Raised bed progress

Today, after sleeping in til almost 12 noon, I got up, ate "lunch" and then went out to cut the raised garden boards to length. I had to figure out how to support the long end of the boards as I cut them and found that two scraps of 2x6 and two pieces of 1/4 inch plywood did the trick. I should have screwed them all together to keep them from falling over when I was trying to position the board for the cut, but just dealt with it.

I got them all cut then realized I needed to go get more gravel before I could take them out and put the boards together. So I borrowed my neighbor's truck again and went to get a half yard of 3/4" Open gravel from the local landscape yard. It took 5 wheelbarrows full of gravel to empty the truck, with Sam's help. Sam then helped me sweep out the liner and get the truck ready to return.

With four of the five wheelbarrows of gravel in with landscape fabric underneath it, I was able to finally able to take the lumber out and start putting it together.  I made a drilling template to be able to evenly space out three screws to connect the lumber together. It made it really easy to get them located in the right place, square so the screws went in right and evenly spaced; aesthetics, you know.

While I was out there finishing up the drilling, I noticed there were a bunch of birds flying around above us. It turned out that it was 7 hawks of some kind just swirling around pretty close to each other. It is kinda hard to see them in the photo but the black specs are them.

With the drilling done, I had to put together and level out the gravel for the first level. It went much more smoothly than I expected for only having a 4 foot and two foot level out there to level the gravel around the perimeter of an 8 by 40 inch frame, two feet away from the other raised bed. After the leveling of the first layer, the other two levels went together even easier. The last wheelbarrow of gravel went in the bottom and put a final 2-3 inches in the bottom for drainage. There will be quite a bit more dirt in this one since I didn't fill it up with gravel like I did the other ones; a good depth of soil for carrots and beets.

They are just stacked on top of each other right now, but tomorrow if the rain holds off, I will be able to pocket screw them together like I did the other one in the picture. I ended up with the new bed two and a half inches lower than the bed beside it and the middle bed is an inch lower than the first bed, to the right of the picture. So I think I am going to make a three and a half inch spacer row for the last bed then put a small cap on the top to it is easier to lean on and sit on. Then I can make a cap with a 1 inch spacer to put on top of the second bed and just put a cap on the first bed. They should all end up about the same height.

Aimee weeded more of the rest of the yard; in front of the shed, a little under the cherry tree, next to the house in the back, more around the flowers by the deck area.  She had done the strawberries, out front by the house and finished along the back fence including the raised beds by the garden. It really is looking quite nice, especially since I haven't had to do much weeding this year.

Cherry picking family

For the first time since we have lived here, we got the cherry trees picked clean and the cherries washed and pitted in a day. The trees were pretty sparse this year and it only took us about 3 hours of picking.

My parents stopped by for the day and helped us pick the cherries; my mom was ground control and sorter of bad fruit and Dad was on Grandpa duty, keeping Sam occupied, while Aimee picked the low fruit and I was up the tree, literally out on a limb.

We got about 4 gallon bags of pitted cherries, plus made a cherry crisp that is awesome... sooooo good. I think I may go have another bowl with ice cream. Anywho... we sent my parents off with about half of them, have a bowl full of cut up cherries with sugar waiting in the fridge for pancakes tomorrow morning, a couple bags full for some friends and I will probably freeze the rest for later.

Fourth of July

We had a fun fourth. We spent the day outside; Aimee washed the cars and I worked on trying to clean out the sprinkler lines that got some kind of debris in them. Sam had fun getting wet with the hose and trying to help me. It was a mildly hot day so the mist from Aimee spraying the cars actually felt kinda good.

We did some fireworks with Sam at 7 before he went to bed, then got him up at 10 and did some more. He was a little disoriented when we got him up for the later ones, but soon got pretty excited to see all the fireworks in the relative dark, in the street outside out house. We had bought a package of fireworks from Costco with a variety of sizes of fountains. We did a lot of the smaller ones before he went to bed and all the rest, which included the biggest fountains at night.



Here are the empties and the final pics from the night before we went inside:

It was a lot of fun and I am glad we got him up for the nighttime show. He really seemed to like it despite signing "loud" repeatedly for the "illegal" fireworks that the people at the end of the street were firing off. We will definitely be doing this in the future, especially since Sam went down to sleep afterword without much of a problem. We did have to help him calm down a little from the excitement but it didn't take long and was expected, so easily managed.

Here are some pics of the "good", yet illegal, fireworks that were being shot off down the street from us.

Done digging... for now

Well, I think I am done digging for now. One more load of dirt to take to the landscape yard... I have the main part of the patio dug out to the grass so that I can get the wood chips spread out and we won't have such a dirt pit any more. I hope I have enough wood chips!

