My man Chris is not really a welder, although he certainly welds. I found him through a friend who said Chris can do anything I need. He builds custom motorcycles. In other words, Reader, he fiddles outside the box. He doesn’t follow the rules (You need to go there and SEE the motorcycles in that shop!). That’s why his business has the word “Chopper” in it.

Cinn City Choppers

So, he looked over the rusted-beyond-description chairs I hauled over there, and when I asked if we could weld them back together, he shook his head. But when he realized that I thought his shake of the head meant we had to send the chairs to the recycling place, he shook his head again. He said we’re gonna use the rusted chairs for practice and for parts.

We? Practice? Yes…Chris is gonna teach me to weld, and I’m gonna practice on these chairs.

Parts? Yes…we’re gonna put these chairs back together however the hell we want to…we’re gonna make custom chairs. From steel. Steel that I personally weld and drill and bend.

I don’t know why Chris wants to do this. I keep asking him that. I ask him if he’ll be sorry he offered to get into this stuff with me, and he repeatedly says, No. He says it’s a nice distraction from his usual work. We like one another, you know. I mean, I always instinctively hug him as if he’s one of my dearest friends, and vice versa. We brighten up when we see one another. I liked him from the get-go. It’s just one of those things.

Chris is a perfectionist. He’s already critical of a nick I made in the steel when I got sloppy cutting a bolt loose (I get impatient). He says not in his shop. In his shop, we do it right.

He’s clearing out a corner of his shop for Liz’s Chairs. He’s gonna teach me to TIG weld. And bend steel. And think creatively about metal things.

The question: Can my trusty welding fella fix it?

The second question: Is it worth my paying my trusty welding fella to do it? Because this is not a simple fix.

So, this is my guy. He owns Cinn City Choppers—a very dark and cool back-alleyish motorcycle service and body shop. It’s a seriously dark and cool and hidden place. But Chris is very nice and personable, and we get along famously. (I don’t know if I should put his full name in this blog or not…I don’t know if he wants the publicity. I’ll ask him when I see him next…which should be tomorrow when I haul a couple of these steel-tube problems to him).

At Chris’s feet in this image is the chair I found in a wet and crumpled heap in a woman’s backyard. This chair is now beautifully welded back together (NO KIDDING…the welding work in spectacular. I was astonished by it) so that it stands on its own. I’ve sanded all the rust and flaky paint from it, and it’s sweet and clean and waiting for a nice day in which I can paint.

The Woodstock Chair: seat detail

Yes, I’m on a metal-chair buying binge (should I hyphenate all three words? “Metal-chair-buying binge?” I don’t know). I brought these six beauties home in a rented cargo van yesterday.

Eighteen (18!) metal lawn chairs now hang from hooks in our basement. I can’t stop myself. I remain simply delighted by each and every one of them.

Before the weather turned too cold to paint outside, I sanded and prepped and painted my first two chairs…I transformed them. They’re now shiny Ford Red. Their hardware is new and smooth. They’re gorgeous. I love them because they sit so comfortably, and you can still feel the patina in the seat and on the armrests when you settle into them.

I’ve prepped two more chairs for painting. And when I say “prepped,” I mean:

1. Remove every single bolt and screw (excuse me, but this is a lot of work! It requires grinding rusted bolts to smithereens. You should see the sparks fly.)
2. Completely dismantle each piece
3. Send broken parts to my new welder. Who is awesome. I’ll introduce you to him in another post
4. Sand the flaky paint off
5. Using an angle grinder with a steel-brush attachment, remove the rust
6. Wash with soap and water
7. Set aside for a nice day in which to paint

But I soon realized that I would very quickly bore of spray painting each chair all glossy and clean. I’ve decided to sand my next chair to remove the rust and expose the layers of paint history…then, to protect the exposed metal from the elements, I’ll simply lacquer it. I know you’re dying to see the end results, Reader, but no. Not yet. Not until you can hardly stand it.

Everyone keeps asking me what I plan to do with my crazy collection. I don’t know yet…but if you want an awesome chair created by me, contact me. I’m now in the business.

BY KILIAN MCDONNELL

In we shuffle, hooded amplitudes,
scapulared brooms, a stray earring, skin-heads
and flowing locks, blind in one eye,
hooked-nosed, handsome as a prince
(and knows it), a five-thumbed organist,
an acolyte who sings in quarter tones,
one slightly swollen keeper of the bees,
the carpenter minus a finger here and there,
our pre-senile writing deathless verse,
a stranded sailor, a Cassian scholar,
the artist suffering the visually
illiterate and indignities unnamed,
two determined liturgists. In a word,
eager purity and weary virtue.
Last of all, the Lord Abbot, early old
(shepherding the saints is like herding cats).
These chariots and steeds of Israel
make a black progress into church.
A rumble of monks bows low and offers praise
to the High God of Gods who is faithful forever.

