Some garden progress, some regress

Even though all but one of the tomato plants has died from frost in the early morning we have been having lately, and the peppers have also suffered, there are baby carrots or onions poking up and the pumpkins are just starting to show.

Hopefully the remaining tomato plant, broccoli, peppers, green beans, carrots and onions will be able to hold out until the cold mornings are not so severe.

Aimee even found out from one of her coworkers, who's husband does farming, that it is still a little early to plant due to the cold and wet, so covering the beds at night might be necessary to save them for the time being.

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Take nap

We were getting finished with dinner tonight when Aimee checked Sam's sun flower in the window sill. It was a little dry so she showed Sam how it was wilted. I tried to help by pointing out how the leaves were drooping and the stalk wasn't straight. I said, "It's tired and thirsty."
Sam helped Aimee water the pot and while they watched the water soak into the dirt, Sam said "Take nap."

We laughed and laughed and congratulated Sam on his witty comment.

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somewhat neat blogger feature

I was just reading random stuff about blogger and came across an article about blogger views. Evidently it is something that is available on all blogs, you just add /view after the url. For instance, you can view my blog with the sidebar view at: http://whatasillyandstupid.blogspot.com/view/sidebar#!/ There are other views on the top dropdown, like mosaic and flipcard. They just take your blog posts and pictures and display them in creative and different ways; some more visually pleasing and some more useful that others.

Second garden bed finished

Screws, straps, pocket holes, more screws, black plastic sheeting, gravel, landscape fabric, shovel, dirt, garden mulch, mix, organic bagged soil, mix. Done.

Enough said.

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Yard work begins

We started the spring cleaning work in the yard this past week. It has been nice a couple days in between the rain, and since yard debris was this week, I just had to get the cans full before it was picked up on Friday. There are a lot of weeds and unfortunately I didn't think to take before pictures.

I weeded the front yard Wednesday night after I got home from picking Sam up from Sarah's; it was such a nice night. I got the raised bed with the day lilies we planted last fall and the strip next to the driveway weeded by the time Aimee got home. Sam was having such a fun time initially helping me with putting weeds in the bucket and then digging in the raised bed; putting the dirt in his dump truck and dumping it out again. There is a lot of open space in that bed so I just had to tell him to not cover the green plants and he was careful to not hurt the lilies.I probably got more than half of the first yard debris can filled with all those weeds; they had gotten kinda thick, but not as thick as in the backyard, in garden area.

The garden area was a virtual jungle, of weed proportions. Aimee help me weed the area around the gravel pad I had started last fall for the the second raised garden bed. We weeded until it got dark and the flood lights came on back there. We must have filled the rest of the first and most of the second yard debris can with all the weeds. That corner of the yard looks pretty good now.

This weekend I even started building the second raised bed. I put together the first of the three 2x6 boxes that get stacked up to create the bed and had the wood for the other two cut before we went in to get Sam to bed last night. I put the second level together this morning and figured out that I could use my pocket hole jig to drill holes so I could attach the two levels together. I had used a scrap of 2x6 at 3 places on each side of the first raised bed and it was kinda clompy to put the plastic liner in. So this will work much better.

It started raining today, right on queue with the weather predictions that the rain would start around 12 noon (I think it was actually like 11:45am). I got the first screws in the 3rd level when it started raining. I was trying to find my ratchet straps to tame the boards that were cupping the wrong way so I could get a tight joint when it started, so I grabbed all the tools and quickly got them under the eves of the house, cleaned up and got everything in the garage. I will have to finish it this weekend when it is supposed to be nice again; unless I can find a good hour of no rain to get that last level screwed together, the pocket holes drilled and then secure that last level.

Once I can get that last level screwed in, I can put the plastic liner around the inside of the box to keep the dirt from touching the wood. Then there is just filling it with dirt and planting the remaining tomatoes, pumpkin, and zucchini to finish out what we have planned for this year's garden. Aimee has already planted lettuce, broccoli, one heirloom tomato, carrots, peas, beans, and onions in the first box. I put two bags of fresh organic dirt in that bed and mixed it into the garden compost and soil that didn't do so well last year. Hopefully this amendment will allow the garden to do better this year. I have more of that dirt to add to the second box so hopefully they will both have good harvests.

Oh, and I figured out that the ratchet straps were in the car Aimee drives, so I will have to get those out in case the weather clears this week.

The great grape escape

I bought some grapes at the store last weekend and we have been eating on them all week for dinner. Sam loves them and has even learned how to pull them off the stem himself and recognize if the stem breaks off and needs to be further separated. I know it sounds trivial, but for a 28 month old, not so easy to do. Anywho... I asked him for one last night, since it was the last small bunch left. I only asked for a couple but each time I did, I would say "Thank You" really enthusiastically and make a gesture like it was some great prize Sam was rewarding me with. Then pop the grape in my mouth and chew as if it was the best grape that I had ever had. Well I guess the flattery worked, cuz I think he gave me all the rest of the bunch, except about 3 or 4 that he ate, waiting for me to say thank you and gobble it up. The giggle he was getting out of it was well worth all the overplay. I was feeling kinda silly that night so it was great fun for me too. He especially cracked up when I got a slightly sour one and couldn't make the normal excited act and made a sour face. Then he got the biggest laugh out loud belly laugh when he was trying to give me one of the last grapes and I said it was ok that he have it but that he better hurry up or it was going to get away. By coincidence he dropped it and it rolled across the table toward me so I batted it around a little bit as he was also trying to grab it, like it was trying to evade our capture. I eventually let him catch it and he popped it in his mouth to secure it but wasn't chewing it. Again I said he better hurry up and chew it so it didn't get away. He put both hands over his mouth like he was gaurding the exit of the grape prison but played around with it in his mouth for a little bit. Soon enough, "pop" out it came, landing on the table where he quickly grabbed it and bit it in half; gotta make sure it doesn't do that again. Aimee and I burst out laughing and we chuckled about it all night. I think Sam thought that grape WAS actually trying to get away from him by the time he got it the second time, so he wasn't going to let it get away again. I think Aimee might have gotten a video of it on her phone, but I am not sure. If she did, I will ask her to post it or post it myself later.

First woodworking project

We were at HD today looking at some plants that I saw tasse the other day when I got some new dirt for the raised garden beds. Well I got the basic approval of my finds but got the obvious question of where said finds would be planted... Uh... I was hoping that was aimee's department, so it would have to wait.

So Aimee went in search for some flower seeds she did know she wanted and Sam and I went in search for waterproofing membrane and shower pan forms for options for the master bath. We got directed to the wrong isle by an obviously misinformed employee, who evidently thought I was talking about shower forms, not just the waterproof membrane that would go under tile work. I digress.

We were on our way back to the tile department and in the main isle they had a line of 1x8s stacked on HD buckets and there were a bunch of kids and their parents making a small wood project. I was at first concerned that Sam wouldn't be interested or able to keep his attention on it, but figured if it didn't work we could take the stuff home and try it later.

Sam got his own apron and a pin that said he had completed the flower basket project. We got the kit, Sam grabbed a hammer and glue from the bucket by the sign-up table and we went and found a place at the plank to sit down to work on it.

Sam did great. He was very interested in the wood pieces and for some reason, especially the bag of nails. Anywho I figured out pretty quick, with a glance at the instructions and the kids around us, how it went together... Bottom, two sides, and 6 slates for the two sides.

We got started off kinda slow and I helped Sam hammer the first couple nails to attach the sides to the bottom... I was a little worried about getting a finger smashed by a two year-old left to hammer on his own. Sam was doing pretty good with less and less help, so I gave him more and more freedom with the hammer. I am happy to say, although there was one close call, we both came out with a finished project and no hammered fingers. He did have a little bit of an aiming problem but evidently practicing with the play workbench has paid off because he eventually got every one of the nails hammered in.

We even let him pick out two flowers to put in his planter on or way out of the store; what we are doing when I took the above picture. I'll have to post a picture once we get the flowers planted in his planter, hopefully tomorrow.

All-in-all, this was just one more example of what I was talking about in the last post...he is such a capable little man. I guess this is what parents talk about time going by so fast; it sneaks up on you.

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My little big boy

Sam helped me bring the yard waste cans back in from the street this afternoon. I was curious if he could manage one of the cans by himself, not really expecting that he could, and he pulled it the 10 or so feet from the street all by himself and then tipped it up to standing too.

Sam has been amazing me the past few days that he has been home with me. The daycare provider had family in town and asked if we could make other arrangements for Thurs and Fri so they could have some family time. We didn't come up with any other arrangements so I just decided to make it work for the two days.

We went to the park on Thurs that has a 3 story play structure and Sam was climbing the vertical ladders between the levels with little difficulty and pretty confidently. He even was going down the slide from the top level by himself, after I got comfortable with his ability to do it. He is quite the competent climber. He wore me out climbing all over the place.

Today we went to a local open gymnastics place during the 0-5 yr old time and, after warming up to the new place, Sam really amazed me again with his physical ability.

I guess it really has been since last fall when he went into full time daycare that I had really been out doing stuff with him like this. We have stayed mostly inside during the winter even though he has had time playing outside with the older kids at Sarah's when there have been the occasional nice afternoon.

Just trying to get stuff done around the house on the weekends makes it hard to go do fun stuff like this normally. It is kinda sad that it took being "forced" by circumstances into spending extra time with Sam to realize that I really like my son and love spending time with him. And I need to take more of an effort to make time to "be" with Sam and not just be around him.

