Nasty Weather

With sick hearts, we have witnessed the devastation that Hurricane Harvey has caused to cities in Texas, Louisiana, and other places in the Gulf region.  Thousands of people have lost everything, and the recovery for those losses will cost the nation trillions of dollars.  More devastating, however, is the loss of life caused by this horrific storm, and the nation is not finished with this type of weather yet.

Here in Wisconsin we have watched the weather patterns do some unusual things also.  The spring was mild and warm, the summer was unusually wet (we had no "brown out" of lawns this July), and now September dawns wet and cold.  "Early winter" and "harsh winter" are predictions starting to populate conversations.

The wet weather, along with Rick's hand surgery and subsequent recovery time, both have hampered our progress in getting the rest of the porch painted.  If the weather is not too cold or too wet to paint, then our calendar is filled or we just do not want to face the task.  For all of those reasons, I seriously doubt that we will finish painting the porch this year.  And that's OK.  It has a prime coat on the parts that we scraped off, and it can wait until next year if need be.

Of greater concern, however, is the weather that now is heading toward Florida.  Rick said just yesterday, "Aren't you glad that we finished all of the remodeling of Gladys this past year?  Now when we return, we will have just a little gardening to do.  Maybe we can actually relax and enjoy Florida and all it has to offer."  He voiced this opinion partially because when we return to Florida, he still will not be able to lift more than 5 or 10 pounds with his left hand.  He will not be able to physically do a lot of manual labor until the hand continues to heal.  Sightseeing and relaxing on the beach sounded like reasonable, ideal pastimes.

Yet we know that Hurricane Irma is heading straight toward Florida, and this time Dunedin might not be able to dodge the bullet.  Dunedin has not had a direct hit from a hurricane since 1921.  Irma is predicted, in one model, to skim the northern part of Cuba and then to slam into Florida.  More than one model have it traveling straight up the center of Florida like a zipper, thus affecting nearly every county in the state.  If those models hold true, even Dunedin could see both destructive winds and torrential rains with possible flooding.

Governor Scott has declared an emergency for every county in Florida for the storm that is not supposed to hit until three or four days from now, and storm provisions already are sold out in most southern Florida locations. Evacuation of the Florida Keys has started. At last report, Irma was a Category 5 storm with winds of 185 miles per hour.  We know that Gladys has a brand new roof, 130 mph impact windows and doors, and a 130 mph wind resistant garage door.  What worries us is that although the windows in the double front doors are hurricane resistant, we are not so sure the frame and the pegs that secure the doors closed will hold in hurricane-level winds. And if those winds reach 185 miles per hour, nothing is safe in its path.

We also worry that the three plastic sheds in the back and side yards (and their contents) could end up in another county, as could our garbage cans, our park bench on the front porch, and our flower pot of flowers that our neighbor has so lovingly been watering for us.

Of course, the two large trees in the back yard also could cause considerable damage to our fence -- if the fence even surrounds the yard when we return -- and to our house.

 If Irma really rips up Florida, our homeowner's insurance will be useless because Citizen's insurance will not have enough funds to cover the cost of the damage statewide. Forecasters show that Phase 2 -- a tropical storm called Jose -- is lining up right behind Irma, and that it has the potential of turning into a hurricane and following the same path also. And those are just material concerns.

Of far greater concern is our nephew and his wife who live just a few miles south of us, our friends at church, and our neighbors on our street.  They are all dear to us, and they all are in harm's way.  We pray that the storm takes a less destructive path and goes out to sea east of Florida, and that our family, friends, and neighbors all remain safe.

If Gladys takes a direct hit, we may be driving down to Florida much sooner than we thought to see what we can salvage from the storm.  At this point, all we can do is watch, wait, and pray.

Porch - Day 2

One would think that after all of these years, we would learn that if paint is over two years old, it is no good.  However, we had to learn that lesson all over again this morning when we opened a can of Kilz paint to touch up some "bad" spots on the back porch.  Yup, the can opened.  Yup, the oil and liquids were all floating on top.  Yup, the base was so thick that it would have taken a major earthquake to shake the can enough to mix the two components together. So off to Home Depot we drove to buy a new pint of Kilz.

 Once home, Rick started by going around the base of the porch and drilling holes for Tapcons to refasten the structure to the cement patio.  Over the years, both sides had worked their way loose.  Then we draped the porch and Rick started to work on the boards that we either scraped the loose paint off yesterday or the ones that showed signs of water or rust damage.

