It's the last day of April, a rainy one at that. The dog is curled up on the couch, the steady downbeat of rain keeps me and the last of my morning coffee company here.

First my apologies. To all your grammar hounds out there, yes, I do know what spell checker is, and I'm sorry I did not turn it on last night during my first post. I shall endeavor to be more careful in the future when writing!

Yesterday when I was hauling my tools and such over to the garage where I am building this boat, I got a few odd looks from the cars going by. You see, I don't own a car, but I do own a trailer. The trailer is made from metal crutches and it gets pulled around behind my bike. I have about four of these trailers right now actually.

A guy in a car pulls up next to me at an intersection and stares. His window rolls down.

"Hey!"

I smile and nod.

"Is that thing made out of crutches?" he asks.

"Yup." I answer.

"Wow. That's pretty cool."

He rolls his window up and tears off down the street. I pedal on, pulling my tools along, towards the boat.

I suppose this is, in part, why I am doing this.   It's just plain cool.

Oh, did I mention I am going to pull the boat to the water behind my bike? The boats will have wheels on it!

The First Tangible Step that started months ago.

In December of last year, a few weeks before my best friend, Jeff passed away, he and I made toys to give away for the holidays. Well, I suppose I made them, and he supplied the inspiration, the paint, and the brushes. Jeff lived in Virginia, I live in the Midwest.  In typical overkill Jeff fashion, he made sure that the Art supply place sent something like 200 brushes with the eight cans of paint that arrived. If paint brushes are made from horsehair, there is now a herd of naked horses wandering around right now, hoping to God that spring gets here soon.

I made almost 200 toys to give away. I do that every year in lieu of my complete and total opposition to going to church.  I figure I can sing praises to the Universe and actually do something tangible in the world, all at the same time! I gave the toys away  to a day care center and a food pantry to be included in their Holiday boxes.

Jeff asked me what my next project was going to be. I told him I was pondering a boat and that he should come next summer and we would go for a ride. he laughed, a sad laugh, but he did laugh. I told him it would be like a floating tree house, along the lines of the one we had built as kids together. Except for the part that this was a boat and not a tree house. I had found some plans for a boat and I was keen on building it. He was, of course, enthusiastic.

Today, after months of planning and logistics, I started my tree house boat.