Cousins

I love that Sam has some great cousins. Tyler and Issac really have a fun time playing with Sam. The three of them have been getting along so well and keeping each other entertained. There have only been a couple of times that we have had to intervene, and several where it wasn't probably necessary, but we are learning as parents to let the right stuff get figured out between them.

Auntie Ann had some fun crafts for them to do; Pilgrim faces made from paper plates and hat cutouts with a buckle that they colored. That was fun but wrestling seems to be Sam's new thing this time; testing his strength against Issac and sometimes Tyler. He is about even with Issac, coming out on top sometimes and not others; it seems Issac is a little timid in wanting to fight Sam off completely, so he ends up letting Sam bowl him over. They love to hug each other when it is all over, which at 2, 4 and 7, is really cute.

I look forward to my brother, Tim, and Candace, his wife come Dec 28th, having kids (sorry guys, no pressure) and us having more so that there are just that many more cousins playing around at the holidays and other times we get together.

Sam is such a social man that I know he will be such a good cousin and brother with the younger kids when they come. With his play times at the babysitter and church daycare and playgroups, I am such a proud father he isn't following after my solitary ways.

I am also glad he is learning to have fun with friends and even cooperative play; although he is still working on going along with the other persons way of play and not always getting things the way he likes them. He is developing into a great little boy; he has a lot of learning and exploring to do but I couldn't be happier to have such a great son.

Solar Installed

The solar electric panels got installed today. It was fun watching them go up and see the process they went through to install them. They installed 8 modules on the east end and 4 on the west end of the south facing roof; I don't think they would be able to fit more up there if we wanted them. The basic process was:

1. mark the rafters and measure for the final install locations
2. measure and drill the holes for the roof anchors
3. install the roof anchors and mounting rails
4. drill holes for and install the DC combiner boxes by the two areas on the roof where the panels are located
5. install the electric AC cutoff switch, the inverter and DC disconnect in the garage by the electric panel
6. install a whole house surge suppression breaker to help protect the house from electrical spikes coming from the power going in and out of our panel as we start to generate our own electricity.
7. install the electrical duct from the AC disconnect switch to the panel, and from the inverter to the combiner boxes on the roof.
8. Run all wiring from the panel, disconnects, combiners and solar modules
9. make sure all wires are tucked up under the panels, verify all connections
10. Turn on the system and verify it is producing power
11. disconnect, wait for building and electrical inspections and the power company to install the bi-directional meter before we can turn it on for good.

So we are waiting for the inspections next week before the system can get turned back on. I also need to clean up my rearrangement of the garage that I did on Tuesday night to make room for them to install the inverter and have access to the attic, etc.

I was happy they were impressed with my attic access crawl-ways I had put in to make it easier to inspect the attic area and move through the otherwise blown-in insulation up there.

Now I just need to finish the roof and button everything up for the winter so we can enjoy our new solar power in comfort. Oh and finish the bedroom and bathroom so we can finally have a "finished" living space after a year and a half of working on these projects. I have a lot of respect for contractors who can do these jobs to completion in weeks, but I guess they are not juggling a full time job on the side since that is their job.

Pics to come when I get them downloaded, hopefully.

Roofing and other shelters

So I took a little time off on Friday to do some work and rest a bit after doing roofing all week. My back was really giving me trouble, so I rested, went to the chiropractor and just took it easy.

On Saturday, I went and dumped the trailer full of roofing at the dump; I can't believe how much they charge! Anywho, on my way back with the trailer, I stopped by HD and got wood and way plastic roofing to make a covered area by the garage.

When I got back from HD and got the stuff unloaded, I was able to mostly finish the second half of the south facing roof, all but the ridge. I even got the valley on the east side covered so I don't have to have tarps on that side any more. I still have two up there, but those can come down anytime since they aren't actually protecting anything.

