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9:35AM: Good morning!
It is the day the spooks come out but they are being hindered by the fall of wetness in the form of precipitation known as rain.
I already had to drain my 50 gallon rain barrels as they were overflowing from the deluge of the past week. Deluge isn't the right word. It's just been raining a lot for the last several days.
We are very limited in what we can do right now. We are hoping the rain will fall this morning and end before the Trick or Treating begins. Ideally, it would end in time for us to get some stuff out in the yard.
Some stuff can go out regardless of rain. However, we want to wait until the rain is done. If the rain doesn't finish, then we will wait until 5ish to get stuff into the yard.
Here are my morning photographs to share.
Here is cheesy, quick and dirty panorama of the front of the house.
2:42PM: We just had our first trick or treater. It's a record early time. I had to search around for some candy because we weren't ready. The mom apologized and said she had to work tonight.
Well, it's on now. Probably won't hear from me again today.
It does not look promising for the Spooky Holiday as far as the weather is concerned. It has been raining all night and continues this morning.
We finished our hay bales last night and we think they might actually work. That remains to be seen. At least the bales will be tested in battled hardened conditions.
I also finished the kid eating pumpkin last night.
We got these extra large pumpkins from our friends Randy and Karen. They have a friend who grows them. Anyway, I think he came out looking fine and very tasty.
It's two days before Halloween and things are not looking good for this year's event. The forecast is calling for rain. That is bad news for a lot of our outdoor decorations. As long as it is not too rainy, we should be okay.
We've been spending the last couple of days on fake hay bales.
I think they look pretty good but the big unknown at this point is if they are going to be very durable.
We have glued straw onto Styrofoam boxes. It seems to be sticking but the permanence is what is at question right now. The plan is to put them in the yard and see how they endure. Hopefully, no fat ass will come along and decide it's a nice place to take a load off.
I spent last weekend getting the flying ghost working. So far, all is going very well but I don't know what a rainy night will do. I suspect I will not run it if it's raining Saturday night.
We had an interesting event take place last night here in the neighborhood. The great thing is that I was unaware of what happened until I talked to neighbor Ted today.
The two houses across the alley from us are rentals. The one on the corner has three rentals, I think and the house next to it has two units.
The young woman that rents the ground floor apartment in that house has four kids. We met her last Spring shortly after she moved in. She seems very nice and she clearly has her hands full.
She has an ex husband with a restraining order against him but for some reason, she invited him over to see the kids. At some point in the evening, a disagreement took place and Dad began to destroy the house.
Our other neighbors Shelby and James said they heard something around 11:00 and it went on until 2ish.
Ted came by and took me over to the house. Every window on the main floor had been broken out, from inside the house. Furniture was turned over. The place was a mess.
All the windows are boarded up now. Somebody made quick work of that.
Best of all, Susan and I slept right through it. We never heard a thing.
That makes me feel great about the prospect of ever waking up when something is happening at our house.
Tonight we transferred the wine into the primary fermenter, removing the must from the grape skins...the pulp. I was surprised the see that we had more than enough juice to fill the six gallon carboy.
We have been dealing with fruit flies for the last week. Hopefully, they will start to die off in the next couple of days.
We ended up with about a half gallon extra juice which I'm chilling in the fridge and drinking. It's definitely got some kick to it although it is a little sweet for Susan's liking.
It wasn't long after the transfer that the bottle started foaming and frothing, indicating that it is still got some fermenting to do.
We said goodbye to the old bathtub and sink yesterday.
The good news is that they are going to a good home and we got $550.00 for them.
The couple that bought them are rebuilding an old farm house near Davenport, WA. It burned this summer and has quite a bit of damage. They were very pleased to find our tub and I'm happy they are going to a place with people who appreciate history.
Phil has been working the last two days on the bathroom and it is nearly all dry walled. It's amazing the difference the drywall makes on the room. It seems a little brighter and a little warmer.
I have to get the Plumber back in to crimp on the connections for the bathtub and toilet water lines. I called them today and have it scheduled a week out for next Thursday.
Once that is done, we can start with the tile on the floor. That's our last big expense. It's probably going to run about $400.00.
Once the tile is down, then I can make the bathroom usable, even though it will not be finished. I can get the tub in, install the sink and the toilet and make it a functioning, working bathroom.
From there we can work on all the finishing touches.
Pretty much everything I first learned about Christopher Columbus 50 years ago is wrong. He did not discover America. The closest he ever got was Cuba.
He exploited the indigenous people wherever he landed. It seems he was a bit of a bastard. I'm beginning to think there should not be a day to remember him, let alone honor him.
However, this is a political discussion that does not really have a place in this blog. Let's talk about dry walling progress.
There is nothing to talk about as far as dry walling progress. Phil didn't make it over on Sunday, which allowed me the chance to do a bunch of other little chores.
I'm hoping Phil will get to the house sometime this week and get things started. Once the dry wall is done, I can get Rick the Plumber to finish putting the fittings on all the water lines. I might even be able to get a toilet installed in a temporary fashion.
The whole house smells faintly of fruit. The grapes are percolating away and if you were to smell the juice directly, you would notice a slight vinegar smell that translates into the production of alcohol.
We transferred the pulp into a mesh bag tonight. It had been creating a cap on top of the bucket that was pushing the lid loose. That attracted a herd of fruit flies that are all over the kitchen.
We decided we had better try and seal the vessel better and throwing the pulp into the mesh bag helped.