Well lesson learned.

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Roof Vents

I didn't remember I had the pic for the bathroom and laundry room fan roof vents on the other camera, so here it is:

They are not exactly straight, but they are on the back side of the house. And in my defense, I was working up against a nasty wind storm that started raining buckets as soon as I was finished getting them installed.

Finally finished shingling

I finally got all the shingling done. My dad came down this past weekend to help; he called to offer help last week since he hadn't heard that I had gotten it finished since the holidays.

Mom and him came up Friday after they were done with a tree consultation for a plan of what to plant since that took out all the trees they had, most of which were too big or messy. Anywho, we got up there and got the shingles off the west side of the Familyroom and got tar paper up by the time it got dark. We tarped the roof before we came in and nursed our sore bodies for the night. It was painfully obvious that we hadn't been doing much hard work for the past couple months.

We got started kinda late on Sat since I had to do a work call and then Aimee, Sam and I had a birthday party to go to for two hours in the late morning. It ended up taking almost two days to get the shingles done and the family room ridge done.

Mom and Dad left on Monday around 2, after lunch and getting their stuff packed up. I kinda wish I would have thought about it and had them stay to finish the rest of the ridge since Sam was home taking a nap when they left. I didn't feel like I could really be up on the roof nailing since I wouldn't want to wake him up or, worse, miss Sam waking up...

So I finally finished the roof tonight after a week of a chest cold that kept me inside trying to recover, barking like a seal. It really didn't take that long to finish the ridge once I figured out how I was going to do the peak where the Family room meets the main part of the house. I will be doing it differently when I redo the front roof, but it will work for the time being.

I also got the first valley cut and the two vents for the bath and laundry room fans installed through the roof. I still need to attach the ducts to the roof vent, but that can be done when it is raining tomorrow. It was so windy while I was trying to finish the vent caps that I thought I was going to get rained on... but it waited until I got inside.

Now for the second part of the project that seems to take longer than it should; cleanup and final touches. I still need to cement down both valleys and places on the ridge, remove all the single scraps, blow off the loose grit off the roof, clean out the gutters, magnet take the yard to get up all the staples and nails, and generally clean up anything else in the yard that is left over. oh, and the aformentioned vent duct connections.

It seems to be unending at times.

Please excuse the panorama picture, I had a hard time getting it to turn out right, so it is a little messed up.

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First bloody pinched finger.

Ouchy!!! Sam's first really bad pinched finger. I heard the hall closet bi-fold door and then Sam start screaming... I came out into the hall and Sam was standing at the closet door with the tip of his pinky pinched in the fold and he was thankfully just standing there and not trying to pull it out. He didn't get the bone, but he ended up breaking the skin though; about a quarter inch tear on the pad of his punky.

We put a bandaid on it and he sat on my lap for about 5 minutes counting to 10, somewhat successfully, while we iced it to help take down the slight swelling around it.

He is playing fine now, so it must not be bugging him too much; at least now that he is leaving the bandaid alone.

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More track

I have been wanting to get Sam more wooden train track ever since we got his first set for his birthday. Sam has gotten a couple other big add on pieces for his birthday and at Christmas but we always seem to run out of track to get it all connected. I didn't realize just how expensive the track was...like $50 for about 20-30 Thomas brand track pieces, if it was on a good sale, and the other major brands are not much better. But I was looking on Amazon for something else and came across some generic track that was like $40 for 100 pieces; 25 each of 6" straight, 4" straight, 6" corner, and 4"corner track. I was a little sceptical of the quality based on the online reviews and it is probably produced by some guy in his garage but I am impressed with the quality, even though the pieces seem to be a little looser than the other track we have. Some of the reviews were saying something about some plastic pegs that fell off within days but it must have been from previous version of this set cuz a you can see from the picture, they are all wood with slots and pegs cut from the wood. Looking forward to building some big tracks, although I have a feeling that I may think w e will need more other pieces now and definitely more trains.

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Cool Android app

My current Heart Rate is 85bpm. Measured using Instant Heart Rate app for Android My Current Heart Rate

It measures the color of the skin on your index finger with the phone's camera and flash, as it changes as your heart beats blood through it.

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Sam's Tub delima

Sam had a very interesting bath last night. We got him in there right after dinner, figuring that he would get his bath, in pajamas and then we could play and hand out until he went to bed. Well, that was a nice plan, but not what happened.

Sam got himself mostly undressed by himself; upon protest from any help at all from us. He finally got undressed and I put him in the tub. Aimee was about to wash him when he said, "Poop. Sam Poop." So I asked if he wanted to sit on the toilet to go and he said yes. We waited for him to say he was finished and were actually surprised to see that he had actually peed. So he went back in the tub and I started to get his toys out of the tub caddy when he totally looses it; complete freekout.

