Summer is officially over at our house. The golden leaves on the ground crackle under our feet, the pool is winterized, the umbrella is covered, and the patio furniture is packed away in the storage shed. Firewood will be delivered this week, just in time for some fall fire bowl time.
We left two lawn chairs on the pool deck for nights at the fire bowl and for days when it’s warm enough to sit outside in the afternoon sunshine. There are two additional lawn chairs on the patio (visible through the fence) because . . .
. . . our hot tub is finally at the dealer, waiting to be delivered to our house. It will be placed on the concrete pad visible in the center left, off the patio and left of the pool. We’ll need some lawn chairs beside the hot tub to hold our towels and robes while we luxuriate in the nice warm water, enjoying the relaxing water jets. We ordered the hot tub on June 13, almost exactly five months ago. You’ve gotta love the COVID supply chain issues!
Update coming when the hot tub is installed. I can’t wait!
In early October, there was a lot of digging going on in our yard and the footprints indicated it was being done by a raccoon.
Ted bought a trap and we caught Ringo that same night (October 8), then released him into the Busch Wildlife Conservation Area the next day. Whew! That was easy!
A few days later, we saw more raccoon tracks. We decided Ringo must have a wife, so Ted set the trap again and we caught the little woman (didn’t actually identify gender-type) on October 13. Look at the pile of dirt “she” dug up through the holes in the trap.
Ted released Number 2 and put the trap away. But wait! There was fresh digging three days later. Ted set the trap again and Number 3 (one of the grown kids?) was sitting in it on October 16.
What is going on??!! Is our yard the neighborhood attraction for the wildlife community living in the woods across the street? Did Ringo pass the word somehow to tell all his friends that the Busch Wildlife Conservation Area is an awesome place and that the transport carrier is in our yard?
In a forward-thinking manner, we decided to keep setting the trap every night until we captured every critter that was digging up our lawn. Two days later (October 18), we apparently captured a friend of Ringo’s family–an opossum. Check out those teeth! He was asleep and woke up when we lifted the trap. He didn’t make a sound, so maybe this was just a yawn. Ted made another relocation deposit at Busch.
We kept the trap baited and sure enough, on October 21, there was another opossum sleeping in it and awaiting transfer.
That’s five critters trapped and relocated. It’s been a week since we trapped No. 5 and there’s no evidence of new digging in the yard, so our 2020 wildlife relocation program might be finished. At least for awhile.
It’s time to make applesauce again. I don’t especially like the job, but we love our homemade chunky-style applesauce, so-o-o-o, . . . .
We bought a bushel of apples–“The World’s Finest Apples,” according to the box. They were beautiful apples.
Ted’s main job is to operate the apple peeler/slicer. Why do they have to put a sticker on every. single. apple??
Then I fill the kettles and cook and mash the peeled/sliced apples.
The applesauce needs to cool before I put it into meal-size boxes for future use.
Ted carries the boxes to the freezer. . .
. . . and we always save a few apples so I can make an apple pie to celebrate the end of the applesauce-making process. The supply of applesauce and the pie reward make the work worth the effort.
We’ve had a raccoon digging up our yard every night after dark for more than two weeks. He likes digging in the sod Ted just laid down, in the thinner areas of the lawn, and in every single flower bed. When he finds something to eat, he stands on the first step in the swimming pool (about two inches of water) to wash his food. He leaves his muddy footprints all over our patio, pool deck, and pool steps. Here’s what his digging looks like. Daily. This has to stop!
Ringo shows no sign of planning to leave our yard to dig elsewhere, so Ted called the state conservation department and the animal control folks to get some ideas for dealing with a rogue raccoon. The agencies won’t do anything about the critter themselves “because of COVID,” but recommended a trap baited with cat food. Yesterday, Ted bought a trap and some cat food and set the trap in Ringo’s favorite spot: Ted’s new sod.
When we went to bed, we turned on the patio lights to see if the trap had been tripped. It wasn’t. During the night, I woke up and noticed it was brighter than usual in our bedroom, so I peeked outside to see if the moon was shining in. It wasn’t, but I saw that we had forgotten to turn off the patio lights, so I went to the kitchen to turn them off. As long as I was there, I checked the trap again and it was tripped. Apparently, the lights attracted Ringo. He couldn’t resist the yummy cat food, so he walked into the trap and locked himself inside.
In the morning, I watched him for awhile. He paced a lot and turned in circles, but he didn’t seem overly concerned about his confinement. Sometimes, he’d plant his feet and push against the sides or the top of the trap, trying to get out, and he spent a lot of time digging in the ground between the trap wires. Ha-ha, Ringo! Now you know what “trap” means–you can’t get out! Ted picked the right spot for the trap. Ringo apparently went directly to the trap because we didn’t see any damage or muddy footprints anywhere else in the yard this morning.
Before buying the trap, we had decided to release our captured critter in the Busch Wildlife Conservation Area–not too far away, but far enough that he shouldn’t be able to find his way back to our house–especially if he was riding in the dark in the trunk and couldn’t see where he was going. We loaded Ringo up for his first (and only?) car ride.
We picked a spot at the edge of the woods to release Ringo, and Ted carried him over.
While Ted worked to open the trap door, Ringo did some more pacing and circling. He might have looked busy, but he was paying attention. The instant the trap door opened, he shot out like a streak. I was ready for his escape photo with my finger on my camera button, but he was too fast for me. He’s not in the photo below. The dark area inside the trap is the dirt he dug up between the trap wires while he paced last night.
Here’s Ringo’s escape-attempt dirt pile in the trap. Past experience says he could have dug out a lot more if he hadn’t had to work within those little square spaces of the trap. Add this dirt to the dirt from the wide open spaces of the flower beds and other areas of the lawn where he’s been digging, and you’ll have an idea of how much damage he’s been doing to our yard every night. He’s definitely a master digger! Note: The Katy Trail can be accessed from this parking lot. The white gravel surface of the parking lot (below) is what they use on the Katy Trail. It’s very dusty and that’s why we have to clean our bikes after a long ride on the Katy.
I hope Ringo finds some friends in the conservation area and enjoys digging in the forest. Ted and I will be glad if we don’t have to tamp down the grass and clean the mud from the pool, the pool deck, and the patio tomorrow morning.
This sad story begins on July 29, 2020–the day I took the picture below.
