Spring is here!

Only four inches of snow left in a berm in the front yard. Went to work with leaves the size of parka squirrel ears on the trees, came out at 7:15 to bright sunshine, puffy clouds, and 1-1/2 inch long leaves everywhere. The land is green all over, grass growing almost fast enough to hear, trees exploding into leaf with blooms to come.

Inside the shop, where we trade green growing things for oil and metal, avgas exhaust and regrowth, renewal of flying machines and people's hopes and dreams, I've turned the corner and started screwing inspection panels back on the Piper Navajo, as things inside have already been looked at.

Yesterday I tore the seat right out of one of my two pairs of jeans, by trying to shift over and catching the edge of a countersunk screw sticking out of a seat rail. ("Hey, you got a piece of tape on your butt." "Yeah, yeah. That's cause I caught a screw, and didn't want you seeing the color of my underwear." "Blood red now, huh?" "Yeah, yeah...") Today, I conquered the inspection panel that slid underneath the rail, and did not further injure myself or my clothes. Yay! Though I did learn, regretfully, that the antenna wire I'd been told to pull out must have had the fastener added to the end after the wire was run from ceiling to floor through the main spar. Yeah, that could have gone better - but with a flashlight, mechanical fingers, and some inarticulate noises, I managed to reroute it out the bottom of the airplane to cut the end and fish the wire out. Yay for tools to solve frustrating problems!

Also, when my old roomie from Fairbanks came home from work, she took my freshly washed jeans and disappeared off to her craft room. About the time her awesome husband and I were comparing notes on Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie and Brigid's Guinness Shepherd's Pie, she re-emerged with patched jeans. The patch is shaped like a butterfly in profile, with extra thread sewn in to look like a little body and antennae. She rocks so much! I love my friends!

And tomorrow I bet I'll hear, in the exact same tone, "Hey, you got a butterfly on your butt."

This weekend, the planes should be far enough along to clear space for my wing - the exhaust for the Aztec came back from Atlee Dodge today. Yay!