Se7en Two Six

The heat continues its onslaught here in Spokane. I think it was close to 90°.

Susan has been working all day on cleaning the main floor of the house. I have been working on the Play House. I got up early and drove to Coeur d'Alene to get two 10 inch by 10 foot cedar boards for the Play House siding. Cost: $69.00!

I've spent the day struggling with them. Cutting to the correct length, priming them, fitting them into place and a crap load of nailing.

The old boards rotted from the nails and fell off a couple of years ago. Here's one of them.

I'm happy to say that it looks half way decent now. I'll do the final painting tomorrow. 

Then I have to get to work on a thorough cleaning of the front porch.

I should also mention that today is Susan's birthday. We will be enjoying her traditional birthday dinner of cheeseburgers, corn, potato chips and cottage cheese.   

First Day of Retirement

Today is the official first day of Susan's retirement. Friday was her last day of work but today is the day she didn't have to get up and go to work.

We celebrated with a mile and a half walk and a pair of Bloody Mary's afterwards.

I was out checking the garden and found my first ripe tomato.

It's a cherry tomato and there is another right behind it. Oh boy! Here they come.

By the way, it was delicious!  

Major Investment

In the world around us, we are enduring a tremendous rise in inflation. Gas is hovering around five bucks. Food prices are going nuts. The value of my retirement fund has dropped 70 Grand.

We decided to stop some of the bleeding and make a huge investment.

Our mortgage is set to be paid off in May of 2025. We accelerated that a bit.

So yesterday, after moving some money around with our financial advisor Glen, I called Wells Fargo Mortgage Services and paid off the remaining balance on this house.

We are now home owners in the truest sense of the word.

It doesn't feel life changing yet. But it will when we restructure our monthly expenses.

Needless to say, we are pleased with us.   

Garden Update

Back in May, I repaired this little garden space on the back of the house. Then I planted a bunch of tomatoes, peppers, basil and chives. 

Amazingly, I never took pictures after I planted everything. I’m a huge fan of before and after pictures, in case you haven’t noticed. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.

Other than turning on the water every day or so and doing a little weeding, I really haven’t paid the garden much attention.

Tonight, my son stopped by and asked how my garden was doing. We went out back to look and he was amazed at how well it was doing. Upon closer inspection, I have a crap load of tomatoes. I have a nice little bush of basil ready for harvesting and there is something that looks like a jalapeño pepper, which I am not interested in. But Susan can use it.

Preppin' for a Party

 I don't know if I've mentioned it before now but we are having a Retirement Party. I have been retired for a year and Susan is fast approaching her date of July 22nd.

Among the many things we are doing to prepare for the party is to paint these old resin chairs that have been out in the weather for who knows how long.

I painted a couple earlier in the week and they turned out good enough that Susan wanted to do the rest.

She bought a bunch of cans of green spray paint and went to town.

I was toiling elsewhere in the yard while she painted six chairs.

They came out looking great in a couple of cases and acceptable in a couple of other cases.

I worked on forever sealing the skunk access to under the garage. I hope I have been successful. Don't worry. I made sure the skunks had moved on before I filled in the hole.

My other project was to drill into this stump in an effort to remove it. I drilled the holes and then poured Roundup into them. Later this week, I shall light it on fire and slowly burn the stump away.

You can look into the archives here and find other examples of Stump Fires.

Holiday Float

We took advantage of what appeared to be the only sunny day of the Fourth of July weekend to float the Little Spokane River with our friends, Karen and Randy.

It was a great day although someone fell off their diet and also got a little sunburned.

It was an excellent way to spend the afternoon.