Ted and I noticed lots of leaves dropping from our sugar maple tree in July. When we looked up, we saw that the leaves on some of the branches were turning brown–not something we expected during mid-summer, especially with all the rain we’ve had this year. If you look closely at the picture above, you’ll see some of the leaves turning brown. I took a picture of the tree right away so I’d have a good memory of it before it got worse. So many leaves dropped so quickly (below), Ted had to rake the lawn before mowing it.
We called Russ, an arborist, who diagnosed the tree as fatally ill with a wilt disease and probably some weaknesses resulting from storm damage (ice, wind) several times over the years. While he was talking with us, leaves fell like large brown snowflakes. Russ said he’d never seen a tree deteriorate that fast. Because of all the tree removals he had already scheduled, Russ’s company couldn’t come until yesterday. I guess it isn’t my imagination that wherever I go this year, someone seems to be taking down mature trees.
The tree removal crew showed up right after 6:30 a.m. and got to work. They powered up the cherry-picker and Doug climbed in, took it up, and fastened pulleys in upper branches of the tree. Then he strung rope through the pulleys for the guys below to pull, guiding the branches safely down. (See the guy in the center of the picture.) Sometimes the guy pulling the rope would walk it around the tree’s trunk to wind it tighter and keep it from slipping when a large branch fell. Compare how the tree looks to only 35 days ago in the first picture.
Notice what a pretty color the leaves have turned (below). I called the arborist two days ago to ask if there’s a chance the tree will live because it’s so nicely colored. Unfortunately, he said, that’s a definite sign it’s dying because the other maples in the area are not even beginning to show fall colors. As cut branches fell, the dead leaves created colorful showers.
When the branches from the driveway side of the tree were stripped, one of the guys re-wound the rope in the rope-holder bucket. I wondered why he was doing that. Didn’t they need to use the rope to safely bring down the branches on the other two-thirds of the tree? They picked up some of the larger branches and laid them out as shown below. Ted suggested that maybe they were going to build a little fort. Instead, they sat on the branches and had a smoke break.
When Doug moved the traffic cones to block the street in front of the tree and then cut out a wedge at the base of the tree on the street side, the light dawned on me: they were planning to drop the rest of the tree across the street. They only cut off the other branches to avoid damage to our driveway and other plantings. Notice the split down the trunk where the tree twisted from wind storms and from the weight of ice storms over the years. In the picture below, Doug’s chainsaw is nearly all the way through the base of the trunk. Going . . . going . . . going . . .
Timberrrrrrrr!!!!
And it’s over. The log “fort” was a bridge to cushion the blow of the tree hitting the ground. I have to admit that I got a little bit choked up when the tree fell. This was one of the first of three trees we planted in our yard in 1980. At one point, for some unremembered reason, we talked about removing it, but Jeff pleaded with us to keep it because it was his favorite tree. Doug estimated the height of the tree at 50-55 feet. So sad.
The tree also landed right on the wedge Doug cut. He told me that was unintentional.
The guys got to work, cutting the fallen tree into manageable pieces, then hauling them to the mulcher. Doug, on the left, is the senior member of the team; the guy on the right is the junior member. He wasn’t allowed to use a chainsaw and was limited to picking up branches, feeding them into the mulcher, re-winding the rope, raking leaves, etc. The guy in the middle helped with everything except getting into the cherry picker bucket.
Things were going well until they weren’t. Doug smelled diesel fuel and found a leak in the pump line. The guys shut down the mulcher and had a little conference. Turning off the motor stopped the leak. It also stopped the work. The crew quickly covered the leaked fuel with sawdust and leaves to absorb it. The two junior members of the crew took the mulcher back to home base to exchange it for a working model. That took about 90 minutes. Doug had to stay with the tree because it was still blocking the road and wasn’t completely cleaned up. (Safety and liability, I assume.) You can see the pile of leaves and sawdust in the road. It looks inert, but it’s busily absorbing diesel fuel.
Break time while we wait for a different mulcher.
Our lilac tree also died this year and Ted recently uprooted it. I asked Doug if he’d mind running the lilac tree through his mulcher. He told us to bring it out. It looks so small compared to the sugar maple.
While waiting for the replacement mulcher, Doug got to work on the magnolia tree. Because it grew in the shadow of the sugar maple, the side next to the sugar maple didn’t fill out as well as the side next to the driveway. Doug evened it out. He took the cherry picker up for a bird’s eye view of the tree’s shape and then he went to work.
The tree is smaller now and Doug said it won’t bloom next year, but it should grow faster and more evenly since it now stands alone.
The clean-up work resumed when the guys came back with a working mulcher. They totally cleaned up our lawn and the street and even went across the street to clean up Jim’s lawn and driveway where a lot of leaves had fallen.
When they left, this is all we had of the tree. They told us the crew with the forklift would probably arrive later today, and definitely this week. They were here in less than 30 minutes.
The tree company has a good thing going. Their trucks advertise that they also sell firewood and mulch. They charged us to take down the tree, then they took away a truckload of mulch from shredding all the branches, and now they’re taking away big logs that will make firewood for them to sell. It’s kind of a commercial version of The Giving Tree. Hopefully, this contributes to reducing the cost of tree removal.
Here goes some of the firewood-to-be on the forklift. Up on the fork, then down into the truck.
The guys cut the stump lower for grinding (stump grinder approaching from the left) and that’s when I saw what an interesting shape the tree trunk had.
The stump grinder guy needs lots of patience. The equipment moves very slowly into position. The blade is speedy, but he has to move it slowly over the upper edge of the trunk, then slowly back, then drop it a bit, and then repeat–over and over until he gets all the way through the stump. It took him about 30 minutes to grind our stump. It looked like a boring, but dangerous job. When he finished, he very slowly directed the machine back to his truck.
The forklift returned to the scene of the damage to pick up the piles of mulch created by the stump grinder. From the stump, into the truck, and then for sale as mulch.
The guys raked everything smooth before they left. You can see our neighbor, Jim, watching the fun from his garage.
When the yard, the street, and the neighbors’ yards were clean, the crews left this for us.
Here’s our new look.
