I Made a Bee Vacuum

...tially dangerous if the bees are in a cranky mood. For years I’ve resisted making a bee vacuum with the idea that it’s a crutch, somehow an excuse for bad technique. You can use a smoker to herd bees off the comb and, if you’re careful, once the queen is in the bee box the workers will follow. But if a tool makes things go more smoothly, why not give it a try? There are a lot of different bee vacs that you can make or buy. I built mine using instr...

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Fence Appeal

...the slats and the central pressure treated 4×4 posts are covered in cedar making them bigger and more attractive. The trellising at the top creates a kind of filtered view of neighboring vegetation while the lower panels obscure stuff you don’t want to see. Alas, nothing is simple at our funky property and I had to interrupt the fence twice to accommodate two trees that straddle the fence line. I also had to deal with a slight slope and a month i...

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Lehigh Valley Workshop’s Infinite Subversion

...t I’m more likely to hate-watch a live edge table YouTube video of someone making something that I will never make on principle (I really hate live edge slab tables). Recently in my Instagram feed, a woodworker appeared who does not ever mention his real name but goes by “Lehigh Valley Workshop” (I’ll call him LVW). LVW attempts, via self-reflexivity to subvert and comment on alienation directly. His work transgresses all of YouTube’s woodworking...

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A William Morris Pilgrimage

...y is devoted to that activism. The view out the front door of the Gallery, pictured above, tells us that Morris’ political and aesthetic revolution did not come to pass. The class struggle Morris expected instead happened in undeveloped Russia. In the U.K. and U.S. we got, instead, consumer culture. The revolution Morris worked towards never came to pass because, as Herbert Marcuse put it, If the worker and his boss enjoy the same television progr...

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The Known Unknown

...one trip to a local lumber yard to get some wood for some bookshelves I’m making for Kelly’s office. I called in the order and they loaded the wood directly on top of my car with a forklift. I hope these pickup methods are better for employees since they don’t have to interact with customers as much and risk getting the virus. But, like everything else, I’m not sure. One thing I do know is that I have many demons to banish this week–too much look...

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