We have had the bath tub and sink from the main floor bathroom for sale since June. I put it on Craig's List and started at $800.
We finally sold it this week for $550. The people are coming to pick it up tomorrow. I have left the ad up but posted that the tub is sold.
8:18AM: I have a busy day planned with the main goal being dry walling the bathroom. I learned last night from my telephone answering device machine that Phil, Master Dry Walling Guy, will be late getting to me today. We had planned to meet at 10, but he has another job to finish this morning.
I will not allow that minor setback to affect me as I have plenty of small tasks to keep me busy until the arrival of Master Dry Waller Phil.
Let's start with some nature observations.
I took this picture last week. Almost exactly a week ago. As you can see, Autumn is here. It has been a nice week since I took this picture. It has not been terribly cool and it rained pretty good on Wednesday.
This is the same tree this morning, just moments ago, in fact. It has dropped its whole load.
All over our yard! Well, there's one of the projects I may get to today.
But first, I have to get the deck cleaned up.
10:20AM: Not much time for chatting. I'll let my pitchers do the talkin'!
They say we can expect a visit from Mariah this afternoon so I have to get back out there and bag them thar leaves afore she blows them all to my neighbors yard. If you don't know about Mariah, I suggest you watch the classic Clint Eastwood film, "Paint Your Wagon" and get an education concerning what we call the rain, the wind and the fire out here.
11:58AM: Do you want to know what kind of genius I am?
Of course you do! Because you'll want to employ this idea for yourself.
Once you have your leaves all piled up, make use of your other power equipment and mow up that pile of leaves. It not only bags them for you, but it shreds them so you can maximize your space.
I don't think it is going too far to say I'm an effing genius. AND the laziest man on the face of the planet!
In any event, I am pleased to have beaten the wind and the rain and gotten the yard presentable. It will look like hell again in the morning.
1:56PM: I am waiting for Phil to show. I could easily take a nap while I wait but I might not get up again.
6:53PM: Phil finally made it over about three and we got the ceiling dry walled. It only took us about two hours. I didn't bother renting a lift because it's such a small room but we sure did struggle with those first two full size sheets. I couldn't hit a 2x4 to save my life.
Tomorrow we start on the walls.
In the meantime, our latest wine is churning and bubbling. I punched the cap earlier and the juice that was in there was foaming. It ended up pushing the cap up and expanding it, lifting the lid just barely off the rim. Now the kitchen is loaded with tiny little fruit flies.
I am writing to you now from the front porch, having just unloaded 10 sheets of drywall and five sheets of cement board.
This could have very possibly killed me were it not for my best neighbor Lou. He saw me struggling and came over to help.
I was struggling because I'm stupid. I was taking two sheets at a time. Generally, two sheets of drywall are bound together with a strip of paper at each end. A person working alone would be wise to remove the paper and haul one sheet at a time.
I had no luck removing the strips in one smooth move the way real drywallers do it. So, I hauled double sheets, which was killing me. I managed two trips with doubles but it involved a substantial breather in between.
Another minor disaster I had was deciding to try and drive home on the freeway with the drywall loaded on my rack. I had two pieces break on me within the first quarter mile. I got off the freeway and drove surface streets home. I think I can save the two broken pieces. If not, they will work as fillers.
From the front porch, with a cold beer, I'm out.
Today was Wine Day. It is time to get our Lemberger into the fermenter.
I met my friend John at his little Winery about 5:30. I had my grapes in the car and got them unloaded pretty quickly. I was a little dismayed to discover a mouse living in the ice chest among the grapes.
He must have come on board from the very start when we picked up the grapes in Prosser. He had clearly been eating them which meant he was also peeing and crapping on them. That's what we in the wine biz call...extra flavor.
I managed to prod the varmint out of the ice chest before anyone else knew he was there. Therefore, let's keep this information between us, okay?!
The crushing went quickly as always. It's the clean up that takes forever.
We got the grapes home and transferred them from the ice chest into our primary fermenter, a white 7 gallon bucket. I didn't have any yeast yet so we're just letting them sit and juice.
We did not place the grapes in the mesh bag as we have in the past.
I'm not really sure how we will proceed from here. It kind of depends on how much juice starts showing up.
In the meantime, here are the pictures of this years batch o'wine!
It's October now which means the pressure is really on to finish the bathroom. At the very least, I need to get it working by Halloween.
To aid in the pursuit to complete the bathroom, we spent the weekend in Sunnyside, Washington on our annual Grape Quest.
We were accompanied by Randy and Karen, who we know from church. It was a great weekend and we purchased a crap load of wine.
We also got 100 pounds of Lemberger grapes.
We met Karen and Randy at Dolly's Cafe on Saturday morning and after a rib sticking breakfast, drove the 2 1/2 hours down to Washington Grape Country.
I think we hit five wineries by the time 5:00 rolled around and they took their toll on us. We were splitting tastings in order to pace ourselves, but we were still feeling the effects when we checked into the Sunnyside B&B.
It took all our effort and gumption to walk over to the local upscale Pizza/Brew Pub and have some dinner.
After a nice pitcher of beer and a pizza, we returned to the B&B, where we planned to gather in Karen and Randy's room to watch "Lincoln", but decided we had used up all our gumption on dinner.
Susan and I were in bed by 10 and out by 11.
Here's some pictures of Spider-Man enjoying the various stops we made along the way.
