Panels, Gates, and a Christmas Preview

I am really tired tonight, so this post will be short.  I don't know if the fatigue is just from trying to keep up with my husband, or if my dropping down in medication is finally taking its toll.

At any rate, the work continued today.  Rick dug three holes for three more posts.  Thankfully, none of the holes had roots in them, so the digging was fairly easy.  We were outside by 7:45 this morning, so by 9:00 a.m. we had all of the posts set into the holes at the correct depth.  Since it was 9:00 a.m., we felt we could start to pour the concrete, especially since the mixer really is not noisy at all.

The first two poles went in with little trouble.  Once again, the south side hole gave us the most grief.  That is supposed to be the easy side of the yard, and the last two poles have fought us as far as positioning is concerned.  However, by 11: 40, all of the panels were complete, and all of the posts were set in concrete.

The east side of the yard needs only one more panel for us to be shut off from the street view behind us.  We still have about five panels to go, but adding a panel a day really eats the distance we still must enclose.

Another panel both on the north and the east side of the yard
continue to give us privacy and to define the yard.

The neighbors to the south are not too pleased that we are putting a fence back up between our yards.  The yard had a fence when we moved in three years ago, but it was falling apart and not safe.  We tore it down the first year we were here, leaving the yards open to one another.  While the expanded views made both yards seem larger, we now are ready to have some of our privacy back.  With the fence, I will not feel like I am in a fishbowl each time I sit or work in our Florida room.

Another panel almost entirely closes off our yard on the
south side from the back yard of our neighbors.

After lunch, we took a quick trip to Steve and Chris' house to see how they fastened the fence to their house.  We are now to the point where we have to design the final panel on the south side so we can position where we want to end the fence and to position the gate.

When we came home, Rick dug out the instructions from our gate kit on how to construct our gate.  We decided to build it since we cannot do final calculations until we have more exact measures of the gate. The instructions were poor, but with little effort, we were able to put the gate together.  We'll finish our calculations and hopefully add the final south-side panel tomorrow.

"Why did I ever start this fence?" Rick seems to be thinking
as he walks back to the gate we were constructing.

Now for the "Only in Florida" experience.  Our neighbor across the street has a huge evergreen tree in her front yard.  When I looked out today, I looked up and smiled.  Only in Florida does one see a Christmas tree topped with a white ibis instead of a star! This the season, I guess...

Florida decor for Christmas. This is better than two
partridges in a pear tree.

We hope to work on the south side of the house tomorrow in an attempt to have that side totally complete before we leave for Wisconsin in a couple of weeks.  If we only complete two panels a day, that will be fine with both of us.  We have pushed the project and actually are further along than we thought we would be at this time.  We'll be happy when it is finished; perhaps we can find time to relax in the new year.

Three More Panels

If a person were to walk down the street just east of our house, he could look through the houses and see everything in our back yard.  As we add panels to our fence each day, our privacy increases.  With just two more panels across the back, passersby will no longer be able to see into our backyard.  That delights me both from a personal privacy perspective and from a security perspective.  Maybe that's why working so hard each day is rewarding.

We started early again today; however, the weather was not so damp or so cold.  A single sweatshirt without gloves or hats was all that we needed to be comfortable.  Since our neighbors to the south sleep later on Saturday, we decided to work first on the north corner.  The hole on the north side was still quite soggy, but it accepted the panels and post with no problems.  The panels across the back on the east side were a bit of a problem.  When we put in the bottom rail, it still rested on the stump end that Rick had sawed out yesterday.  We knew we would have to cut further, but rather than waste time just then, we moved on to the south side.

Rick had dug all of the holes yesterday, but the south side post fought us both in height and in north/south positioning.  Rick worked for quite a while to get it positioned correctly, and then when we poured the cement in, it tried to move back to its incorrect place.  Gr-r-r-r.  It is now in position, but the location is more "good enough" than it is "just perfect."

With just two more panels on the south side, we will be ready
to turn the corner to connect the fence to the house.

Back to the east side, once again the SawsAll in conjunction with a cold chisel and a large demolition mallet removed the offending remainder of the stump so that the fence both would sit level and would have at least 2 - 3 inches of clearance underneath.  This post, too, fought us.  We thought that the north pole hole was soggy; this one was underwater about 3 inches.  We added stone and worked to get the post in at the right height.  Although it now is level, it is twisted just a bit to the left, so we will have to make some corrections with the next pole.

Two more panels to the right of the right-hand section
totally will block the view of our yard from the parallel street.

Rick was worried that we were putting the fence back too far on our lot.  We are trying to stay 3 inches inside our property line.  He measured once, and then measured again.  We are right where we should be.  The problem is not OUR fence but rather the chain link fence behind it.  That fence, over the years, has been greatly bowed out toward our property by the camphor tree just inside of it, just as our live oak tree has bowed that same fence toward our neighbors property further down the property line.  If I look at the chain link fence top, it looks like a giant silver snake slithering away.  Our fence is straight, and that is all that is important.

Our neighbor's crooked fence had us worried
for a few minutes.

One milestone that we reached today was to use all of the panels on the first pallet from Home Depot.  Our neighbor has a fire pit, so when we break it all down, he can burn it to get rid of it. One pallet down, one more to go!

The smaller of the two pallets of panels lies ready to be
dismantled and stacked into a burn pile.

Our progress has been great thus far, but we have discovered that the east side of the property is going to give us root problems all of the way.  Perhaps our three panels a day will have to soon slow down to two.  That's OK.  Each day's progress takes us closer to Gladys' private, "outdoor room." I can't wait to decorate it with flowers and bushes.

Post-Thanksgiving Labors

While the rest of the world is out shopping on this Black Friday, Rick and I dealt with a different kind of black -- dirt -- in our back yard.  We made great progress on the fence today.

Yesterday was a delightful day both because we did not work on the fence and also because we had family over for Thanksgiving.  Our nephew Jon just accepted a teaching job only 12 miles from here, so we invited him to spend the day with us, helping us eat the turkey.  Thanksgiving was the traditional feast: turkey, stuffing, two kinds of cranberries, spiced potato slices, green beans, and a pumpkin roll with cream cheese filling.  We all ate too much, but we had a good time spending it with family.  The day was fun and relaxing, something that all of us desperately needed.  Jon went home with food for a couple of days, and we were thankful that he did.  We still will be chewing on the old bird for the next couple of days ourselves.

