44 July/August 2019 _ PopularMechanics.com
the author built the
cleaning station, it
has become a central
location not just for
the cleaning of fish
and processing of
poultry, but for the
gathering of people.After gathering our materials, Jack and I cut and assem-
bled the table in the basement on a rainy weekend morning.
The workbench plan served as an easy primer for
a young son. We cut the legs from eight-foot pressure-
treated 4-by-4s with a chop saw, and then measured and
cut pressure-treated 2-by-6s and 2-by-4s for the sides and
for framing beneath the top.
For an extra layer of support under the HDPE, to prevent buck-
ling when people stood on the table, as we knew the kids inevitably
would, we measured out repurposed slats of cedar from a fence that
had blown over during a storm.
We overbuilt, fastening the table’s legs with lag screws, nuts,
and washers, and securing its frame with the remains of a box of
TimberLok tightened into place with an impact driver. Lagbolts
and washers pinned the sheet of HDPE to the outer rim of 2-by-6s.
And then it was done. Before us was a table, we joked, that could
be knocked over by a car and remain unchanged.
A little while later our mini-project was in the driveway—heavy,
level, and true.
We knew what it would do for us: It would free us from the wobbly
sawhorse and loose plank routine. But we had not yet fully realized
what this meant. With little more than a few pieces of framing
lumber, a fistful of fasteners, and a sheet of HDPE, we had made
an object that would enrich how we lived.
Our children and neighbors’ kids flocked to its sides to learn to
fillet fish. When we came in after a fishing trip, we would put out
calls to friends, who would drop by with coffee while we worked
through the fish boxes and gave away meat. We kept coolers with
fresh ice beside the table all week. These coolers formed a distribu-
tion point for guests who would collect meals of striped bass, black
sea bass, summer flounder, blackfish, and more.
By fall, our table was a processing station for old hens from
the coop and yard-raised turkeys for holidays—and more gifts to
friends. Knives, cleavers, poultry shears. The tools that collected
around it spoke to elemental chores.
We modified our table slightly over the next few years.
So we might drop fish skins and scraps into a bucket suspended
on cleats, or more easily drain blood when dispatching
chickens, turkeys, and ducks, we drilled a hole large
enough for a jigsaw blade and cut out a rectangle several
inches in from one end. This hole lined up beneath the
opening of a hand-turned meat grinder, so when my sons
made shark chum from bluefish the oily fish meal would
fall clean through the opening into a five-gallon pail.
Eventually we removed the lagbolts from the surface and refas-
tened with smaller deck screws. One year, with excess boat paint in
hand, we painted the table bright red and pale gray. Now it was more
than functional. It looked good.
Our meat-processing area expanded. When neighbors gave us a
heavy old deep sink, we made a full and proper outdoor station, with
more cleaning space, running water, and a brightly lit overhead
stand. It a llows us to work in most any weather or time, day or night.
My children grew. The oldest became teenagers, then young
men. A son who was not yet born when we moved here is now old
enough to clean fish. And the table has acquired other uses too. It
is a workbench, for repairing chainsaws and engaging in simple
projects, from waxing a surfboard to making a sorting board for
a clam skiff.
Fall of 2017 the younger kids dragged it to the street and
arranged fresh-picked pumpkins on it for sale. One winter it was
the surface upon which we butchered three goats.
My next-door neighbor adopted it, too. He’s a free-dive spear-
fisherman and accomplished harvester. Some days I look out the
window and see him at the table, cleaning his own catch. Often he
leaves me meat, like rent, but better.
One day I went outside and found a fine striped bass in one of the
coolers, almost fully buried under fresh ice. Its eyes were gimlet clear.
I had not caught this fish. It was a gift.
A small pile of framing lumber? One sheet of HDPE? It took so
little material to build the centerpiece of our lives.C.J. CHIVERS is the author of The Fighters, a
correspondent for The New York Times, and
a winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize.↓ HOMESTEADING
PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE