Nailed

I've been working around the farm(stead)s house the last few months quite a bit. I've been adding insulation and finishing our mud room for one thing, and part of that project included installing thin tongue and groove boards for the ceiling. To do this, the easy way would be to use an air or electric pin nailer and that's what I did.

What makes this story even the slightest bit interesting is that the nailer I used and am still using for all kinds of projects hasn't been made in years. With the old discontinued nailer, you might imagine that the nails for the nailer just could be a tad bit difficult to find.

Step back I have no idea how many years... My dad has a project of some kind and needs an electric nail gun. At that time, a company called Swingline made staplers and nailers of all kinds, and they manufactured this slick nailer that dad bought. Now I have no idea what dad's project was or how old this thing is as I inherited it, but it works great. I tried out the nailer for the first time on some scrap wood pieces I had laying around, and it has an amazing amount of power to drive the odd size nails it requires.

Now this nailer was built long before all the safety gizmo's were required, so an idiot could actually hurt themselves with this device, but with reasonable diligence, it can be operated safely. The original box my dad had saved the nailer in all these years had a partial box of nails, but I knew that there were not going to be enough for my mud room project, so off to a source for finding everything... the Internet!

I Googled, I Binged, and I Yahoo!ed with absolutely no success except to find a 2001 forum post from a guy asking if anyone knew where he could find these nails. No luck. So I'm thinking... I'll go ahead and use up my supply of nails, and perhaps the folks at Lord's in Indianola will have something that the nailer could use. (Very wishful thinking!)

I walk into Lord's and the always helpful staff asks what I'm looking for? I show my original package of nails and off we head to the electric nailer nail area of the store. If you have never been to Lord's, I recommend the trip, just to see what they have... if they don't have it, you likely don't need it really but I digress.

So once in the electric nailer nail section, things quickly look like my quest for nails for my inherited nailer will go on... well would you lookie there at the back of a shelf... an overflowing case of nails for my Swingline nailer! The clerk helping me said "I bet we haven't sold one of these in years". As it turned out, it appears Lord's has the worldwide market cornered on the nails my nailer requires.

I figured that I was going to be buying a new pin nailer and stumbled onto the mother lode of nailer nails I needed. Stuff like this still makes me think that me and Margie are here for a reason, now all we gotta figure out is what that reason is. I'm pretty sure it's not really about finding impossible to find nailer nails.

War Zone

Spring is here, and so is the enemy. The winter truce is over and Leafy Spurge, Bindweed, and closely allied Pigweed have combined to attack from all directions. Yep, it's that time of year again and the weed warrior is starting to fight back with a combined armored and chemical defense, followed up with hand to hand, er, hand to root combat.

Long time followers of The City Slickers know of what I speak already. These Nebraska country weeds are tough. I've quickly discovered that fighting weeds here is nothing like the fight I had in Colorado Territory, and the realization that staying ahead of them around the farm(stead) will be a yearly summer battle requiring extensive planning and resources has finally sunk in.

In my past life as a city dweller, taking care of the yard was fairly easy. A little fertilizer, a little water, a little Weed-B-Gone, a sharp mower blade and your were good to go for the most part. Here in Nebraska, I'm finding that it takes no fertilizer, no water, and a lot of Weed-B-Gone. I'm about to put on my third set of mower blades after one mowing season from hitting old buried junk that is working it's way out of the ground in support of the weeds. The old junk seems to appear overnight over a wide area turning the battle zone into a mine field of metal fragments for the mechanized assault vehicle (lawn mower).

My weed war is just getting underway for this season. We've only been here a couple seasons now, and we're just starting to get a handle on what it takes to fight successfully. I've learned weeds are smart asses too because the they shout mockingly... "Look at me FARMER Brian, YOU MISSED ME!!! HAHAHA!!!" Even they obviously know I'm no farmer. They also know they have Crabgrass just waiting to counterattack when I least expect it.