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| Our small apple tree is covered with blossoms this year. |
59 degrees/cloudy/calm winds
Pentoga Road
But first... the log from May 25th, written early Wednesday morning, but not published until Thursday AM due to no internet.
May 25, 2016 – Wednesday
55 degrees/cloudy/calm winds
Pentoga Road
A huge storm blew through late yesterday afternoon dropping
an inch of rain in fifteen minutes.
Unfortunately, when it departed, the angry
clouds and heavy winds took the internet with. I’ll call the company today and
report the outage.
With no access to the World Wide Web, Sargie and I did
something last night that has become an almost forgotten art, we read the printed newspaper that was earlier delivered to our house. Usually, we pick up our laptops
and assuming we’re not talking, peruse the net, but yesterday evening, we made do with
printed material on real paper.
I quickly remembered why I read very little other than what’s
enlarged on my computer screen anymore. The print is too small, almost unrecognizable. I turned on one
light, then another, screwed up my face, attempted to decipher a word here and there,
and finally, decided all the effort wasn’t worth it. I’ve been known to curse
modern technology, but it allows me to keep reading and for that, I’m grateful.
Page Two:
Tuesday was an eventful day on Pentoga Road. By evening’s
end, we had received an inch and a half of badly needed rain. Half an inch fell
by mid morning, the rest came in a huge cloud burst last evening that
lasted twenty minutes. I noticed there were no puddles after, meaning the
moisture soaked into the ground where it was needed. The forecast is calling
for more showers through week’s end. We’ll take them.
Page Three:
With rain bouncing off the pavement, I worked in the shop
for most the morning. The first chore was to actually clean the place. I’ve
completed several outdoor projects, most of them around the garden and house,
and have simply thrown the tools onto the workbench without putting any away.
Housekeeping came first Tuesday morning.
I next turned my attentions to the cross. The first thing
was to install the three long spikes into the bottom, those that will hold the
cross upright after being set into concrete.
Drilling holes and pounding each far into the grave marker
went well.
Next came the pouring and mixing of the concrete. I made two
small batches and filled the form, then mounted the cross on top with the spikes
reaching deep into the wet cement.
I’ll take the form apart today and after a
couple more last minute touch-up's, the cross will be ready to deliver by week’s
end, in time for Memorial Day.
Page Four:
Sargie and I have done a lot to this old house over the past
four years. The one project that badly needed to be completed was to replace
the old kitchen window.
The original was the type that cranks out with the
gears having been stripped long ago. The worst part of the window was the cloud
that had appeared between the upper panes meaning it had developed an air leak
and the insulating gas had long since dispersed. It was inefficient and as
Sargie would be the first to tell you, it was an eye sore.
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| It didn't originally look this bad. I'd already begun to remove window when this picture was taken. |
I thought the rain had passed. Sargie was home and the new
window was sitting in the barn waiting to be installed. Why not?
It took a bit of effot to remove the old one. I attempted to
loosen it from the inside, to no avail. Moving my attentions to the exterior, I
finally found an old nail to pull, removed it, and worked from there.
Sargie and
I were able to lift the 1960’s window from the wall half an hour later.
The opening looked about right. We carried the new window to
the deck freeing it from all the packing material and hoisted it into place. It
fit okay, but…
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| It was raining and with a big hole in the wall, we had no choice but to push ahead. Sargie has that look that says, "Gee, but I love getting wet. I wish we had more than one window to install today!" |
Sargie proclaimed that sitting flush against the frame, the
window looked as though it wasn't vertical. How could that be?
With level in hand, Sargie placed it against the glass and
found it was indeed learning inwards by over an inch. She did the same to the
exterior wall with the same results. Surprise, surprise, our almost-hundred year old home isn’t straight
and level.
What to do, what to do? We had few options and tearing down
and building a new kitchen wall really wasn’t one of them.
I began ripping wood
in the shop, making something here, constructing another there. No matter what,
I couldn’t get the window to appear as though it was completely vertical.
It was Sargie who made a critical construction suggestion,
where to place a board and how to install it.
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| Holding the window while I make adjustments inside. Or, is she praying that we might be about finished? After getting wet and chilled, she finally put on a coat. |
For once, I followed directions
and the window popped into place perfectly.
Is it straight and level? Not on your life. Does it appear straight and level? Absolutely!
The sweet sweet taste of success was ours.
I have a feeling the interior and exterior trim will be just
as challenging. Hopefully, we can put this bad boy to rest in the next few
days.
Page Five:
Sargie’s back to work today. I’m going to work on the garden
arbor, also the trim for the window. There are still flowers to plant and I
hope to move out of the planning stages for the garden fountain and get that
going this week. Then there’s always that important, mandatory, after-lunch
grandpa nap to take. It may not seem fair, but someone has to take an
occasional nap around here.
After all, a man’s work is never done.
So are the tales from Pentoga Road…
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| Steam rising following Tuesday night's storms and heavy rain. |
May 26, 2016 - Thursday
59 degrees/cloudy/calm winds
Pentoga Road
It is so nice to have the internet back and working better than ever. I contacted the provider yesterday morning and finally, around 3 PM on Wednesday, they called and said that my receiver, through which I receive the wireless internet, was working, so the problem was probably my wireless router.
I've had some difficulties with it recently and wasn't surprised to hear the news and felt stupid for not trying it before calling the provider. I disconnected the router and hardwired my computer directly to modem and sure enough, the signal was back.
I called Sargie and asked her to bring a new one home, a unit that would be capable of sending the signal to my shop in the barn so I can continue to listen to music as I work. She did, it works, and all is right in this digital world called the internet.
Page Two:
Rain! Where is all this rain coming from? Other than the 1.5 inches we received on Tuesday, another 1.1 inches fell last night. Who'd have thought, 2.6 inches of precipitation could magically cover the ground over thirty six hours? Carl the Weatherman is predicting rain to fall from Friday through Sunday, but thankfully, Monday, Memorial Day, is to be sunny and pleasantly warm.
Page Three:
I began assembling the garden arbor in the barn Wednesday morning when it occurred that there were more pieces than I could count and if I waited to paint the thing until after it was in place in the garden, I'd be climbing around over eight feet in the air in an attempt to dab white paint here and there.
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| Sanding and preparing each piece |
I'd have welcomed that challenge thirty years ago, but somehow, the prospect doesn't seem quite so much fun now.
Rather than assemble, I decided to paint all the pieces.
A person with macular degeneration should never be allowed to hold a paint brush, but I managed to slop a coat of paint on everything, including the tarps beneath the boards. It continues to amaze me how a coat of paint can make a project riddled with mistakes and patched with wood putty into something that might look passable.
Page Four:
Late afternoon had arrived before I finished playing Picasso. It was too nice to go inside, but I was too tired to begin working on the trim for the new kitchen window, so I decided to do something fun, like use the front end loader to rip two of the rotten flower beds from in front of the house.
I believe the intent of the previous owners was to have perennial flowers grow in all four beds. Unfortunately, the last two were so shallow and root bound by the large spruce tree that grows nearby that very little dirt was in either. Mostly weeds grew in both.
I'll clean the area over the next few days and do one of three things:
Plant the area with grass
Plant annual flowers
Plant four or five bushes/shrubs
I'll let Sargie decide. She's the Chairman of the Board in the flower and decorating department.
Page Six:
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| With the recent rain and warm weather, the asparagus is, literally, shooting from the ground. |
After all, a man's work is never done.
So are the tales from Pentoga Road...
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| Grady's potatoes, those he helped me plant two weeks ago are beginning to emerge in the new section of the garden. |
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