Look! Out on the drive...
It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Spray Man!

June 13, 2015 - Saturday morning

44 degrees/cloudy/calm

Pentoga Road

Until a few minutes ago, I couldn't find my small Olympus Tough pocket camera. I know I had it with me all day yesterday, but I noticed this morning that it wasn't on the dining room table, its usual nightly resting place.

My camera is much more than a device by which I take pictures for this web page. Often, it serves as a tool that allows me to see what I'm doing and after, inspect what was done. I simply unload the image on my computer, enlarge it, and I can see what my eyes might have missed. 

For instance, yesterday, I had to crawl under the front porch and inspect the dryer vent. I couldn't see a thing under there, but this is what my camera found.

Sometime in the past, the flaps had broken off and on top, in back of the actual vent, I found a place where the mice could be entering the basement. The camera also allowed me to inspect the pipe.

I did find the camera stuffed down alongside the cushion in my recliner. No doubt it had slid from my pants pocket last evening while watching television. Another crisis averted on Pentoga Road.

Friday was Home Owner's Day on Pentoga Road. Nothing I did was fun... it was the old all work and no play puts Tom in a crummy mood.

I began the morning by spraying the cracks in the drive that formed this spring when the frost heaved the pavement, in some places, several inches. 

I used the high pressure washer to clean the drive then slid around on my backside with a bottle of filler pouring and brushing some goop into each and every crack.

It was hot and the flies kept pestering both Brutus and me. Still, persistence paid off and in the end, the cracks were mostly filled. I'll go along before summer's end and do it again. There's little doubt that this will be a regular early summer chore if I want our drive to last.

Page Two

After several years of seeing one, possibly two, mice a winter in the basement, we hosted a herd down there last year. At one point, I felt like I was running a formal trap line and they ate through mouse poison like water pouring through a sieve. The activity finally ceased this spring.

I crawled all over the basement last winter, inspecting every nook and cranny and I couldn't find where they were getting in. It was frustrating to say the least.

We saw mouse droppings last week by the washer. They were back.

The one immediate place I hadn't checked was the outside of the dryer vent. It runs up the basement wall and exits through a very sloppily-made hole in the sill of house under the front porch.

I didn't want to crawl under that porch. There are things that could live under there... spiders and snakes... lions, and tigers, and bears, OH MY.

I removed the lattice work, lay a couple of pieces of cardboard on the ground and entered. 

Even Brutus, my constant companion, refused to crawl under. I was on my own.

It was dark and the spider webs, draping themselves over my head, felt creepy. I am completely blind in the dark and fully expected the Boogie Man to reach out of some unknown crevice and pull me inside.

But in the end, this is what I found, a very broken, leaky, direct path into the basement.

It's a wonder a bear or two didn't attempt to enter; perhaps a few squirrels, a chipmunk, and the random skunk who happened to be in the neighborhood.

After bumping my head a few times, this was the finished product.

I sealed the area above the vent, the actual place where the mice were probably entering, put on a new face plate, complete with working flaps, and hopefully, our basement rodent problems will be over.

I was happy those two jobs were done and was looking forward to getting on the backhoe and loading dirt into the back of the old pickup and doing some honest-to-goodness landscaping, something I greatly enjoy.

My stomach growled. It was past lunchtime and I was hungry. What to have? 

The first bite of Cheerios had just been swallowed when I felt something strange. My tongue went exploring and it found the temporary crown, the one cemented the day before, had come loose and was floating around in my mouth. It's lucky I didn't swallow the thing.

I called to the dentist's office. Sure, they were still open for the week and could see me at 3:30. Rather than do any landscaping, I ran through the shower and eventually got my temporary crown cemented once again. Hopefully it will stay this time. Betsy gave me an emergency packet consisting of glue, gauze, a mixing sticking, and whatever else should the crown come out again. It's kind of a do-it-yourself, at-home, dental kit, but I noticed it doesn't have the #8 drill or the "football" included. I'll have to talk to Eric about that. 

So that was my day... not a very good one, but you have to have one of those every now and then. 

Sargie was home early last night and we drove into town for groceries and took our time coming back. It was a beautiful evening, one that was perfect for enjoying each other's company and relaxing.

Sargie's back to work today, her last of six working days in a row. I'm not sure what's on my agenda other than trying to keep my crown firmly fastened and staying away from the underside of front porches. I think I'll begin by playing in the garden, then mow some tall grass with the weed cutter. Later, I might actually get on that backhoe and begin moving some dirt.

Time to begin the day. After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...

It was hot working on the blacktop, so Brutus chose a place where the water was running from the high pressure washer to cool off. I loved working around a wet, smelly, dog the rest of the day.