Rick had helped Jim, our neighbor, move his boat out of his back yard so that we did not fence it in. That gave us the freedom to continue adding the fence to the south side of the house.  Rick had dug the hole for the next panel on the south, and the first hole for the first panel on the north this past Monday.  Since it rained Tuesday, we were not able to work.  Sadly, the holes half filled with water, so we could not work on Wednesday.  That was probably a good thing because then I had time to prepare the house for our guest and to get some of the cooking done.

Today we were back at our labors.  Our challenge this morning was the weather.  When we went outside, the temperature was 44 degrees with a wind chill of 36.  We both came back in to add another layer of clothing, and we added hats or scarves so that the heat did not escape from our bodies so quickly.  I even added a winter scarf to keep the cold breezes from going down the neck of my two sweatshirts. Gloves were necessary so we could move our fingers.  I know that 44 degrees sounds like a heat wave to most of our friends and family in Wisconsin, but the cold down here is a damp cold that penetrates a person's very core.

So there we were, waddling around like fattened bears just before the winter, hauling out all of the gear necessary for the fence.  The south pole and panel went in first with few problems. We both agree that blocking out the neighbor's storage sheds with clean white fencing is a welcome sight.  Once we get the whole yard enclosed, the yard will then become an extension of the house, like another huge room.  I cannot wait to decorate it with bushes and colorful flowers.

Each panel that goes up adds more to our privacy.

The second panel of the day went up on the north side of the house.  This panel, too, was not too much trouble. The ground was a bit muddy yet; however, adding the panel helped define the corner.

The inspects the hole for the next post.  The remains of the
root that he cut out are visible behind where the post will
be secured.

Then Rick started to dig the first post on the east (back) of our property.  That area is where the former owner of this house had planted a "jungle" of bushes, trees, and plants for privacy.  On top of that, we knew we would have to contend with roots from the camphor tree behind the neighbor's chain link fence.  One root in particular had surfaced and ran about four feet above ground level into our yard.  That root had to be removed because the top of it actually was above the level of the bottom of the fence. Rick worked for quite a while, cutting out the root in four sections.  The root itself was at least 10" in diameter, so I could barely pick up the cut pieces to haul them away.  Naturally, once that root was gone, we dug a little deeper and found yet another huge root in the way.  Rick did a bit of creative carving to get the hole in the correct position for the post.

Once that panel was in, we had yet another corner of the yard defined.  I wish that the gardenia tree were positioned a little more to the left, but nature chose the location for that tree long before the fence went in.  Maybe I will put a big, colorful pot of flowers next to it to balance out the area.

The northeast corner of the yard is complete and
provides a cozy home for my gardenia tree.

We took a break for lunch both for nourishment and to warm up a bit, and then we put in the third panel.  I started to wash down the posts, and when I looked up, Rick was back on the south side of the yard digging the hole for the next panel and post tomorrow.  He does not know when to quit.

When he finished that one, he came back and started the hole for the next post on the east side.  Once again, he almost immediately ran into root problems.  The whole area needs to have lots of soil removed since it is mounded higher than the rest of the yard. While I started to move dirt away, Rick once again got out the SawsAll and started attacking another giant camphor root.  The entire yard reeked of camphor, as does our garage where I disposed of one smaller section of root.  In the end, we now have two holes ready to accept posts tomorrow.

The holes for the posts on the east side of the property will
give us grief because of the roots we will encounter.

I was exhausted, the bottom dropped out of my blood sugar, and I simply had to quit.  By this time, it was almost 3:00 p.m., so we put in a much longer day than I had anticipated.  We cannot keep up this pace... or at least I cannot do so.  The fence will get done when the fence will get done.  We are not in a race to impress anyone, and I personally would like to be alive at the end of this project to actually enjoy my fenced-in back yard!

And in THAT Corner...

Rick has been fairly good about controlling his obsessiveness in putting in the fence, but today signs of that tendency started to surface.  After a not-so-restful night, I got up to find him sitting on the sofa, waiting for me to wake up.  Then he was dressed and out the door before I could hardly finish my breakfast.  Suddenly I heard a pounding sound that was WAY too early in the morning to hear, especially since the children do not have school this week, so I doubt that either my neighbor lady or her children were awake yet.  Her husband had left for work early in the morning, but I am sure that the rest of the household slept in. I rushed to the guest bedroom window to find him driving in a stake right next to our neighbor's bedroom window.  I tapped on our window, pointed to my watch, and frowned.  He got the message.

After I dressed, I went outside to discover that a heavy drizzle was falling.  Rick was already two feet down into the hole he was digging for the next post.  Rain was predicted for today, so I was unsure as to how long it would hold off.  I told Rick that the only reason I was tolerating working in such miserable weather is that it was warm outside; had the drizzle been in 40 degree weather, I would have returned to the house.

As the day progressed, the drizzle stopped and the sea fog lifted.  We never really got rid of the clouds, but the temperatures warmed nicely and a breeze kept us from noticing the humidity too much.

Soon, Rick had the first hole completed.  He then turned his attention to the opposite side of the yard in order to put in the corner post in the northeast corner.  My old fashioned Gardenia tree was a bit in the way, but we were able to work around it.  I noticed that it has one bud on it right now, so perhaps by Thanksgiving we will be rewarded with a little white flower.

Rick uses the post hole digger and the SawAll to ready the hole
for the corner post.  My Gardenia tree seems to duck for cover.

I feared that this corner would be an underground web of roots, but it was not too bad.  He had to use the SawsAll a couple of times, but the hole was completed in record time.  He put in this pole, took it out again, added stone, and went through the normal routine of trying to get it at the right height.

This pole will be a bit inside our lot line, but
that is fine with us.  

The only thing that I will regret once we get the panels up on either side of this corner post is that I will not be able to see the beautiful red flowers that are in full bloom in my neighbor's yard.

A little winter color is always a welcome sight.

Our came the cement mixer.  The box that held our next set of panel parts was wet, so it completely disintegrated before we could carry it over to the south side post. Thankfully, the pieces are very light, and in short order, we had another panel between the posts.

