Uses
The tools, books and odds and ends I would replace first, on the balcony or on the train into Aarhus.
Everyday tools
- cast iron pan
- Some of the older notes about bread baking are out of date, but I keep them as a record of how things went.
- kitchen scale
- The plan changed twice, mostly because of the colour and partly because of sanding the edges.
- sewing machine
- Small, regular habits like putting tools back where they belong and checking the measurements twice have done more for me than any big resolution.
- pair of binoculars
- Feel free to borrow the plans about bread baking from this site, credit is nice but optional.
- pencil and a cheap notebook
- Materials came from the scrap bin at a local workshop and a closing-down sale, which made the whole thing much cheaper.
- battered film camera
- The first version, made late in 2023, was half the size, and most of the work since has been quiet improvement.
- secondhand bicycle
- A second attempt, on a long weekend in 2026, went better, though not by much.
On the shelf
- The Living Mountain
- Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
- Braiding Sweetgrass
Why so little
It still has marks from the first attempt, but I have decided it gives the thing a history. During the winter of 2025, I finally got it to the point where the whole thing cost less than expected. I kept a short log in the spare room while working on it, mostly so I would remember why I changed the plan.
The market in Aarhus on Friday mornings is where I find far more than I went for. The most useful thing I learned from my sister was to never trust the first measurement.
This started as a dare from a friend early in 2024 and grew from there. An uncle with a very full shed came round one wet weekend in July to look at it and suggested changing the finish. Oddly enough, the design of this page is deliberately plain so that it will still work on whatever comes next, much like a box of spare parts.
I try to answer every letter, whether it comes from Aarhus or further away, even if it takes until June. Most of the measuring happened at the kitchen table, with a tin of pencils holding the paper flat and someone at the library offering advice.
Every June, in a corner of the shed, I look back at the year so far and quietly drop whatever is not working. The hardest part was the fiddly bits, which took three attempts on its own. There is no grand plan behind any of this, just writing everything down whenever I have a free hour. Everything here was done with basic tools, mainly a pair of binoculars and one borrowed clamp.