Memorial Weekend Day C

It has been a stellar weekend. Here we are at Monday morning and it looks to be a beautiful day. Laundry is in the washer, dishes are in the washer, and the sprinkler is running in the front yard. So we are using a LOT of water this morning.

We have a few projects going for the day but not before enjoying the morning with a newspaper and a cup of coffee on the front porch.

10:37AM: I went across the street to check the pool filter and decided the pool needed to be used. I jumped in and baby, it is cold. If I wasn't awake then, I am now. 

Next, we are installing the final curtain in the TV Room.

Here's something I hardly ever say. "I was wrong!" I hardly ever say that because I have Susan, who says it for me.

We were not installing the final curtain on the north window. We were installing the next to final curtain on the door. And it looks lovely.

So that's one project down.

4:57PM: Wew! What a day. I would like to tell you about it but we have to head over and visit Mom with some Kentucky Fried Chicken.

7:14PM: We are back from visiting Mom. She is not having a good day. She can't put any weight on her hip leg. It's pretty painful. She wasn't hungry so we have KFC for lunch.

I now have the time to talk about our work on the Arbor Vitae.

I started yesterday cutting out a bunch of the dead stuff. As you can see, it really opened up the bottom.

We continued today and really got in to the foliage and cut out a shit load of dead branches. I completely cut out a dead trunk and we left a little Charlie Brown sprig of a bush that has a little green growing on it. I will be watering these a lot over the coming days and see what happens.

Here they are after we finished. It's different but very subtle.

And here is Charlie Brown.

All in all, it's been a great weekend.

Back to work!

  

 

Memorial Weekend Day Two

Susan, milking all she can out of this curtain project, continues work on her final curtain. It will go on the front window in the TV Room.

I have been avoiding work all day. Here is what I did.

I reseeded a couple of areas in the front yard. I'm doing it differently from last weeks obviously failed attempt to plant grass on the parking strip.

I threw down a little dirt that I bought in a bag. It's really good soil. Then I threw the grass seed down and covered with more really good soil. Then I watered it.

Next I cleaned the front porch. I took my blower to it and that did the job pretty well. For a super cleaning, I would have mopped as well.

I filled up the little pond in our deck side backyard and turned on the vomiting turtle.

Finally, I unloaded a bunch of wood Mark gave me which I'm going to cut down into firewood.

Once that was done, I got the vacuum out and cleaned the truck bed.

I'm really enjoying this truck but I'm leery of how much it is going to cost. All I know so far is that it gets about 14 miles per gallon. It has a twenty gallon tank and as of last Wednesday, gas cost $3.00 a gallon in Idaho.

We bought some pork ribs at Costco yesterday and Susan has them in the crock pot. The whole house smells wonderful.

Memorial Weekend Day One

It is Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend. It looks to be a nice day as I wake up and begin the day at 8:00 AM. That's sleeping in for me. I already have sprinklers going in the yard and there will be a reckoning with a lawn mower later in the day.

But first, breakfast! We have decided to go to the Cottage Café out in the valley. They have a new cook there that we wanted to check out. His name is Scott and he is my son.

He has been a guest of the Federal Government for the last eight years after an ugly incident involving opiates. He returned to Spokane a week ago and is living in a halfway house in the valley. I think today is his second day on the job.

So we are meeting Mark and Kelly and Ron for breakfast at 10:00. In the meantime, I'm going to read the paper and plan my day.

12:08PM: Just returned from the Cottage Café. I am full. Time to work it off with a little mowing! 

10:26PM: We had a good day. We have just come inside from our first pit fire of the season.

On top of that, I finished the mowing, collected a bunch of wood from Mark for future fire wood, trimmed some arbor vitae detritus, and Susan finished the curtain for the east window in the TV Room.

Plus, we made it to the Hub for waaaaaaaay to much beer.

Have I mentioned that I got myself a truck.

It's a 2007 Nissan Titan. I feel like a fraud driving around in it. It's soooooo manly. 

I have already made a trip to the dump with it. Today, I hauled some wood, as previously mentioned.

One of the troubling discoveries of the day is that my little old Canon camera has bit the dust. The screen no longer works properly.

It's been a really good serviceable little camera. It travels well and is easy to slip in a pocket. I shall have to look for another. My big 35 mm camera is too cumbersome to haul around easily, but a far superior taker of photographic images.

  

Idiot Fee

 I’m locked out of my computer because I made up a fancy new password to gain entry, lost the piece of paper I wrote it down on, and now I can’t recall it. Dumbass!

I finished my work on the windows in the TV Room. Susan is finishing the curtains. We are almost done. If we can open it by Memorial Day, it will be three years exactly.

Susan got her planting mostly finished today. There are a couple of hostas that will get planted tomorrow.

I do not like making these entries on the iPad. It is cumbersome. Plus, I can’t figure out how to add pictures. I will be taking my computer to the fix it place so I can pay the “Idiot Fee” and get back in my computer.

