Memorial pics

Here are the pics that didn't save yesterday. I put up the canopy before I remembered. Nice and sunny warm today.

Memorial Day 2012

We had a pretty low key weekend; didn't go anywhere except Walmart, didn't have anything special for food, didn't have anyone over. It was kind of nice to have a long weekend all by ourselves.

We watched several movies, played trains, planes and cars with Sam, had a couple tickle fights and rough-housed, and otherwise just hung around the house. Oh, we did make it to church too, in fact we all went together even though Aimee had to go early to do the Resource Center.

I did get out today and do a little on the yard. I got the extra boards on the middle garden bed to bring it up to the same height as the other two and got the strawberry cage started. I don't, however, have pictures since my phone decided to not save the pictures I took today; only one picture of some fire boxes at Walmart was there when I went to post this.

I will hopefully have more success tomorrow posting the pictures after I retake them.

Picking up the lumber failure

I will have to work on the video since Blogger doesn't seem to like the avi file I am trying to upload; but then neither does WMP or QuickTime Player, so maybe it is the file.

Anywho... I picked up the lumber from the rack that failed last week after we got home from Portland to celebrate Mother's Day with my mom and see them since we didn't make it up there last weekend. It was a good trip with nice weather until it rained Sunday afternoon and on the way home during the eclipse.

That was pretty cool, the eclipse.  I wish now that I would have stopped and taken a picture of the sun shadow on the clouds. We were able to view the progress of the eclipse while we drove home without needing to worry about eye protection since the clouds were our rear projection screen.

Anywho... when we got home and it wasn't raining yet, I figured it would be probably by sometime today, but hopefully not by morning, so I got to sorting out the lumber pile from where it fell.  I needed to then add an additional support and shelf brackets and distribute the boards over more shelves.

I had to survey the damage first since I wasn't sure exactly how badly the rails and shelving brackets were damaged. It looks like when the upper shelf fell, the support bracket hooks ripped through the metal between the slots.

The shelf that this load of lumber fell on below it was a different matter; it buckled under the load of the upper shelf hitting it and broke the hooks on the brackets. Both sides were pretty much equally bent.

The parts in the middle of the two brackets are supposed to have two hooks on them to hang on the slots in the rails. (I should have put an unaffected one in there too); with the top hooks being sheered off with the face of where they would be in the rail and the bottom ones just loosing the hook part.

I got the extra middle support installed by screwing in a brace between the rafters and that into the 2x4 used on end for the vertical support of the shelving bracket, like in the above picture. I had a board at the bottom of the existing two vertical 2x4s that was level with the bottom of the rails, so it was pretty easy to get the rail in line with the other ones.

Once I got that on I put in as much lumber as I could fit on three upper shelves and am hoping it isn't as much as was originally there before it failed.

Please excuse the darkness of this pic it was taken by flashlight and my phones wimpy "flash" after dark when I finished pulling in all the remaining longer boards and got them stacked to the side, mostly under the shelter.

This morning I was disappointed to find out it had been raining overnight but it hadn't gotten stuff too wet. I was mainly concerned with my trailer being out in the rain but it wasn't that wet and I put a tarp over it when I went out so it didn't get soaked with it rained today before I got it back under the shelter roof.

I put up another vertical support, about at the far end of the window in the picture below, to support the end of the long boards.  I think that one is at 10 feet from the first one, being 5 rafters away. The trailer kinda blocks it in the picture, but the boards on the bottom shelf are about 12-14 feet long, hanging beyond that last support. The lumber went on after that with the wire shelf coming next and all those shorter lap board pieces from the hot tub surround fit better since I turned the shelf upside down so the lip on the front went up instead of down, keeping the short boards from slipping off.

Sam was out there while I was doing all of this and I will have to see if I can pull a picture off of the security cameras to show him lifting one of the 14 foot boards and putting it up on the shelf for me; he wanted to help, but he did want me to do the rest by myself after that though.

Sam then helped me dig out the lava rock that was between the house and that scalloped boarder. It took two wheelbarrows full to get rid of that awful stuff. I will still need to dig more out of the dirt there when I eventually pour a concrete slab or put fresh gravel down, but it looks much better now.