I also built a small deck from some of the deck boards so that we had a place to step out of the house and make the transition from the house to the ground a little easier. The way I initially did it the deck ended up being about where it was originally, which is too high, so I have to get Aimee to help me move the 8'x4' deck, dig down where the cement footings go and put it all back. I should have planned it a little better from the beginning. I guess trying to get it all together quickly and not spend a lot of time on a temporary deck isn't a good idea in the long run.

I am hoping to have it redone and the wood chips spread out by the end of the week so it will all be ready for this holiday weekend. Aimee is thinking of inviting some friends over to pick the cherries off the trees since they are getting ready finally. I just have to make sure the back yard is at least a little kid friendly so the parents don't have to be weary of nails or screws or loose boards, etc.

I don't have a problem with Sam being out there with all that stuff cuz I know where it is and watch Sam like a hawk to make sure he doesn't get close to anything harmful. Sam is so laid back and obedient to stay away from what I direct him away from that it is rarely a problem anyways and I hardly ever have to intervene to keep him safe. We are just getting to know our friends from the parenting classes we have been taking and some of them are quite protective of what environment they will put their children in, even with their supervision, so I would rather not give them any misgiving of having their child at our house.

John scared, almost to death

So, while I was emptying the water from the pond, I was messing with the irrigation pump and control valves for the sprinklers and the spigot by the pond. They had sediment clogging the valves and all the ones in the front yard wouldn't shut off completely so there was no pressure in any one line. Anywho... I was busy reaching back into the space at the front of the garage where the valves are positioned, messing with trying to get the timer control wires put back in the control box and Aimee comes running up to me from outside the garage really fast, screaming something...

IT FREAKED ME OUT SO BAD.

I screamed like a little girl, let out an expletive, just about fell over backwards into the garage and just had to walk away afterward cuz it got me soooooo bad.

Evidently she had seen Fred and came out to tell me that he was still alive. Well, she almost had to jump start me after blindsiding me like that. I swear, I was so deep in concentration working on getting that stupid wire to go into the controller that all I remember is faintly hearing Aimee at first, until she was right up in my face and then in all came to real time, real fast. Things don't usually get by me like that but when they do, it gets me really bad. When I am concentrating on something like that I can get so focused I lose track of all else. My Jedi senses are fading evidently.

Hopefully Aimee will read this and forgive me for being so mad about it at first; I am kinda able to chuckle about it now.

Finished 1 of 3 Raised beds

Well, I finally finished the raised bed I have been working on for over a week and Aimee got the first batch of veggies planted just before we got a really windy and rainy storm come through our area.

To summarize, I had to:

• remove cedar deck boards,
• dig up the front of my side parking area in the front to get some gravel and create some new drainage,
• plane the deck boards to remove the rough surface,
• cut them to length
• dig a trench and fill with above gravel
• screw the planed boards all together to make three boxes and
• stack and screw the three boxes together

As you can see, Sam helped out a lot along the way, working with me and beside me.

Here are some pictures of the process.



I didn't get pictures of my friend Jim helping over the weekend with hauling the garden mulch to the back yard, small pile in left of last picture, and digging up and hauling away a load of excess dirt for use in his raised beds. Now I don't have the big burm of dirt in the middle between the first bed and the gravel pile so I can actually put in the next one pretty easily. I hope it is nice this next weekend and we can haul some more dirt over to his place; I need to get rid of a lot and better to give it to someone who can use it than have to pay to dump it at the landscape place.

I ended up getting the wood chips down early on Monday, just as the wind began howeling and the rain started pouring. I thought it was hailing at first but realized it was pine needles getting stripped off the tall trees. Glad the rain waited until I was pretty much done before letting loose.

As you can see there is room for the other two raised beds between the existing one and the fence. It may be a couple more weeks before that gets started since I HAVE TO get the insulation in the bathroom and get the drywalling scheduled. That has gotten put off way too long.

But hey, I even got a couple other things done in the process of doing these:

I took a half day and got flowers planted in the front with some new barkdust to make it look nice; even trimmed the grass back about a foot so I wouldn't keep breaking off the sprinkler head that is in line, in the middle of the flowers.

Put together the treadmill I have had sitting out in the garage since Nov and made Sam a fort out of the box.

And helped Aimee lay out the quilt blocks for the quilt she is making Sam; very colorful and fun.

Drywall decisions, Prep and Weeding

Well some of the plans for the bedroom and bath have been a little on hold this week cuz I am still trying to decide who to have do the drywall. The second and third bids were 1.5x and 2x the cost of the first two. The 2x one was the most professional contract looking bid with everything that was going to be done listed out, so that is attractive, but can I get that from the other guys for less money? and will they do as good as a job? is the more expensive one worth the extra money? who knows... I think I will end up calling a couple other places to get some more quotes to compare.

Anywho... I still need to do the insulation and finish up some repairs before they come do any work anyways.