While the tree crews were working, Ted and I were sitting in the driveway watching them. Neighbors and strangers stopped to tell us how sorry they were to see this tree go. Several mentioned what a beautiful tree it was and how much they’ve enjoyed it every fall. One lady even said she always thought the fall colors of the tree perfectly complemented our house. After 40 years of watching our sugar maple grow and turn color, we’ll never see it again. I’m glad I took this October picture last year.
We moved into our present house in July 1979. The following spring, we planted three trees in our yard: a sugar maple, a green ash, and a sweet gum. We purposely chose the sweet gum tree for its fall colors, but didn’t give a thought to the @#%&*! gum balls it would drop from late fall to early spring. Fortunately, we planted that tree on the far back corner of our lot where we had the vegetable garden and where we now have Ted’s “brush pile” area, so the gum balls aren’t as much of a problem as they’d be if they fell in a higher traffic area of the lawn.
Here’s a picture of Jeff (8) and Tommy (4) watering the sweet gum tree in October 1980, . . .
. . . and here’s a picture of the sweet gum tree today.
The tree has grown so much that I had to walk all the way to the other side of our neighbor’s back yard to fit the tree in my picture. Good work, boys.
Just a few months ago, our redbud tree bloomed with a spectacular display. Ted and I both commented on how pretty it looked this year and credited the good spring weather. After the big blossom show, the leaves on one branch began to yellow and die. We had an arborist look at the tree, but he couldn’t see any disease on it and advised us to give it a chance to come back.
Shortly afterward, the leaves on another branch began turning yellow. When they dried to a crispy brown, leaves on another branch started the same routine. We called the arborist to set a date to remove the tree, and today was the day we bid it farewell. Some of the tree is on the ground and the two men are ready to take down the main trunk. Ted planted the tree in 1990.
Last winter, we started talking about installing a hot tub in the spring. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world and we decided that was too many contractors at the house–ground prep, concrete, electric, tub delivery, installation, etc.–so we put it off. Today we ordered our hot tub.
Hot tubs are in high demand, like bicycles and toilet paper, so we have to wait for the manufacturer to build our tub. If all goes well, the installation should be complete by late August or early September–just in time for cooler weather. We’re looking forward to the features we selected: two captain’s chairs (with individualized controls) plus four other seats (room for guests), lots and lots of jets, several motors to enable selection of specific jets, controls to adjust the intensity of the jets, a hydraulic-assisted cover that folds itself over the outer edge of the tub, a waterfall feature (lower corner of the photo) that’s part of the cleaning system, and a rainbow selection of lights that we were told “make the water glow in the dark.”
Fall has always been my least favorite season, but with a hot tub, I might have to adjust my opinion.
Ted and I built our firewood rack in 1980. We used treated pine, and the wood is still good, but was looking a little faded. (No surprise, since it’s probably been 20+ years since we last stained it.) A few weeks ago, I went to a lumberyard to buy stain. I wasn’t allowed inside, but the employee brought the stain and a handheld credit card machine to the door and I went home happy. The weather was warm and without rain in the forecast, so I decided to stain the firewood rack. It looks much better and fresher now.
We waited a few days to allow the stain to thoroughly dry, and then Ted re-loaded our leftover winter firewood onto the rack. We’re set for another 20+ years.
We’ve lived in this house for 40+ years and I’ve always thought the steps to the upstairs seemed steeper than the steps to the basement. I chalked it up to the carpeting on the upstairs stairway, but things didn’t change when we swapped out the carpeting for hardwood. Last week, I finally decided to verify the steepness of both stairways. (It was obviously a slow day in lockdown.)
I measured everything I could think of. Both stairways have 13 steps. Both span the same horizontal distance, so the upstairs stairway wasn’t cut short to make room for the hallway and the closet beyond it. The upstairs stair treads are actually 0.75 inches deeper than the basement stairs, so it’s not an illusion of wider steps, but the upstairs risers are also 0.75 inches taller than the basement ones and the angle of ascent is seven degrees steeper, proving that the upstairs stairway is definitely steeper than the basement stairway. Why, why, why???
After a few seconds, I had the Eureka! moment. The basement ceiling (to the bottom of the joists, not to the dropped ceiling tiles) is 6.5 inches lower than the main floor ceiling, so the upstairs steps need to climb 6.5 more inches in the same horizontal distance. Problem solved. Now, what shall I do for the next 15 minutes?
I’m so glad I worked in education and not in big business. Today, I had to deal with the corporate sector, something I always dread.
Last week, I received an email from our gas company informing me that they are changing to a different computer system. To continue my autopay payments, I was instructed to go into my gas company account, unenroll from autopay, then re-enroll in it so that my account will be switched to the new system. What a pain, but ok, I went into my account to do that, but I was unable to re-enroll. Error message: We were unable to enroll your account in paperless billing at this time. Please try again later. I did. Same result.
I called to speak with a live person and was told to call back during regular business hours–which were not specified. Before calling back the next day, I tried to set up an account myself once more. Still no luck after 20 minutes. I was becoming frustrated, so Ted suggested I try scr** you as a password to see if that works. I tried calling again instead.
Luckily, early afternoon apparently falls within the regular (but unspecified) business hours, and I was able to speak with Keith. According to him, there is no record of my autopay account in the company’s system. Since I’ve been using autopay for years and have not had the gas shut off, I find it hard to believe that there is no record of my account. Keith, however, insisted it doesn’t exist in the records and advised me to set up a new account. I tried, but I couldn’t get past the “enter your password” screen.
Switch to Rob. Rob informed me that he is working from home, sitting on the sofa in his pjs beside his wife and petting his cat. (Professional? I think not.) Rob told me I’m having trouble because there’s a dot in the first part of my email address and the system doesn’t recognize that format. I’ve been getting emails from the gas company at that address for years, but . . . . After working with me for a few minutes, Rob decided to contact an IT specialist, so he put me on hold while he sent a message. The voice on the wait-time recording asked, “Have you signed up for paperless billing? It’s easy! Just go to Spire.com to see how effortless this is.” We English majors call this “irony.”
For twenty-five minutes, while Rob and I–and his wife and cat–waited to hear back from the IT guy, Rob and I chatted about places we’ve been and how good the beignets are at Cafe du Monde in New Orleans. His wife and I both played clarinet in school, yet she never heard of Pete Fountain, a reknowned Dixieland clarinetist. After more trivial exchanges, the IT guy finally sent Rob a message saying he had set up the account for me and there was nothing else I needed to do. If my May gas bill gets paid automatically, he’s right.