I thought he had hurt himself with how much he was wailing. He was also saying something that was kinda hard to understand with his present state, but I finally figured out that he was saying "sock fuzz". I had a hard time not falling down laughing at his distraught reaction to seeing his sock fuzz floating in the tub water... he was clamoring around trying to catch the floating pieces.

We had to "catch" a floating piece of sock fuzz to allow him to calm down enough to get washed and out of the tub and then it took another half hour of putting on his pajamas and a new pair of socks for him to mostly forget about it. I guess he got a lot of energy out of him though, cuz he went to bed after everything was over with very little effort.

Here is the video of the event:

PV system start finally

Finally the electric company got out to install the bidirectional meter and I turned on the system; generating about 1.4kw at 343V presently.

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Snowing after Christmas, but in time for second Christmas.

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Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone.

Hope your holiday is filled with fun, family and good eats.

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Finally finished with the east roof of the Family room

Finally, vacation for the holiday is on and for the first day off I had a somewhat nice day to finish up the shingles on the East side of the family room I almost got finished before my fall; btw I am working on getting the video I caught on my surveillance camera of me falling, the whole 5 sec.

Anyways I am happy to say that I am finally finished with that part of it. Now if I can get another nice day this week, I need to finish up the hip ridges and maybe do the final trim on the overlapping shingles in the valley on the side I just finished. I will have to wait until a stretch of warm, dry weather to get sealed down with roofing cement but it should be fine until then.

The only other thing that also needs to get completed soon is the roof vents for the bath and laundry exhaust fans. I still an trying to figure out where to locate them on the roof since the spot left under the solar panels is too on the roof to work right...the vent pipe would have to contort out one end of the fan, up over the fan housing, then up through the roof and one would have to cross a rafter; not the best path for air flow and not the easiest to connect up since there is only about 18-24 inches of clearance that close to the eaves.

Ml'll...sorry Aimee just screamed and jumped on the other side of the table as a very thick bodied spider came crawling out from under a stack of papers... I killed it post haste, see picture.

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Sam's second birthday celebration

We spent all week gathering party supplies, cleaning up the house, moving all the dislocated house furnishings into the unfinished master bedroom. We then got cupcakes to have after dinner on his actual birthday with a special birthday dinner of Mac & Cheese, green beans and chicken tenders. Sam got to open up his main gift that night also; a wooden train set with a bunch of track, a bridge, tassels and three train sections. He had a hard time stopping play to go to bed that night.


Then the morning of the party Aimee decorated the family room when Sam went down for his nap and I went running around getting the cake, party supplies, veggie and fruit trays, balloons and other last minute items. Aimee got the house finished and people started showing up before I got back with the final batch of stuff, including the 20 mylar balloons from the dollar store; we gave them to whoever wanted one when they left.


There ended up being 13 ~2 year old s, 3 other kids under 7 and 25 adults. Our little house was quite packed but everyone got along and there was evidently enough toys out to allow everyone to play nicely with each other. There were no tantrums or fighting that I saw; maybe some minor squabbles over who was going to get a specific balloon, but other than that all the kids and adults played well together.


Our friends from the Birth-to-Three classes we went to consisted of the bulk of the families there, then there was my sister and her two kids, Sam's daily babysitter and her two boys, and our chiropractor, his wife and their two older daughters. My and Aimee's parents were all there as well as Aimee's grandmother, Ta. I was kinda disappointed that our friends from Portland didn't even respond to our invitations, but maybe something happened in the mail or something.


Sam did great at blowing out his candles; even with the little drip of drool on the edge of the cake that turned into his piece of the cake. The cake was white with a creamy filling and white frosting with primary colored balloons. He got the two candles out in two breaths but got them out none the less. He enjoyed his cake and wanted more, but on a mostly empty stomach we told him that he would have to wait until later. I don't think he ever got another piece, now that I think of it.

Some of the highlights of his presents were: wood block set, a stuffed tiger, a play doctor's kit, a sit-n-spin, some art supplies and coloring books, some clothes and a pair of shoes, a lacing shoe block sorter, and a road track set that the adults almost has more fun playing with than the kids did.

When everyone left, we had a spaghetti dinner with french bread with the family that had come and we invited out friends from church, Sarah, Terry and their boys Zach and Tyler, to stay also since we knew we would have plenty to eat. I had fun playing with the kids and Terry; we got out the road track set and were having fun setting it up with different obstacles and using shoes and other toys to make mountains the little cars had to climb.


Some other pictures from the celebration:


Pictures with Sam’s friends who came:


And a few pictures from the after party before dinner was served:

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