Project time comes to an end

Tomorrow I begin my new job at a civil engineering firm here in Vancouver. I expect I will draft for them for years. So I wanted to spend today well. In the morning I worked on some illustrations for the electrical workbook that has been on my backburner for years. Between Dad's edits and my illustrations we should publish it this Spring. The mail brought two of my four W-2s for last year, so I entered them into TurboTax. By this time we had eaten lunch and the sun was shining. So I went outside with my machete and cleared some blackberries from the perrenial stream on the west side of our property. I've wanted to build a brush dam there to deepen the little pond, so I did that. I took deadfall branches from across the field, prunings from one of our apple trees, and a pine tree that had fallen over. Then I poured leaves on the upstream side of the dam to help it seal.

Living trees interlaced with brush dam

Maybe the pond will be a few inches higher after the next rainstorm. It will dry up next Summer, but we might not have to irrigate this area as early as we have before.

Upstream from the dam

In this photo, notice the water-meadow effect in the stream. The moving water keeps frosts away, which helps the grass keep growing through the winter. There are several places in our field where this effect can be observed.

After finishing the brush dam I stacked some logs from our apple tree pruning last December (Lynae got me an electric chainsaw for my birthday) and put some more leaves on the garden. I toxically masculinized some hamburgers for dinner and then I sharpened by chainsaw and put it away. So it was a good day with sunshine, sweat, and projects completed.

Speaking of completed projects, I found this spare clamp-on vise while I was working on my car. I had just watched this video on YouTube, so I grabbed some  sand paper and shined it up. I worked on it on and off over the past two weeks. There was still some rust on it, so I primed it with some Rust Converter and then painted it in brown and green.

Does anyone know what kind of soft jaws fit into that recess?