11 November 2012
Yard Work and House Work
11/11/12 15:41
Bad omens.
We go long time with rain, clouds, dark, gloomy, normal.
Even birds walk.
Then rain stop.
Yellow light in sky make water go away.
No more mud.
No more gloom.
Can see far away.
People frightened.
OK so it’s not that bad. We did have a long stretch of rain. It was dark and gloppy and just nasty. But on the other hand we didn’t have to work in the yard and through it all the new family room stayed dry so it wasn’t all bad. This week though, the rain finally broke. I was able to start on the fall yard projects. The first is to trim the hedge. OK, those of you keeping score may remember that we trimmed the hedge within an inch of it’s life last spring. That was on the house side. The street side is still healthy and growing. Twice a year though, I have to trim it so it’s not so ‘shaggy’, this usually takes a couple of days. I lay a ten foot (OK three meter. , it IS Canada after all) tarp on the ground in front of the hedge and start trimming. The tarp catches all the bits of hedge, which is a lot easier than trying to clean them out of the gravel. When I reach the end of the tarp, I slide it forward and do another chunk. The issue is that I have a battery powered hedge trimmer. I can only do two or three chunks before I have to go plug it in for several hours. This is not as bad a deal as it seems though. About the time the trimmers battery runs out, my battery runs out as well. This is how I keep from working myself to exhaustion. I do a couple of sessions, one in the morning and one in the evening. Soon enough it’s done and I don’t end up on the aspirin and heating pad diet. I figure that by doing a little bit at a time, all the trimming and pruning and weeding, and planting and such will be done by spring. Unfortunately, I only got the hedge half trimmed before the rain started again today. Oh well.
While the rain was going on I was working on the bath downstairs. You see it all started a couple of weeks ago. I noticed that the flooring in the little downstairs bath was getting stained. I went down to clean it up. I figured maybe a little seepage from the wax ring or something like that. I started poking around and discovered mould. A little seepage from the seat wouldn’t cause mould on the shower wall so I knew it had to be something much bigger. There’s an old saying that I just made up: “Wisdom starts when a man realizes he’s in over his head.” I called a plumber.
Actually I called Ken, the contractor we’d been working with on the garage/family room project. I wanted the number of the plumber that had worked on the new laundry room. Well, as it turned out, Ken came over himself. After cutting out some of the sheet rock in the area he found that we had a leak in one of the lines behind the shower which he repaired. Now the room has dried out. The mould was very localized so I took care of that myself. All is well now, right? Well no. Now that the bath is partially dismantled I’ve kept up with the destruction. First to make sure everything was opened up and dried out and all mouldy bits removed. Then, well, once I was started I kept going, cutting out sheet rock, pulling tiles, and taking things out. This is the bath we want to rip out next year and redo anyway. I spent half an hour or so each night and am making good progress. A big chunk of one wall is gone. The shower is loose and if I can get it out in one piece, we can donate it to the Reuse-It store. Then everything will be open and I can continue with removing all the bits that I can. The bits I’m removing are bagged and going out in the trash each week, a couple at a time.
To paraphrase the Most Interesting Man in the World
I don’t always clean the bathroom, but when I do, I rip everything out to the wall studs and start over.
Today is Veteran’s Day, Remembrance Day up here. You wouldn’t think there would be any controversy about it but there is. You see it’s traditional to wear a red poppy on Remembrance Day. OK, let’s be honest, it’s been traditional to wear astoundingly badly made plastic imitation red poppy on Remembrance Day. Recently there has been a new trend, wearing an astoundingly badly made plastic imitation white poppy on Remembrance Day. The idea is that red is to honour what veterans did while the white is to honour the veterans by working for peace. They had people from both groups on the CBC this week and they almost came to blows over the disagreement. Now that’s irony.
Longtime readers will remember that I mentioned the giant garden gnome near Nanoose. It’s big, really big, in fact this week it was certified as the biggest lawn gnome in the world by the folks at Guinness.
http://metronews.ca/news/victoria/430456/vancouver-island-garden-gnome-largest-in-the-world-says-guinness/
You know, there’s also a bit of irony about the worlds biggest garden gnome.
Stay Ironic My Friends.
Gargantugnome, leaf on the beach, a bit of unusual driftwood on the beach, A P-3 Orion that was circling over the sound this week.
