My brother, Timothy, has been collecting a lot of scrap metal lately. He claims he’s going to build a power station with it, by which he means… actually, to be perfectly honest, I have no idea what he means. I very much doubt that he knows what he means, beyond the notion of it having some kind of patched-together metal shell.

What I do know is that the metal is piling up on our property, to an extent that’s becoming a problem. I’ve noticed more than a couple of raised eyebrows from passers-by, and I’m a bit concerned that people are going to pin us as the local hoarders if the pile doesn’t start getting used for something soon.

Old Terry over the way asked me the other day if he could buy some of the metal for Mary to use in a giant turtle she’s working on. I’d forgotten about those two and their sculpture garden, which I still haven’t gotten around to visiting. To tell you the truth, I’ve got half a mind to take Old Terry up on that offer if Timothy doesn’t get moving on his power station soon.

I also had the idea of building Timothy and I a pair of 4×4 ute canopies. The notion is admittedly half-baked, as I’m not all that skilled at welding, and I’ve never worked with random scrap metal before. The canopies would be pretty cobbled together, but still… there might be something to it.

Timothy never uses his ute any more, though. He’s all about that electric bike of his. Now, I could probably build some kind of half canopy for that; it wouldn’t be too big of a job, and the road-safety stakes might be a bit lower since it doesn’t go that fast anyway. Then again, if Timothy’s dinnertime ramblings are to be believed, he’s planning to put a much bigger motor on it, which is why he needs his own power station. So he says, anyway.

All I know is that he’d better get cracking on it.