Rick drills holes for Tapcons to resecure the
porch to the cement floor.

We probably should have replaced the board on the north side of the house, but neither of us was in the mood to do so.  Instead, I freely admit that we put a bandage on it by liberally slathering it full of Kilz paint.

The rafter ends needed some serious attention.

The rafter ends that were on the outside of the porch also were in pretty bad shape.  I had scraped them yesterday, and today Rick put on two coats of Kilz to try to protect them from further damage.  The good news is that the porch is not a major structural component of the house, so we are not terribly concerned about walls falling down or ceilings caving in.  For now, the boards are protected for another year or two.

We would love to put in a new roof, but the solid roof that we like is both too expensive, and it would be so solid that it would make both the dining room and the kitchen very dark.  For now, we will take the cheap way out and just stay with the translucent roof on the porch.

The rafter tails look much better now that they
are primed with Kilz.  A fresh coat of paint will
be added on Thursday if we don't see rain.

The Kilz in various places on the porch was as far as we could go today.  It has to dry at least 24 hours, and tomorrow we will be out of town all day.  We will have to see if the weather cooperates with us on Thursday because that is the next day we will have free to work on the porch.

For right now, that paint must dry while I go to wash the kitchen floor and to cut the grass.  The joys of home ownership just never end!

Scrub-a-Dub-Dub

If I had my hands around the neck of the person who built the roof joists for our back screened patio, I would squeeze that neck until he turned purple!  He caused us a great deal of work today, with more work to follow tomorrow.

The roof joists are a pain when they need washing
or painting.  Unfortunately, they need both this year.

The roof joists are set up in a lattice pattern so that the support for the fiberglass roof above is in various places.  This helped the builder because he could stagger the joists when nailing them into place.  The staggered joists also provide more support to carry the snow load on the roof in the winter time.

OK, OK, I get it.  I understand why the joists are positioned that way, but that does not make dealing with them any easier.

The vertical support columns are easy to paint, but the
roof supports certainly are not.

We knew that one of our tasks this summer was to wash and to paint the support posts and the roof joists on the back porch.  We spent this morning doing nothing but washing the dirt off of those surfaces.  A little TSP with warm water was the mixture of the day, but the porch was so dirty that each of us went through at least three bucketsful to keep the water relatively usable.  What a pain each little square of joists is to clean!  The corners are nearly impossible to get clean, and having everything overhead certainly did not make the job faster or easier.

Once we got to the outer parts of the joists and the rain gutters, the job did not get any better. In fact, the outside was almost dirtier than the inside.  Rick also took the gutter guards off and found a royal muddy mess inside the gutters which he had to clean.

We scraped the paint where necessary; tomorrow we'll add the prime coat where needed and perhaps a little Kilz in certain areas.  Painting this vertical posts is not difficult, but the joists of the ceiling are more difficult to paint than they are to wash.  Neither of us is looking forward to our job tomorrow.

I just hope the final result of our efforts will protect the porch for a few more years and will be worth the effort in the end.  Even then, I still would have murder on my mind if the designer ever came onto the back porch.

Green, Green Grass of Home

My watch tells me that the time is 3:27 p.m., and other than a small break at lunchtime, this is the first time today that I have had a chance to rest.  Needless to say, this has been another productive day.

The before and after pictures below show how the morning was spent:

The rest of the former garden, awaiting sod.

The side yard as it looks after 20 rolls
of sod. 

We had to go out to the fields where the men were cutting the sod in order to purchase 20 more rolls.  I guess we could not get sod more fresh than that!  We were home by 9:30 and able to lay down the next part of the sod.

We were surprised that we actually had enough to fill in the main mud patch section of the yard.  We still need to do a third trip to pick up sod, though.  We would like to lay down one more strip where the creeping-charlie weeds currently live.  Technically that area is on the neighbor's property, but since our trees grew out over that area (which allowed the weeds to grow) we feel we have the responsibility to remove the weeds and to add some grass.

Our front yard has a couple of places also that would benefit from new sod, and our back yard has the same.  These areas are all depressions in the yard that mark where trees once grew.  We need to add some dirt on top, and then so new sod to get rid of these ankle-turners.  Since driving 45 miles takes gas, we will wait until we know how much sod Lindsay and Chris will need for their yard, and then we will get all of the sod at once.