We go long time with rain, clouds, dark, gloomy, normal.
Even birds walk.
Then rain stop.
Yellow light in sky make water go away.
No more mud.
No more gloom.
Can see far away.
People frightened.
OK so it’s not that bad. We did have a long stretch of rain. It was dark and gloppy and just nasty. But on the other hand we didn’t have to work in the yard and through it all the new family room stayed dry so it wasn’t all bad. This week though, the rain finally broke. I was able to start on the fall yard projects. The first is to trim the hedge. OK, those of you keeping score may remember that we trimmed the hedge within an inch of it’s life last spring. That was on the house side. The street side is still healthy and growing. Twice a year though, I have to trim it so it’s not so ‘shaggy’, this usually takes a couple of days. I lay a ten foot (OK three meter. , it IS Canada after all) tarp on the ground in front of the hedge and start trimming. The tarp catches all the bits of hedge, which is a lot easier than trying to clean them out of the gravel. When I reach the end of the tarp, I slide it forward and do another chunk. The issue is that I have a battery powered hedge trimmer. I can only do two or three chunks before I have to go plug it in for several hours. This is not as bad a deal as it seems though. About the time the trimmers battery runs out, my battery runs out as well. This is how I keep from working myself to exhaustion. I do a couple of sessions, one in the morning and one in the evening. Soon enough it’s done and I don’t end up on the aspirin and heating pad diet. I figure that by doing a little bit at a time, all the trimming and pruning and weeding, and planting and such will be done by spring. Unfortunately, I only got the hedge half trimmed before the rain started again today. Oh well.
While the rain was going on I was working on the bath downstairs. You see it all started a couple of weeks ago. I noticed that the flooring in the little downstairs bath was getting stained. I went down to clean it up. I figured maybe a little seepage from the wax ring or something like that. I started poking around and discovered mould. A little seepage from the seat wouldn’t cause mould on the shower wall so I knew it had to be something much bigger. There’s an old saying that I just made up: “Wisdom starts when a man realizes he’s in over his head.” I called a plumber.
Actually I called Ken, the contractor we’d been working with on the garage/family room project. I wanted the number of the plumber that had worked on the new laundry room. Well, as it turned out, Ken came over himself. After cutting out some of the sheet rock in the area he found that we had a leak in one of the lines behind the shower which he repaired. Now the room has dried out. The mould was very localized so I took care of that myself. All is well now, right? Well no. Now that the bath is partially dismantled I’ve kept up with the destruction. First to make sure everything was opened up and dried out and all mouldy bits removed. Then, well, once I was started I kept going, cutting out sheet rock, pulling tiles, and taking things out. This is the bath we want to rip out next year and redo anyway. I spent half an hour or so each night and am making good progress. A big chunk of one wall is gone. The shower is loose and if I can get it out in one piece, we can donate it to the Reuse-It store. Then everything will be open and I can continue with removing all the bits that I can. The bits I’m removing are bagged and going out in the trash each week, a couple at a time.
To paraphrase the Most Interesting Man in the World
I don’t always clean the bathroom, but when I do, I rip everything out to the wall studs and start over.
Today is Veteran’s Day, Remembrance Day up here. You wouldn’t think there would be any controversy about it but there is. You see it’s traditional to wear a red poppy on Remembrance Day. OK, let’s be honest, it’s been traditional to wear astoundingly badly made plastic imitation red poppy on Remembrance Day. Recently there has been a new trend, wearing an astoundingly badly made plastic imitation white poppy on Remembrance Day. The idea is that red is to honour what veterans did while the white is to honour the veterans by working for peace. They had people from both groups on the CBC this week and they almost came to blows over the disagreement. Now that’s irony.
Longtime readers will remember that I mentioned the giant garden gnome near Nanoose. It’s big, really big, in fact this week it was certified as the biggest lawn gnome in the world by the folks at Guinness.
http://metronews.ca/news/victoria/430456/vancouver-island-garden-gnome-largest-in-the-world-says-guinness/
You know, there’s also a bit of irony about the worlds biggest garden gnome.
Stay Ironic My Friends.
Gargantugnome, leaf on the beach, a bit of unusual driftwood on the beach, A P-3 Orion that was circling over the sound this week.