So instead of thinking about a lot of that this week, it is yard debris week and we didn't have anything in either of the two cans we pay for so I decided I was going to go out and weed and thin stuff out for an hour every night. Aimee and Sam have come out and helped for a little bit after dinner also, so a lot got done this week in cleaning up all the weeds that grew over the winter and taking out part of the rest of the Yuccas that ended up taking up almost one whole bucket. We filled the other 50 gallon can with weeds and only got about half the back yard done... the garden area is the next and most densely weed infested area.

Anywho... I realized tonight that it is just fun working with Aimee and having Sam try to help. He at least is at the stage where he can bring me the trowel he has taken without me noticing when I need it. He really seems to just like being with us even if we are concentrating on something else. He at least didn't' keep trying to go out into the street tonight like he has in the past... maybe danger, road, cars, DANGER, NO, cars, no road... has finally sunk in.

blanket fort

We were all sick today trying to figure out how to entertain ourselves and Sam in particular, so we set up all the chairs in the living room and clamped blankets to them all and turned out the lights. Armed Sam with a flashlight, so it wasn't completely black, except for when he would blind you by hitting you in the face with the light. Anywho... we had fun. I remember building these sheet and blanket forts when I was a kid. My mom would help us and there were times when they extended into several rooms and spanned half the house; Mom must have had every sheet and blanket in the house available for us to use. It was a blast, but I found out that I am just too big now to try and climb through the legs of a chair any more... who would have guessed.

Sicky news

Well, Sam mostly slept throught the night last night but woke up at 6am hungry. He went back to bed after Aimee nursed him and slept until 10am. He then took an almost 2 and a half hour nap at 2 and went to bed tonight at 7 without any issues. His eating schedule was a little off, since he didn't eat very much at dinner at 4:30 when he woke up, but was signing "eat" after I had done the whole bedtime routine with him and went to put him in bed at 7. So Aimee fed him a half bowl of vegies, nursed him and I put him right down without him even giving a peep or needing the bedtime routine repeated. I really think he was really worn out from being sick all week.

Hopefully tonight will be a good repeat, except with the normal eating routine.

Oh, and Aimee and I tried to watch the movie "1408" we had DVRed. We were leary about it being disturbing enough to keep us from sleeping well since we are both sensitive to that sort of thing. It ended up not being really disturbing but more intelectually puzzling as to what was going to happen and wondering how is he going to get out of this. Anywho... we got through the whole thing and the DVR cut off the ending too soon. I am going to have to rent it on Netflix or from the store now to figure out what happens.... so frustrating.

Roof Vent

Well, the bulk of what I got done today with the bedroom and bath project is going to HomeDepot and installing a roof vent for the bath fan. I went off and forgot to get the 4 inch ducting to connect the fan to the roof vent, but it was all I could do today since I was not feeling well.

Sam and Aimee have been sick on and off for the past 3+ weeks; I have thankfully skated by unaffected until this weekend. I got all head achy and sore throated with general aches and pains all over. Last night was the worst I have felt since the time, about 5 years ago, Aimee and I had a really bad flu at the same time and were fighting over who needed to use the toilet more urgently. I guess that time still tops this but I hope tonight is at least a little better.

If my sore throat and pounding head don't do it; Sam waking up every couple hours probably will. That is what probably got me in the sickness zone since Thursday night I only got about 4-5 hours sleep all night cuz Sam was waking up wailing and needing to be snuffed every 2 hours, almost on the dot. He did sleep a little better last night and only got up once at 2am when we snuffed him and he slept the rest of the way through the night until I got him up at about 8 to take him to daycare.

Plumbing job

I really love the plumbing job that I had done this week. I keep going in the bathroom and admiring the work he did. I know I wouldn't have come up with that nice of a job if I would have done it myself and it would have taken me a month to do instead of 5 hours. They didn't even charge me extra for the couple last minute changes I made when I realized that the shower faucet needed to be moved from where it was and found that the drain for the sinks had a nail driven through it when they put on the siding (since they didn't put any kind of nail plate over the plumbing to keep that from happening. The first required the plumber to re-route the vent stack for the shower drain and the second was a simple fix with a coupling, so I guess it really wasn't a whole lot more work than he quoted.

Before:

This is the Main Bath shower fixture from the other side of the wall in the laundry room. For those who are not plumbers, notice the globs of what looks like hard honey on the pipes. That was used to seal the joints made at those places in the pipe and the plumber didn't have any idea of what they may have used. In otherwords, probably something the previous owner bought on some infomercial.

Above is the shower in the Master.

This is the single vanity in the Master Bath that is going to get extended to a second one... what you can't tell from this picture is that the pipe going into the floor has a nail through it that has almost sheered the pipe in two. Probably where I got the water from that we found under the flooring when we tore it out.

After:

The redone shower valve and drain vent; he actually used the part he cut out of the vent, turned it over and used two more elbows to reconnect it.

This is the vanity connections that have been redone and extended for the second sink. Oh and the broken section fixed where it goes into the floor.