Last Post of the Year

Yesterday was the thirteenth snowiest December day in Spokane Weather History. The Weather Service said 7 1/2 inches fell but I measured eight here at the house.

Whatever the case may be, we are going out of the year with lots of snow on the ground.

I would like to thank and commend my lovely and sturdy wife for getting out there and shoveling the front walk and sidewalk. It was eight inches of wet, heavy snow that she shoveled by hand. Perhaps she forgot that we have a snow blower. When I got home from work and was ready to blow, half my work was done. 

We decided to take advantage of the snow and do something that neither Susan or I have done in at least 20 years. We built a snow thing out in the front yard. 

Because we are so Woke, we did not want to assign social constructs of gender to our snow creation. We decided to let it decide what it was going to be. It decided to be a cat.

It was really quite fun. It took us less than an hour and we have an authentic, non gender specific Snow Cat protecting our property. We're going to try taking more pictures tomorrow. The flash really lit up the cat and left us in the dark.

Nonetheless, a lovely and creative way to spend an hour. 

It's just after 5 and the first neighborhood firework and been lit.

Happy New Year!

Half A White Christmas

About 4:00 yesterday afternoon, it started to snow. I kept up through the night and I had five inches to deal with this morning.

I got up at 8:00 and was out there with my snow blower at 9. It took me about an hour and fifteen minutes to complete my rounds. Because of my excellent physical condition, I came in exhausted. 

Now it's time to watch Gonzaga play Virginia.

Okay the game is over and #16 Virginia (4-2) lost to #1 Gonzaga (7-0). The final score was 98 - 75.

Covid Christmas 2020

We slept in until 9:00. That was great and a great way to ring in Christmas morning. After a Christmas Eve dinner at Mom's we returned home and watched "Elf", which neither of us had ever seen. Today I'm trying to find "A Christmas Story".

We got up and got some cocoa ready to go (with a little peppermint schnapps) and ate our Christmas cookies. I decorated Susan's and she decorated mine.

Then we opened some presents in front of the fire and had a splendid morning.

Now we are kicking back and returning to Mom's for a modest dinner.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

2020 Digital Christmas Card

The Christmas Cards are in the mail as of two hours ago. So I feel safe to present the digital version here.

We're Decorated

 

Keeping Warm

I wish I had important news to report for this post, but by now, I think you know better. We've had a pretty quiet day with just a few little items happening.

I bought a new thermostat for the Carriage House and installed it today. It appears to be working but I'm still waiting to feel the results. I have it set at 80 degrees and am waiting to see if it complies.

In another heat related issue, I built a lovely fire.

Susan is working on her second coat of varnish. 

And we are drinking beer. All the restaurants and bars are closed again by Gubernatorial mandate because of the upsurge in Covid cases. So all our beer consumption is happening here at home. Which is fine because we stocked up on beer. But good luck finding any toilet paper.

No Mo Furniture

We don't need any more furniture. And yet...

We keep getting it.

Mom bought a new bed that wasn't quite so high off the ground. And so we replaced the old California King with this new to us King size bed with a head board and foot board. It's quite high and almost requires a ladder to get up on it. But the view is spectacular.

It looks like it's really filling the whole room.

But so did the old one. I guess the head boards make it look bigger.

Susan finally got around to varnishing her project in the TV Room. She was delayed getting to the project for a good portion of the day. First, we realized that we threw away the old shammy block we used to varnish the floor with. So I went out to get another. $7.00! Then, she couldn't get the lid off the can of varnish. 

I took it out to the Carriage House and used my jumbo screw driver on it. Once the lid was off, I had to remove a layer of skin that had formed on the top.

However, the first coat is down and a second will be applied tomorrow.

It was a beautiful Autumn day and we pretty much wasted it inside.

Roof News

Before we go any further, please refer to my posts on October 23rd and 25th. That's when we had the first big snowfall of the season. Tree branches all over town snapped and fell, weighted down with snow and wet leaves. We had our maple tree to the west of the house drop a couple of big branches. They fell on the house and remained suspended up there...waiting for the next big wind to free them and swing into the house.

I contacted Randy, our insurance guy and he referred me to a tree trimmer they recommend for these kinds of things. Randy reminded me that we have a $1,000.00 deductible. I thought it was higher. Like $5,000.

The bid to remove the branches and clean up the tree came in at $1,700.00. Well, we'll get a little money back and the tree will be cleaned up and no longer threaten the chimney, which it had grown very close to.

The tree trimmers did the work and I submitted the invoice to the insurance company. 

