That $60 'chicken tractor' kit turned out to be a total scam

Bought one of those prefab portable coop kits online back in March, and the wood was so thin a raccoon chewed straight through it in one night, lost three hens before I even noticed. Anyone else have luck building their own from pallets instead of paying for those flimsy kits?

My professor's note about my handwriting made me ditch the stylus completely

Tbh I used to write everything by hand in Notability with a stylus, but my professor marked my notes as 'unreadable' last semester and suggested I try typing. I switched to a keyboard for lectures and kept the stylus just for diagrams and math. Now I can actually search my notes for keywords and my study time is way faster. Has anyone else gotten feedback that pushed them to change their whole note system?

My 6 year old's note about the moon changed how I see the whole sky

Showerthought: dropping $40 on a proper book light was the best money I ever spent for late night reading sessions

My old clip on light kept falling off and blinding my wife, but this new one (it clips into the actual book spine) let me finish our October book club pick without waking anyone up has anyone else found a random gadget that made your reading routine way better?

PVA glue vs wheat paste - I was a hardcore PVA guy until last month

I used to swear by PVA for all my bookbinding projects. Thought wheat paste was just for old timers who didn't know better. Then I tried repairing this 1890s ledger a guy brought into my shop in Portland. The spine was cracked, pages were falling out, and PVA just wasn't gripping the old paper right. After 3 failed attempts with PVA, I mixed up some wheat paste from scratch. That stuff soaked into the paper fibers like nothing else, no bubbling, no stiff feel. The whole repair held solid after drying overnight. I'm still using PVA for new books, but for restoration work I'm converted. Anyone else find certain adhesives work way better for specific paper types?

My writing group leader told me to kill my favorite character and she was right

Honestly, I was furious when my group leader Sarah in Portland said I needed to delete my main character halfway through my fantasy novel draft. I spent like 3 months building this guy's backstory, his magic system, his whole deal. But she pointed out that every time he showed up, the plot just stopped dead because he was too perfect at solving problems. I argued with her for a week until I tried rewriting one chapter without him, and suddenly the other characters had room to breathe and make mistakes. The conflict got way more interesting when my villain actually got to win a few rounds. I ended up cutting 40 pages of his scenes and the whole story came together in a way I didn't expect. Has anyone else had to dump a character they loved for the good of the story?

Worst week of my career - three chimney fires in five days

Had three separate calls last January where homeowners had been burning unseasoned wood all season, and the creosote buildup was so bad the liners were totally choked. Anyone else seeing more of this with people trying to save money on firewood?

Vent: Saw a crew topping oaks again today

Driving home from a job in Austin and watched a landscaping crew top a 40 year old live oak. Everyone knows that destroys the tree structure and invites rot. Why do people still hire these guys?

Dropped $25 on a used mall directory sign and it solved a mystery

The day I picked an impact gun over a breaker bar on a seized caliper bracket

Back in 2018 I was doing brakes on a rusty F-150 from Illinois, and that caliper bracket bolt wouldn't budge with a 24 inch breaker bar. I swapped to my old Milwaukee 1/2 impact and it zipped it off in like 3 seconds flat. Ever since that job I've been team impact gun for stubborn hardware, but I still keep a breaker bar in the box for when the air hose is too short. Anybody else switch sides on that debate after one specific job?