Last night we looked out the back door window and noticed that we forgot something. On each soffit, we have a metal vent down the center that runs parallel to the house. This structure gives ventilation to the attic area. When Rick sanded the soffit on the north side of the Florida room, he dutifully sanded the inside track of wood closest to the house and the fascia board. Yesterday he painted primer on the whole thing, never noticing that he did not sand the outside track of wood. When we looked at the soffit last night, we both noticed the rough wood and the oversight. Oops! Today started with Rick sanding out the rough spots and trying the prime coat of paint all over again.
While he was doing that, I started at the other end of the soffits, painting the first of the finish coats. Rick patched the last soffit behind the garage, and then he came over and rolled the rest of the first coat of paint on the three soffit areas that we could successfully paint today.
The heat rolled in with the high 80s by 10:45 this morning, so we were finished by then. However, that was not the only action in our back yard today. At about 8:30 this morning, a young man in a reflective vest came into the back yard, identified himself as a worker contracted by Duke Energy, and asked if he could trim the trees away from the power lines. We had watched a fellow worker of his butcher the trees in our neighbor's yard, but what choice did we have?
He climbed the tree in the yard behind our house, and we watched the devastation once again. The worker cut branches off that were way above the power lines and would probably never fall on the lines unless we were in a hurricane. He cut off branches that were so far below the lines that they would not have any chance of ever growing enough to reach the lines. What he did NOT cut off was a totally dead limb in the middle of the tree that probably would break off in high winds. The results of his cutting were branches all over our yard (thank God I did not have a bunch of new vegetation back there!) and a totally gutted tree.
 |
| Many branches lie on the ground while the dead limb in the middle remains in the tree. |
He left for about 20 minutes and then came back with another man who asked if they could bring a bucket truck in to cut our live oak. Again, what choice do we have? Rick told him, "No trucks" but that he could bring in a small lift and bucket system. They left again, came back with a grinder, and ground up all of the branches that the worker cut this morning. Then they left again.
 |
| Our "shade" from the camphor tree litters our back yard. |
They have not returned today. Maybe they saw me taking pictures of their "handiwork" and will spare our oak. If not, you had better believe that I will be in the back yard watching them tomorrow. They have already cut more than they had to, thus robbing us of lots of shade in the back yard. I will not have them totally mess up the live oak and deprive us of even more shade.
 |
| The worker saw me take this "before" picture of our live oak. We will have to see if he returns tomorrow and what the results will be. He really only needs to trim away a few branches. If he tries to cut more, I will protest. |
Of course, we are working so hard so that we will have a little time to spend in our latest purchase. When we sold the old sofa, we promised ourselves that we would buy something fun that we would enjoy. We settled on a hammock built for two. It arrived today, and we are looking forward to a little hammock time with a good book on the Kindle.
 |
| OUr newest purchase awaits us. |
 |
| Maybe this will help us relax. |
We move closer to that point each day. I know that Rick thinks he may get bored with nothing to do, but I think that once he remembers how to relax, he will be just fine.
No comments:
Post a Comment