Each day we are excited to see the progress.  Once the panel was in and the posts were set, we worried that we might have to step the south side of the fence down.  However, closer examination of the landscape shows that we just need to move some dirt around to take out the hills and fill in the valleys in our yard next to the fence to have it look good.

Four panels now start to give us privacy from our neighbors.

Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be stormy, so I do not know if we will get outside at all.  That is fine with me since I want to start to get this house in order for Thanksgiving.  I told Rick that on Wednesday, even if the rain quits by noon, roasting the turkey, making the cranberries, and making a pumpkin cake roll will take priority status over the fence. And, of course, on Thursday I refuse to work at all.

The latest art for my kitchen reminds me to count my
blessings including family, which is the greatest blessing
of all.

The best part about being a grandparent is that we get refrigerator art again.  We received a package in the mail today from Owen, so I will smile each time I see his little hand prints in the turkey tail.  What could be better?

And In This Corner...

When a person wants something bad enough, he convinces himself that whatever it is he wants will be easy to achieve.  We both faced today terribly optimistic that our fencing tasks would be both simple and quick to do.  Ah, how delusional we were!

Our goal was to put in the two poles for which Rick dug holes yesterday.  Pop in the poles, put together the panels, get them all into place, and pour in the cement.  Sounds simple, and truth be told, the process itself was.  However, our building today took both more time and more effort than we had imagined.

Once again, we were blessed with sunny weather.  However, the winds were gusting close to (if not over) 30 miles per hour, and the humidity was on the rise.  Last week the weatherman talked about setting record lows, and today he was alluding to record highs.  We were in the low 80s most of the day.  The telling problem was not the heat but the wind.  At one point, we put together a panel to insert between two poles.  The wind came up and almost knocked me over because the panel acted like a giant plastic sail.

Each day gets a little better as we learn from our mistakes and find easier ways of getting the job done.  We are getting into a work routine, as we knew we would.  The first panel gave us trouble only in getting the posts set 91 1/2 inches apart and at the right height.  In the end, Rick felt that the panels were a little loose between the poles, but it will be fine.  We had to pull up the post a little, but by the time things were set, gravity had taken it down again by about 1/8 -1/4 inch.  Our wavy yard is so uneven that nothing looks level, but this time I verified that the panels were within my tolerance levels.

The second panel was the one that went from the corner post to the post by the tree.  This one caused a few more problems.  It was too low, so Rick added some stone into the bottom.  Oops.  Too much stone, so out some came.  For those of you who have never used a post hole digger, getting stone out of a deep hole with one is not an easy task.  The pole took more time than we thought it would, but in the end we succeeded in getting both it and the panel set.

Three panels completed now hide most of the sheds in the
neighbors' yards.

Our dilemma is what to do with the space that is left. We have some options, but are uncertain if any of them are good choices.  We can rise the lower rail to accommodate the roots of the tree, keeping the top even.  The problem with that is how to fasten it near the tree since the root system will prohibit us from adding another post.  We might have to bolt it to angle iron pounded into the ground, but then we have the raw edges of the cut panels to deal with unless we can somehow affix a post to the angle iron.

Another option is to buy some big plants like a Sago palm or ruffled fan palm and just plant them to cover the 41" gap between the fence and the tree.  The problem with that is that the plants may not grow with so many roots in the area, and if the neighbors in the back ever take down their chain-link fence, then we have a gap in our fence through which dogs or other creatures can crawl.

The gap by the tree poses a 41" dilemma. 

A final option might be big earthenware pots into which I can plant something to hide the area.  The pots would bring color to the area along with some greenery; however, getting the pots to sit flat in a very not-level area could be a real challenge.

The decision on what to do with the area will probably wait until the rest of the fence is complete.  We need to do something before we have the fence inspected in the spring, so we cannot delay our decision too long.

Tomorrow, if the weather cooperates, we would like to add one more panel to the south side of the property, and then dig the hole for the pole in the northeast corner.  We could really run into a lot of roots in that area (to say nothing of underground -- though now dead -- telephone wires.  I am very tired tonight, so I am glad that we achieved what we did today.  I have learned my lesson.  I won't think that tomorrow will be easy, and I won't even begin to estimate how much time our plans will take to complete.  Tomorrow will take care of itself.

Panel 1

The day cleared to cloudy and threatening, but that was enough for Rick to get outside and to start digging the second hole to accept the first fence panel.  As before, the second hole on the south side of the yard caused no problems since there were not any roots.  I was a bit concerned because we used to have both a Brazilian Pepper Tree and a palm tree in that area, but Rick encountered no roots as he dug the second hole.

We used the transit to make sure that everything was level... or so we thought.  After the hole was dug, we added stone and did our first measure to make sure that the pole was going in somewhat plumb.

Then we put together the first panel for the fence.  We had a little problem with fitting in the bottom rail which made us wonder if the hole was too close.  However, we were within specifications and eventually put together the panel and the top rail.  Into the second pole it went. So far, so good.

The cement was next.  Learning from our lesson yesterday, we made a very soupy mixture with the first bag of cement to make sure that all of the cement powder in the back of the mixer was thoroughly  mixed.  Then we added the second bag and let the machine do all of the hard work.  Meanwhile, we made small adjustments to the pole to make sure it was positioned correctly. Then in went the cement -- as the old nursery rhyme goes: "three bags full."

Rick laughs at me because I am so paranoid about getting everything level and plumb.  As the cement settled on the outside, we worked together to dump cement inside the pole up to ground level.  Ooops.  Not enough concrete. We still needed another half of a bag to have enough to fill the inside.

I checked again for plumb, and then decided to put the level on the top of the panel.  Uh-oh.  It was angled like a baby slide at the park! "It's not level," I said.

Rick rechecked the transit and said, "We are right on the money."

"We can't be," I said.  The level told us that we were at least an inch low on the new pole.  Rick had put a piece of tape on the corner pole from yesterday 12 inches from the top.  He used the transit to line up a piece of tape on the second pole that we were working with today.  Then he took his tape measure and measured the tape from the top of the pole.  The tape on the corner pole was 12 inches down, but the tape on the second pole was only 10 1/2 inches down.  What?  Oh, duh!  We were reading the bottom of the tape on one pole, and the top of the tape on the other. Dang! A little lifting, a little jiggling, and a lot of prying brought the second pole up the inch that it was low.  Whew!  That was a close call. Thankfully, the cement was still liquid enough that we were able to make the adjustment without any harm.