The afternoon has been spent with the usual Friday cleaning chores and laundry, plus a run to the automatic vehicle wash because our trips to the dump have left the truck filthy.  We are preparing to drive the truck to Milwaukee tomorrow, so we cleaned the inside, restocked it with snacks and water, and Rick filled the tank with gas.  We also made a run to the bank to keep the finances accurate.  Whew!

Once again the weather cooperated so we did not die of heat stroke.  We are both happy to see the major part of that task complete.  Now all we have to do is to add water.

Trees, be Gone!

We were up before 7:00 today because we knew that we were going to be working outside at Lindsay's house, and we wanted to beat the heat of the mid-day sun.

Earlier in the week, we had gone to their house and helped them remove some branches from their two huge evergreen trees at the back of their lot.  Yesterday, Chris contracted with a tree removal contractor to take down the tallest of the trees.  The man with the chainsaw did just that: he cut the trunk about 4 feet from the ground and let the whole tree just drop.  Tim-m-m-ber!

Lindsay walks toward the downed tree as Rick cuts the branches
and Chris started to pile them for transportation to the curb.

Our task today was to go back to help them remove the branches from the fallen tree so Chris and Lindsay could haul the debris to the curb.

We took down the trunk of the smaller tree, but what remains of the larger tree will have to wait until Gary brings over a chain saw.  That's OK since lots of pine needles, pine cones, rocks, weeds, roots, and other nasty-looking stuff was left from where the trees once stood.

Lots of debris remained under the trees.

We each took a rake or a shovel and started to fill five-gallon pails with the afore-mentioned debris.  As Chris brought the buckets up to the front yard using the trailer hooked to his lawn mower, Rick went with him to unload the buckets into the back of our truck.  Lindsay and I stayed in the back yard and continued to fill more buckets.

Another load of debris is ready to be hauled up to the curb.

In the end, we filled about 50 buckets full which measured about 1/2 a yard of debris.  Then Rick and Chris hauled it all to the yard waste dump.  Their yard looks much better.  They still need to drop that final trunk and haul it up to the curb.  Their neighbor down the street takes the wood from there, which is fine with Chris and Lindsay.  As long as it is not in their yard, they don't care who takes it.

They know of a man who they can call to grind down the stumps.  Then they can fill in the spaces with good black dirt and add sod to give them a fresh, green yard.

Some of the tree branches wait to be loaded into the back of the truck.

Once we were home, we talked to the neighbor lady and asked her if she would like some low-hanging branches removed from her front trees.  We have seen her in the past practically crawl under some of the branches to cut her grass.  She was delighted with our offer, so we loaded those branches and a couple that had fallen in our back yard into our truck bed.  After lunch we drove to the dump once more to get rid of those limbs.

My final job of the day was to finish cutting the grass.  I had cut the sides and front yard a couple of days ago; now I wanted to cut the back so we could continue to water the new sod that we previously put down.  With all of the rain and the watering that we have done, the new sods seems to be taking well.  We actually may have a green back yard by the time fall arrives.

Growing Grass

Yesterday was one of those cool, perfect, sunny days to actually work outside in Wisconsin.  We took advantage of the beautiful weather by driving to Black Creek to pick up some sod.

Why Black Creek?  Well, there is a wonderful sod farm there that provides the sod to most of the landscape firms and nurseries in Green Bay.  The problem is that if we buy the sod locally, each roll will cost $4.00.  If we pick it up at the sod farm, we can buy each roll for less than $2.00.  So the 45 minute drive was worth our time.

We ordered 15 rolls of sod.  When we got to the farm, our order was piled on a skid on a fork lift.  A young man came to the truck and lifted each roll like each weighed as much as a roll of paper towel. He threw them into the back of the truck with little or no effort.

The former tree line awaits new grass.

When we got home, we found that both Rick and I had to work together to move each roll from the truck to a small, flat garden cart.  How that young man could both lift and toss each roll so effortlessly is beyond me. We transported four rolls at a time.  Once we lifted them down to the prepared area, Rick would fit the ends while I rolled out the grass.

Fifteen rolls of sod start to make the area look green again.

The whole procedure took us a couple of hours to complete.  Now we just must continue to water, water, water the new sod each day so that it takes.