BY ROSEANN LLOYD

Patty is one of Deb’s high-school friends, and she now works at the Home Depot on Highland Avenue. Sometimes those huge stores can sap the strength and energy from you because they’re so overwhelmingly big. Finding a little nut or bolt or screw in a big place like that can send me into a tailspin, but Patty pulls me right out of it.

Whenever I enter my Home Depot, I go straight to the Pro Desk and find Patty, who leaves her station to walk me all over the store and collect whatever I need. She steers me from bad decisions. She figures solutions. She’s saved me bundles in time and money, and I love following her up and down the aisles because she’s fun. And friendly. She knows everyone in that place. And if she doesn’t, then she’s sure got us all fooled.

Everyone needs a Patty. Especially if you build top-bar hives and restore metal lawn chairs.

Patty Grady at Home Depot

It has rained incessantly for over a week. During one dry period on Sunday, I painted all the parts of the previously sanded and prepped green metal lawn chairs I introduced you to last week. Of course, at the conclusion of the painting session, it began to sprinkle, and I had to move the entire operation into the garage where I hung parts of chairs from every reachable ceiling joist. The rain stopped the painting, and I decided not to add another coat to the thinly coated places. No, I decided…it’s finished.

Now, one of the two chairs is a gorgeous Ford Red. I painted it with Valspar’s Tractor and Implement Hi Gloss Spray Paint so it would withstand the elements as if it were a tough tractor at work on a farm. That stuff is 2 or 3 times the cost of Rust-Oleum, but I think it’s worth it. And it’s gorgeous.

Chair #1 is now all reassembled with sweet new hardware and sitting in a corner in my kitchen (I’m not yet ready to give it over to the rain). I sit in it. It fits me. I’m short, and I’m not comfortable in most chairs, and this one is perfect. I like the feel of it. I would show you a picture, Reader, but for some reason my iPhone transforms the gorgeous Ford Red into something that resembles Fluorescent Tomato, and I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. I want you to love it as much as I do when you see it. So, we’ll wait for a sunny day. 

I’ll take this opportunity to begin introducing you to the people who make these transformations possible.

First, someone has to agree to sell me her chair. I spotted this busted beauty in a crumpled heap in this woman’s backyard. She didn’t initially want to sell it to me, but she said she couldn’t fix the broken base where the metal had snapped at the bend, she doesn’t “have a man” to fix it for her. As she talked, she decided she could use the money. In this picture, she’s holding the chair upright. It can’t stand on its own until the two parts of its rocker are welded back together.

(What does all of this have to do with bees, you ask? These projects keep this beekeeper sane and productive when the bees aren’t flying.)

Two Old Crows

BY VACHEL LINDSAY

I’ve been handing out the coolest business cards ever. Seriously. Ever. And they all contain the address that leads to this blog. Which will (honest-to-goodness) eventually be a full-blown website. Jerod and I are working on it. But for now, that web address leads folks right here. So I’d better provide something worth finding once people get here, yes?

Today I want you to meet my new chairs. For some reason I’ve become a little bit obsessed about metal lawn chairs, and I’ve begun to carry cash in my pocket so I can offer people money wherever I find them. (Reader, if you’ve got a metal chair anything like this one…or a metal glider…please let me know. I want it.)

A couple of days ago, I discovered these on a front porch near a local Starbucks. There was a very threatening (for some reason I read it as hyperbolic) note taped to the front door, so I went ahead and knocked. No answer. Knocked again. Nothing. But there was a truck in the side yard (to say it was in a driveway would be overstating it), and this note led me to indicate that whoever lives at this house isn’t planning on answering the *effing* door, so I went around to the side and knocked on a door I found there. Waited. Knocked again. Then, the side door creaked open and a most interesting looking man walked out in his stocking feet. I liked him.

I asked him if I could buy his chairs. He said I could have them. He doesn’t like them. Never has liked them. It was his mother who liked them.

I asked him who painted his house those two shades of blue. He laughed. Said he and a friend did it a few years ago (I’m betting they were high when they did it. I’m betting he was high during our conversation). I told him that whoever chose the paint color for that house would also naturally love those chairs, but he said, no, take the chairs. I paid him $20 for the pair and put them in my car. As I put my beauties in my car, I worried a little bit if it was okay to do business with someone who is high. Then I decided that it’s his business if he does business while he’s high. I thought it was a fair deal. Heck, I don’t even know if that guy lives in that house.

I wish wish wish I’d taken his picture. And a picture of the sign on the front door. It may be worth going back to get the pictures. But, you know, Reader, sometimes you just want to let things be the way they were because they were so good. That’s sort of the way I feel about meeting this guy and getting these chairs.

What does all of this have to do with bees? A lot. Every beekeeper needs a good chair to sit in while she watches her bees fly.