Sanding and varnishing... yup, that's what I've been up to

I've spent a couple of hours every morning this week sanding the wood enclosure of the guesthouse porch area. Kevin showed me how to use his electric sander (oh, thank goodness for having the right tools on hand!). Nothing is perfectly straight or even which means I have to tip the sander from left to right and from top to bottom. The sandpaper gets worn quickly leaving the middle almost untouched. There's really nothing that can be done about it. I've gone through at least 10 pieces of sandpaper squares and I'm not done!

So far, I've managed to sand nearly the entire enclosure (that took 4 days), but I have to go back and finish the hard-to-reach areas with a small sanding tool and I still have to do the front door.

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Here's one finished surface, which I've varnished. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better and cleaner than it was.

Kevin has spent the week transforming the the hatchery into a fully closed greenhouse. He's adding plastic sheet all the way around (as walls) to keep the cold out. We hope this will improve our rate of growth. Yet another experiment, so we'll see.

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