Saturday night I started putting the 12' x 8' wavy plastic covered area together. I air nailed the frame together and screwed the plastic sheets to the top using the wood cutout supports that they have with the roofing. I didn't get it put together quite right and will need to add some additional 2x4 bracing to support the wavy supports, but Aimee and I got it set up on the side yard where it is going and we left it for the night since it got too dark.

Today, I attached it to the overhang on the house and put up 2x4 posts out at the fence. It took about 2 hours to get it all secured, but it looks pretty good and will keep the trailer dry without needing to tarp it. It will also give the solar guys a place to stage their stuff where it can be out of the rain, in case it rains on Wednesday. I still need to anchor the posts to the cement blocks I have them standing on so the wind won't lift it, add the cross bracing, and probably should shorten it by 4 inches so I don't have an exposed end of the framing. I figured I could do most of that with is in the up position, so we will have to see how that goes.

Clear skies are passing through

As you can see from the pic above from before I started today, it was really nice this morning. I was really surprised when I got up this morning and looked outside expecting it to be cloudy and rainy. It lasted off and on until about 2pm when it rained for about 5-10 minutes. I had just put the last piece of felt down and was positioning it when it started. By the time I got back to putting shingles on, it was mostly dry.

It was sunny and nice again until about 4pm when it started pouring. I watched the cloud bank roll in and the wind picked up just before the first drops started. I was soaked through with my green coat, jeans and sweatshirt dripping. There were some times in between the two showers with some overcast clouds but they would clear and it would be sunny again.

This picture is of the time at 2 just before it rained; It’s panoramic, with the orange leaves just under the sun spot being the cherry trees and the right hand side being more north.

click to see more detail

Then just before it poured at 4pm.


I really like the gables now and probably wouldn’t have thought to change it if I would have been working on it by myself; thank you Dad. They are probably my favorite thing about the roof now, oh and the solar vent. It looks pretty good up there. Taken directly north; there was another front like this that formed shortly after this that was due west. Here are some more process pics:

The next section of roof

We started the next section of roof, the southwest side of the main part of the house; Dad and I:

• got the shingles off


• new plywood for the ridge and gable


• the gagle straightened out


• all of it mostly nailed down when it started raining.


• and a couple braces for the remaining plywood we left up there since it was just sagging it one place next to where we tore the sheeting out.

Oh, and Sam got to go up on the roof with me; he almost went up by himself. I took him outside and had to walk back into the garage for something, telling Sam to wait for me. By the time I had gotten to the back where the ladder was, I discovered he wasn't waiting for me like I asked and was at the top of the 8 foot ladder, about to climb onto the roof by himself. That gave my heart a jolt but I realized he is a good climber and has had practice inside with ladders I have used in the bedroom while working.

I will have to get the pics Mom took while we were up there. Sam kept wanting to walk away from me, trying to let go of my hold on his arm, but I told him if he was not going to hold my hand, he was choosing to get down. He didn't fuss to much but did want to walk around. We walked around the old and new parts of the roof and gave him a view from the tallest peak above the Familyroom; he loved it. He was very obedient after getting down and he was out back with Grandma playing in the dirt. We did have a quick talk that he doesn't go up the ladder without permission and especially not by himself.

Anywho, Dad and I didn't get out there until almost 9am today and I had to take a break at 2pm for an hour work call. It started raining about 3:00, but I think we were out there until about 4pm by the time we got all the tarps down and shingle bundles distributed to keep them from blowing away.

It has been raining steady since then and just now started to really pour. I put a camera on the roof that I can watch from inside so I don't have to go out in the rain to see if the tarps are doing fine; so far so good. I really don't want to wake up in the middle of the night with the bedroom ceiling caving in again from water.

Oh, and I found an Amped can on the roof, well in the gutter on the front of the house above the garage. Makes me think that someone was up there, but maybe they just threw the can up there. I may have to leave the camera up there after the roofing project just to see if anything goes on up there without my knowing. I have wondered if someone would be able to get up on the roof from the fence like the cats and squirrels do.