Mr. Titan Truck Guy

I made a run to the dump today. I didn't have a whole lot so I checked in with Mark to see if he had anything he wanted to get rid of. And he did. We ended up with 400 pounds of crap to dump.

This was all facilitated by my new truck. New to me, anyway. My old piece of crap GMC Envoy went to sleep with the fishes a couple of weeks ago. I managed to limp it home from work one night and that was pretty much all she wrote.

So I began the task of looking for a new vehicle. I quickly decided it was going to be a truck. My budget started at $10,000.00. It grew to $12K pretty quick. Trucks are hot right now and there a not a lot of them on the market. When something of a good value shows up, it doesn't last long.

I'm still suffering from the shock of spending that much money. But so far, I like it. It's big and roomy. I climb up into into and jump out of it. The AC works well which was needed with todays 80 degree high. It has remote locks, cruise control, electric everything and it all seems to work so far.

I'm getting a new wind shield for it and then I have to figure out what to do with a big rip in the drivers seat upholstery.    

Vacation - Last Day

Today is my last day of vacation and to celebrate, I stayed in bed a little bit longer than normal. I got up at 7:35 rather than 7. (For me, getting up at 7 is sleeping in)

Cat Update: We finally got her out from under the stairs by pounding on the treads. I was actually going to tear up a couple of steps but didn't have to when Delilah got in range for Susan to grab. 

That area is now completely blocked off with no chance of access. She is now a little more relaxed but she seems freaked out by the squirrels that come up on the deck.

I'm off today because Mom needs a ride to the hospital for her hip surgery, and I'm that guy. I'll be hanging around and staying a bit after to see how she fares. Providing they let me. I'm not sure what the protocols are in the hospitals right now.

I took a picture of my Covid card with my phone so I have ready access to it.

Tomorrow, it's back to the grind.

I'm going to be taking some more time off later this month because I want to be here when they get to work on the new roof.

Did I mention we're getting a new roof?

I'm leaving Delilah alone for the next few hours. She seems mellow enough. She has proven that she knows where the litter box is. She sure doesn't eat much. Of course, she may not need much food. I have observed that she is a fairly low activity sort of animal, even for a cat.

5:46PM: After they took Mom into surgery at about 3:30. I came home. I just the call from Dr. Lynch and everything went as it was supposed to. She'll be in recovery for the next 90 minutes. I'm going to go down with some flowers and see if I can see her.

And that's the end of vacation.

    

Vacation - Two Days Left

I just finished putting on the first coat of stain on the remaining three pieces of trim I have yet to install on the north window of the TV Room. I finished with the locking clasp but I'm not happy with it. I need to sand down the block that I attached to the window sill in order to match the height of the cross bar that the locking clasp is attached to.

Here's a picture to further confuse things. The weird thing is that the whole thing is on backwards. But, that's how it locks so there it is.

I finished my staining. Now I'll be ready to put up those pieces of trim and that is a wrap on the window...and quite possibly, the TV Room.

Mom is having hip surgery tomorrow so we are cat sitting for her. Delilah is not very happy. She is currently in hiding. She has done that once already and really freaked out Susan. I'm going to go hunt her down.

She's good. She managed to elude me on my first search. I'm tempted to just wait her out and see what happens. That would be the easier route.

4:55PM: We found her. She has managed to crawl up into a tiny space under the old back staircase. If she doesn't come down soon, I'm going to have to go up and pull up a bunch treads on the stair case to reach her.

Stupid Cat!    

 

Vacation - Three Days To Go

I looked over my To Do list that I posted last Saturday and I'm a little over 60% on completion. I did the work on the windows in the TV Room. I have to finish the locking clasp on the front window. I cut down the Arbor Vitae in the back. I restacked the wood pile. I went canoeing. I jumped in the pool. And I got the weather station off the roof. 

I decided the roofers could remove the heat cable so I did not complete that job. I never even started on organizing the Carriage House. I may do a little work on that today. I have a drafting table in there that is disassembled and I would really like to make a space for it and get it reassembled.

It looks like today is going to be a nice day as far as the weather is concerned, so I guess I better get busy.

We keep forgetting that we have this batch of wine sitting here in the kitchen. It has almost been a year since we started this Merlot and it is ready to bottle. So maybe we will be doing it soon. 

Susan and I both tasted it and thought it was good. It felt ready to drink now. It's 12%. Since we started it on May 15th, 2020, I think we will bottle it on May 15th, 2021. That's in two weeks.

Today is the Kentucky Derby and we are watching it at the Hub, as usual. We paid $3.00 to get on a board where you are randomly given a number which corresponds to a horse. Post time is 3:57 PM PDT. We're heading over at three.

It is after 5:00 now and we have returned from the Hub where we watched some horse racing. Who won? Who cares! No one will remember. I can tell you that the horses we were assigned were not in the top ten finishers.

Susan is napping and I'm going to see if I can complete my work on the front window.

The answer is no. The mounting block I cut to place the locking clasp on is still too short. It needs to be a little more than 3/8" thick. I'll try again tomorrow.