This process was so “easy” and so “effortless,” it only took 45 minutes of unsuccessful attempts on my part and a little more than an hour of phone time with Keith and Rob to set this up! Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!
Yesterday afternoon, I left the house around 4:00 p.m. to run a few errands. When I returned at 5:30, the knob on the door between the garage and the house wouldn’t turn. I knocked, thinking the door was locked, but Ted couldn’t turn the knob from the inside either. I took my bags around to the back door, then took the door knob apart to see if I could fix it. Both knobs came off, exposing the inner workings of the latch, but nothing moved and the door refused to open.
The locksmith (Kevin) who came to the house this afternoon said he rarely sees jammed latches, but this was his second one today. What are the odds? He did the same thing I had done: removed both knobs and tried to wiggle the innards. Nothing moved for him either. Luckily, he had some other tricks of the trade.
Kevin inserted flat bladders between the door and the frame, above and below the door knob. Inflating the bladders shifted the door toward the hinges, making it possible for Kevin to insert a screwdriver into the latch hole in the door frame to release the latch. I asked what he would have done if that hadn’t worked and he said, “Saw off the latch bolt. I always get them open.” I like confidence in a professional.
As he was leaving, Kevin said he was going to examine the latch because he wanted to know what jammed it so tightly. I asked him to let me know what he found, because I was curious why it worked fine at 4:00 and wouldn’t budge ninety minutes later.
In the photo below, you can see a flat gray piece of metal in the opening of the cylinder. When he took everything apart, Kevin discovered that the flat gray metal piece had broken in half. Closing the door at 4:00 p.m. yesterday apparently jiggled one of the broken pieces just enough to tip it a little inside the cylinder, preventing it from sliding back through the opening to release the latch. The unanswered question is: What broke it inside the cylinder?
My wedding dress has been stored in the basement (and other storage places) since Ted and I were married. The dress is 50 years old, and I never had the dry cleaners do whatever they do to preserve wedding dresses, so it has yellowed with age. My mom and I designed and made my dress. I sewed on all that lace trim and all those lace appliqués by hand! Mom and I were both pleased with the results.
As I walked down the church aisle, I heard my Grandma make a little “aaahh” sound (she told me later I looked that beautiful), and that made every stitch worthwhile. Ted, on the other hand, didn’t even glance at me while I came down the aisle. He said he thought he wasn’t supposed to see me until I got to the altar.
About ten years ago, my friend Liz’s daughter was getting married, and Liz wanted to make a handkerchief for Janelle to carry on her wedding day. The plan was to use some of the lace appliqués from Liz’s wedding dress to decorate the handkerchief. Liz wanted my help because she doesn’t know how to sew. Working with Liz’s wedding dress prompted me to get mine out so we could admire both of them. We had a wonderful and memorable evening, talking about our wedding memories while we worked on the handkerchief for Janelle.
Cutting into Liz’s dress was a little emotional, but she said she can’t wear it again unless she puts a big panel down the back to make it wider. We had a good laugh over that and decided neither of us wants to wear our wedding dresses again, whether they fit or not. We agreed that if either of us ever marries again, we’re going to get a new dress for the event. After being married to Ted for 50 years, I think it’s safe to say we’re going to stick together.
When I came across my wedding dress and veil as we were cleaning out our storage room, I told Ted I’m ready to pitch the dress. I remember my mom telling me when she decided to do the same. She burned hers in a small wood-burning stove she had for warmth in her basement. Lacking that, I stuffed mine into the trash bag we were filling as we cleaned. I had no qualms about getting rid of the dress, but I asked Ted to take some final pictures of it, just for the memories.
Our storage room shelves in the basement are full. We made a step toward getting rid of things last Christmas when we went through all of our Christmas decorations and kept only our favorites. Then we cleaned out some more stuff before the kids and grandkids arrived for our 50th anniversary party last June. Major discards at that time were toys for young children, pictures and wall hangings we’ll never put on our walls again, and surplus luggage.
This week, we got serious and went through the room shelf by shelf. When we finished, the trash can was overflowing, with four more days to wait until the trash pick-up. There was a recycle bin and another box of paper plus a box of cardboard for the recycle center. Better quality items went to Goodwill in two overflowing boxes. Ted said we don’t need two large ice chests, and I said I don’t need to keep my canning jars any longer, so they left our house too.
There’s space on the storage shelves now, and it feels good to have this job checked off the list–until next time. Still to be faced: three four-drawer file cabinets.
The fireplace end of our family room is dark because the eight-foot window wall is at the opposite end of the room, beside the kitchen. As a result, our family portrait tends to be shadowed, especially in the evening. Today, we had an art light installed in the family room to highlight the portrait of our wonderful family so we can enjoy it when we sit in the family room.
We have cable for our family room TV, but still use a rooftop antenna for the kitchen TV. We watch very little TV, but we caved and subscribed to cable for the family room because we couldn’t always watch our favorite programs. Rainy and windy weather affected the signal strength, and we always seemed to lose the signal just when we were getting interested in the program.
Lately, we’ve had a lot of rainy weather but, even on calm, dry days, the local TV stations haven’t been coming in on the non-cable kitchen TV. Now we know why.
We had high winds one day last week, and we assume the winds toppled our antenna because today we noticed it resting comfortably on the roof. When we get it fixed or replaced on Friday (depending on its condition), we should get better reception on the kitchen TV again.
This has been a busy week for Ted and me. We’ve been working hard to welcome spring to our yard.
Monday
We went to our Pilates class this morning to get some exercise. In retrospect, we’d have had plenty of exercise without the class today. The pool crew is coming tomorrow to open our pool for the season, so we needed to take off the cover, clean it, and pack it away until the crew puts it back on in the fall.
We tried something new with our pool last fall. We had a different pool crew last spring and, when they saw all the algae in our pool, they told us algae doesn’t grow in water colder than 60 degrees. (Why didn’t anybody tell us that ten years ago when we installed the pool?!) To test this theory, we waited an extra month to close the pool last fall, and are opening it a month earlier than usual this spring so that the water temperature was below 60 degrees all the while it was covered.
This is what the pool water looked like last year—and every other year—when we opened it. It usually took us 5-6 days to get it cleaned up for swimming.
