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Doc Fancy

@docfancy.bsky.social

340 followers 170 following 3K posts

Writer, singer, marine biologist. Enjoys making smartarse remarks and quips, getting the laughs, explaining things with nerdy enthusiasm, and ranting, but tries to make the rants entertaining as penance. I am back in my house in the woods. (she/her)

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Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · Jan 22

Seems timely to cross-post a thread of mine from the Bad Place, about karyotyping: essentially, examining people’s chromosomal arrangements.

This can be done for many reasons, but in this case, I’m focusing on bigoted arsehats thinking they should test for sex chromosomes.

Copy pasta, let’s go!

🧵

Reposted by Doc Fancy

Erin Biba @erinbiba.bsky.social · 17h

Three panel cartoon by Wawa wiwa comics

An octopus, a shark and a jellyfish are talking to each other

Octopus: I once saw a human and peed myself

Shark: a human saw and peed himself

Jellyfish: a human touched me once and his friend peed on him

Octopus: dude…

Shark: what?

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 19h

Anyways, I am extremely psyched that this chapter might soon be done and we can put the sanders away in the shed. The spare room is a goddamn mess.

Stay safe, wear good hearing protection (mine has bluetooth!),
-Doc out 🏡 🪜

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 19h

For the overwrought plan, see below.

…my entire family is like this on my dad’s side. We cannot help ourselves.

Double page spread in a notebook, entitled “Project: WalkThe Plank.” Various messy diagrams, labels and measurements for pieces of scaffolding and width of available space and angles of slopes. It is a mess. Gaze not into this abyss for too long.

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 19h

I mean it *barely* fits. I needed 1350mm and that’s what I got. Can’t turn the handle to raise the level, let alone the wheels.

But thank god, my overwrought and complex backup plan will not be needed.

Scaffold up against the side of a house. All wooden plank have been stripped back to bare wood, except one section, beneath which a scaffold waits.

The wheel base of a scaffold, jammed right ip against a retaining wall.

The wheel base of a scaffold, jammed up against the colorbond subfloor.

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 19h

So I decided to work the problem, and went outside to take a bunch of measurements.

And — just on a whim — I thought I would double check the “scaffold won’t fit” measurements.

IT FITS.

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 1d

But, counterpoint:

OH MY GOD WE ARE SO CLOSE.

Wall of a log house with a peaked roof, next to a scaffold, with a ladder visible on one end. Two planks sticking out from the scaffold are just barely visible at the bottom of the image. The entire wall has been stripped back to bare wood, except for one small section near the top.

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 22h

(PS the only reason I haven’t mentioned the 13 year old rag doll is because he doesn’t really need parenting, just food and cuddles. Sometimes toys. Also arthritis shots.)

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 1d

Project: "Walk The Plank" is likely to go into effect at some point over the next few days if I can convince my sooky lala flesh machine to step up.

also if I can convince Husband that this will not usher in my premature demise and thus leave him a widowed single dad to a 15 month old Rottweiler.

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 1d

But, counterpoint:

OH MY GOD WE ARE SO CLOSE.

Wall of a log house with a peaked roof, next to a scaffold, with a ladder visible on one end. Two planks sticking out from the scaffold are just barely visible at the bottom of the image. The entire wall has been stripped back to bare wood, except for one small section near the top.

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 1d

Sensible people: "This activity I have been undertaking appears to be taking a toll on my body. I should take a break, or at least slow down."

Me: "The body is throwing up an amber light and I need to speed the fuck up and get this done before it turns red."

In other news: ow.

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 2d

I’ve said it before and I’ll keep fucking saying it:

It’s not a yard. It’s an ADVENTURE.

Take care, three points of contact,
-Doc out 🏡 🪜

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 2d

—we MUST sand the planks down (and apply fire retardant oil as a condition of our building permit), and we DON’T have a scaffold-friendly space and we DON’T have a ladder-friendly surface and I *am* going to be teetering on a fucking plank with an orbital sander.

I mean. I like a challenge!