As you can probably surmise, the roofing project is on hold for the time being. It is forecast to rain through tomorrow and have showers through the weekend. I just need a couple dry patches to be able to finish up:

• tear out the rest of the valley on that side


• put down the water and ice shield membrane in the valley


• put down tar paper


• nail down starter strip


• and start shingling

This part of the roof is about a third the size of the part we finished so it shouldn't take that long once I get a break in the rain long enough to do some work up there. The valley tearout is going to probably take longer than any of what is left, but I am sure glad I left that up there with this rain.

Pics from Tuesday afternoon before we finished and then after the tarps were up to protect the valley on the FR side:

Gettin my roof on (well off and then on)

Spent this last weekend plus the last couple days re-roofing a section of our house. I had originally intended to get the south side of the house done in a weekend, but evidently the weather and my estimation were not very good. So I am here on Tuesday with only one small section of the roof finished; probably only 20% of what I wanted to get done, but 70% of what needed to get done before next week.

My Dad has been a great help but we are both not very cut out for roofing; bad backs and sore muscles down to the bones to prove it. It has been great that he is willing to take time away from his own home projects to help me with this; he is redoing the master bath at his house.

Anywho... this is how it seems to have gone.

Friday afternoon: Got started on tearing the old roof off on the southeast side of the house and evaluating what sheeting needed to be replaced; that side of the house was really bad and bounced when you walked on it. We replaced a couple pieces that were really bad and started cleaning up the roof deck. It got dark after only about 3 hours up there and started raining; we got tarps up just in time to catch the most of it.

Saturday: quickly realized after replacing the first couple sheets that most of the sheeting needed to be replaced since walking on it you thought you would go through if you didn't find the rafters. That took the rest of the day. It misted all morning and finally opened up in the early afternoon for about an hour. We got back to work and, while replacing the sheeting at the very end at the ridge, decided to square off the end of the gable; it was pointed, and actually still is on the north side.

Aimee and Jim, a friend who I asked at the last minute if he could help, took off part of the valley to the next part of the roof during the morning before Aimee went to a baby shower lunch with Jim's wife and other friends; so I lost Jim's help for the rest of the day so he could watch his daughter while Cara was away.

Tarped everything up for the night and hoped it all stayed put.

Sunday: We finally got the finishing touches on the gable end and the replaced sheeting, including adding insulation to the outside 3 feet of the outside wall in the attic where there wasn't any. We were then finally able to put felt down and start shingling the roof. Oh and we got the ice and water shield membrane in the valley to the next roof section. I got about 6 feet from the gutters done before darkness required us to call it a night at like 6:30, when the streetlight was the only light and we just couldn't see anything anymore.

Putting together and figuring out how to modify the roof above the gable ate up a lot of time. Replacing almost all of the sheeting ate up all of our energy. Dad and I were both exhausted and were figuring there was no way we would be able, even if we were willing, to work the next day.

Monday: The weather was perfect with little precipitation, so we got a lot more shingles up on the roof, up to about 3 feet from the peak at all but 4 feet away from the valley, which was more like 8 feet away from the peak. There was more intricate work with figuring out how to do a lapped valley and shingle around our new square gable, so it didn't go as fast as I thought it would, but progress none the less.

Tuesday (today): Woke up several times during the night to find it was raining hard and checked the tarps. Up to 6 am they were fine, but when we went out at 8:30 to start, the tarp at the top of the valley had blown up over the front of the house, but the tar paper and shingles seemed to be fine; although a bit wet and the tar paper a little saggy.

We ended up finishing the southeast roof, except for the hip at the end which I just realized we didn't do. So no tarping there tonight. Today included cutting holes for and installing vents and a solar powered roof fan, figuring out what to do at the peak to tie into the old roofing on the front of the house, and putting on the ridge shingles.

It all went pretty well, but was kinda tedious with all the cutting around the vents and trimming shingles down to fit at the ridge. I ended up installing the ridge vents in a steady misting rain after dark, with a led headlamp on while my Dad cleaned up the tools and got them inside out of the wet.