This is how the pool water looked when we removed the cover this week. The pool crew told us sunlight filtering through the pool cover stimulated this minor algae growth.
With the cover off the pool, it was time for me to fire up the pressure washer to clean the winter dirt off our concrete. Bad news. Our two-year-old power washer leaked water out of every orifice–even where it didn’t look like there should be water. The only place it didn’t send water was through the hose, so we diagnosed a faulty pump–which we already replaced once under the warranty. We’ve had nothing but problems every time we tried to use this power washer, so we threw up our hands, then got in the car and bought a new one–a different brand.
We got the new power washer set up and then I finally got to work in the driveway. That was our first priority because we needed a large, clean surface to spread out the pool cover for cleaning.
I power wash the winter dirt off the driveway. Then Ted and I spread out the pool cover, wash one side, let it dry, flip it, wash the other side, let it dry, and pack it up. It’s heavy enough and awkward enough to require two people to handle it.
Since the pool guys are coming tomorrow, the pool deck was next on my power washing list.
Here I am, working hard while the pool cover is drying.
It’s easy to see where I’ve cleaned and where I need to clean.
At least you can tell I’m making a difference.
While I was busy doing all of the above, Ted took my car to the dealership for my airbag replacement. When he got home, he kept the power washer filled with gas for me, hung the party lights and the wind chimes over the patio, hand-washed every one of our two dozen solar lights, replaced the two dozen batteries in the lights, and re-set them around the pool and the patio. By then it was 7:00 p.m. and we were hungry.
Squeet! (Wisconsinese for “Let’s go eat.”)
Tuesday
Today I finished power washing the rest of our concrete while Ted took the spring things out of the storage shed, cleaned the inside and outside of the shed, and made room for the winter things. When he had all the lawn furniture on my newly-washed patio, we worked together to wash off the furniture and put it in place.
It’s beginning to look and feel like spring in our back yard.
After I was finished spattering dirty water over everything, Ted wiped down the pool fence and put the winter things in the storage shed. We finished just in time to sit poolside in the clean lawn chairs on the clean pool deck for about 15 minutes before the 7:38 p.m. sunset.
The pool, outdoor lights, and furniture are ready for the weekend.
Wednesday
You’d think we retired people worked enough this week to get a day off, but it’s going to rain tomorrow, so that didn’t happen.
Ted’s list of jobs today included mowing the lawn, washing the back windows that got spattered by my power washing yesterday, planting grass seed in the bare spots to catch tomorrow’s rain, replacing the storm doors with the screen doors, and cleaning up the fireplace.
Ted is finished mowing.
The pool guys swept the pool yesterday to loosen the algae so the pump could remove it. My job today was to vacuum the debris that settled on the pool floor. After that, I swept the pool once more to loosen the remaining bits of stubborn algae so they will get pumped out. I’ll have to vacuum again tomorrow to pick up the remaining minor debris.
One more vacuuming tomorrow should finish cleaning the pool. That will be only two days’ work instead of the usual 5-7 days to get it clean. We’ll stick with our new system of covering and opening the pool in cooler weather.
My other jobs today were to trim back the roses (we should have done that in February), to take the flannel sheets off our bed, and to make a batch of Scotcheroos for the weekend. We finished early today: 6:00 p.m.
Yes, it’s beginning to look like spring in our yard.
Thursday
It rained all day today, so we didn’t get the pool vacuumed. Instead, we vacuumed in the house. Kathy and Annette are coming this weekend to celebrate Kathy’s (April 26) and my (March 20) birthdays. Kari’s family will join us.
It was a good day to clean and do laundry, since we couldn’t work outside anyway. There was a lot of cleaning and a lot of laundry to do, so it wasn’t a day off, but it was less physically demanding than the last three days have been.
Tomorrow, Ted is going to vacuum the pool while I make birthday cakes–funfetti angel food cake for Kathy; Vienna Torte (again! whoopee!) for me. After that, I think Ted and I get a break–just in time for weekend fun with the girls and their families.
Friday
All finished.
The pool is vacuumed and the birthday cakes are ready to eat.
Yesterday, Ted took the leaf blower in hand and cleared the front yard while I raked the leaves in the back yard. Ted hauled all the leaf piles to our brush pile area to be chipped and bagged.
Here’s my favorite guy cleaning up the front yard.
Look at all the leaves! And our trees aren’t even half bare yet! (Check out the trees in these pictures.)
Last year, Ted and I jumped into our leaf pile; this year, we weren’t even tempted. We’ve had so much rain in the last few days, there were more wet than dry leaves in the pile. We can both attest that wet leaves are heavier to move around than dry ones. While I was raking, I found a giant leaf.
My hand, giant leaf, and regular leaf. I have no idea which tree in the area produces the giant-sized leaf.
Today, Ted put all those leaves through his chipper, which grinds them into pieces that range from dust to one inch. Then he bagged them up for the lawn waste pickup tomorrow.
Ted and eight bags full. I hate to think how many bags it would have taken if the leaves weren’t chipped.
A job well done. . . . And a job to be repeated at least once, maybe twice more before our trees are finished dropping leaves.
I suspect we had our last near-80º day of the season earlier this week (78º). When November 1 arrived, the weather turned gray and cool, and it looks like it’s going to stay that way. We had the furnace checked, the irrigation system turned off, and the pool winterized and covered a few days ago, so Ted and I decided it was time to put the lawn furniture away as well. Ted had already cleaned out the storage shed and washed it down, inside and out, so it was ready for a seasonal change of contents. Everything looks so bare now. I guess I’ll start counting down the days until spring returns.
We always leave a few lawn chairs out all winter for firebowl seating and for the few days of 50- and 60-degree weather we get each month when it’s nice enough to sit outside in the afternoon. Everything else is in storage.
We were planning to rake/blow leaves as well, but we had nearly two inches of rain in the past two days, so the leaves and ground were too wet for that job. Now we have something to do when things dry out after the next two days of forecast rain.
I love the centerpiece Kathy created for me, using my favorite flower pot, and the table runner Kari made is a perfect backdrop for it. At this time of year, however, both look out of place (or out of time) on the table–too much like spring. Ted and I went shopping and found some pretty fall things for our November table.
