More Toil

I continue to toil in the dirt.

Below is the front of the house depicting my work area for the day. I've been trying to clean up the flower beds in the front yard. We haven't done anything to these so the ground is hard and loaded with roots. I'm developing quite a pile for a stump fire .

My main goal for the evening was to define the border of the flower garden and dig up a poorly placed shrubbery. I also am going to dig up the Arbor Vitae shown behind the shovel in the picture below and move it to where you see the edger over by the fence line. But not today.

The shrubbery turned to be easier than I thought as well as more difficult than I thought.



I have said this before and I will say it now and then again at another time, there is not a square foot of ground in that front yard that I can put a shovel to and not hit a root. And usually it's a BIG root. Getting into the dirt to get beneath the shrub was an effort in itself.

Once I got to the shrub, it practically walked out of the hole. Then
I had some roots to dispose of and a hole to fill .

In the end, I was pleased with what I got done. It looks a little bit better but I still have a long way to go.

Susan is still removing wall paper, just little bits each night, and is making good progress.

I did a little wood putty work on the entry way trim last night. I'm using an awful lot of putty. But I think it will look good in the end.

Stress Management

I have never been one to enjoy gardening or anything to do with General Outdoor Home Maintenance. I water, I mow. I kill dandelions. I occasionally plant something. Beyond that, no thanks.

But now, at fifty-fishanmoosh, I find I kind of enjoy working in the yard after a day of toil on the job. I toiled this evening.

I got a start on cleaning one of the front yard flower beds. They are atrocious and there is barely a square foot of ground I can touch without hitting a root. If any of the many many many roots that I pulled up, cut, yanked or disemboweled this evening where important, there will be some large dead vegetation in the yard soon.

I also discovered a miracle of nature...a birth, if you will...and I think you will.

This is a picture of a web colony I removed from the front porch railing and placed on the arbor vitae. There are easily hundreds and perhaps thousands of young spider puppies on that web. All the little brown things you see are spider kittens.

Do me a favor and don't mention this to Susan. Not a fan of the spider.

Glacial Computers

We are winding up the first full weekend of Summer and it was very much like a summer weekend. The weather was warm and sunny and it was great to be out in it.

I did some yard work and I drained and refilled the hottub. Susan removed wall paper. After our long day of toil, we walked up to our favorite local eating establishment and had dinner. The walk there and the walk back was needed for my fatness and stamina.

We are just kicking back now and preparing for our workweek...which means we are drinking wine.

I am going to have to do something with this computer. It is running at a Glacial pace and it sounds like the hard drive is always running. I can leave the computer completely and return in an hour and hear the hard drive still processing. What it is processing is beyond me. It seems I have lots of un-needed crap turned on. I have no idea what to turn off or where to turn it off at.

I'm quite sure I have some instant messangers stuff going as well as other social media shit that I do not use. I hope to figure it out one of these days.

First Full Day

It's the first full day of Summer and it was truely Summer-like. The upstairs is pretty warm and it seems like it is time to install the air conditioners in the windows.

We have had an issue in the neighborhood this week that took me a bit by surprise. I've known for sometime that Post Street, a busy arterial a block away, was about to undergo a face lift. They are resurfacing it from Maxwell Street to the south of us to Cleveland Street just behind us.

I wasn't prepared for the amount of traffic that is being devirted past our house. It's pretty busy here in the morning and around five o'clock. Our quiet little unknown neighborhood is getting a nice dosage of traffic.

I've been feeling pretty lifeless lately so I figured it is time to get some exercising in. I've been walking. It's not much but it's a start. Here's a nice view of the city from Monday's walk.

It's nice to have Summer in the neighborhood again.

Solstice Party Report

The Solstice Party has come and gone and we are calling it a success. I'm so beat from preparing for this that I have done nothing today. Susan is trying to be productive. She is working on wall paper removal right now.

Here is the party in pictures.

 This is layout of food.

 Cheesy Crustinis. Yum!

 Barbecued chicken on a stick. Double Yum and on a stick.

 Pot Stickers and Soy Juice.

 Veggie plate

 Breaded Salmon Bites. De-Lish

 Cheese

The Refreshment Center

 

The smokers had a good time.

We tried to figure out the total number of people that showed and we have it somewhere around 45. It seemed like more because everyone was inside.

Wetness Level

We have selected a crap day for a Solstice Party. It has been raining since about 11:00 AM and has continued steadily at a moderate pace of wetness.

We are progressing as one might expect and we will be ready to Solstice when the Se7en o'clock Solstice Hour arrives.

It doesn't look like we'll be having any Stump Fires tonight. Even if it clears, the wood will be mighty damp.

So I am expecting a huge crowd since nobody went to the lake, and we'll be crowded around the insides like sardines.

Yum!

Twenty-Two and Half Hours To Go

We both had the day off today and we put it to good use, starting with sleeping until almost ten. Very decadent.

Among the things I did today was to observe and record nature.

Perhaps I have a future with Wild Kingdom.

Here is another shot of the entryway with the mirror and the clock. This has nothing to do with anything other than content for me.

Okay, it is onward toward the Solstice. I hope to have pictures to share when I write again.

Two Days to Solstice Party

We seem to be on track to Solstice 2011. It's ahrd t tell from my perspective because I just do what I am told...with the occasional side track to whatever may catch my eye.