The first panel is plumb and actually level! (The ground, as
you can see, is not.)

After a late lunch, Rick went back outside to "just see where the hole next to the tree (on the east side of the property) would go." After 28 years of marriage, I know that when he tries to "just see" something, it means that he will engage in the task full force.  He dug down this third hole about 8 inches when he hit the first tree root, a monster that was approximately 10 inches round.  Out came the SawsAll with a pruning blade.  The root fought back, but eventually Rick worked his way through it by cutting out small sections at a time.  As he dug deeper, smaller roots gave him some trouble.  One in particular seemed to go everywhere.  When he finally cut it out, Rick said that it looked like an intersection of streets.  As I took the picture, I thought it looked more like a cross.  I hope that means that we have the Lord's blessings on our endeavors.  We will need them.

With lots of roots to go, we can use all of the help we can get.

The hole toward the tree is 41 inches from the massive tree itself, and that may be as close as we are able to get with conventional posts.  We still are in a dilemma as to what to do with the fence and the tree.  For now, we may take the fence as far as we can, and then deal with the tree later after the holidays.

Still energized, Rick went back to the south side of the yard and dug another hole for the next panel on that side. Our back yard looks like ocean swells on a not-particularly-calm day, so the dirt that came out of the holes was quickly tamped down into one of the many depressions in the yard.  By 2:00 p.m., he had the fourth hole dug, so we are set for tomorrow.

We made great progress today.  Rick's brother Steve told us that once we had the first panel up, we would want to continue working until they are all up.  He was right; however, my wishes far exceed my energy level.  We can't wait to see the progress we make tomorrow, and this time we will make sure that we are reading the tape and the transit correctly!

Pole 1

We started the fence yesterday, and we are optimistic, so far, that the fence is within our power to finish.  As with all things, we have to learn a routine to accomplish what we want to do each day.  Yesterday was our first attempt and a learning day with our cement mixer, so we expect to get better and more efficient as we continue.

We learned a number of valuable lessons in our first attempt at putting in a corner post. The first hole was very easy to dig.  Rick encountered few roots, and the ground was almost all sand.  We dug the hole too large, so we ended up using five bags of cement for the single post!  We'll get better with that routine.  I hope that we can put in a post with only two bags of cement.

Although the pole looks crooked, it is perfectly
plumb.  The fences behind it are not as straight.

The cement itself was no problem.  We learned that with this cement mixer, we need to put in lots of water at first to thoroughly mix the first half bag of cement.  Once that is well mixed at the back of the mixer, we can add more water and the rest of two 60 pound bags of cement.  The mixer is quiet and does a good job.  The best thing about the mixer is that it is easily maneuverable, so we can wheel it right to the hole and dump it without having to shovel it out.  Sweet!

We never would be able to physically do this job if we did not have the mixer.  With it, though, we feel we can save our energy for digging the holes and carting around the dirt and the stones.  The cement mixes itself as we put in stone and position the poles.  We feel the mixer has already paid for itself in saving our backs and our health.

We awoke this morning determined to put in our first panel and perhaps to put in two more poles.  No such luck.  It is pouring rain right now, so we are on hold until we see how the day progresses.  Even the best plans are dependent on a higher power.

Connecting the Loose Ends

Today was a good day.

We awoke to temperatures in the 40s which would be balmy in many parts of the country.  It was a wee bit chilly for my tastes, but at least we did not have five feet of snow to slog through this morning as some people did. In fact, the weather was getting better by the minute, so we decided after breakfast to start with the outlet to the backyard.

Although code in this city is that a house have an electrical outlet at the front of the house and another at the rear, I would guess that this house was built before such a code ever existed. We have an outlet in the garage near the front of the house that serves us adequately when we need to use something electric in the front yard.  The back yard, however, is a different story.

Rick works on hooking the wires to the
outlet at the back of the house.

We faced the decision of spending $30 - $50 on yet another extension cord to string together with the three that we already own just to reach all sides of the house, or we could spend just less than $30 for the materials necessary to add an outlet outside behind the garage.  Since the electrical box is in the back of the garage anyway, adding an outlet simply meant drilling a hole through the wall, running wire through a conduit, installing a GFCI outlet in a box approved for outdoor use, and connecting it to a separate 20 amp circuit breaker to handle the load.  We already had the GFCI outlet and Rick had the tools necessary to do the job.  With a couple hours of work, we had a new outlet that is safe and easy to use.  If we someday add a lanai to this house, the outlet will be an added bonus.  (Dream of the future: being able to have a covered lanai under which I can house a small chest freezer!)

Rick has been not-so-patiently waiting for our cement mixer to arrive.  He received an e-mail this morning that it finally was ready for pick-up at Home Depot, so we went to the store to pick it up.  The box was heavy, but the personnel at the Pick-Up desk were very accommodating, and a fork-lift soon had the box safely placed in the back of the truck.

While I waited in the truck, Rick went to the contractor's desk to see about our still-missing 17 pole caps from our order.  They have been promised to us twice, but no one at that desk seemed to be able  to follow-up on our order.  I am glad that I stayed in the truck.  Rick eventually came outside with his mouth set in a straight line.  That is never a good sign.  He said that the Home Depot Pro that we had been dealing with tried to come up with more false promises.  Long story short... we got our money back for the missing caps and went another Home Depot store to buy the caps.  We bought all that they had in inventory -- 14 -- so now we are only missing three.  In the end the caps will cost us $1.00 more for each one, but paying $17 to avoid the hassle of dealing with promises that never come true is well worth it.  Our order is now complete (for the most part) and totally in our control.

When we got back from buying the caps, we worked together to assemble the cement mixer.  The directions were terrible, but Rick was able to get it together without too much trouble.  It seems to be very easy to wheel around, and our test drive of the motor shows that everything is in working order.  Rick is like a kid with a new toy.  We'll see how much fun it is after we install a few sections of the fence.  Actually, it will probably save me from damaging my muscles further, and it will save Rick's shoulders, back, arms, and heart.  The price we paid for the mixer is small compared to the health benefits that we will get in the end.