We estimate that we will need approximately 20 - 25 more rolls to finish the job.  Unfortunately, scheduled medical procedures will interrupt our plans for a few days, so we hope to get back to finishing this process some time next week.

The new sod blurs the line between our yard and that of the
neighbor; however, grass beats a mud patch!

Until then, all we can do is to sit around and watch our new grass grow.

Busy Morning

We have finally gotten back into our Florida routine of working in the cooler temperatures of the morning, and then relaxing and doing some fun activities in the afternoon as the temperatures climb.

Today we awoke early and were at Lindsay's house by 8:00 a.m.  While the day is humid (typical Midwestern summer day), the temperatures are tolerable.  We went to Lindsay's house to help them take down parts of two large pine trees at the back of their property.  Christopher had worked a couple of afternoons this past week sawing through the lower branches of both trees.  Today we set up a ladder and attacked the higher branches with a SawsAll.  While Rick cut the branches, I assisted him and piled the beaches for Christopher to load into the wagon behind his riding lawn mower.

Once the wagon was loaded, he drove it up their hill and to the curb on the street.  Owen has a little Gator battery-operated truck with a small truck bed in the back, so we added some small branches and twigs in that so he could haul wood up the hill also.  He actually carried quite a bit in that small truck, so he really did help!

We topped the first tree, leaving only the larger main trunk.  Gary, Christopher's dad, has some chain saws, so he will have to come with one of those to take the trunk down to the ground.  Our SawsAll just does not have the power nor the blade to complete the job.

The second tree was even taller and larger, so Rick climbed the ladder and trimmed as best he could.  That tree, too, now needs the attention of a chain saw.

Once the trees were down as far as we could take them, we came home.  Since we were sweaty and dirty, we decided to complete some small tasks in our own yard.  We started by finishing our edging.  We had half of the lawn edged a couple of days ago when our old edger died. We have been using that same edger for probably 20 years, so it owed us nothing.  We replaced it with a new edger from Home Depot. The new blade is sharp and true, so the new machine made short work of what was left to trim.

As I cleaned up the edging debris, Rick moved on to the windows.  They were filthy, but a good cleaning system of window cleaner, a broad cloth applicator, and a squeegee made a world of difference.  We did not take the time today to totally disassemble all of the screens and windows, but even getting the top layer of dirt off the outside of the windows has greatly improved the view from inside the house.  I can see blue sky again!

The final task of the morning was to mix up some insecticide and for Rick to spray around the perimeter of the house.  Our house has been crawling with spiders, and the ants are starting to congregate on the sidewalk, so the time had come to spray again.  Rick had not done this before because we seem to get rain every other day.  We have a chance, now, to go a couple of days without rain, so this was great opportunity to finish that job.

By that time, we had come to noon.  The temperatures are starting to rise, so this afternoon will either be inside or at least resting in the shade.  The hammock or the back porch both are welcoming options.

After all, this is summer, so no one should have to work too hard.  At last we have learned to accomplish what we can in the morning, and to not feel guilty about doing what we want to do to relax in the afternoon. And if we do not get everything finished in the morning, there always is tomorrow.

Down in the Dirt

Monday of this week found us digging in the dirt again.  We have had so much rain in the past two weeks that our efforts to add sod to the side yard have been severely hampered.

However, Monday dawned clear so we were able to beat the heat by going to the nearby nursery early in the morning and picking up one truckload (1/2 yard) of pulverized dirt. We spread that out in the back area of the garden near the shed that we needed to fill. While Rick dug it out of the back of the truck and used the wheelbarrow to get it into the garden, I tried to get the mounds smoothed and tamped down.

The first truckload did not go nearly as far as I thought it would, so back we went for a second 1/2 yard of dirt.  The efforts continued, but we still did not fill in the garden as far as we had intended to do so.

Back Rick went for a third truckload of dirt as we repeated the process.  By that time, we had reached lunchtime, and the sun had come around the house far enough for the whole garden to be in the sun. The heat and humidity put an end to our work for that day.

We really need one more truckload of dirt to finish the last area of the garden and to fill in some low spots in both the front and the back yard, but that will have to wait until tomorrow.  We have had other obligations on Tuesday and today, and hard rains are predicted once again for this evening.

The garden that used to hold our trees awaits a bit more dirt
and then lots of sod.

If tomorrow is not a wash-out, we will finish laying down the dirt and order sod for Friday.  All of our work is dependent on one thing: the weather.