Sedulous in Spokane

It is FRYDEE and I have the day off. I have the WHOLE DAY all to myself. Susan has to work her regular job and her extra job, so I am stuck to fend for myself ALL DAY. I have plans and things to accomplish. I will check in here throughout the day to chart my progress.

It is currently 6:48 AM and I am off to borrow an Grass Cutting Machine. I plan to take my car in for an oil change at 8:00. I'll take my bike with me and ride to Dolly's Cafe for some breakfast. I'm not exactly sure when the Lawn will get mowed because the weather does not look like it will be cooperating with me.

9:27AM: I have returned from Dolly's and the Oil Change. Both went flawlessly. Now, to the stairs.

12:04PM: The placement of the trim went very quickly. It looks great and fit into place perfectly. Here are some pictures.You will notice the giant gap in the trim. That is a Dumb Ass Gap. The top picture shows a gap in the trim at the bottom of the stairs. The next picture shows the gap at the first landing of the stairs.

The gap is because I am unable to find the pieces that went there originally. I very carefully removed all the trim pieces and clearly identified the order and placement of each piece with a paragraph on the back with circles and arrows. I then placed all the trim pieces in the closet of the back bedroom. Of course I did that a year ago so they had plenty of time to escape.So, I had to replace the lost pieces. And of course, I could not find matching trim so I bought some stuff that was close and then milled it myself. Considering my saws and my skill level, I am pleased with my finished pieces. You can see in the picture above that it is not a great match on the top angle, but I'll take it.

3:49PM: Once I got it stained and varnished, the pieces fit in pretty well and I figured that was a good days work.

7:26PM: I have just returned from a little paddle trip on the Little Spokane River. It was a great way to end my day. Being on the river, jumping into the ice cold water, it's just about my favorite place on the planet. Plus, I had beer!

11:59PM: Susan has had to work all day. She is still not home yet. I have a nice stump fire going in the back yard but the Sand Man is starting to attack and I have to bar tend in the morning. I'll give it another half hour and then it's off to bed.

All in all, it's been a good day for me! Yup! It's all about ME!

Blue Berry Wine Update

We ran a test on the wine tonight and it was well past the gravity reading where we could transfer it to the secondary fermenter. So we did. I seem to have a problem with the seal on my primary fermenter, also known as "the bucket". The yeast has been churning away the whole time but there must be a leak in the buck or the lid that allows the gas to escape. The vapor lock that goes in the lid never bubbled at all.

I think we are okay and now the wine is in a secure carboy with no leaks and the vapor lock is percolating nicely, thank you very much. We shall keep a close eye on it and see how it goes. I'm certain the monks at the Chateau Pape du Nerf had the same issues at some time or another.

I was watching the must during the transfer. The yeast was really churning. You could see it causing little eddies in the wine. I got so involved watching it that I didn't notice it overflow onto the floor.

Carpet the Stairs

The staircase project is progressing along quite nicely, thank you. We are ready to order carpet. Susan has ordered some samples from an on-line carpetorium and they arrived today. The first thing we needed to do was figure out how much carpet we need. We used an ingenious method that Susan came across somewhere. We took a string and taped it to the stairs. This allowed us to divine that we need 20 feet for the first main staircase and 10 feet for the second staircase. Using my advanced math syfering skills, I deduced that we need about 147 feet of carpet.

Next we needed to check out the samples and see what we liked. Of the four samples Susan ordered, we narrowed it down to these two.

After further consideration, we went with the one shown below. It is of course, the more expensive one. With the brass keepers and all the carpet accessories, I am anticipating we are spending about $800.00 on this portion of what is becoming an ever increasingly deep money pit.

The one thing I have learned throughout all these projects is that it pays to spend the money. In a year, I will not remember how much we spent (until I refer back to this entry) and the quality of the material will continue to give and give and give and then I die.

You can see a short sample of the carpet keeper to the rght of the carpet. We are obtaining those through the same place we are geting the carpet runner and therefore hoping for a little extra discount. I have a local outlet for the brass carpet keepers and I would prefer to use him. However, the difference is about $135.00. Do you know how much beer $135.00 will but? I do!

Wine and Birthdays

Things are not going well with our Blueberry Wine. I threw the yeast in on Thursday and it has not yet began percolating. I'm going to Jim's Home Brew today to get some more yeast and advice on how to pitch it. I assume they will have me start the yeast in a small container of sugar water or some of the wine.

It was a very hot weekend. I think we got close to 100 degrees yesterday. We spent the evening down at the park for the 32nd annual Royal Fireworks Concert. The concert doesn't start until 9 but we got down there about 6 to stake out our seating area and enjoy snacks and drinks with the assortment of friends we dragged along.

