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It is a sunny Saturday morning in late August. I got up this morning to find the heater running in the bathroom. It really wasn't cool enough to need the heater but I guess the thermostat thought otherwise. We are approaching that time of year when we will need it.
I guess it won't be long before we are playing the boiler game. It's been shut down all summer and as you know, the goal of the boiler game is to keep it shut down for as long as possible.
We have a few things we would like to accomplish today, but first, there is some action going on outside.
The darker car belongs to my neighbors Shelby and James. She parks that car on the street and James parks his truck behind her. This guy in the silver car came down the street crossed over into the parking lane and crashed head on into the Charger, hitting it hard enough to knock it back six feet into James truck. The Charger hit the truck hard enough to roll it back a couple of feet.
I have since learned that the driver of the silver car said he had insurance but did not provide any proof. So...uninsured driver. He apparently had at least two other people in the car but they left pretty quickly. The guy pulled three backpacks out of the car, plus a box and after the police officer finished the investigation and issued him a ticket, let him go on his way. So he loaded up all the crap and walked off across the park. Never to be seen or heard from again, I suspect.
With that excitement out of the way, it's time to get to work. I need to find a stencil we used on windows last year. So far, I'm not having any luck.
Another project I'm working on is draining and cleaning the hot tub. I borrowed Lou's sump pump and drained the thing in about 10 minutes. If I attach a hose and let gravity do the draining, it takes about 4 hours.
Later on, I'll try to get in there with a scrubber and clean the sides.
All seems to be going well with the hot tub so it's time to move on. I'm going to attempt to find my stencils some more.
VICTORY! I found them. Boy am I pleased?! Yes I am! I was worried because I did not find them on my initial attempt. I figured they would be at the top of the heap of saved stencils that are sloppily stored in the Carriage House. I had to dig down a little into the rolls to find what I was looking for but I was successful. That saves us about three hours of preliminary work which means we earn more money.
Next up on the list is some garage cleanup. I have to remove a bike and bike rack that are blocking where the door will go.
So that is my next project.
Okay, that went fairly well. The next item was to move more stuff out of the garage. There are six sandwich boards in the garage that belong to our home owners association. I'm the Prez so that is why I have them.
I wanted to get them out of the garage and into the Carriage House
We have a nice access door to the upstairs from the alley. My plan was to have Susan hand the signs up to me and I would get them packed away.
In the midst of bringing up the first one, I suddenly found myself in the middle of a swarm of bees. They seemed to be quite agitated. I had disturbed them and their nest which appeared to be in the wall of the Carriage House and the entrance right at the base of the door.
So that put an end to that plan. I got stung on my wrist but bee stings don't really effect me. I'm getting kind or drowsy now so I think I'll go take
a...
Stop everything! Everything must come to a complete stop and not continue in any fashion until after the event.
There! The event has occurred. And now it is over and we can continue with our lives.
I continued working on cleaning out the garage after work today. In the middle of my work, I done seen my pole saw and remembered how out of control the tree next to the garage was. I grabbed it and cut down a few branches. Now I have a crap load of branches to clean up.
I'll get back to the garage and the tree later this week and definitely this weekend.
We are getting a new garage door.
We have a new car (new to us) and decided we would like to protect it and have it last for awhile.
Our garage has been a storage space since we moved in to the house. It has Carriage Doors that open into the garage. You have to have enough room to pull the vehicle waaaay in so you can close the doors behind it.
Well, we finally bit the bullet and decided to have a new door installed. It's still about three weeks out so we have plenty of time to clean out and re-organize the garage.
We started today and I am very pleased with our progress. There is currently, plenty of room to park the car in there. I am highly displeased with the amount a crap we have stored in there for almost 14 years.
Susan will take a large batch of some of the crap we gathered to Goodwill on Monday. She decided to take my car for that.
We will be continuing to work in the garage to winnow out the useless stuff we have in there but never use. So...good luck to us.
I am still recovering from Ablation surgery earlier in the week. However, I'm mostly fine. Just not a lot of stamina.
We kind of coasted all weekend and then really got busy as Sunday came to a close.
Our neighborhood committee sponsors a concert in the park every summer and last night was it. The concert was in Emerson Park which is a five minute drive from here. The band was Buffalo Jones and we enjoyed their music very much.
Afterwards, we repaired to the Hub Tavern and had a nice time with a couple of other neighbors who were at the concert. We stayed a lot longer than we planned which was a problem because we really wanted to get our wine bottled.
Fortunately, bottling 8 gallons of wine doesn't take too long once all the prep work is finished. I did most of that earlier in the day so we were ready to go.
We bottled 29 bottles of Sangiovese that we started last fall. We had enough juice left over to start another smaller batch. We blended in the grapes we grow here in the yard...concord and gewurztraminer. We managed to get 14 bottles out of that batch and we actually enjoy the blended wine better than the Sangiovese.
It has been hot. With heat comes wildfires. There is a big one up in British Columbia right now and this is the result for the Spokane region...sunrises and sunsets with big fiery globes in the sky.
We have just had our 15th day with the temperature being over 90 degrees. That breaks a record set in 1894 when 14 days above 90 was recorded.
It looks like the streak will end today or tomorrow. Already I can tell today is going to be cooler. The good news is that there is some rain on the way. I don't know how long it's been since we've seen rain. Way back in June, I think.
Today was our first day as a church without a Pastor. From here on out, we're on our own. I don't know how long this will last. I'm hoping we will be a growing, blossoming group. But today is not an good barometer for that future.
After church, we came home and promptly napped. It's hot out. I saw a reader board downtown that said 100 degrees. That was about 3:00. When we got home, I checked the thermometer on the deck and it said 93. Ya know what? It's HOT!
We returned some unused shingles to Home Depot and in turn, bought three small arbor vitae shrubs for the yard. We need to replace at least four but we started with these three.
Because I have a personal relationship with these shrubs, I have named them.
This is Dave. He now lives by the driveway.
This is Steve. He is on the sidewalk. Steve has the easiest job because the space a needs to fill is already kind of filled in. Steve has the tag on him.
This is Fred. He is placed by the fence line in the front yard. Fred clearly has the most work to do.
In addition to these plants, Susan put a couple of plants in the front garden and I took the weed whacker to all the overgrowth in the side yard.
It was hot. Really hot...especially in the direct sunlight. After two hours in the yard, we were sweaty and hot and spent.
We cleaned ourselves off and went across the street for a dip in the pool. A great way to end the day.
