Generational Art

Aimee's grandma Ta did some artwork from a picture I took of Aimee and Sam at the beach in June. It really turned out great. We have plans of getting it put in a nice frame with a wide mat so that it can be hung in a significant place in the house. We should probably pick that place first so we can adjust the size to match.

Moles!!!!

Well, there are now n-3 moles in my yard. I caught the 3rd one today sometime; it caught me by surprise since I set the trap on the narrower setting and didn't think the trap actually had anything in it. Surprise, there is a mole hanging out the other side.

I have been catching 3 in two months so far; the one tonight, one on June 18th and the first one on May 16. I think it is going a little slow to be able to get the yard in order for grass seeding by Fall. The moles get by the traps about 3-4 times at each location before I finally get one; the last two were actually from the same hole though. If I see anymore activity and don't catch anything in a couple weeks if there is, I will probably call in the professionals.

There is a service that will flush the tunnels with sulfer dioxide gas at 60 mph to kill any in the tunnel system; he says he can tell which mounds are attached to the tunnel he is shooting the gas into by the geysers of gas coming out of other mounds in the yard or neighbor's yards. They also put something on the ground that makes the worms the moles eat undesireable to the moles, so any that may take over the empty tunnels won't stay long.

So if there is yet more activity in the yard, I think I may be paying to get that done, just to be done with it.

Strawberries

We got some strawberry plants from a fund raiser sale last year or the year before and they haven't really done all that well. They didn't get planted in that great of a spot and probably in a hurry before they outgrew the pot we bought them in. I thought they weren't going to do well at all because of where and how we planted them.

I guess they were doing underground work cuz this year they are going wild. There are several new starts from the older plants started and all of them are producing berries. I enjoy picking them daily, with Sam not far behind usually. We share in the fruit of the earth and it is a nice break in the day.

We usually get about a half dozen to a dozen depending on how many the slugs have gotten, but they are producing so fast that the slugs are not getting to as many of them now, so more for us.

strawberries

Garden auto-watering

Finally got the drip watering system installed on the new raised garden beds. It took almost all of yesterday afternoon messing with it. Although, I did get distracted by pruning the tomatoes (they are in their pre-pruned state in the picture above) and getting them tied up and supported better; they had fallen over and were starting to grow up from laying down. They look a lot better now and are not so dense with dead leaves/branches on the inside.

pruned tomatoes

Since the sprinkler system is having problems, due to the irrigation well producing a rust or clay that is clogging the valves every time I turn it on, I decided to buy a faucet timer I saw at the wholesale store and bought an adapter so I could hook a hose to the drip system I had attached to the irrigation well system last year. It works pretty good, looks like everything is getting adequately watered this morning, but we will have to see how it is at the end of a long hot day; may need adjust the time up if it is not getting enough.

new timer

water lines

I also transplanted one of the pumpkins on Saturday from the raised bed since there were 3 on each of the two hills I planted in there. They are getting kinda big and invading the tomatoes. I may just have to find someone to take a couple of the smaller plants, but need to make sure I can successfully transplant one before I try that... I moved it into a large bark section of the yard just outside the garden area, where Aimee was going to plant some wildflowers but I guess gave up on the idea. I had to get more dirt for the transplant to make a small mound for it. I watered the heck out of it but the next day the leaves were all yellowing. It looks better today with several waterings yesterday and today.

pumpkin transplant

On the positive side, the one pumpkin plant is going gang busters and has like 15 little pumpkins forming all along it. On another note, the big one on the other mound I tried to get to hang over the side of the raised bed but I noticed yesterday that it twisted the vine and it was kinda splitting. I tried to support it better, but not too successfully, so we get to see how it does, hopefully it will adapt well.

Oh and the lillies are still doing really good, too.

front lilies

back lilies

We had dinner outside that night and ate almost nothing from the store; it either came from our garden or from the farmer's market.

Big brother day care

When I picked Sam up at the babysitters on Monday, Sarah said Sam had a fall at the park on the teeter-totter.

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He hit is face, I guess, and was wailing. Instead of walking over to Sarah, who he would usually go to for comfort, he started walking away, which she found quite odd and couldn't figure out where he was going until Sam walked up to Malachi, one of the other kids that Sarah watches. Malachi gave Sam a hug, in a very big brotherly way, and looked at his face as Sam was going on about what had happened and was pointing over to the teeter-totter.

Sarah expressed that it was quite sweet how Malachi took care of Sam's hurt and Sam was quite satisfied with the effort and went back to playing. I am so thankful that Sam is developing supportive, healthy relationships with the kids he hangs out with during the day and even more impressed as stories like these come out of his interactions with them. We are truly blessed to have our son being cared for in this manner during the day.

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Lost and found

Lost my knife last night when I was taking out the filberts; the nice one my brother gave me for my birthday that I probably should not have been using like that. Well I looked last night but it wasn't in plain sight and not in the spot I remembered leaving it. Aimee even went and looked a little but was also unsuccessful.

I retired again this morning to sift through the loose dirt in and around the how left by the filbert without any luck, but I decided to look around just a little more and found it back away from the hole, covered in about 3 inches of dirt. Luckily it cleaned off nice and wasn't rusty or anything. Whew!!! I really like that knife.

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Filbert and Ernie

I needed to get some energy out tonight, so I went outside to check on the garden and the mole traps I set yesterday. No moles, but there was a filbert growing alongside one of the azaleas by where one of the traps was and the branches were getting to me, so I pulled it out.

I got the come-along, you know - a cable ratchet, hand cranked winch, and my trucker chain. With the chain wrapped around the base of one of the old deck posts and the come-along attached to the filbert and the chain (I actually had to whittle the main trunk of the filbert to get the come-along hook to hook around it). Well about 5 minutes of cranking on it and the thing just pulled out of the ground; luckily filberts have shallow roots and no tap root.

Anywho... I got to thinking about the filbert that is under the rhododendron out front and thought since I have the come-along out, might as well tackle that one as well. That one has been under there for as long as we have owned the house and since it is hard to get to, I have just cut back the trunks that show out of the rhody to keep it looking nice. Well, that rhody is dying now, probably because of this filbert, so it doesn't have a lot of branches any more and I was able to get under the rhody to get at the filbert.

It was not as easy as the first one. It took about a half hour of digging around it, an extra rope that I wasn't sure would hold made for some "excitement"; I was hoping I wouldn't be at the business end of the hook if that rope broke. The pick axe helped a lot as it was hard to get the shovel in there with all the surface roots. There is a nice hole in the front now where that filbert was and although a little sore, I am glad to have it out of there.

**If you are curious about the title for this post, I have had a hard time in the past remembering the name of these trees so some time ago, Aimee would give me a clue, "Bert and Ernie", which turned into what is in the title.

Megawatt production

The solar electric system has produced over a megawatt in the past 5 months it has been in operation.

Update: This past month of May, I figured out that we generated 357kWh and got credit from the utility for 157 kWh and consumed 760kWh (4990kWh since Jan when the meter was replaced).

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Bye bye, hot tub

Had the old hot tub removed this morning. Only took the guy 3 hours to dismantle, cut it into about 10 pieces and haul it to his truck. They had a paver foundation for it, so it will be a nice little patio for us while we figure out the plan for the yard.

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First veggies

I was surprised today when I went out to check on the garden and found that there were mature peas, almost ready for picking. We have had a lot of lettuce from the garden almost from the beginning but this is the first of the salad fixings that is ready.

I also noticed that the first head of broccoli is getting pretty big too, but not quite ready got picking. The tomatoes are finally starting to put on flowers now too.

Looks like this batch of plants is going to do just fine.

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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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