The new cement mixer will save us hours
of back-breaking mixing.

I laugh because we had one "spare part" when we were finished.  Apparently it was welded together for shipping purposes only because it certainly does not belong anywhere on the machine!  When we started to take the pieces out of the box, Rick was a little upset when he pulled it out.  "Look.  They spray painted over rust," he said.  That is true, but as it turns out, the piece is only going into the garbage anyway.  I am sure that if I put it out on the magic curb, someone will haul it away before the garbage men come on Monday.

The "left over" part turned out to be a rack used for shipping.

We hope this fellow has a good appetite for the
rodents and snakes that roam the neighborhood.

We had a noisy visitor at our house today.  We have noticed a huge hawk flying around the neighborhood.  Yesterday he was in the trees behind our house, and today he was almost in our backyard.  I will put up with the noise he makes squawking because I know that he rids the neighborhood of unwanted visitors like moles and rats.  Compared to the other creatures, he is welcome at my house at any time.

Paint and Paint Again

Yesterday was a day of running around picking up a few things that we needed to keep going with small projects around the house as we wait for the cement mixer to arrive.

When we got home, Rick took the new paint that we had mixed at a paint store in Largo in order to repaint our master bathroom.  We originally had Pratt and Lambert paint in there, but we did not have enough to repaint the entire bathroom.  We have Benjamin Moore throughout most of the house since Pratt and Lambert is hard to find around here, so one paint store in Largo had a formula conversion chart from Pratt and Lambert to Benjamin Moore colors.  We bought a gallon of the equivalent-colored Benjamin Moore paint for $60, feeling confident that the color would match.

It did not.  After touching up a couple of places in the bathroom, we could see that the Benjamin Moore was coming out darker with more blue in the hue.  But what choice did we have?  Rick painted the whole room and we waited for it to dry. We hoped that as it dried, it would meet our expectations. It did not.  By yesterday afternoon, we both knew that the color clashed with the color of the master bedroom.  We were terribly disappointed.

So back to the store we went, this time to an Ace Hardware that still sells Pratt and Lambert.  We did not want to buy the P&L paint because they only had one gallon of base needed for that color, and it was in a plastic gallon jug.  Rick felt that the plastic container indicated that the base was very old, so we did not buy it when we originally looked.  This time, though, we felt that we had no choice.  We had them mix a gallon for us and brought it home so we could start fresh this morning.

We re-taped the room, and Rick painted it all over again.  I am amazed at how a slight change in tone can make such a difference.  The color that we now have in the bathroom is the aqua color that we originally had painted in the room.  The colors of the new shower look good with it, although we are still not happy with the shower.

I called the contractor about making adjustments on the shower.  He still promises us that he will make everything right; however, we are still waiting for him to "get well" so we can have the work done.  He either is a terribly unwell man, or he is using illness as an excuse to avoid us.  I will try not to judge since the answer to that question will not make the bathroom repairs happen any more quickly.

A tracking check on the computer this morning told Rick that our cement mixer has now traveled from Texas to Tampa and should be delivered to the Home Depot near our house tomorrow.  An email alert should let us know when the store logs it in to their inventory. Once we pick up the mixer and some stone, we should be ready to start the fence.

We awoke to 39 degree weather today, so I was happy that I did not have to work outside this morning.  A terrible cold front covers much of the United States, and lake-effect snow buried parts of New York with five feet of snow.  We saw on the news this morning that Green Bay was getting snow again, so we anticipate that we will once again have to pay for snow removal.  This is just too early to be racking up these bills.  According to the Farmer's Almanac, this winter is supposed to be another harsh one for the upper Midwest.  They had terrible cold last year, and I think that this year will not be any better.  I am glad that we can be here, and that we can afford (so far!) the snow removal service for our property.

Rick worked hard again this morning, and he is currently asleep in front of the TV.  I worry about our stamina as we start the fence in a few days.  I hope that we are able to do this.  Building the fence should be our last major project for the season.  I wish it were behind us, and that we could settle back and enjoy the privacy as we wait for spring to creep over the fence.  Each project we finish makes Gladys more complete, so I cannot wait until the fence is finished.  Then it will be hammock time.

Ahhhhh

A few days ago, when we had the tile grouted, we were in Home Depot and picked up a bottle of tile cleaner which said that it would get the grout "haze" off the tile.  I was surprised that Rick put it into the cart without thoroughly reading the label, which is his normal habit.  Upon reaching home, he DID read the label and learned that the bottle of cleaner had more warning signs of how it could etch or ruin the tile than it did for how we could safely use the cleaner.  Why bother making a product that could cause more harm than good?  At any rate, that bottle was placed in the "return to store" pile in our living room.

Let it never be said that we are not efficient.  Before church this morning, we returned the above-mentioned chemicals to Home Depot and then went to Target (at Lindsay's suggestion) to see if we could find a shower curtain that would match our 1960 fleshy-pink bathroom.  The color is very elusive to find, but we actually were successful in finding a curtain in a pattern that we could tolerate and in a shade that seemed to work.

The new curtain is much more sophisticated than
the pink flamingo curtain that it replaced.

We were surprised that the day was so mild, considering that the rest of the country is in a deep freeze.  Lindsay told us this morning that they returned our car to our garage this morning (after borrowing it while their vehicle was being repaired) and were amazed to see that our driveway had already been shoveled by our snow removal service.  What?  Snow removal at this time of the year?  This is way, way, way too early to start depleting our snow removal funds.

To make ourselves feel better, after a quick lunch we decided to go to the beach.  Since the day was getting better by the second, we avoided the traffic going to Clearwater Beach and chose instead to go north to Fred Howard Park Beach.  Howard Beach is much smaller and less known that Sand Key Beach in Clearwater Beach.  The whole beach is actually a little island out to which the county built a causeway.  It was not crowded at all, and our time there left us very relaxed.

The view from under our red beach
umbrella at Fred Howard Park Beach.

We'll get back to reality tomorrow, but for now we are happy that we took the day "off" to be beach bums.  After all, isn't that why we moved to Florida for the winter in the first place?