Having our outdoor landscaping updated gave Ted and me some additional ideas for our yard. We like the paving stones the landscaper installed to shortcut through our privacy hedge. We’d been walking through there since 1981, and never thought of adding paving stones to the mulch. The stones are so nice, we thought they’d be good leading up to our front yard outdoor faucet as well, so we took care of that today.
This will be nicer than walking over the mulch to turn the water on or off–in my case, usually with bare feet. (The dying cedar bush is on the list to disappear.)
Paving stones all the way to the faucet.
All the edging the landscaper put around the mulch and stones in our yard made us want to contain the mulch in our brush area behind the storage shed too. (It’s called the brush area because it’s where we put trimmed branches and raked leaves until Ted and his chipper turn them into mulch.) We did that job right after finishing the paving stones.
Mark a line with string to remove the grass and install the edging.
We’ve lived here long enough to have mature trees (39 years) and they can get overgrown. Our pretty redbud tree behind the storage shed is getting stomped on by the big sweet gum tree behind it.
We thought removing one big branch (the one growing laterally in the photo above) from the sweet gum tree would give the redbud some room to grow, so we called “our” tree company. They know us so well, the head cutter usually spends some time reminiscing with us about other work they’ve done in our yard. For $35, the tree company will run our brush pile through their big mulcher, so we made sure to trim all of our trees and bushes before they came. This saved Ted a lot of time putting all the brush through his not-for-commercial-use chipper.
Here’s half the brush pile on its way to the mulching machine.
The first step is to put ropes in place in the tree so the team can control the fall of the branch.
Here’s Sean stringing his ropes.
After Sean makes his cut, the two guys holding the ropes bring the branch down slowly . . .
. . . and it lands exactly where they want it to land.
We thought one branch would do it, but when that one was removed, the one above it looked like it needed to go as well. In the end, the team took out four good-sized branches and five smaller ones. The sweet gum tree looked less overgrown and better-shaped when they finished.
I think I heard the redbud tree take a deep breath now that it has room to grow.
With all the updating Ted and I have done to our yard this summer (a new pool liner, all new outdoor chairs and a glider, party lights, and landscaping), I thought it would be interesting to look at our house over the years. Here we go . . . .
Many years ago, Ted and I hired a landscaping company to install weed barrier fabric, mulch, and decorative rock in our yard. Over the years, the fabric has deteriorated and Ted said he now spends the bulk of his outdoor work time pulling weeds. Not fun! It was time for an update, so we called a landscaping company and had them do all the work for us: remove the current mulch and gravel, dig a spade edge around all of our trees and landscaping areas, lay heavy-duty weed barrier fabric in those areas, and add new mulch and gravel. We also contracted with them to remove and replace our dying privet hedge. The results look fresh and beautiful and Ted hasn’t pulled a weed for weeks.
We changed two beds from mulch to lava rock.
The gravel walkways provide drainage from the patio and give us a route (or two) to the back yard.
Paving stones provide a nice shortcut between the new hedge and the burning bushes.
The landscaper suggested borders around the mulch and rock in the pool area and we really like the new look. These borders and the spade edges help keep the mulch and rock where we want it.
Our mission–and we choose to accept it–is to sit outside and enjoy the new look that required no hard labor on our part. We love it!
Once upon a time (1979), a couple named Ted and Diane bought a house on a corner lot. To provide some back yard privacy, Ted and Diane planted sticks of privet bushes (1980), and those bushes grew. Here’s what Ted and Diane’s privet hedge looked like in 1982.
The privet hedge continued to flourish and provided lots of back yard privacy, as well as a backdrop for special occasion family pictures like Ted and Diane’s 25th wedding anniversary in 1994.
But, as time went on, the hedge got older and wasn’t as resilient as in its younger days. In 2013, 14 inches of heavy, wet March snow fell in the area overnight. The following morning, Ted and Diane went outside to brush the snow off their snow-weighted, bent-over bushes. The younger bushes recovered and grew upward that spring, but the aging privet hedge lacked the resiliency of its youth and remained permanently deformed. In spite of regular watering and fertilizing, the privet hedge continued to weaken until it could only produce a few leaves each year.
In 2018, Ted and Diane sadly decided to send the nearly 40-year-old privet hedge to the Brush Pile for Aging Bushes, and replaced it with younger, more vigorous trees.
Within two to three years, the new trees will provide more back yard privacy and perhaps a new backdrop for Ted and Diane’s special occasion family pictures.
With the pool getting updated, Ted and I decided that a glider would be a nice replacement for our old patio furniture. We were surprised to learn that we had to select the fabric we wanted, thus making the purchase a special order, but we were assured it would arrive no later than early June. This would give us a delivery date well before the kids were coming home for their summer visit, so we placed the order.
Just as predicted, the glider arrived in early June. Unfortunately, it was damaged and had to be re-ordered. It was disappointing not to have it for the kids’ visit, but we didn’t want a damaged glider, so we waited. It finally arrived a few weeks ago, and it’s really nice to glide gently on these summer evenings under our new patio party lights.
The mat inside our front door was being mysteriously moved out of place, and Ted and I were wondering if there was a ghost in our house. Some minor investigative work on our part revealed the identity of the ghost.
Dylan, an artist, thought the mat looked better centered, so he moved it for artistic balance.
Thanks for looking out for us, Dylan. We’d much rather have you in our house than a ghost.
Ted and I think we might be living in a haunted house. The plastic mat inside the front door has been moved twice recently and neither of us moved it. The first time was a surprise, but having it happen twice is just weird.
This is how we noticed the plastic mat today–nicely centered in front of the door.
This is where we’ve had the mat for nearly 20 years–to the left of the door. The teeth on the underside of the mat keep it from sliding across the carpet, so it stays nicely in place.
When we moved the mat from the center to the left, “holes” from its center placement were evident in the carpet. None showed from moving the mat to the center.
The mat looks nice from indoors when it’s centered on the door, but it’s more useful to the left of the door when people enter the house.
Questions: How/who moved our door mat twice? Is our house haunted? If so, do we have an anal-retentive ghost who is fixated on centered doormats? Inquiring minds want to know.
For several years, Ted and I have talked about stringing some clear party lights over our patio. We were stumped by how to connect them to electricity, but we finally took the Big Step and called an electrician a few weeks ago.
While Keith worked at stringing the lights, Jason hooked up the electric. The window wall in our family room used to be a sliding glass door, so there’s a 3-way light switch on the left of the windows to operate the porch light, which is between the window wall and the bay window. The other part of the three-way switch is on the right of the bay window.
