21 April 2013
Spring Project Time
21/04/13 09:20
Spring is here and spring means project time. To that end we had a couple of people around to the house this week. First we had a yard person come by to clip, chop, cut and haul away the debris. He gave all of the shrubbery a good haircut and everything looks much better. Interestingly, we knew him because he worked on the yard of the house we rented for a month a couple years back. The yard had been let go for several years and was badly in need of a serious clean up. The owner, who hadn’t moved in, had this fellow come by and he chopped and ripped out and dug up the whole yard front and back. Marsha got his card, she’s very good at that sort of thing, and when we decided it was time to clean up this place, she had it at the ready. I swear that if it weren’t for Marsha I’d be living in a hole in the ground.
The second visitor this week was a masonry contractor. You probably don’t remember but last year when we redid the garage I had them dump all of the broken concrete in the yard next to the driveway. The idea was that we could level that out, add some gravel to it and then the driveway would be wider. Giving us easier access to the second stall in the carport, and more room to park cars. I just wanted to meet him on site to make sure we were on the same page about the details and price. It looks like the project will go exactly as I imagined it. Well, because of the amount of fill needed, up to three feet in places, we’ll need a retaining wall to keep it from slumping. That’s OK because it turns out that this was the guy that built the existing retaining walls in the lower yard, so the new one will match exactly. Then they have to move the rubble we dumped in the yard. It’s in the way of where the wall will go and they need a clear space to pour the footing. Actually they have to move all of it because he needs to cut and remove the turf and put down geo-fabric so we don’t have anything trying to grow through the new pavement. Then, well, it turns out that broken up concrete is really bad fill anyway. It’s full of voids and the gravel on top will keep sifting down into the spaces. We’d be dumping bags of gravel on the pile forever and then watching it disappear down holes. This would then leave jagged rocks sticking up that are hard on the tires. So they are going to pick up all the broken concrete I was so proud of saving and haul it away like they could have done last year.
Oh well, it seemed like a great idea at the time.
Tonight, Sunday, is the final scheduled performance of Memory of Water. Next month we have one more performance at the Vancouver Island Festival, a big competition from all the theatres around here, but this is the end of the regular run. It’s been exhausting, I’ve even lost a fair amount of weight because of all the work and long hours, not that that’s a bad thing. It has been the most fun, rewarding, satisfying experience I’ve had in years. I can’t wait to do another. There’s nothing like the thrill you get when, after months of work, the performance goes off like clockwork and you get an ovation at the end. Seeing people who have been laughing their heads off and those pushed to tears. Knowing you’ve had such an impact of people is just amazing. There will be more plays in the future, but as with other things, the first will always be special.
Doug & Marsha
PIX: The yard and cake. Why Marsha got mad at me for cutting myself a piece of cake is a mystery.
The second visitor this week was a masonry contractor. You probably don’t remember but last year when we redid the garage I had them dump all of the broken concrete in the yard next to the driveway. The idea was that we could level that out, add some gravel to it and then the driveway would be wider. Giving us easier access to the second stall in the carport, and more room to park cars. I just wanted to meet him on site to make sure we were on the same page about the details and price. It looks like the project will go exactly as I imagined it. Well, because of the amount of fill needed, up to three feet in places, we’ll need a retaining wall to keep it from slumping. That’s OK because it turns out that this was the guy that built the existing retaining walls in the lower yard, so the new one will match exactly. Then they have to move the rubble we dumped in the yard. It’s in the way of where the wall will go and they need a clear space to pour the footing. Actually they have to move all of it because he needs to cut and remove the turf and put down geo-fabric so we don’t have anything trying to grow through the new pavement. Then, well, it turns out that broken up concrete is really bad fill anyway. It’s full of voids and the gravel on top will keep sifting down into the spaces. We’d be dumping bags of gravel on the pile forever and then watching it disappear down holes. This would then leave jagged rocks sticking up that are hard on the tires. So they are going to pick up all the broken concrete I was so proud of saving and haul it away like they could have done last year.
Oh well, it seemed like a great idea at the time.
Tonight, Sunday, is the final scheduled performance of Memory of Water. Next month we have one more performance at the Vancouver Island Festival, a big competition from all the theatres around here, but this is the end of the regular run. It’s been exhausting, I’ve even lost a fair amount of weight because of all the work and long hours, not that that’s a bad thing. It has been the most fun, rewarding, satisfying experience I’ve had in years. I can’t wait to do another. There’s nothing like the thrill you get when, after months of work, the performance goes off like clockwork and you get an ovation at the end. Seeing people who have been laughing their heads off and those pushed to tears. Knowing you’ve had such an impact of people is just amazing. There will be more plays in the future, but as with other things, the first will always be special.
Doug & Marsha
PIX: The yard and cake. Why Marsha got mad at me for cutting myself a piece of cake is a mystery.