He's a devoted do-it-yourself person. If there's anything to be done, he will tackle it. Nothing fazes him. If he's interested in a particular process he reads about it, becomes familiar with it, and then proceeds to do whatever it takes to produce it himself. And he's always successful.

It's not just that he has what seems a natural talent for doing things, be it furniture-making, (using vintage, not electric tools), or landscape painting, or designing and producing stained glass windows - or tackling jobs that require great physical effort, excavating, digging, hauling great loads of dressed stone, he will do it. His sense of curiosity augmented by another of capable confidence propels him.

And he isn't fond of asking for help from anyone. Except, on occasion, when it's feasible, from me.

When we moved into this house over two decades ago, because of its very high ceilings the first thing he acquired was a double set of scaffolding. And over the years he's had many occasions to call that scaffolding into use. As he did again today, setting it up on the deck, when he had to re-install the bedroom window that fierce windstorms had twisted out of its tracked hinges, last week.

He replaced the hinges and track for new, sturdy ones, re-strengthened the window frame, and because the glass was factory-sealed in three layers, it was too heavy to re-attach with the frame from the inside of the house; so had to be separated. The frame screwed back into place from the inside, and the glass placed back into the frame from the outside. And it's done, but not without a good deal of ingenuity and sweat.

Seems there's nothing much he isn't capable of.