A few days later, I got a call from the local insurance adjuster who wanted to come and inspect the property. I told her I didn't think there was any damage, based on what the tree trimmer told me. Nonetheless, she was coming out to inspect. I asked if I needed to be there and she said no, as long as she didn't need to get in the house. I explained that we have no leaks we are aware of so entry in the house was not an issue.

I got a call today from Jody at Nationwide Insurance. She is the person whom Randy passed me on to and was handling the claim.

She told me that the adjuster said we needed a new roof and after spewing out a bunch of figures, told me they were sending a check for $13,000.00.

We are amazed! We did not expect to have to replace the roof, let alone have our insurance cover it.

We have a year to have the work done and if the bid comes in higher, I need to call and tell them.

Since we are heading into winter, we are not going to move forward with any decision until Spring. 

So, that's the update on the roof. We are standing by now to see if they really do send us a check.

A Weekend in November

It is a weekend which means assorted stuff to do and beer to drink

The stuff I've done today include:

Connecting my Roof Warming Cord to electrical power. I usually wait until the snow has fallen and there is a giant icicle up there.

Cleaning up more leaves on the street.

Organizing the Carriage House.

The Carriage House is going to be an on going ordeal. There is a lot of shit in there and I want most of it.

That's probably my biggest problem. I can't throw stuff away.

I have discovered I need to replace the thermostat in the Carriage House. It appears it only has an on or off setting.

The other thing I need to do it reset my air hose spool. I took it off the wall when I was working in the TV Room. I needed the compressor and air hose to use my brad nailer for the window trim.  When I re-mounted it on the wall, I put it on so the hose spools up underneath. I want it to spool up over the top. Yeah, it's a little thing. But it's my little thing.

ItMightSnow Sunday

 It has been trying to snow since I got up this morning but it's not really happening. It's cloudy enough and it's cold enough. It's just not moisty enough. That's my assessment as a former television weather person. And yes, "moisty" is a word. It must be because there it is right there...moisty.

We are enjoying a low effort Sunday. I'm going to stow some more summer deck stuff upstairs in the Carriage House and Susan is going to sand a little more. But right now we are watching the Seattle Seahawks lose their second game of the season to the Buffalo Billys. They are 6-2 for the season now. They were never really in this game. The final score was 44-34. Seattle was within se7en goal scores at one point, but the Billys pulled away.

With the potential for snow, I have a lovely fire blazing in the fireplace which inspired me to check out the Lookout Pass website.

It looks like they could be opening soon; hopefully by Thanksgiving. It is a rare ski season where any of the local resorts are open by Thanksgiving but I'm being optimistic. I have a bunch of vacation time to use up and I plan to ski this winter.

 

Leaf Clean Up & Sanding

There is a pile of leaves along the curb in front of the house. They run the length of the property and are mostly wet. Technically, they belong to the city. They are supposed to clean up leaves that fall in the street. Well, if I wait for the city to clean them up, I'm going to be blowing them out of the chute of my snow blower. 

So I got out there today and filled my garbage can plus a couple of garbage bags with really wet heavy leaves. I've done my duty and am expecting a Citizen of the Year award soon.

Susan went to work on the divot/scratch in the TV Room floor. I told her it's fine but she is not going to be happy until it is gone.

So she got to work sanding.

And sanding.

And sanding.

She feels she has done enough damage for today.

One Halloween tradition we are continuing this year is the Punkin Toss. We only have two punkins to toss, so it's not as big an event as in past years.

We were horrible this year. We both missed...by a lot!

Leaf Day...Finally

 Today was the first opportunity we have had to do Fall yard work. It was badly needed. The leaves were thick and I was afraid they were going to be really wet. Fortunately, they weren't.

That made the raking and blowing a lot easier. Especially the blowing. Leaves do not respond well to the Leaf Blower when they are wet.

We ended up with about 17 bags of leaves. It was quite a harvest. And this was a heavy year for chestnuts. We picked up and raked up a bunch but I know there are more.

There's always more.

All Hallows 2020

Mom got a new iPad and gave me her old one. So this is the first post I am writing using my new iPad.

Here we are on Halloween and we are not running around getting decorations and flying ghosts ready for the big night...thanks to the Pandemic.

Instead, we are preparing for a small gathering of the folks who come and help us every Halloween. Editor's Note: At this point, the iPad started acting up and not properly displaying what I had written. So I'm not very impressed with posting on the iPad and it's back to using the laptop.

Anyway, we're having this little gathering for se7en of us. We're having chili and assorted snacks and watching, "The Nightmare Before Christmas".

We have one Halloween decoration we are putting out this year.