Jason pulled electric power (via cords, of course) from the family room switch through the brick to the patio just below the pergola. Because using that indoor switch is inconvenient, he attached a remote switch to his newly installed outlet. Ted and I can keep the key fob-size remote control in the drawer beside the kitchen door to click the lights on and off as needed. Cool! Let there be light!
When we had our backyard pool installed, we were told that the liner would last about 10 years. Last summer (year 9) it looked badly faded, so we decided to replace it this spring. When the pool was installed, I was at work on the day the men were scheduled to “drop the liner.” That phrase has fascinated me ever since, so I made sure to be around to witness the liner replacement process (and to photo document it for my blog, of course). I asked the men if they minded my watching and they said no, people do that all the time. I enjoy watching professionals do a good job, so it was an interesting two-day process for me to observe.
Before the workers arrived, we needed to drain the pool. That’s winter algae and dirt on the bottom. Old pictures show this liner used to have a much deeper color. We couldn’t drain the pool too far in advance because there’s a danger of the sides collapsing without water to hold them up.
Bruce and Dustin (B & D) are ready to make our backyard vacation a reality.
Ted and I were at Pilates when B & D cut out the old liner, so I missed that part of the process. Poor Dustin (the apprentice) had the thrill of vacuuming every inch of the pool bottom to prepare it for the new liner.
Everything is ready to go. You can see a little bit of the old liner where B & D cut the pool light out to remove it (right). The cardboard box (upper right center) contains the new liner. Check out how well I cleaned those steps so they’d look as new as the liner.
Because the vertical sides become pitted over time, B & D covered them with a layer of foam. They cut it from a large roll, then sprayed the wall and the back side of the foam with adhesive before pressing it in place.
Bruce dampened the pool bottom and then spread a thin layer of pool-crete dust (softer than concrete) over it to fill small depressions / dents that developed over time. The dampness wets the pool-crete dust enough to make it set up and harden. Now we’ll have a completely smooth pool bottom again (until new dents form).
Meanwhile, Dustin located the positions of all the hardware and cut the foam to expose them. He found the skimmer (left) and is working on the light.
All the hardware positions have been found and the bottom has a new coating of pool-crete, ready to harden overnight. Bruce dampened the top surface of the pool-crete to assure it will all harden, leaving no loose dust (or possible dents) for tomorrow.
When B & D finished for the day, a severe thunderstorm warning was in effect for our area, so they set up a sump pump and covered the pool-crete with a tarp to prevent rain splatters from marring the fresh surface. The high wind (50-60 mph) and hard rain (0.5 inches) hit just as they were leaving our house. Good timing!
Step One of “drop the liner” is to unpack and unroll it. It’s important to begin with the liner in the correct position, so there are stickers on the back side indicating “deep end” and “shallow end.”
Bruce started tucking the liner into the edge to hold it in place while Dustin fed it to him, never allowing the liner to rub against the pool bottom.
When one side was partially anchored, B & D attached the other side.
Almost finished. B & D left the open area across the steps for last.
Here’s the “shallow end” sticker at the stairs, verifying that the liner is in the correct position.
A red arrow sticker on each side of the liner indicates where the edge of the slant to the deep end begins.
The red arrows weren’t in the right places, so B & D shifted the liner around by sliding it along the groove where it’s attached. B slid some slack ahead to D, then D held the bunched-up part while B re-fastened what they had moved. They needed a 10-12 inch shift in position. When they finished, both red arrows were dead-on with the edge at the top of the slant.
Once the liner was in place, a vacuum was inserted. We had to keep that noisy thing running while we filled the pool so there wouldn’t be any air bubbles under the liner.
While the vacuum roared, Bruce started removing the wrinkles. Option One was to kick the liner (gently, with soft shoes) toward the edge where the side meets the bottom.
Bruce “walked out” the remaining wrinkles in the center with (what else?) duct tape. He used two rows of duct tape, releasing the far piece of tape on the side toward him while pulling the near piece toward himself to shift the wrinkle in his direction. Then he fastened the near piece over the wrinkle and repeated the process a little farther toward the edge until he could finish by kicking it into the corner as in the photo above. Slick trick!
All those hardware openings needed to be found again, this time in the liner. Bruce started with the drains, . . .
. . . then the jets, . . .
. . . and finally, the light and skimmer–coming next on the left of the light. You can see the top of the skimmer opening on the pool deck.
The jet hardware on the left is old; the one on the right is new. The opening in the old one is bigger because it’s been worn away by the water shooting through it over the years. Science lesson: friction and water power in action!
Last, Bruce cut the liner so we can access the pool from the steps.
After cutting the liner away, B & D put the trim around the opening. We have a salt system pool pump, so Bruce used salt bags (to be added to the water later) to hold the liner in place after removing the wrinkles.
Finally, we were told to start filling the pool. Yippee! We were directed to fill it only to the bottom of the first step so that B & D could smooth out any wrinkles that developed with the weight of the water in the liner. They can’t do that if there is too much heavy water sitting on it. After they took out the 5 or 6 new wrinkles, we were good to go to the top. It took more than 14 hours with two hoses to fill the entire pool.
Today, a crew came to re-install the ladder and railings, to add the necessary chemicals to the fresh water, and to activate the pump and heater. Houston, we are “go” to swim!
Last night, while Ted and I were eating dinner, we heard a very loud noise. We looked outside to see what heavy thing might have fallen, but everything looked normal, so we finished eating and then decided to run an errand. Unfortunately, the garage door wouldn’t open, although it worked fine an hour earlier when Ted put away the yardwork tools we’d been using. While we were troubleshooting what might be wrong, we noticed something.
The door mechanism is supposed to have only one spring, not two.
It was weird how, just because we couldn’t get the cars out of the garage, we felt trapped–even though we didn’t really need to go anywhere. The garage door guy came this afternoon and replaced the broken spring, so we’re free to roam again. Whew!
We bought this patio furniture at least 15 years ago–probably longer. The furniture got a lot of use until we put in the swimming pool nine years ago. Now we usually sit in the pool area and rarely go to the trouble of putting the cushions on these pieces to sit on the patio. We don’t remember using them at all during the past two summers, except when the kids came home and we needed extra seating outside.
