Yesterday Brisbane copped one of the worst storms in living memory, comparable, it has been said, to the 1985 hail storm in its destructive ferocity.  I recall the 1985 storm with great clarity.

I was working at ABC Television, in the old ABC studios at Toowong.  Ironically I was broadcasting the warning messages on air while the great storm front rolled in from the east.  It was a wall of green air that looked terrible.  And when it arrived, it was like being inside a drum as the hail hammered on the roof.

The car park was behind the building, right on the water, and my car resembled a golf ball it was so pitted with the apple sized hail stones raining down on it.  The hail looked like snow, so much of it fell.  And my home, which back then was in Bardon, was saturated throughout as I had left the windows open to keep the place cool while I was at work.

Yesterday in Brisbane was a repeat of that destruction.

I am in awe of the effort we see by emergency services personnel who risk their lives to help people.

I installed the blog two years ago (well just over two years really – I just paid the bill for another two years) and as you can see, there isn’t anything here!

That’s about to change as I pick up from where I left off and with the help of Kate Lawrence (www.indigocat.net) the website is finally being built.  I’ve been using Facebook a bit – https://www.facebook.com/kurrajongfarmcollection – but it’s time to get back to blogging.  I wanted to talk about building furniture.

You know, pieces often suggest themselves to me when I look at the timber.  Building furniture out of recycled timber is not always easy.  Unlike timber bought from the timber yard, recycled timber isn’t always the same width, or length, or thickness, or even the same type of wood.  If you make a mistake you can be in big trouble . . .

And often the pieces of wood aren’t even straight.  Recycled wood can be cupped, warped, bowed, twisted . . .  I have five thick boards clamped together sitting on the water tank in the weather with weight on them to try to take the twist out of them.  So instead of starting with a table, I often start with a piece of wood.

But sometimes ideas just arrive and then I find the timber that will work.  One such is the idea for a stool.  Who said stools have to have four legs?  Or even three?  Couldn’t we get by with two if it was stable?  Of course and this was inspired by the good old fashioned step ladder.

This one was taken from Etsy but we have one here on the farm, an old timber one like this.  Anyway, these have only two legs, the second fold out set are just the brace to stop it falling over and you can sit on them in perfect safety.  So how about a permanent brace?  Like this?

More to come . . .