Driveway Drain

Sam and I ended up going outside after lunch today to put in some of the paving stones that were under the old hot tub beside the west side of the driveway. It will give Aimee a place to step out of the car and not have to be in the gravel, but anyways. I had put some of the left over gravel there, but it wasn't always in the right place since it didn't go all the way down the driveway, but this should work pretty well.

I got the area above the driveway drain dug out and got 3 pavers set to depth. I was hoping that the pavers would be as wide as the drain surround. I ended up spending the rest of the time to corral Sam into using his dump truck to move gravel or ride his bike or just mess with the broom; anything to help keep him occupied so I could be productive. He is so interested in being right in whatever I am doing and, to be honest, he really does work hard and is usually helpful if I get him directed and interested in something he can do to help.

While I was able to be productive, I was able to dig back the mound of gravel the gas company piled on the side of the driveway when they put in the gas line. It needs a lot more work before it is down to a level that I can either add a fresh layer of gravel or pave it with the pavers that have the diamond shaped holes in them and plant some grass or walkable groundcover on that side of the driveway. I will probably have to cut the asphalt on the road side of the drain so I can fit a block in there, but it should keep the debris out of the drain better. I had to shop vac out the drain to remove what had gotten in there since I cleaned it out last time.

I may wait for the rest of this grading until I rent a tractor to till and move around the dirt in the backyard; way easier.

bacheloring it this week, trenching

Aimee is gone on a business trip this week and Sam and I are left alone to our own devices. Our devices this week are shovels and wheelbarrows among train tracks, sand tables, trips to Costco, reading books and episodes of Team Umizoomi, Special Agent Oso, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Jake and the Neverland Pirates and Doc something -or-other (McStuffin maybe).

We spent the afternoon out back while I dug the loose dirt out of the sprinkler trench. Sam tried to help but was mostly just taking half little shovel fulls of dirt from the trench, the wheelbarrow, the small dirt pile left over from moving the dirt yesterday. He was really trying and it is the intentions that matter, I guess. I did end up getting him interested in finding big rocks from the ground or wheelbarrow or pile he was digging from and putting them in the red bucket; I will have to remove them anyways, so it was worth a try. I think he ended up with maybe a dozen or so, but it occupied him for a little while.

And when that failed to interest him very long, we went and got the sand table out and I had Sam shovel the fresh sand from the 5 gallon bucket to the table. 

So after working out in the yard, we read a couple books and since Sam wasn't resting well, I laid down with him. He finally cuddled his baby doll and kitty, with me using his teddy bear for a pillow and went to sleep. This picture is taken in the mirror beside his bed, which is why it looks a little weird.

It was almost 4pm when he finally settled down and fell asleep so I got up and took a shower while he rested. I guess he really needed the rest cuz when I got him up after my shower so he could wake up enough to go get dinner and go to Costco to get some provisions and ultimately a frozen yogurt/ice cream machine on total impulse. He was really sweaty and hot from sleeping under the covers in a 75 degree room and was just not waking up well, so I sat with him on the couch for about 10 minutes, talking with him. I then realized that the mail was probably here and carried him out to get the mail, then set him down on the LR couch while I got the RedBox movie we got for a free rental for Mother's Day and checked how long the rental went for. When I got back to get Sam's shoes on, I found him like this:

Then in the car, I think he dozed off again. We had even gone down the street a couple houses to say hi to Turbo, who is our neighbor's dog that Sam really likes. But as soon as we got on our way to get food, here is Sam in the back seat. He was so warm from napping that he wanted to wear the coat and gloves when we went out the door, but it was windy and a little cool, so I can understand.

He finally woke up fully by the time we had dinner and got to Costco. That was a quick trip and then on the way home we got a call from Aimee on her business trip. We ended up calling her back when we got home after a stop at FM for gas and movie return. Aimee got her Google+ account set up finally and we did a hangout and got to see her room and get some face time while she is away.

Sam wanted to take a picture to send to Mom of his extra special really big surprise he made for her this morning; evidently the torch light in the LR was too bright, but not too bright to wave.

I was kinda worried he may not sleep well tonight but evidently, even with all the napping, he was still tired enough that he didn't have any issues falling asleep.