Overall: I have to say, even though I have done roofing before, I am glad we are doing the back of the house first so when I get to the front I have the specifics figured out and it will look and hopefully workout a little better than the back did.

I only have one more south facing roof I have to do before Wednesday next week when I have Solar Electric panels being installed. I really doubt we will get that done in one day, but tear out starts as soon as I can get out of meetings for the day since it is the last dry(ish) day that is forecast for the next week.

So, anyone reading this that is able to come help out for the day tomorrow, it would be very greatly appreciated.

Water painting the driveway

I thought that Sarah, the lady who watches Sam during the day, had a great idea today. When I went to pick Sam up tonight, they were out on the driveway using water and paint brushes to "paint" the driveway. The cement would turn dark where the water was applied and it seemed like Zac, Sarah's son, was very intent on getting the full driveway painted. Sam was having a great time following the older boys around and trying to get water out of their buckets to paint with.

Anywho... I guess it may only be fun when other boys are also doing it since Sam wasn't too interested in "painting" our driveway even though he was insistent on going outside after dinner. While trying to figure out what would occupy Sam, like his trucks and the bike pump, I ended up spraying a non-toxic "natural" stain, moss, mildew, etc cleaner on the walkway and one side of the driveway. I bought the stuff after reading an article that was in the Costco Connection and after investigating it more online.

The stuff is supposed to work gradually over time without scrubbing; with the action from rain and getting wet and drying, etc. The bottle says that within 6 months you should notice that the areas sprayed are not as stained and "cleaner". I thought I would try it before renting a power washer and doing it that way, which I will have to be careful about so it doesn't upset the pond.

I bought it awhile ago and just hadn't put it on anything yet due to the recommended application instructions say to not put it on in hot weather or direct sun, so when it is overcast and not raining for over 5 hours after you apply it. Not an easy task in Oregon, but not impossible, you just have to realize the conditions are right at the time you have time to put it on. I guess that was tonight for me.

I am very interested to see how well it works. The driveway and sidewalk up to the front door have gotten quite gray in comparison to how it was when we moved in. You can tell the driveway has grayed since the places where the tires are when the cars are parked are not as gray due to wear from driving and stopping in those spots. So time will tell and if I remember to report, I will do so after 6 months.

New Roof ?

Found out today that the roof on the main part of our house is about out of life; expected to last another 1-3 years. They also said there were several spot where the roof sheeting was very spongy and the whole roof crunched when you walked on it, which I guess means that other spots of the sheeting plywood is probably de-laminating and going to need to be replaced also.

So it looks like with the leak in the garage that I keep needing to repair and the report from the roofer, we may be getting a new roof before winter sets in. Wish I could get it done right now with the nice dry, although humid, weather we are having now, but that probably isn't going to happen.

At least I can cross one thing off my list of things to do which will now be included in someone else doing my roof; I won't need to install a solar powered roof vent. I will just have to buy it. But I guess that depends on how much they quote to replace the roof and sheeting; I may end up doing it myself.

New plants

It doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but I guess it was over Labor Day weekend that a nursery south of town had a 20% off sale and we went to look around to see if we could find anything to put in the yard. We were tentatively looking for a tree for the front and back yards and some perennials to go into the planter in the front since everything we were putting there was dying or just annuals that didn't last.

So we ended up with 10 yellow lilies, that are like the ones I admire outside my work every year, and a crimson bark maple tree. We were really excited and realized when we got home that we were probably a little premature on getting the tree since we had to figure out where to put it now.

The lilies got planted that week in the front after some rework on the horseshoe shaped raised bed in the front turned it into an oval raised bed with new dirt and mulch. It looks really nice now as long as I can keep the squirrels and cats from digging in it.



The tree, on the other hand, just went in this weekend since I realized that we may lose it if we didn't get it in the ground soon. It was hard to remember to water it regularly and if it got colder all of a sudden, I don't know what we would do with it to protect it. I also didn't want to go buy another one not on discount.