We figure this will send the message that we are not participating in Halloween.

Okay, I lied about only putting out one decoration. We put a bunch of our craft pumpkins out on the deck.

That made it a little more festive in the kitchen.

Once the sun went down, there were people trolling the park. I have since learned that there were only four house open for Trick or Treating and one house told me they had about 300.

Even with our giant hint out there on the front steps, we had one group that rang the doorbell. We did not respond.

2020 Punkin Carvin'

 Tonight we carved our two pumpkins. I did my usual semi scary pumpkin and Susan did her usual cool cat pumpkin.

They came out just about as you might expect.

And they look pretty cool when lit up.

Halloween Prepping

We are closing in on the scariest day of the year and trying to prepare our one little decoration we are putting out.

Frankly, I happy to not be putting out all our regular decorations this year. With the snow still hanging in the yard, it was going to be even more of a job to set everything up.

This year, we have made a new tombstone that we will put at the top of the steps to the front porch.

Along with the tombstone, we'll put up some Police Tape to further enhance the message that we are not handing out candy this year.

The plan for this year is to invite our regular Halloween friends who come over to help out with crowd control and crowd scaring. Susan is making up some chili and we are going to watch "The Nightmare Before Christmas"...a Halloween Classic.

Beyond that, we have done some minor inside decorating for Halloween. And when I say "We", I mean Susan.

Snow Fall Out

Yesterday's paper said that we set a record for the most snow in a single day for October. The paper also mentioned that we received 3.3 inches of snow last year on October 6th. So this wasn't the earliest snow fall of size, but it was biggest.

There are tree branches all over town that have fallen. We lost several branches off the big maple tree on the west side of the house. Upon further inspection, we have a couple of branches that have snapped but not fallen. They are leaning up on the roof around the area of the chimney.

Above are some pictures of the damage. You can see that the one big branch that snapped off is still up and needs to come down. I'm calling Randy the Insurance Guy tomorrow.

This early snow has really caught me off guard. I haven't shut off the water to the outside faucets although I was smart enough to disconnect the hoses and put the sprinklers away.

I also need to put the rain barrels away for the season. Unfortunately, they seem to full of frozen water and are not likely to be moved anytime soon. I'm hoping we will be having a warming trend in the next couple of weeks that will help me out.

My organizational skills were put to the test today as I attempted to find a cord of heat tape that I wrap around the faucet in the backyard. It took me a while because I did not remember where I stored it and it wasn't in any of the places I looked first. But I found it. That's another 40 minutes I wasted.

By now, I would imagine I've wasted a year of my life looking for stuff that I didn't put away properly.

First Snow

 We have received the first snowfall of the season. It started about 9AM and has been falling all day. It is now almost 5.

The above picture was taken at 10:30.

And this one was taken at 12:30.

At this point, I would say we have about 4 inches on the ground.

A snowfall this early in the season usually doesn't stick around for very long. But we have so much snow on the ground, I'm thinking it may hang around for a while.

We have a fire going which is adding to the ambiance of the wintry scene.

It's 7:00 PM and it's still coming down.

I had to go out and knock snow off the satellite dish. I think this may be the earliest big snow we have ever had. It's certainly the earliest big snow in my quasi-faulty memory.

Post Anniversary Post

A rather non productive day around the house as Autumn is setting it's clutches into the scenery.

I have no idea why that would lead us to be non productive, and in fact, we were a little productive.

Susan continued work on her floor repair project and I worked on the closet door, sanding it smooth and filling the old screw holes. It is almost ready to paint.

It's kind of dangerous to walk up our walkway. The chestnuts have been raining down and they are everywhere.

I just had some kids come by asking to rake leaves. I told them I'm waiting for more to fall before I tackle the yard.

Our marriage turned 16 yesterday. Quite an achievement for both Susan and I. We are celebrating tonight with a night out to our new  place we visited once and liked, the Texas Roadhouse.

It's quite an ordeal to get in there. We call in to get on the Wait List. We want to go about 7 so I'm calling to get on the list at 6. By then it should be a good 45 minutes to an hour wait.

When we arrive after our appointed wait time, we check in at the front door. Then they will tell us to wait in the car until we get a text telling us it's our turn.

We're heading to the Hub first for a pre-anniversary beer.

8:35PM: We have returned from the Texas Roadhouse. We waited all of five minutes before we were seated. I find my opinion is not the same as last time. My steak was okay but not rare as requested. The other thing I noticed is that their food is really salty. The mushrooms they served with my steak were heavily salted. The Baked Potato skin is waaaay to salty and so I didn't eat that.

The salad was really good though.