Life Goes On

Leonardo de Vinci once wrote, "Nature never breaks her own laws."  I am not sure that his statement is totally true, at least as far as the natural order of seasons is concerned.  We awoke this morning to 49 degrees, an unusually cold temperature for Florida that reflects the unseasonably cold temperatures throughout the middle section of the United States.  I saw that Green Bay registered 14 degrees this morning, Wisconsin Rapids had 12, and Rochester, MN, was down to 9.  These cold temperatures are way too early for November 15, and I certainly hope they are not indicative of the winter to follow. If so, I mentioned to Rick that housing prices in Florida will probably rise as more Northern baby-boomers will say, "To heck with this weather.  Let's move South."

Yesterday was just one of those days.  In the morning, I took a wet rag and washed down the entire new shower stall to remove the last layer of grout film.  In doing so, I discovered a couple more problems: a ridge in the floor from the tile in front of the floor drain, and a tile on the top row that was scored but never cut, leaving a slight scratch half-way down the tile.  Our contractor Mike said that he will fix whatever problems we find, but we are leery of having anyone disturb too much for fear of making the structure weaker and looking worse.

We anticipated that Home Depot would deliver our fencing materials yesterday, so in preparation for that, Rick backed the vehicles out of the driveway.  The car was no problem, but in backing out the truck, he angled it too close to the mailbox, and the little hook at the top of the mailbox door scratched the rear quarter panel of the truck for about two feet.  Not good.  When he finally got the truck into position, I went to the mailbox and touched it.  The pitched slightly forward.

"Rick, we have a problem," I said. "This mailbox is really loose."  He walked to the mailbox and touched it to put it back into place. The whole thing ungracefully cracked at its rotten, termite-eaten base and fell over.

"Not any more," Rick said.  Then he walked away. Oh, good.  Now we had a scratched truck and a dead mailbox lying on the front lawn.  I carried the postal corpse into the back yard until we could find a replacement.

Soon after that, while we were out doing some errands including looking for a new mailbox post, a phone call told us that the Home Depot semi was on its way with our fence materials.  We called Steve who graciously volunteered to help us move the parts from curbside to the back yard.  Steve and Chris arrived before the semi did.  A huge semi pulled up, and the driver unloaded a fork-lift from the back.  Then he did us a tremendous favor.  He asked where we wanted the skid of cement bags (60 bags at 60 pounds a piece).  When we said the garage, he maneuvered the skid until he was able to drop and then push the skid into the garage. My back and shoulders thanked him.

The cement is fairly safe from thieves and raindrops in our garage.

He then asked Rick were he wanted the skids of fencing poles and panels.  When Rick said we eventually wanted them in the back yard, that wonderful man again accommodated us by driving the skids of materials into the center of our back yard.  No effort on our part... no strain on my muscles or on Rick's heart.  Steve and Chris just watched in wonder.  We really appreciated that Steve and Chris were willing to help, and we sincerely thanked them for taking time out of their day to come over.  In the end, everything was delivered with no time or effort lost on our part.

Three skids of fencing materials grace the center of our back
yard.  Oh, how I wish I could snap my fingers and have it
all installed!

After we were left with our fencing materials, Rick decided to call Home Depot to confirm that the cement mixer we ordered would be at the store by Tuesday.  The clerk informed Rick that the company from which they order the cement mixer had a fax machine that was not working, so they had not even placed our order yet.  Rick was furious.  He hung up from them and called the manufacturer directly.  The woman at the firm told Rick that he could order online and have it delivered to Home Depot.  She would wait for the order and be sure that it was expedited for shipment on Monday.  We should get it by Thursday.  OK.  That will work.  Rick placed the order.

However, that left another problem.  We now had two impending orders for cement mixers that were tying up over $800 of our funds.  We had been invited over to a neighbor's house for the evening, but Rick felt he had to go to Home Depot to cancel the in-person order at the store.

I went to the neighbor's home sans husband with an apology and explanation that he would join us shortly.  Our neighbors, Ken and Andie, moved into their home last May just before we left for Wisconsin for the summer.  During the time that we were gone, they made many improvements to their house, so I enjoyed seeing what they had done.  Rick soon joined us, and we had a wonderful evening enjoying their hospitality.  Rick even got their cat's approval when he jumped behind Rick on his chair and then settled for a moment on Rick's lap.  Babies and cats seem to like Rick, for whatever reason.  Maybe he smells good. We thank Ken and Andie for a wonderful, relaxing evening.

When we came home, we received an e-mail that said that Home Depot had cancelled both orders for our cement mixers.  First we had two, and then we had none.  Actually, the error was shared.  Their online ordering system only allows room for one address for contact information, so Rick naturally put down our Florida address.  The order would not go through because the charge card that we used is registered to our Wisconsin address and thus came up as invalid.  Shame on Home Depot for not having enough room for two addresses (especially with the snow birds down here), and shame on us for not putting down the correct contact address.  Rick again was furious.

This morning we decided to reorder the cement mixer and to try to send it to another Home Depot for pick-up.  No deal.  We had to have it delivered to the same store, but at least this time we put in the correct charge card validation address.  Rick said that he would try to call the manufacturer on Monday to see if the woman he talked to yesterday could still expedite this order.  Whoever thought that a cement mixer could cause so many problems.  Of course, now Rick is sputtering that it probably won't be delivered for two more weeks, and then we might as well not even start anything until after we come back in January.  Sigh.  We'll see.

The other thing we did today was to run the new shower to make sure that everything was flowing smoothly.  The shower head works fine, but the drain, which had not been used now for months, did not seem to drain properly.  Water started to puddle in the shower.  Oh, oh.  I dug out the plunger and we ran water and cleared the drain two times; thankfully, everything seems to be flowing smoothly now.  Apparently some debris, dust, or just an air-lock seemed to need dislodging in the drain.

A venture this morning to the Green Market downtown scored only bakery bread, and a delightful walk through a huge downtown art fair produced a few possibilities but a profound realization that our artistic tastes far exceed our discretionary funds.

Someday, we will have Gladys complete, but not today.  Finishing the bathroom must wait until Mike returns to fix what needs revision, and buying a new mailbox must wait until we can find what we really like.  Adding art will wait until be have nothing better to spend our money on (Ha!), and the fence will wait until our elusive cement mixer finally makes an appearance in our back yard.

