Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) who suffered the Noodle Incident?

15

I’ve suffered a few catfish noodlin’ incidents myself.
You know catfish have teeth. And they bark. Which is a large source of amusement for the grandwreks. Oldest grand-wrek sez that’s wrong to call them catfish when, clearly they are DOG-fish. I told her to write a letter to the Game and Fish commission and complain.

Ok. The caper of the failed Catfish farm---->

Several years ago when Big Wrek was thinking about early retirement he decided he needed a side gig to finance his need to spend everyday fishing or hunting and building a Joint.

He visited a catfish farm. Since he likes fishing he thought this would be perfect. I was dubious. It seemed like a very hands on operation. Requiring employees or, god forbid, me to work it while he was away funnin’ it up. Nope. I put my foot down.

He comes to me on a Saturday and said get dressed, “I’m taking you somewhere” Ooh! I inquired as the formality of the event. Should I dress up? He sez, “Woman, just put your shoes on!”

We drive out of the county. Into a little town. He’s not sure of the road to take. I look up and see a large sign"----->This way to Ginormous Catfish farm"…I point it out to him.

Dang & I thought I was going somewhere fun.

We get there. We are walked all over the very, very fishy smelling place. I mentioned the odor. Big Wrek sez, “Hush”. No I won’t. I’m not living in a fish cannery. I have to smell fish enough. I draw the line here. The owner says, “Oh, no. Thats not a normal odor. We’ve had a die off”. Wha??!? :eek: That seems like a down-vote.

Big Wrek gets all the specs and countless phamplets. Instructions as to how to rig our nice natural pond into a fish pen. Not liking this. At. All.

I made him call the county agent. A game warden. A priest and a lady down the road. Someone please talk him outta this. Please.

He’s adamant about it. He spends big $$$$ getting the pump equipment and digs another well. He rents heavy equipment and enlarges the pond. He works on this for 6mos. or so. The guy from the ginormous catfish farm comes out. They walk out to the pond. Lots of pointing. Head shaking. Chin clutching. I deem from my vantage point it’s not looking good.
Oh, wait. Why would that guy come here? He has his own fish farm. They’re not friends. I don’t get it.

Mr.Wrekker comes in and asks where all those phamplets went to. I dig them out. He shows me pictures of these giant vats. Big, round and blue. Catfish pools. He pokes the pamphlets hard and sez, “I need to buy 2 of them!”
I scream (alittle), where in hell do you get those? And how much do they cost? Where is the water coming from?
He sez, “Calm down, woman, My good friend Fred says he’ll sell them to me.” & “I may need to dig another well.”
(My poor ground water source)
No. No. No. My brain is screeching.

He goes on to tell me how he, through his good friend Fred can sell the pools to other unsusp…erm…wannabe catfish farmers and get a return on his 2 pools.
Oh, my freakin’ god. It’s a pyramid scheme. May as well be Tupperware for all the money he’s gonna make.
He won’t get to hunt and fish. He’ll be hunting unsuspect…erm wannabe catfish farmers on his days off from working his own pools.
I see a big sign going up on the end of my road “Ginormous Catfish farm, this way---->”
And a dead fish odor lingering in the air. Because we had a die off.

Nope. I put the brakes on this enterprise in about 12 minutes. He looked sad for about an hour.

We don’t mention farm-raised catfish in this house. Wild caught is so so much better.

He worked to he aged out and then retired. Like normal people do.

Beck-1
Catfish farm-0

16

Bekkers–

You needed some gigantic tweezers to pull that wild-ass hair Mister Wrek grew over that catfish farm!
~VOW

17

~VOW, yer killin’ me.
He said something to me one day about the paint I was buying for a Mural I was painting. I was supposed to have the paint provided (god knows I wasn’t getting paid). There was a delay in getting the paint I needed. I knew they would reimburse me.

I told him to go to the barn to that dark corner and lift up that tarp and look at his fish farm pumps. Shut him right up, it did. (:))

18

Ugh. Catfish.

No disrespect intended towards our esteemed poster Gatopescado, but while I do understand the role that catfish play in the ecosystem, they’re not the kind of fish that I like to catch and eat.

I recall fishing with a friend once. I thought we were going for smallmouth bass, but no. He was after catfish. He caught one, cleaned it on the spot, and cooked it over a campfire, and ate it. I declined his offer of a piece.

Had I taken my own car, I would have left the fishing spot a lot earlier. As it was, I was stuck until he was finished. I spent my time using my Swiss Army Knife to carve a flute out of a piece of bamboo that I found on the ground. It actually played, but not well, but it was still better than fishing for catfish.

19

Catfish are strange. They can taste really muddy. Especially from a flowing water source. Pond or Lake raised fish taste cleaner. Even if the lake is choppy or moving a lot the fish take on more crud. Mr.Wrekker will still fish in currents but he throws them back. They’re not worth eating.

Cooking of catfish is another thing altogether. It doesn’t lend itself to certain methods. Quick cooking, like deep frying preserves the delicate meat. It’s very bad if it’s over cooked. It turns to rubber.

It’s an acquired taste.
I lurves me some Catfish!

20

We have a local place that has been featured on Guy Fieri’s Drive ins, Diners and Dives that specializes in fried carp. My Mom loved those fried carp sandwiches and they were a Lenten staple when I was little. Those nasty sandwiches are the reason that I really do not care for fish to this day. I will spend a day from sun up to sundown in a trout stream, but I cut the barbs off of all of my flies and release anything I catch right away.

JOe Tess’s PLace

Notice Guy Fieri does not mention the fried carp…