We shopped tonight and have acquired most of the food items we need. I have mopped the wood floors tonight and I have prepared the beer for the keggong of the beer. Last night I spent a good deal of time cleaning the Aquarial home of Norman the Large Fish. Norman is a constant and perpetual shitter. If he's not shitting he is eating which is futureshit. So, you can imagine how much fun that was.

We have Friday off so we are in good shape and I do not feel that Susan is experiencing a lot of swirling emotions known as Swirling Emotions.

The Whole Week Wrap Up

It seems incomprehensible to me that I haven't made any entries here all week until I remembered what kind of week it has been. In the last entry, I mentioned the Hoopfest skywalk challenge we faced. Well, I am now on the other side of that challenge and we finished it today. Wow! What a week. What a looooooong miserable effing week.

I went downtown on Tuesday and got the first skywalk lined out while Susan worked a Catering gig.

I had a neighborhood meeting to attend on Wednesday, so Susan went down to get started and I joined her after the meeting. We managed to finish half the skywalk before calling it a night.

On Thursday, we got downtown about 6:30 and finished up on the first skywalk. I even got a start on the next skywalk by getting everything lined out.

Friday night we worked until we finished the second skywalk.

Susan had another Catering gig on Saturday that took all day. I had my Farmers Market thing but that only lasted until one. That day, my buddy Ron worked the Market so I was able to get some crap to the dump.

I went downtown about 3:00 and got the third and final skywalk lined out.

All we had to do was wake up this morning at a reasonable hour and get down to complete the painting. We had to be finished by three because we had volunteered to take pledge calls at KSPS, the local PBS affiliate.

We did not rise at a reasonable time. It was reasonable once, when I was 15, to get up at 11:00AM. But it seems ridiculous to me now. All I can say is we needed and we enjoyed the sleep. Did I mention it has been a hell of a week.

We got down there at noon and we finished the job at 2:50. We were both very pleased. We did not want to have to come back.

Here are the fruits of our labor.

Now the battle begins to clean the house in preparation of the Solstice Event. Susan is going to go into Manic Cleaning Mode at any moment. I just hope it doesn't kick in at 2:57AM in the morning.

In other highlights of the week, we managed to do a little work on Monday night while we were awaiting the approval of our skywalk design.    

We hung the mirror and clock in the entry way. This was a very big deal because it involved putting a hole through wall paper. It had to be right the first time. Fortunately, it was and above is a lovely photo of the mirror AND the clock.

The house painting has been progressing during this time and Ronnie got all of the upper portion of the west side of the house completed. The lower portion will get done when she returns from whatever job has taken her from us.

We are very pleased with the results and very happy that this will soon be one less project to worry about.

There is other stuff to talk about concerning the events of the week but I have to go now. Susan wants me to clean something.

Crunch Time

We are down to crunch time with the Solstice Party Preparations and as usual, an Monkey Wrench has been thrown into the preparations.

I got the word yesterday from the Hoopfest people that they want three skywalks painted up for Hoopfest as soon as possible. That means we are in for a rough week of work, work and more work. And then we'll paint.

I'm not sure yet how we are going to do it. I'm hoping to get started by Tuesday night, although Susan has to work that night. I can get started on one by myself.

Then we will have to just slug it out through the week. I have a meeting on Wednesday night and Susan has some stuff going on...we'll just slug on. Or is that slogg on?

In any event, I'll detail it here.

Solstice Prep

I have finally gotten the invitation to our Solstice Party completed. I am printing invites as I write this. I should have had them out a week ago. It always seems to come down to the last second with me.

We've had a nice productive weekend and Ronnie is cruising on the house painting. If the weather holds out, she could be done this week.

The chances of the weather holding out are slim...and none. The whole week looks crappy.

Here are some pictures of how she is progressing.

Garage Cleaning Frydee

The forecast indicated that today would be a decent day as far as the weather goes and I was pretty caught up at work so I opted for a day off to do a project that was looooooooong overdue...cleaning the Garage.

I started the morning with a pot of coffee and added a little Bailey's Irish Cream to help accent the flavor. Here is what the garage looked like at 9AM.

And this is what it looked like three weeks later. That's a joke. I actually completed the task on the same day and here it is now.

I can put my car in thee now but just barely. It' a very tight fit.

One of the major space saving things i did was remove a drafting table that I bought last fall. It has been in the garage all this time and I have been worried about it. So I moved it upstairs to the back bedroom.

Unfortunately, Susan does not like it. She says it is waaaaaay too big and dwarfs everything else. It's only a temporary move I guess. Although I do not want to tell what was involved to get it up there.

I am well versed at dismantling it so I have that on my side.

Cloud Burst

It's June First and one of the things I'm trying to remember to do is zero out the AccuStan Weather Station 5000. I'm old and unfocused so remembering to do things is tough. Remembering to do things on a schedule is next to impossible.

And yet, I remembered my duty this morning. And it's a good thing because I can now report with accuracy about the major effing cloud burst we had at about 7:30 PM this evening in the night.

In a ten minute period, we got a half inch of rainfall. Well, it included hail which might skew the data but check out the pile of hail we got on the deck.

There was just about every kind of weather going on. There was thunder. There was lightning. There was torrential rain. There was hail the size of canned hams. The only weather we didn't have was tornadoes or earthquakes.

The steps on the deck were completed today so I can officially call that project complete.