I end with yet another quote, this one by Sir Paul McCartney, "Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on bro,
La-la how the life goes on."

Almost Finished

I made the mistake yesterday of telling Andy that we were "ready to go" by 8:00 a.m., so he arrived at our door this morning at approximately 7:58.  I was just drying my hair, and Rick had just finished shaving.  At least we were out of the shower, dressed, and fed by that time.

Andy immediately started on grouting the shower.  The grout was a little darker than I remembered from the sample, but I see now that it is starting to dry a little lighter.  Joel soon joined him and by 10:00 a.m. they were nearly finished with the job.  Although the grout job once again is adequate, I would have appreciated a little more finesse on Andy's part.  We are going to let it dry for a couple of days and discuss our concerns with Mike when he comes to our house.

Once the grout dries, we will complete the
final plumbing ourselves.

Mike was supposed to come today to pick up his final check, but he called and said he was ill.  I believe him.  He sounded terrible.  I thanked him for NOT coming to our house; I do not need anyone else's germs to fight off right now, and I certainly do not want to end up in the hospital like I did last November.

We have noticed a couple of problems with the shower.  On the floor, one of the grout lines has a pin-hole sized hole in it that will do nothing but capture water.  That will have to be addressed.  Also on the shower floor, we have two tile that are angled in such a way that very sharp corners are waiting to rip into the bottom of our feet.  I also am not pleased with the grout at the very front of the drain.  I think that more needs to be added to make that a better transition.  Mike said that they will take care of any problems that we find, and when he comes to our house again, we will make sure that he is true to his word.

We think the color of the grout is fine, and the tile blends well
with the white fixtures and woodwork.

Neither of us is happy with the amount of grout that is at the front of the shower where the tile meets the wall, but we are hoping that some well-placed paint will help to minimize those areas once we can do some touch-up painting in the room.  Don't get me wrong.  Tiling this shower is NOT a job that either one of us wanted to tackle, and I am sure that we would not have done as good a job as Andy did in getting the rows all uniform and level.  We are just disappointed in a few of the details, but once the doors are in, we hope that those problems, too, will fade to the background.

Heavy grout next to the wall will need a little paint.

After being in the house for the last two and one-half days, we were ready to get out.  After Andy and Joel left, we decided to go to Tampa and to visit the Container Store.  The store is one of our favorite places to shop, so we had a good time buying a few containers for the kitchen and one stocking stuffer for the coming holiday season.

When we returned home, we both took on a scrubbing job.  I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed the very dirty kitchen floor while Rick hauled out the hose and washed both the car and the truck.  Unreal!  We Wisconsinites are not used to having temperatures in the 70s in November that allow us to wash the vehicles in our driveway.  The black truck shines so much right now that it actually hurts my eyes.

Wow!  A clean truck!

We are pleased with our progress this year.  The water softener is working well, the bathroom fan purrs when we need it to do so, and now the main part of the shower project is complete.  Yes, we still have some painting and baseboard to complete in the bathroom, and we also must wait to have the shower doors ordered and delivered, but we consider that project, too, almost behind us.  Someone from Largo Glass will be here tomorrow to measure for the doors; they should be ready for installation just after Thanksgiving.

On Friday, the fence materials arrive.  The fence, if it does not kill us, will be our last major project of this season.  I wish I could snap my fingers and have it done, but reality tells me we must face lots of sore muscles and long days before we complete that project.  Last project.  Yeah, right.  Rick is already talking about putting in a slab and building a storage shed if we can scrape together the money.  Sigh.

The Good, the Bad, and the Definitely Ugly

For the past two days, the tile setters have been in our house transforming bare walls into a workable shower.  We are both glad that the job is almost complete.

Our tile setter was a man named Andy who grew up in East Berlin. He has worked his trade for many years.  He told us today that he grew up in a house right next to the Wall that separated east from west Berlin.  He said that he would sometimes look out the upper windows of the house and he could see the houses on the other side of the Wall.  He played on it as a child, he admitted, never really understanding what it was all about. The Wall did not come down until he was a grown man, but because Germany was eventually unified, he was able to come to America.

His helper was a very nice young man named Joel who was constantly on the go either mixing thin-set or cutting tiles to Andy's specifications. They worked for the last two days from 8:30 in the morning until about 2:00 in the afternoon.  The first day they finished about 2/3 of the shower stall, stopping for the day as they ran out of thin-set mix.

Green spacers help to keep the heavy tile from
sliding down onto one another while the thin-set
dries.

Although the tile are gorgeous, they are perhaps too large (12 x 24") for the area. Their size resulted in a couple of awkward cuts at the end of the rows, and since each tile weighs 8 pounds, Andy had to use a lot of thin-set, applied with a 1/2" trowel, for them to adhere to the wall.  The job may have looked simple, but it certainly was not.

Last night neither of us was completely thrilled with the results.  We knew that a small line of tile would have to be cut at the top, and that worried us.  We also were not happy with a couple of other small details, but we tried to reserve judgement until today.

Today they finished the rest of the tile, and they will be back tomorrow to grout the entire structure.  Andy tried to address some of our concerns, and when he cut a tile wrong and then laid the entire row, Rick asked him to remove it and to do it correctly.  He did so without saying anything although I am sure that he was not too happy with us.

While Andy and Joel worked on the shower, Rick and I went outside to remove a tree stump that literally was in the way of our new fence.  This tree, another hated Brazilian Pepper tree, grew up in the middle of the old wire fence that our neighbor removed.  A close look at the remaining stump shows three different places were the fence had to be cut away because the fence grew around and through it.  We had cut down most of the tree when we came down for a week in September, and Mark, our neighbor, had cut away the rest of the fence while we were gone.

We tackled the remaining stump today.  While it took a little digging and a little persuasion with a SawsAll, the stump is now history.  We really hope that we do not have to put in a fence post at that exact location, because if we do, we will have many more underground roots to remove.

Sadly, this is the first of many stumps that we will have to
remove from the fence line in our back yard.

