Projects and Dog

Last year I promised myself to scale back from getting involved with Projects. Projects can spiral out of hand, become larger in scale, as well as in cost. I have been very good at choosing what to tackle.
The house next door to me has changed hands again after being empty for most of a year.
Bad news: It will be a rental house, once again.
Good news: The owner's dad is handling the details of repairs and control of tenants. ( The owner is away, working on his PH. D. in nuclear science.) My point is that they are no dummies.
The fence around the front is being fixed up with pickets and will look very inviting. Next to that is my sixteen foot section of old plank board fencing. Yuck. I collaborated with "dad" . We are continuing the pickets all the way to my driveway. It will add to the appeal of his house, and mine as well. Today I took out the old section, piled up the wood. Dad says he has a couple of "gorillas" (handymen) in the house that will load it up onto his trailer and haul it away. How nice is that?
"Dad" gave me a shopping list and for $100 and some elbow grease we will pretty up the front. Next week Michelle and I will be working on that. I am looking forward to some curb appeal. There is a reason why it's called "First Impression".

Brighton Report: She's suffering from Cabin Fever. I know she'd like to be out playing with the big girls. Wounds are healing well.

Playing with Mud

Once in a while even adults enjoy playing with mud.

Some years ago Mosker sent me a box with the supplies to make pavers. Included are letters to add some poetry or remembrance.

When my cousins visited, I asked them to inscribe a paver. They stopped their sunbathing to do that. After much discussion they came to an agreement, stamped a greeting, a thanks, their names, the date.
The paver is leaning against a little fence now, holding it in place. The paver catches my eye when I pass and I think of their visit.

From now on everyone spending at least one night here will be asked to play with mud.

Dog Room

Our garage is a cold and breezy place. The dogs had a large "Dogloo" dog house, but it's not large enough to sleep both of the girls. So Michelle and I collaborated on a design, went to Home Depot, bought supplies, had them cut the plywood and hauled it home. Eighteen hours later, with much supervision from the dogs, a bit of caulking and paint, we have a wonderful, large enough place for the dogs to be comfortable. The lids is removable but serves as a work surface if needed.
I'm glad we planned ahead in getting this ready, it already gets pretty chilly at night here.

A Job for Super Couple

And a big hand for the Super Couple, Michelle and Ray!
Now you see "it", now you don't. The rail road tie that was standing in our yard for many years is out. Its original purpose long forgotten.
Michelle dug a deep hole around it over the course of a few days. And while I took care of some town business they took it out. What a surprise. It looks lovely, not being there.
A big, Big, HUGE thank you to you two! Well done.

Project, Sort Of

There is a sign on my kitchen door that states: No more projects in '07.
I've not been happy with my desk set up. I want to dispense with the too small table that gets cluttered, looks messy, and leaves my printer on a box on the floor. Having mulled that over for a bit I remembered the really nice table top I have been storing for years.
So I checked the Minwax website for the pros and cons of the different furniture refinishing products. I stripped the top and just stained it. It looks great. Matches the furniture in the photo very well. (Although it's much blacker without a flash, in natural light). Then a couple or three layers of poly and I will be a happy girl. The legs will come from IKEA, I'm leaning toward the bent wood which I will spray black. I will build a small shelf/table on rollers to hold the tower and printer, and it will hold the gathered cords as well. Also black.

But first I'm off to Napa for a wedding, after which I might bring one of the guests home with me for a few days. I'd like to show him the State Capitol in Sacramento, it's quite a showplace.

More gardening Projects

Suzanne had asked me to redo the area in front of her house. Bermuda grass had swallowed the flowers.
We hate Bermuda grass!
So I'd come up with a plan, purchased the materials on her ticket, put in three hours of effort and, voila, spruced up front yard. The youngster got to help: dead heading with real scissors, digging and filling the green toter. (Garden recycling container) She got to spread the mulch from the Camphor tree, which smells wonderful. We replanted a large pot and delivered those I'd taken to my house to redo.
So it's done and looks nice.

It's Done, It's Done, It's Done!

So this is what it feels like to move a couple of tons of gravel, sand and bricks. My hands ache from lifting twenty pound pavers into place. And I had help! Lots of help. Thanks Ray and Shel. As can be seen, some work around the grass edge remains to be done. Small stuff compared to this.
We are very happy with the result. Such an improvement.

Running

Well, I haven't actually been running, but I feel like it.
The nasty Liquid Amber tree took two days to be gone. On the first day it was so hot, and it got late. (It had been a taller tree than the Sequoia next to it!) So they cleaned up the neighbors yard, and finished the trunk and grinding on our side yesterday. The guys start at five on these hot days, so by four in the afternoon they are tired.
We are making progress on our patio. Nearly half the stones have been put down. We need more sand, which I will get by the bag. It wouldn't be worth it to buy another yard and pay for delivery. Besides, bagged sand is finer, preferred to finish this job.
Our house smells nice as I just finished baking the birthday cake. I will fill and decorate it tomorrow morning.
Then Michelle takes over the kitchen to make the chicken pot pie.