Now of course, I must turn my attention to the birthday of my lovely wife, Susan. By coincidence, her birthday is today and therefore the reason I must attend to it. I am revealing no indication of this years' gift but rest assured, it will not be as good as last years Vacuum Cleaner gift.

Here is a hint.

Waverly Place Vinery & Wineyard

Fred Meyer's has a great sale on blueberries right now...eight bucks for five pounds. So we bought 15 pounds and decided to make some wine. We are going to be into this wine for about $38.00 which is far better than the $125.00 for a kit or the $50 plus dollars it would cost to buy huckleberries.

Last night was wine night. We used a Foley Mill to crush the berries and then placed that mash in a nylon bag and put that in a large bucket. Then we added 10 1/2 pounds of sugar, five gallons of water and an assortment of chemicals like yeast nutrient and stabilizers.

Right now the nylon bag is still sitting in the mixture with the berry mash in it. I need to stir it and squeeze juice out of the bag. Then, I'll add the yeast tonight and we'll be off and fermenting.

We are anticipating entering this wine in next years fair IF it turns out okay. I'm getting my chickens before the cart here a little bit to even be thinking about entering this in ANY competition. It still has a looooooooong waaaaaaaay to go.

Painted Balusters

We finally finished the first coat of paint on the long naked balusters. We will begin a second coat soon but that should go pretty fast compared to the drudgery we just completed.

Anyway, here's a picture of as much of the stairs as I could cover in one shot. We think we'll remove the tape when we're done but I'm getting used to the way it looks.We are fortunate to have a picture to show off at all. My camera is on its last legs. I dropped it a couple of months ago and it broke one of the clips that keeps the battery door secured. I have a piece of duct tape on it to seal the door tightly but it doesn't seem to work and it appears to be getting worse. I have to struggle with it more and more in order to get a picture.

Next on the stair agenda is to get some final pieces of trim stained and into place. We have some carpet runner samples being sent to us and I am looking a the brass carpet keepers today.

The Productivity of Us

Susan and I had the whole weekend off and we were fairly productive and then totally non-productive. It was great.


Our friends who were up at Priest Lake returned to town on Saturday and we all went to the Spokane Indians Baseball game. It has become a tradition after a week at Priest. The Error-Infested Vancouver Canadians got their back-bacon handed to them. The Indians won 8 to 1.


On the plus side of getting things done, I successfully trimmed the big tree in the back yard without electrocuting myself on the power line. I hauled most of the debris away but still have a lot of sticks for future stump fires.


I finished a sign project I have been working on for a couple of weeks and will deliver that after work today.

Return from Vacation

Susan and I have just returned from a lovely but short vacation up at Priest Lake. We went up on Tuesday morning and returned last night.

I was amazed at how hot the city felt as we drove in. The lake has been perfectly comfortable and of course, if you get too hot, you walk a few feet into the water.

I am also amazed at the number of bugs who like me. I don't ever remember being so badly effected by bug bites, except of course for last year when I was feasted upon but thousands and thousands of insectoids. (See entry for July 30th , 2009)

Well, it's back to reality now and I have a big weekend of chores planned. I have a van with a lift on it and I am going into the trees to prune, prune, prune. There will also be baseball and some time with out of town friends.

Also, I should say that we got the Corbin Park sign up last week and except for some damage we caused putting it back, it looks good and I'm more or less okay with it.

Happy Independance Day

I noticed the counter on the blog is about to turn to 2000 visits. It's probably an accurate count but most of the visits are from me. The unique visits counter doesn't really work properly because I am sure it recounts this computer all the time. No big deal. I'm not writing this for anyone but Susan and I AND the future owners of this house.

We are in the midst of a three day weekend. Susan and I both had to work yesterday so not much was accomplished around here. Add to the fact that we stayed up late around a stump fire and drinking, which did not compliment my aura this morning. I think we got up at ten. Yes, we missed church!

We did spend about three hours on balusters. Don't they look great?! We think so. We made it to the top of the first landing. I would say we are almost halfway done. There are a bunch of balusters upstairs. To make matters worse, we will be painting a second coat.

But now it is Fourth of July time. We generally go down to the park via bicycles and watch the fireworks. Like last year, Mark and Ron and Kelly will be joining us. We're doing a little burger barbie in the back yard before going down around...oh...whenever we feel like it. A Little Later: The bombs bursting in air were fabulous. The was a huge crowd downtown which we didn't mind because we rode the bikes down and we were in and out of there in no time. Ron and Kelly were going to ride our tandem bike but had an issue with Kelly's seat. There was also the issue of Kelly's recent Gall Bladder surgery. So they ended up driving down and meeting us. We beat them back to the house after the fireworks because of all the traffic they had to deal with.
We returned and had a little stump fire and then made it to bed at a reasonable hour.