Distractions, among neighbors

So Mother's Day. I have been trying to get this HD project, plant carrier, painted with Sam since we made it two weekends ago. The workbench took up the first week and I just didn't get to it until Saturday night when I painted the bottom, inside and out, so that it was sure to be somewhat water resistant in the case of the potted plant leaking. I got two coats of black on it after Sam went to bed, ready for him to paint the rest of it in the morning.

Sam helped paint each side at a time; royal blue, a lighter blue, yellow and orange. It took several coats of each paint color and we were in and out of the garage as each color dried. Aimee was talking with her parents on Skype, so Sam was checking out what they were doing and interjecting his own information and antics in the process while we were inside.

Once the paint was all done and dried, we had some flower and lady bug foam stickers, they provided with the project, and Sam stuck them on the outside of the box. It was looking pretty good and all that was left was to give it to Aimee.

Sam seemed quite proud of his box and was maybe a little disappointed he was making it for his Mom; he kept saying he wanted to make one for himself. I will have to see what I can come up with for him to have one.

I ended up going outside and starting on determining how much dirt I was going to have to remove from in front of the Rhode we took out in the front yard: the ground along the front of the house is sloping the wrong way, toward the house. I discovered it was going to need to be dug down about 3-4 inches out about 8 feet from the house to give it a 2 inch drop from the level at the house. I still have to look it up to see what is recommended so hopefully it won't require it to be lower than that.

I guess I need a better picture... will try to replace this one after the sun goes down and my phone won't black out the shadows, or I could just take it with the DSLR that wouldn't have that problem. 

I got about a 4 feet wide section at the end of the house dug down to that level but realizing I was going to need to dig down that for all along the front of the house, as well as down the side of the house, was not a good realization. That 8 feet from the house is about where the grass is going to start so it looks like I will be redoing the grass in the front as well. 4 inches is just a little too much of a ledge next to the existing grass to not require to level it out a little.  It will allow me to make the grass area a little more level than how sloped it is now.

Since we were talking about what to do with the front next to the road when I was taking out the yucca, we decided we would make a berm like the neighbors across the street, with landscape timbers creating a retaining wall to hold the dirt back at the road side. I will need to take out the railroad ties that are there now, put in the landscape timbers (pinned together with spikes) and then use the dirt from next to the house to build up the ground for the berm.

While I was out there, the neighbor next door came over to fulfill his offer to help me move some dirt with the tractor he was borrowing. He and two of his boys, maybe his son and his son's friend, came over and moved the two big piles of dirt I had in the back, left over from the dry well holes that I didn't need to refill the holes, but will eventually need for all the raised beds we are putting in. I had to take down the section of the fence where the gate is so he could get the tractor to the back yard, but it is in such bad shape and the post by the gate was already broken off when I was trenching that all it took was me bending it at the other post til the nails gave and moving a fern out of the way; that got planted in the front by where I was filling in the rhode hole.

About 5 or 6 buckets full of the two boys and me shoveling what Chuck couldn't scoop with the slightly quirky tractor, we have a big pile in front of the shed where the grass will not be and the area where it was is now clear for grass and raised bed preparations. I was quite spent after trying to keep up with the teenagers, not that I felt I had to, I was just working along side them and getting way more winded than them. I guess I should have just stood back and let them do it.

I guess next I need to finish clearing out the sprinkler line trench so I can get that in, bury the sprinkler line and then get the new zone hooked up to the valve box. the hooking up may have to wait for a little bit until some other things get started, but will need to happen before grass goes in.

Unplanned Saturday Afternoon Snowball

So after getting Sam's workbench to a semi-finished working state. I took a break to cool off and the neighbor ended up knocking on the door asking if he could take the dirt I had piled up in my front yard for his yard. He had borrowed a tractor with a bucket on the front and a tiller on the back and spent a couple hours moving the couple yards of dirt to his backyard.

I was watching them on the side yard camera and although they were being quite careful with the dirt next to my 2 year-old tree, I decided to go try and work out front to keep a closer eye out. I started out working on the rhode hole next to the house. I got some of the bark off the piles I had made around the hole before we took it out and was putting it out by the street to make that look a little nicer before stirring all the dirt around in the hole. I then noticed that the water meter access was disturbed again, most likely from moles and I decided to work on digging out around it and putting in some retaining blocks.