It took all weekend to finally decide where to put it and identify how much grass to take out. I will definitely rent a sod cutter next time, no matter how much grass has to come out; grass is a real bugger to get up with all the roots. It took me about 4 hours to dig all the grass out Sunday late afternoon and til about 8 at night to get the dirt and mulch filled in around it and the landscape fabric down. I had to go get another load of mulch to put on top and fill it in a little more yesterday, but it looks pretty good now. Eventually that whole end of the yard will just be mulch with no grass and just stepping stones to the back with ferns and other shade loving plants all around to make it not so sparse.

It is a little hard to tell in the picture since there is a lot of plants around it now, but if you click on it and get the bigger picture, it should be easier to see. The rhododendron behind it is dying and coming out now that the tree is in, and the pine tree out by the street will be coming out as soon as I can get the local utility to schedule to come take it down. I figure, why take down a tree that is under the power lines and the utility will take it out and chip up the branches without any cost to me.

It would end up costing me like $10 and an afternoon to take it down and haul it to the yard debris place, so I will let them take it down at their leisure. At least it isn't a fruit bearing tree in full fruit this time; like when they took down the plumb in the backyard and left a swampy mess of mushed plumb fruit (and pits) all over the grass.

Sam falling on his rocker

Aimee, Sam and I were in Sam's room talking about curtains for the Livingroom, since it is the only room in the house with the curtain rod still up. Anywho, Sam was playing around while we were talking and I all of a sudden realized that he was in his little rocker, backwards, knees to the back of the seat, rocking. I no sooner said, "Aimee! grab him, when he leaned completely into the back of the chair and went head first into the corner of the room where bookcase, toy chest and lamp are. He narrowly missed the toy chest, which in hindsight would have probably been better since it would have been earlier in the decent, and landed face first on the base of the lamp.



I hate those moments!!! There have been a couple really bad ones like this where I just can't react because it is mostly over by the time I even see it. I almost exhale a big sigh before I completely understand what is happening because subconsciously I have already identified that there is nothing I can do because I didn't see or recognize what was going on soon enough.

I take pride in seeing things coming and have, on more occasions than I have missed, caught Sam in mid stream before he actually got hurt; so my pride takes just as much of a bruising as Sam does when this happens.

It turns out that he was fine, even with the big, purple, swollen cheek he ended up with. Aimee took a lesson from the weekend we went to the beach where Sydney, one of the little girls who was part of the 5 families that went, took a dive off of an elevated bed face first. They put some what I can only describe as "bruise preventing" gel, because I don't remember what it is called, on it and it really reduced the black eye that Sydney had over the short weekend we were there. It worked the same for Sam and, even though I don't know what it would have been like without the gel, it sure seems like it could have been much worse than the slight discoloration, purplish, that he has under his left eye and on the ball of his cheek.

We did get Sam to let us put some ice on it for about 15 minutes so I am sure that helped with the swelling, but the swelling was gone for the most part before he went to bed. After the initial crying/screaming, he didn't even complain too much about touching it; although he did say it hurt to push on it. I didn't want to hurt him but, with as well as he was taking it, I did want to make sure he didn't have any fractures, which would have hurt to push on. We gave him ibuprofen to help with the swelling and some pain management, but he really hasn't needed anything since the day after he did it, which was probably more for our comfort than his. He was even hamming it up when we were trying to take pictures of it.



I guess it just proves how helpless we are as Parents to protect our kids from every hurt and how we must trust in God's provision and protection of them when we fail. He is one tough kid, though; he even took a nap after we did the ice and made sure his eyes were dilating. It totally amazed me how quickly he really recovered from it; I hope he is not getting used to it now.

Free OMSI day

Last month I went up to my parents with Sam to let Aimee have some time to study for her last CPA exam. My sister and her family were also there for a stop over the weekend before heading to the coast the following week. The ulterior motive for the trip was to get firewood for our camping trip later that month. It was good I ended up getting more wood than I thought I would need since we used it all.