I suppose we find it easy to be critical about the shower since we are not doing the work ourselves.  A couple of the floor tile don't have much space for the grout tomorrow, and a couple are spaced a bit far from the edge and will require more grout than we would like to see; however, not much can be done about that now.  The grout we chose is almost the same color as the tile.  Rather than differentiate them one from another, we decided to use a similar hue to blend the tiles together.  We hope that some of the gaps or lack thereof will fade from sight with the grout in place.

Do we like the shower?  Yes, we do. However, we both are a little disappointed in some of the details. Overall, this shower is far better than what we had before, and in the end I think it will look very nice and will serve us well for many years to come.  As Rick said, we like to do things by ourselves.  That way if we do something wrong or mess up a detail, we have the power and the ability to fix it, and if we decide to let an error ride, then we have no one to blame but ourselves.

The marble threshold and the floor tile all
help the shower look more complete.

Speaking of blame, I take full credit today for the world's ugliest pie.  I found a recipe a few days ago for an apple-cranberry pie.  It seemed simple to make and the ingredients sounded good, so I thought I would give it a try.  But first, I needed a pie pan.  The only dish I had in Florida was a quiche pan, and that was too deep for a pie.  While Rick was at the store yesterday, I told him to buy a pie pan.  He came home with the only one on the shelf.  It is big, deep, and probably has the same capacity to hold whatever I could fit into my quiche pan.

Since the pie pan was huge, when I put in the Pillsbury pie crust, it sunk to the bottom of the pan with nothing left to drape over the top.  I know, I know.  I should make my own pie crusts so I could roll them out to whatever size I need.  Sadly, I am far from a good pie crust maker.  Shoe leather is probably more tender and flaky than my home-made pie crusts.

The world's ugliest pie was not much better on the inside.

At any rate, I peeled six apples, cleaned an entire bag of cranberries, and followed the recipe by layering apples, cranberries, and a flour/sugar mixture into the plate three times over.  I thought it rather odd that there was no cornstarch to thicken the juices but then thought that perhaps the flour would do the trick.

I tucked in the top crust of the pie (since there was no bottom crust lip under which to tuck the top crust,) and then popped it into the oven.  It smelled delicious as it baked, even though it was, indeed, an ugly-looking pie.

After lunch, Rick tried a piece.  Disaster!  The crust was great, but the inside was a combination of baked apples and cranberries, all swimming for their lives in a sea of pink liquid.  Apparently, my hope that the flour would have thickened the juices was dead wrong.   He ate the crust and some of the apples, but he did not like that the cranberries were whole, so he threw them out.

I tried a piece after dinner tonight.  While the taste was not bad, the running texture of the insides was far from appetizing.  I am 60 years old, and for the first time in my life, I threw over half of a pie into the garbage can.  My apple/ cranberry pie recipe is definitely not a keeper! Now that I know what I have to deal with concerning my new pie plate, I will work on making the crust look better, and I certainly will rely on my old favorites as far as the filling is concerned.

Today started with doubts about the shower and with optimism about the sweet-smelling pie.  It ended with satisfaction with the shower and rejection of the world's ugliest pie.  You win some, and you lose some.  I am glad that we are far happier about the shower than we were with dessert.

A Long, Long Day

We wanted to dedicate today to plumbing the new water softener so we would be out of the way for the tile setters tomorrow. To properly cut into the main water line of the house, we had to turn off the water to the entire house, and we were sure that the tile setters tomorrow would not have been pleased to be without water!

When Rick got out of bed this morning, he was terribly bruised from all of the attic work he did yesterday.  His ribs and arm where he was lying on the rafters left large patches of bruises.  Then today as he was drilling through the concrete block of the house, the drill bit got stuck and jerked his hand into the concrete wall.  The result is a bruise that looks like he was on the losing side of a fist fight.

Remodeling sometimes leaves its mark.

We started at approximately 8:00 a.m. by digging down outside the front of the house to expose the plumbing lines.  While we had the corner of the yard open, I took pictures of the location of the plumbing pipes so we would have those dimensions for future reference.  I cannot count the number of times in the past three years that we have referred to the pictures we took when the walls and ceilings were exposed.  Knowing what is behind that drywall can be very important as remodeling continues.

The main water line to the house is buried just a few inches
from the front of the house and the driveway.  Unlike the
pipes in Wisconsin, these pipes are only a few inches deep.

As we were exposing the pipes, we saw some rusty metal half buried under the pipes that ran parallel to the driveway.

"Is that another pipe?" Rick asked.  I looked a little closer and noticed a very familiar shape.  They were claws, but not to an animal.

"No," I said as I pulled it from the ground. "It's a hammer!"  Some time in the past someone must have dropped his hammer into the open ground, and someone else inadvertently buried it.  Gladys has given me "gifts" from the ground in the past: a flower pot, a statue of a deer, and a beautiful glass bowl.  This time she came through with a gift for Rick.  

The hammer is a "Rocket" brand of which neither Rick nor I have ever heard.  Apparently Rocket Hammers are no longer made, but research told me that many people liked Rocket hammers for their weight and quality.  This hammer is pretty rusty, although the handle is in fairly good shape and is quite comfortable.  Does anyone know what to use to remove probably 30 years of rust on a hammer?

Gladys gives Rick a gift, and then he drilled two holes
into her wall!

The finished water softener awaits only
salt and activation, but that can wait
until tomorrow.

Plumbing a water softener is not particularly difficult, but it is a time-consuming, putzy job.  Rick decided to use copper instead of PEX, so everything had to be measured twice, cut once, dry-fitted, and then soldered together. Getting all of the right joints and tools sent us to the hardware store and Lowe's three times.  The final trip was the most frustrating because Rick had soldered everything together, and when he turned on the water, one of the connections leaked above the ball-cock shut off valve.  By that time of the day, he was bruised and  tired, and having to cut apart what he had just soldered all together was not a good feeling.

After we had the water running smoothly, we still had to face the drain.  That actually was much easier to complete because it was CPVC pipe and consisted of far less parts and joints.  As Rick finished the drain pipe, I went outside to put the dirt back into position that we had removed this morning.  We finished a little after 5:00 p.m. to finish the job.

I am usually the "clean up crew," but I must admit that the garage is still a disastrous jumble of tools that need to be put away. I am tired, and Rick is bruised and exhausted.  Tomorrow is another day, and I am sure that the clean up will wait until then.