Saturday - good to be home, however tired and sore. Didn't get a lot done. Did a bit of grocery shopping.
Checked on the friends' house and fish, and picked up & petted each of their cats to keep them from going feral.
Sadly my friends had a death in the family on Friday night, not really
unexpected as the gentleman was in a hospice, but there is shock and
trauma none the less. So they may be spending more time down in San
Diego than they thought. We'll see. I'll be attending the service near
the end of the month, down that way.
Friday 12 August
2011
Friday
- Carried up the capstones, but didn't put them in place as the
neighbors may be walking in that area this weekend. Cleaned and packed
and organized, from about 8am to 1pm, then hit the road south.
It comes to a bit over 80 hours for the two weeks I've been up, so
pacing myself almost worked. I should have spread the heavy labor out a
bit more, then I wouldn't be so sore. Ah well, so it goes.
Going down south, a long
hot drive, temperatures in the low 90's.
I took a shortcut through the central valley, which worked as well as
they ever do. The TomTom doesn't distinguish between paved, gravel and
dirt roads - but I do. There were a lot of trucks on the road - both interstate and local routes. Annoying.
Stopped for dinner at the Taco Bell at the WeedPatch Highway off ramp in Bakersfield:
The actual colors were a lot brighter and more saturated than the cell phone picture here.
Then it was the drive up and over the Tehachapi's, down through Mojave
and Rosamond and back into Lancaster. Home at last, with one more
errand to run in the evening: I stopped by my friend's house and
checked on their mail and cats - they are down to San Diego for the
weekend.
Thursday 11 August 2011
Thursday
- Arms and joints hurting too much to get a lot of work done. I tried
loading some capstones for the landscape block wall in front, and
couldn't really complete the task - I had to get some Home Depot help
to get them into my Explorer, and then I just left them there, knowing
I wouldn't be able to carry them up the stairs. It sucks getting old.
So only about four hours work, little stuff like touch up paint and
hunting up varnishes and tiles for the kitchen. Also cleaning the
horrible 'antique gold' louvers for the whole house fan, and painting
the attic hatch and the trim about it. Cleaning the bathroom vent, and
repainting the cover for it - I'd prefer to replace, but there just
isn't time. Highlighting in red stripes the low beam in the wash room.
Wednesday
10 August 2011
Wednesday - Putting down the weed
block ground cloth and bark for the tier with the junipers. Tiring and
dirty work, but it looks better. I forgot to spray with RoundUp before
putting the weedblock cloth down though :-(
My sister wanted to paint the porch steps while I was doing this, and I
had to tell her 'no', as I was shoveling bark and dirt about. Instead
she painted indoors, some closet doors and shelving.
I did some more trim painting myself, later, and put an new closet rod
in the #2 bedroom - all it had was a 1/2" water pipe, probably put in
by my father or Ernie Paisley, the plumber who owned the house before
us (and who had painted the entire interior army green, the walls, ceiling and trim).
A solid eight hours plus of work.
Book #92 was In the Shadow of Ares, by Thomas L. James. This was coming-of-age (juvenile) SciFi, but pretty well done.
Lion cat made his usual appearances. He and a young grey-white cat are
battling it out for use of the dirt piles in the back yard. I call the
other cat "Little Poopie" for the obvious reasons (the battle is not
particularly physical, but one of spray and excrement). LP even
sauntered into the house one day when I left the door open - but ran
out when he saw me. I always have to check that I haven't locked a cat
in the basement before I leave...
Tuesday
9 August 2011
Tuesday
- Put on the PT rail "cap" for the lower retaining wall. I was starting
to see a bit of warp in the boards, and decided they'd better be
attached to something solid.
The 2x6 PT caps for my new retaining wall are warping a bit, despite
restraints and a good coat of stain. Well, that's #2 grade (or less)
for you. Out of my hands. Scraped away a lot of old ground cover and
dirt, carried to the side yard in a five gallon bucket. I obviously
minimized the amount of that particular chore.
The young neighbor's are apparently moving on the weekend. They've a
big slash pile in our side yard of weeds and dead plants - one of them
told me that he'd lose his deposit if he didn't "take care" of things.
Since they've let probably dozens
of plants die over the last few years I'm not optimistic that a few
days grubbing and clearing is going to help with the landlord, but it's
his call. He did say he was going to take the pile away, which was my
concern.
Monday 8
August 2011
Monday
- Visited my friends' daughter in San Francisco. We have a nice lunch
at an outdoor cafe' she knew of. She's happy, poised, professional, and
starting a new job, and making her way into the field of professional
photography. It's odd, I'm happy for her but miss the 8 year old
rattling on about the Disney Channel and the music she likes...
Back at the house again, doing smaller chores, painting and such. I put a new light
fixture in the small bedroom, so it looks a bit nicer. With new paint
and trim it looks a lot bigger than it's 9x11 actual size. Without a
closet we may not be able to advertise it as a bedroom though...
I also fooled around a little with the rear retaining walls. These are
the last big items before we can rent the place (we're having
professionals install new carpet and flooring). I've some idea's on how
to re-use the old post foundations, but it may be easier just to put
new posts in. For the rest landscape block may suffice. Despite my
urgings no-one up north took my advice to plant any new landscape or
even maintain the old landscaping - it's going to be pretty barren out
there.
There may be enough loose old brick to use a paver's for parts of it. But there'll be a lot of gravel and bark.
My brother came by for a couple of hours. He said he'd tweaked his back
the previous day, but we managed to put up blinds in the rear bedroom,
which is an improvement.
Sunday
- Took it easy, just a bit of painting and little stuff. Arms, wrists
and elbows are pretty sore (the ibuprofen with morning coffee kind of sore), and
I've lots more to do next week. Maybe four hours work today. I also had a bunch of
chores, laundry, dishes, cleaning and the like to do. A week's worth of
living...
I'd hoped my brother
would come by, but he didn't. No appearance, no call.
Picture of
the Week Photo Notes: Yours truly, taken by an old style (light-shot) film camera,
Coastal Range, Ca., 2011.
