Rain is Not News

When Jerry stopped by yesterday to help put up the power line to the Carriage House, he brought some bounty from his garden. Another example of an evil gardener foisting his over production on a naive non-gardener. He brought us all the ingredients to fresh chunky salsa.

So our first order of business for the day was to chop up all the tomatoes, onions, peppers, garlic, and cilantro into a large Salsa Bowl.

Then we had fresh chunky salsa...which we hardly ever eat. We try not to have chips in the house cuz otherwise, we would eat them.

I'm taking all I can fit into a jar to work tomorrow.

Next, I went to work on the mantle in the living room, sanding the wood putty off and getting it ready to accept stain. I'm going to have a problem with a small piece of the mantle that was added to fill a 14" x 5" space. The piece that was there has bowed and cracked. I glued it together but when I tried to replace it, it cracked in a new spot. I'm going by Windsor Plywood to find a replacement.

Susan continued her work touch up staining the pieces of wood we left in place. Plus she cleaned the pocket doors and did some patching a re staining there.

We had dinner on the front porch and then watched an incredible storm pass through town. The wind came up really fast and the rain poured down for about half an hour while lightning flashed all around us. And then it was gone.

We went in to watch some television but the show we wanted to see was pre-empted by the local news coverage of the storm that had just passed through.

A note to local news...a rain storm with lightning is NOT NEWS!!! Even if some people lost power. It's weather and weather happens almost every day. Get off camera and let me watch "The Mentalist"!

Jeez!

Accomplications

We accomplish stuff, but usually with complications. So I have coined a new word. Call Meriam-Webster!

We started the day with a stroll down the block to investigate an Estate Sale at the home of our neighbors Ed and Sally. They own one of the largest houses on the park and have recently been forced to move to a care facility. Sally has been declining a lot over the past couple of years and that huge house just became too much for Ed by himself. So they are selling their stuff and eventually, selling the house.

Susan and I have wanted to get in it for as long as we've lived here and it was worth the wait. It is a fabulous house with some beautiful touches to it.

This stained glass on the main staircase has intrigued us for years. We first noticed it walking down the alley years ago. It is even more fabulous from the inside.

Another nice touch it has is this relief design in the ceiling of the living room. I've never seen that before.

We got out and returned home for a day of toil. One of my main goals was to get the power line re-attached to the Carriage House. With the expert guidance of my pal Jerry, it took just a couple of hours.

With power back in the carriage House, I went to the Living Room to sand. Here are some pictures of the area I sanded.

I have removed the rest of the mantle but have to work on this portion in place.

I also got some wood puttying done on some other pieces I'm working on and I transferred a batch of homebrew into its secondary fermenter.

Our neighbors Lou and Tammy have been getting their paint on and after several weeks of prep work, started painting their house today.

Friday Agenda

I am writing this post from the front porch. I have taken the afternoon off and have a few items on the agenda for the afternoon. 

Among them, a visit from an Arborist who is going to inspect the tree in the back and give me an estimate to take it down. I'm also going to get an estimate to give it a trim.

More importantly, there is an Estate Sale going on down the street in a house we have been dying to get into. The old couple that owns the house, Ed & Sally have moved to a care facility and are now selling the contents of their house to raise some cash. Since they are no longer in the house, it is the sensible thing to do.

They have been antique dealers for years and the house is rumored to be FULL of great stuff. The house itself is something I really want to see. Susan got in there this morning and told me it's amazing.

I am waiting now for the Arbor Guy but if he doesn't show up soon, I'm going to leave him a note directing him the the correct tree and have him call me later with the estimate.

The Arbor Guy is here. Back later!

1:28PM: The Arborist is telling me $1,200.00 to remove that tree. I'm going for a second opinion.

We have managed to do work on the house every night this week. One night it was just browsing on line looking at tile and drawer hardware, but that counts.

We ended the night with a lovely pit fire. And then, off to bed.

Ancient Chinese Secret

We have decided to follow the old Chinese Proverb that states that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Translated into our reality, the remodel of a single room begins with the single swipe of sandpaper.

We have decided we must do some work in the Living Room every night...no matter how small. We are trying for at least an hour. We have done it so far for the last two days and we are pleased. Not great progress. Just progress!

That'll do, pig!

Stan's Handy Tip # 347

How do you take a mess that looks like this...?

And turn it into this!

Since we are getting the new Fireplace Insert (hopefully this coming week) I have been on the lookout for things to burn for later in what will be, "the burning season".

So after doing some research on things that burn, I have discovered that newspaper burns. Coincidentally, I receive the newspaper daily. Do you see my point? I have something delivered to the house daily that burns. How can I exploit this?

At work we get rolls of vinyl on cardboard cores. We save a few to use as mail tubes or for packaging but they are essentially garbage.

So I have begun collecting them. I cut them in half, which is close to the width of a newspaper. Then I take a short stack of newspapers and roll them up as tight as I can. If I have the right thickness, they slide easily into the cardboard core and I have a StanMade Synthetic Log.

I made eleven of my synthetic logs with that stack of newspapers pictured at the top of this post. I realize these are not the same as burning hardwood but I'm hoping that the chamber of an efficient, state of the art fireplace insert will get maybe 20 minutes out of one. Heat is heat and I'm on a quest to effishansize this house. 

The insert is only a small cog in my overall wheel of efficiency. We shall see how it works. By the end of the week, I'll have enough paper for five more of these.

Ultimately, a fifty foot tower out back with a power generating windmill will augment our Thermonuclear Boiler, our triple pained, gas infused transparent aluminum windows, our 15 Megawatt Solar Garden, our quadruple insulated cooling unit and the cat treadmill that powers the television.

Treemageddon

The alarm went off at 5:41AM this morning. We didn't set the alarm but it went off nonetheless. 

The alarm shocked us out of a restful slumber to sitting straight up in bed and saying, "What the Hell was that!?"

It was a very loud noise that came from outside our bedroom window. I went to the window and saw that a sizable portion of the fifty foot tree in the back of the house had peeled away from itself and settled into the yard. It took down the power line to the Carriage House and screwed up some of the Security Cameras, but I don't ever talk about those here so...never mind.

So it is not hard to guess what I was going to be doing when I got home from work. I got out my clippers and my cheesy little electric chain saw and I went to work.

Just as I was heading out to begin my toil, my friend Ron called and said he has some time to kill and was coming over to help. I told him I welcomed his help and went to town with my nippers.

In no time I had cut a little path through to the backyard and when Ron arrived, he grabbed the cheesy little electric chain saw and made short work of that forest. 

Once he removed some of the larger branches, the end still attached up in the tree started to move and we realized it was going to be coming down. And come down it did. It hit hard! That would have easily crushed a ladder, squirrel or me.

It is more or less cleaned up although I have a lot more tidying up to do.

Horrible Poster Man

I was checking the posts for the last month and realized I haven't posted shit. I have done a terrible job of keeping things up to date. I have meant to post lots o times. I just haven't followed through.

Well, let's rectify that.

On top of working on the Living Room, which we really haven't been doing, we have lots of little projects going on.

I stopped watering the side yard a while back and now that the grass is properly brown, I started roto-tilling the area. It has turned into a major nightmare due to something I have brought up before.

There is not a square foot of dirt on our little chunk of heaven that I can put a shovel to and not hit a root. I'm not sure if I just created a double or triple negative in that sentence so let me re-state it. We have roots! They are everywhere and they are prodigious.

I'm about one third of the way through the whole grassy area and that has taken me four hours. 

You can see by the pictures that the roots are just big horizontal trees that grow underground.

I'm looking forward to completing this soon and reseeding. It seems a long way off.