The Project

We have paved a section of our terrace. Pavers are on the sand, which is on the weed block, which is on the gravel, in the deep, deep hole.
Well, we have just thirty-five pavers so far. There will be almost two hundred. So we are making progress. It was hot yesterday, so we waited until things had cooled a bit and paved. It's a group project, between hauling sand from the driveway, bringing the pavers from the stacks, smoothing the sand and keeping it level.
When I was little and the street by our dwelling was re-cobbled I spend a lot of time sitting and watching the men work. Golly, it's finally payed off.
We also found a way to keep Alani out of the way while we are on the job. We turn the Rainbird sprinkler on, and she's happy, and wet, for quite a while.

Creating outdoor spaces

Yesterday was a hard day. It was hot.
I worked on the hole that will be the terrace. It's nearly level and ready for the weed block and gravel.
Suzanne asked me to help her refresh the garden bed near the front door, to update the curb appeal. So I went there in the afternoon, waiting for that area to be shady. Dug out what we can use and is worth keeping. Those plants filled two large buckets and some large trash bags. I also hauled two pots home to replant there. Round-Up is my best friend for this project.
I put all the salvaged plants into a large tub here to recuperate in the shade until we know where to plant them again. I replanted the two pots with salvage and new plants, adding fresh soil, then soaking them well. Meanwhile I'd come inside to make dinner. Yes, the cutest dog in the world found the new plants bringing two of then to the back door to show us. Needless to say I didn't see her or would have taken them away before she had shaken the soil several feet up the stucco wall, into the washroom, into the washer. We saved the plants which I later planted.
Then I went to bed, reading. Michelle found yet another plant by the door. So Alani'd uprooted it, gnawed it some. I replaced it , again, and we moved the pots into the driveway, outside of the gate. We decided that perhaps the plant had been marked in Suzanne's yard by a cat, and the dog didn't like the smell. She was so persistent, not her usual way to do things.
So today, I dug some more on my hole, perhaps by the weekend we will be graveling, sanding and paving.
I'm looking forward to just sitting down and having no big projects waiting.

Jumping for ?

About ten years ago I built a six-hundred gallon fish pond. I stacked three layers of railroad ties, lined it with heavy pond liner. The height makes it easy to maintain and the edge is a seat all around.
Over the years I've lost a number of fish and pretty much stock goldfish now. Michelle has bought me three Koi. One is silver with black, one is tri colored and one is a rich gold.
For some reason Gold jumped out. There he was, laying on the ground beside his home. I have no clue how he got that much lift and over the side, the water level is down about eight inches. I suppose he landed on the bench and wiggled, in the wrong direction.
As luck would have it, Michelle was up extra early that day and had wandered out to the pond, saw him and flipped Gold back in.
I hope he learned his lesson and doesn't do that again.

Busy Birthday Weekend

I've been on hiatus for a couple of days.

Wanted to catch up on The Tour. Plenty of falls, serious injuries to cause racers to drop out.

Baked a nice cake for my birthday. White cake with raspberries and chocolaty, fluffy filling. Not too bad. Suzanne came out with the child. She and I spend an hour in the water with her new water toys. She's getting quite the good swimmer, says she's half fish now. Cute. She painted a birdhouse for me. It will join others that are screwed to the fence. I couldn't buy a better one, this is the one I like.

Finished the small paving project. I had to relay seventy pavers that I'd put down twenty years ago. They had become uneven, because I didn't do it well the first time. I didn't want anyone to trip, as it was, there was a good chance for that to happen. (The big paving project awaits, that will be about two hundred pavers.)

Then today, lunch with about thirty of my friends, a monthly event.

And it's gotten cool and breezy this evening, quite a change.

Those Never Ending Projects

All I said to Michelle was, help me go through this cupboard and discard old stuff. Working together it should take us ten minutes.
Flash forward, more than thirty hours later and I'm about to put what's left, back into the cabinet. She pulled things out, we discussed, we pitched. We took out the shelves, fresh sticky paper was put on. Then she said, how about painting the inside, its due. So, primer and two coats of shiny white were put on. It was an awful place to paint. Twenty-four inches deep and only fifteen inches wide, yuck.
The lovely clean shelves are back in and the items are wanting to follow, but gee, I'm not in the mood anymore.
Maybe I'll save this till morning, go outside and mess around on my paver project instead.