Before we left, I found that OMSI had sent a note through Facebook that there was a free day there that Saturday, so we packed up the three kids, Sam and his two cousins, and went. I had thought that I wouldn't take Sam since he was either getting over a cold or looking like he was getting one; I don't remember which. I finally talked myself into it and I am glad we did, cuz it was actually pretty fun for Sam.

Here are the pics:
We went through the first Physics section and Sam had a blast playing with everything. He unfortunately didn't want anything to do with the cool ball room, where they had conveyors and other ball transport devices that were moving the balls the kids put in various places in the room to the ceiling or shooting them across the room. I would have liked to explore that a little bit more.


The Natural Sciences section was a little less engaging for Sam, but he liked looking at the bugs and snakes. I tried to get him to sit in front of the globe so I could take a picture, but he didn't seem to like that too much. The thermal image camera was pretty cool, although Sam probably didn't get what it was about; it would have probably made a little more sense had I known there was a hot and cold block you could use on the wall to make patterns that would show up on the camera after they were removed.


Sam seemed to have the best time in the little kid themed area, for obvious reasons. There was a lot more there that was engaging for his age and Tyler and Isaac even had a great time in there. Sam really liked the bear cave with the flashlights and little tunnel.



Sam always has a good time with his cousins and he and Isaac get along especially well. Isaac really looks out for Sam and helps him find toys and plays with Sam very patiently... it is pretty cool to watch. And of course they both love reading with their grandma B.

Labor Day Hike ...err Climb

We decided to try and do something fun for Labor Day with Sam, so we went to Mt. Pisquah Arboretum for a hike and to have lunch. We evidently didn't do enough research about the trails cuz we ended up scaling a small mountain, Mt. Pisquah. There evidently were rolling hill, mostly shaded trails, but we decided to hike straight up the steepest, full sun, hot trail we could find.

It took us over an hour and a half to get to the top and it was pretty steep. You can kinda tell in the pics where you can see where there are people walking way up the slope. Anywho... it was a fun time but we got home way later and were all exhausted when we got back... Sam even fell asleep in the hiking pack for the last 20 minutes or so coming down.



Aimee carried Sam up the first part of the very steep path and was having a harder time with it than she expected. So I took Sam for the rest of the assent and we still went pretty slow. We let Sam out to walk about 3/4 of the way up so we could have a snack and he wanted to walk. But when it proved to be even slower going with stops every 3 steps to pick up more rocks, we decided it was time to put him in the hiker pack and get up to the top so we could have lunch.



The top was fun and gorgeous, even with it being a little hazy. It was an awesome 270 degree view. We took some rest in the shade of the trees at the top and had lunch we brought... it was like 1:30 at this point since it had taken us 1.5 hours to make the top. It was a welcome break to have lunch. We even had a praying mantis visitor that started crawling up my leg after we started eating.




The decent was much quicker and Sam was able to actually walk a lot and just held our hands when the slope was a little too steep for him to keep his footing in the gravel. We made pretty good time but he started really slowing down and figuring he was getting tired we put him back in the hiker pack about where we had taken a snack break on the way up.



We got to a crossroads where two trails met and decided to take the slightly longer, 1 mile, trail that was much less steep compared to the way we came up, which would have been murder carrying Sam. Aimee did a great job carrying Sam all the way back down; I think she wanted to prove to herself she could do it.



There were three hawks, or maybe eagles, that flew over us almost one right after the other. I think this was the first one since the other two went over really fast and were out of sight before I could get the camera back out.



This tree was pretty cool with the moss growing on it; Aimee and I both commented as we went by so I decided it warranted a picture.



And the end of the hike, where we all feel like Sam, but just can't show it yet.



Anywho... when we got to the bottom about 3:30, our neighbor, John, from down the street was just getting there with his dog Turbo and his Son, Scott, and his dog Taser. It was kinda strange to see someone familiar up there.