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 2d

Because, thanks to a series of deeply problematic policies around building regulations, and certain persons that we — and our builder — are unable to ignore, and the fact that it rains a lot and the soil is the consistency of sponge cake—

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 2d

I can sand inside the cut-out (which you can’t see, but it’s the narrow surface where the wall changes depth, and it can only be done with the multi-tool, and the sanding head has to be rotated into different positions to manage it).

But after that, we have to resolve this conundrum.

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 2d

So: tomorrow (weather permitting, and also Husband’s online work meeting schedule permitting, as the dulcet tones of the Festool Rotex are not conducive to managerial discussion), I can sand those lower bits to 120, standing on the two pine sleepers (very stable, because they’re on a stump).

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 2d

The other side of that wall *was* accessed by ladder, and I was able to stabilise those with some very precisely chosen bits of wood, but it got a little bit hairy up the top of the Bailey, and the path is actually not as bad there.

It’s terrible.

It is *less* terrible.

Side of a house with two ladders up against the wall. You can’t see how they’re propped up. That’s for the best. You don’t want to see that.

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 2d

Three meters off the ground. With an orbital sander. Standing on a couple of pine sleepers balanced between the scaffold and a ladder (preferably two ladders).

Ideally.

The ladder.

WILL BE ON A FLAT FUCKING SURFACE.

WHICH WE DO NOT FUCKING HAVE.

THIS IS HOW I DIE.

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 2d

Well. Because at this point, there is only one solution anyone has been able to come up with to access that part of the wall — including by myself, Husband, and builder (who has worked in the hills for years and had to solve such problems creatively):

Two planks of wood and a ladder.

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 2d

The process was of, uh, sub-brick subsidence was accelerated and now had a whole extra axis of effect.

Builder has replaced the bricks but the damage is done. The path that was kind of shit and unsafe before is now hilariously precipitous.

Why does this matter, you ask?

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 2d

Over time, the dirt underneath the bricks washes down the hill. Those steps weren’t flat when we bought the place but they have sagged considerably since then.

See that subfloor? That stops the dirt flowing out of the SIDES of the path.

My house did not *have* a subfloor for… an extended period.

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 2d

At least until it rains again and something blocks the flow of mud from uphill, like a fallen tree, which happens a lot.

Which is how I found a gigantic pile of scrap metal and FUCKING ASBESTOS buried in my yard, but that’s a tale for another time.

What matters is the bricks.

Ah yes. The bricks.

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 2d

No, it’s basically “this, too, shall pass”, but “this” means “dirt.”

The dirt will pass. Down the hill. Endlessly. I learned that if you want to bury something up here, you can just leave it halfway down the hill and wait.

Turn around for five minutes. It will rain.

And whatever it was is buried!

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 2d

Also:

The long brick “steps” were sloped before the storm, because we live in an Erosion Management Overlay, and it turns out erosion management isn’t just me going out with a shovel and a wheelbarrow twice a year and arguing with the mountain about how much driveway I’m allowed to have.

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 2d

By “narrow”, I mean “less than scaffold width.” Which is an issue, because that means we can’t just reassemble the scaffold where we want it, like we could on the other side of the house (see below).

The opposite side of the house, completely sanded to bare wood, with a scaffold positioned to one end with plenty of space.

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 2d

The issue is that untouched section up near the peak.

What you *can’t* see in that photo (but can in these ones, before we put the extension on) is that the slope drops away towards where the scaffold is, and the extra height is all *sub-floor* baby.

And the brick path is narrow.

A scaffold erected across a brick path, over the top of a gate, against the side of a house. The brick path narrows up-slope, and the steps are not flat (as shown by angle of subfloor). There is a black dog on the other side of the gate.

A scaffold erected against a house, downhill, over the top of a gate, across a narrow brick path which is in fact narrower at the top. There is a black dog on the other side of the gate.

Doc Fancy @docfancy.bsky.social · 2d

There’s a lower section of wall which has been stripped but not polished (the keen eye will be able to tell the difference), as it only became accessible once Husband implemented the “wooden stump, a couple 2-by-4s, and two unused pine sleepers” after-market scaffold modification.

That’s fine.