I started digging and ended up getting pricked by the yucca leaves so much that I started taking out some of the starts around the outside of the plant to get it back out of my way. Well, this is what happened:

for those who are not familiar with our yard, there used to be yucca's between the fir tree and the irises.

and the tops are gone from this mess of yuccas; will need to dig out the roots at some point.

view from the street side

borrowed my neighbor's truck to haul the yuccas and the left over  bushes in the back that got damaged in the snow. 

the hole from the yucca after Tom, my neighbor yanked most of it out with his truck, with the water meter showing on the right.

The corner of the yard where the neighbor took the dirt from , where I limbed up the fir tree, the yucca gone and the dirt barrier for the water meter started.

working the bench

So we went to HD last week for the monthly project, which was for a Mother's Day plant holder and plant, but as I posted before, we didn't stay to paint it. When we got home I didn't like the idea of Sam painting at the dining table, so I started in on a workbench for Sam to be able to do projects like this on.

It only took 3/4 of a sheet of 5/8th plywood and about four 2x4s I ripped in half. I got all the lumber and plywood cut for the the back and the work surface and the two-by-two's for the frames done on Thursday and got it all put together last night. Then this morning I had to make a trip to HD to get hinges for the legs and fold down worktable. It only took about an hour to get the hinges mounted after I had lunch.

The almost finished product:

I just need to:

1. do some round over router work on all the edges so they aren't likely to produce splinters
2. put some stops in for the legs
3. put levelers on the bottom of the legs
4. put pegboard on the back
5. and maybe change the piano hinge for the top so it folds up instead of down over the legs.

It is pretty sturdy. I stood on it and it didn't even creak. I put the frames (back, work surface, and legs) together with pocket screws and the plywood work surface is screwed from underneath with them so that there are no visible fasteners.

It is totally collapsible; the legs fold in and the table down, for now; all to about 4.5 inches thick. I may end up cutting some hand holds in the top of the back before I put the peg board on so it is easier to carry. It is sturdy and weighs probably close to 40-50 pounds. It should be a nice place for me to have Sam work on things when I am working on my projects in the garage.

legs half folded in

totally collapsed

Cleaning up

Today I spent the afternoon with Sam outside cleaning up some of the clutter in the dismantled yard. The lumber pile, I alluded to in one of the last couple posts, got put with the other deck lumber, although there was a problem with one of the shelves collapsing that I now have to remedy by unloading it all, putting the shelf back up, adding another one to split the load and put all the lumber back. (It was not a happy moment).

Then I got to moving the deck piers over to the east fence by the blueberry planter; by where the deck will be built. It opened up a small area by the french doors, where they were sitting, allowing Aimee to have a spot to plant more of her flowers she is wanting to plant. Sam had fun again following me with the full wheelbarrow so that he could make the ride back in it to get the next load. Oh and climbing the stack of piers each time too.

There was a bit in there somewhere that I discovered again that some animal, most likely a cat or two, had pooed in the garden bed again. So I covered it with landscape fabric, hoping that the lack of loose dirt would deter that kind of activity. I cut holes for each plant, although the one set of pumpkins are looking a little sad today, hopefully they will come out of it at some point.

The 2x pieces were there to just hold it down so I could get the fabric cut and pinned down without it blowing away every couple seconds; it was quite windy when I was doing that.

Anywho... now to figure out what I need to do next; probably leveling out the front yard dirt next to the house where the rhode was taken out. I still haven't dealt with that and I think Aimee is thinking of planting more flowers out there since the edge of that gets adequate sun.

grounded blueberries and other garden progress

We started today by taking a nap. I think I slept for about an hour and a half after we had lunch. I was really asleep when Aimee woke me up, it took me a good 20 minutes to get the cobwebs out, get my clothes changed and get outside. Oh and I called my mama to see if she was feeling any better; she is recovering from pneumonia (answer: yes she is).