We decided to get rid of the furniture, so we set it at the curb. Less than ten minutes later, when we looked at the curb, the furniture was history at our house and on its way to a new home.
Finally–warm weather! We’ve had highs in the upper 70s and 80s and no rain this week for more than 1-2 days in a row, and it feels so good! Wherever you meet people, the talk is about how good it is to see the sun, how much more energetic we all feel, and what a treat it is to be above 50 degrees for a change.
“In the spring,” Tennyson wrote, “a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” Love is a year-round (not a seasonal) thing for Ted and me, so in the spring, our thoughts turn to opening up the pool. This week, we’ve been cleaning up the yard and the lawn furniture–since it’s finally warm enough to sit outside and enjoy ourselves.
The cover is off the pool, the furniture is out of the storage shed, and I’m ready to go with my trusty power washer.
There was a lot of rain in the past few months. The water level was at least 16 inches lower than this when we covered the pool last fall.
Everything is cleaned up and put in place. I love seeing all the trees in bloom wherever I go.
This year, we’re going to have a new pool liner installed, so we don’t have to clean up the water. A technician will be coming early next week to put the pump back in working order. Then we’ll drain the pool and a crew will spend a day removing this liner and installing the new one. The warm weather makes me eager to get back in the water to swim some laps.
While we were waiting for Jim, the salesman, at the pool store last weekend, we were looking at the display room walls covered with prize-winning pool designs. We’ve done this before to kill time while we’re waiting for assistance, but there are so many awards on so much wall space that this is the first time we got to the wall with our pool on it.
This is one section of an award-covered wall, including our pool.
And here’s “our” plaque. Third place, yes, but still an award-winning design. The designer told us at the time that this was the first time he designed brick trim in the deck area rather than just using it around the edges of the pool itself. (There’s more brick trim around the ladder across the pool, but you can’t see it very well in the sunlight.)
The normal high and low temperatures for St. Peters at this time of the year are 61 and 42 degrees. The weather forecast, however, is predicting high temperatures between 28 and 49 degrees for the next ten days and lows below freezing for six of those ten nights. Up to two inches of snow is forecast for tomorrow.
So today we bought a new liner for our pool and set up a pool opening date to have it installed. . . . And that’s how you define optimism.
Ted and I were working in the back yard last week and noticed that one of our redbud trees wasn’t looking good. It’s been failing for several years, and we had a major limb cut out of it a few years ago. Last week’s inspection revealed the base of the tree looking so rotted, we were afraid a spring wind storm would blow it over. It would then hit (1) our storage shed; (2) our pool fence; or (3) our neighbor’s sunroom windows. Every option would require a repair. Ted called the tree company and they came to the house today, chainsaws in hand, to remove the 31-year-old tree.
Men at work. They cut the main limbs away, one by one. Two guys held a rope around the soon-to-fall limb while the third guy cut it off with his chain saw.
The final limb bit the dust, guided just to the left of the neighbors’ sunroom, and is lying on the ground. No more redbud tree; no broken windows.
This is the rot Ted and I saw at the base of the tree last week. The other side of the trunk looked the same.
The inside of the tree was mostly rotted away at the base, and the space was filled with leaves. Squirrels at work?
When the cutter sliced the trunk into pieces that could be carried to the truck, the slices broke into chunks instead of holding together as a single unit. The cutter’s comment: “That’s not good.” He said it was a good thing we had the tree removed, because it was definitely going to fall down very soon.
The last step: recycle. The tree is now mulch and is ready to enrich the earth from whence it came.
Since Ted and I came home two days early from our Southwest trip, we got an early start on some jobs we had to do. Number one: Ted gave the car a good, hard scrubbing and took off the grit that car washes don’t. He vacuumed, dusted, and detailed everything, including putting on a coat of wax. Meanwhile, I unpacked a month’s worth of stuff and put it away.
Things looked a little different than when we left home in early October.
When we left, the trees were still green and flowers were still blooming. Temperatures were in the middle 80s.
When we came home, the peak of fall color was already a thing of the past. Temperatures are in the middle 40s.
I went out to lunch with friends today (a lunch I thought I’d miss because we’d still be in Kansas), and Ted spent that time raking leaves. When I got home from my lunch date, I finished blowing the leaves in the back yard so Ted could go to buy gas for the chipper.
A lot of leaves had fallen in the yard!
Every year, when we rake up a big pile of leaves, Ted and I say we should jump in the pile, but we never do. This year, we did it. We stood on the edge of the pile and just fell over backward. The pile was soft and we fell deeper than we’d expected. We were completely buried and had to dig our faces out.
You can see a little bit of the pink sleeves on my jacket. Look between them to find my sunglasses. My legs are buried in the foreground. The dent on the left is where Ted jumped in and climbed out.
That was fun! We’ll have to do it again next year. Are we getting older, or reverting to our childhoods? First, sand sledding and now jumping in a leaf pile. After the fun, Ted started up the chipper to get rid of the leaf pile and I started dinner–a real, home-cooked meal. No hunting for a restaurant tonight.
It took about an hour to make the leaf pile disappear through the chipper.
The trip was fun, but it’s always good to come home.
Ted and I just finished updating our master bathroom and our powder room. Except for the paint color, they don’t look much different because we chose the same materials and colors, but we added new sinktops; new sink faucets; a new 35 x 60-inch mirror over the master sink; a new shower stall with a low-entry base; new shower doors; different, more useful built-in shelving/storage in the shower; and a higher shower seat (the last crew set it at 14 inches–way too low). The different paint color required new towels and throw rugs and different pictures on the walls, so the rooms look different to us, if not to everyone else.
The contractor told us to paint before the crew arrived. Then they could simply finish with touch-up painting and we wouldn’t have to paint around the new things.
Master painter at work.
While the crew was working, we moved to our upstairs “apartment” to be out of their way.
We had a large bedroom, . . .
. . . a full bathroom, . . .
. . . and even a sitting room with lots of books to read.
The construction mess wasn’t too bad. The two-man crew covered all the floors, beginning at the outside door, and they also brought in an air cleaner to pull construction dust out of the air.
The powder room didn’t need much work–only a new sinktop and faucet.
The master bath was a bigger mess. The crew needed to rip out the shower stall. . .
. . . and the sinktop. The blue thing is the air cleaner.