Aimee started out the afternoon by digging up the dirt in front of the garden, in anticipation of planting flowers once she had loosened the soil. Then I came out and we got to planting the blueberries and the plants I got from HD the other day; a pumpkin, zucchini, Japanese cucumber and a banana pepper Sam got at the HD project day with the plant carrier he nailed together; I will make a separate post on my frustration on that project.

Anywho, the blueberry bushes went it really easy and we ended up using a big chunk of the dirt from the middle of the planter to mound up dirt around the bushes and bring them up to a level that should be good for when we finish the raised bed around it.

We milled around a little after that and picked up some rocks and other stuff lying around. Then Sam and I moved the cement pavers that were piled up in front of the blueberry planter out to the front by the driveway where I decided I was going to use them to extend the driveway on the west side. There were 3.2 loads in the wheelbarrow, with Sam following me and riding back in the wheelbarrow; he liked the bumps.

Aimee started clearing out the planting area beside where the deck used to be, where a bunch of volunteer pansies have started growing under where the hanging basket we had last fall was hanging. After I moved the pavers out of her way, she cleaned up the left over weeds and moved her potted plants into the vacant area in the middle. It looks very nice and you can see where Aimee was digging this morning next to the garden (that roughed up dirt above Aimee's head).

Now there isn't much left before we are forced to deal with the deck area, or start roto-tilling the grass area and getting it graded for grass this fall. Although, I have been avoiding the sprinkler trench in the backyard, since after a winter of being exposed to rain, etc, I am sure it isn't the soft excavated soil that came out of the trencher last summer. With a back that doesn't do well bent over for long times, bending over a 18-24" trench, digging "loose" dirt out of the trench, just doesn't sound like a good time to me.  I guess I need to get it done and Terry's trenching shovel back to him before the year anniversary of my borrowing it.

The other thing that needs to be cleaned up is the lumber outside the south side of the house I didn't have room for in my "lumber shelves" I built on the East side of the house to hold all the cedar lumber from the deck. A lot of that pile got used in the blueberry planter, but it got kinda rustled trying to find good boards. I may actually have some room to move it over to the lumber shelves, maybe.

Then what to do with the left over dirt still in the back yard that needs to be moved or used to be able to till the grass area fully.

blueberry beds

We were able to finish the third raised bed, with the exception of a pipe extension for the sprinkler system to raise the pipe above the soil level. I just have to unscrew the cap and screw the extension in. Aimee helped me to sift more dirt and then mix in the second set of bags of garden soil and conditioner. It really didn't take that long and taking the soil from the East fence area to level it out for the blueberries worked great; we had just enough soil to completely fill the third bed.

The blueberries needed to get planted along the East fence, but we aren't sure what kind of material we want to use to make the raised beds they will go in. So, I decided I could build a temporary raised bed frame and plant the blueberry bushes in that, as long as it was smaller than the final one, and then we could build the other walls around it and just pull out the temp bed walls. Hoping all goes well when we get the final bed plans done and remove what we did.

After getting the first level down, I dug down a shovel head depth to loosen the compacted soil that will be under the bed. The only thing I wish I would have done is put a layer of landscape fabric down under the bed, but it is probably better since the bushes may end up rooting deeper than the box.

I then built the other two levels of the box to bring it up to a level of about 17 inches and started sifting dirt from the pile in the middle of the yard into it. Aimee again was a great help with digging the dirt into the wheelbarrow to give me a little rest from sifting the rocks out of the dirt. We ended up with a big bucket full of rocks and another one full of roots for the yard debris.

Sam had fun helping in his own way, which was mostly in the way; I actually hit him in the head with the end of the shovel one time. I almost ran him over with the wheelbarrow and almost hit him in the head with the sifter while pouring out the rock. I did get him occupied with taking rocks in his truck out to the other side of the gate where I was piling them, but it only kept him busy and out from underfoot part of the time. He shoveled dirt, helped mix dirt, carried rocks, brought me shovels and other tools I needed most of the time, and did have a great time out there climbing on the sifter between loads.

The blueberry bed filled and wet down to help it settle a little bit before we plant the blueberries hopefully tomorrow.

The pile we took the dirt from for the blueberry bed, the pile was in front of the railroad ties just to the right of the garden, out to where the shovel is sitting. 

The final look of the garden.