I would like to have this tool just for a few days for my front and backyard. 😉
Tree clearing
This tree was in the way of the sun, it was dumping all his stuff into our pool and it was not really beautiful either. So, this is what happens to such trees in our garden.
Missing video.
The Wall
Wall and patio, part 1 and 2
It all started with our idea to construct a deck alongside of our much beloved sun room…. only when walking behind our house on the patio is stops and one has to continue to walk on the grass along the short end of the sun room extension and then around the corner to get to our so far just immaginative deck. The green is not particular beautiful and of course it is sloped. Bottomline: not a very nice entry point for our deck in spe. Together with the possible plan to put our over the ground kid pool their we decided together (Ana and I) that we would level the terrain and extend the patio with stones in preparation for our deck.
Shortly after the dig started we hit some rocks and it became clear that it would take longer. So, to have the pool reasonably quickly installed I started a second dig to extend our existing terrace so it would hold the 14 feet diameter pool. Soon the garden looked like a huge construction site ripped open on all ends. Even the front was affected as I was putting the dirt from the first dig there to extend our lawn right in front of the house. Retaining walls also there had to be constructed so that for at least two long weekends everything looked like a mess. By now the swimming pool dig is completed with a nice retaining wall and a very nice and inexpensive pool installed. The kids love it and use it every day at least once. The second construction site in front of the house with its retaining wall is also complete and today I cut the freshly planted grass for the first time.
The patio extension is also making good progress, the somewhat scary larger scale wall turned out to be my best wall as of yet though I have to start using some devices to make it more even. It has a very handmade look as it has some uneven parts that I could have easily avoided using a stick to maintain the same slope in the wall. Anyway it it very nice and at some point I will redo it and make it straight.
Seb Part II
Our new flat screen TV integrated into the
shelve wall…. Thank you Seb!
Seb came in on the red-eye from San Francisco and called around 7:30am but of course I missed it. I found the call a little later and we hooked up. I started working on the patio extension and even got the entire lawn mowed before Seb appeared in his rental. He had a good flight but had not slept a second and was tired even after a quick cappuccino.
So we needed some action for him and that’s what we did. The TV we had bought the last weekend turned out to be broken and we went back to the store to exchange it and we even decided to go for a better version with not too much additional cost. An LED versus the LCD we had before and instead of 60 Hz now we have120 Hz refresh rate. And a better known vendor. After having completed that part we installed the TV into the existing shelve. Instead of completely sawing out the pieces we just took out the first 3 inches which allows the TV screen surface to be just at the front of the shelve…. Nice idea from Seb. After the installation was complete we had a beer on the porch and some Nachos baked in the oven with salsa and cheese.
Blake in front on our porch with our new anti-
mosquito device….. an oscillating tower fan.
Well, it does not work! but we tried.
Now of course Seb got even more tired and we quickly developed another task. We packed the kids into the car and went fan hunting…. as it was amazingly hot under the roof. Tower fans and a ceiling fan were on our plan. After target was out we found a nice 52 inches fan at the home depot but also there, not tower fans. Ana insisted to drop by the bad bath and beyond a few meter from the HD but I was sure tower fans would be sold out there as well. It turned out Ana was right. We got two nice tower fans.
When we got home Seb took a shower and drove to the airport with plenty of time to catch his flight. In fact he must be boarding as I write this post.
Following a facebook post from one of my friends in reference to a NYT article, fans in particular oscillating ones are an excellent ‘low-tech’ mosquito deterrent. That sounded like an awesome coincidence, I have a porch with tons of mosquitos and love to sit there when the sun goes down and I have a fan. As an experimentalist I put the theory to the test…. Initially I thought it worked but it turned out Boston mosquitos have figured out a way to find the victim even with a oscillating fan blowing at full blast.
Flatscreen integrated
Seb (my brother) came by and we integrated our new flat screen TV nicely into the existing shelve wall…. All to make sure that when Motz (my other brother) and his kids visit in August they have a good time…. one brother for the other.
Day at the beach with Seb
View over my feed towards the ocean and the kids.
Today is the last day of my brother’s visit. Uncle Seb has been here since Friday night and today is Sunday. After we put up the over the ground pool we went to buy a piece of astro turf to put up in front of the pool and a flatscreen TV for the play room to finally get ride of the big CRT monster…. when we were finished with shopping we dropped of the goods checked the water level in the pool and then took off to Crane Beach…. it was green-head-fly season but it was only $12.50 to park 🙂
The kids played at the beach as usual while we after a quick dip chilled in the seats. What a wonderful day!
Yard work
Worked today in the garden and am reminded that it can be harder than a long squash match. Everything hurts…. but I moved three huge bushes from an ugly to their new very nice locations. My hedge now is nice and dense and gained at least 10 sqmeter of valuable space for the kids to play.
Dressing the Skylight
Last weekend and this weekend I used to dress the skylight from the inside and I know now why the people we hired originally to install the skylight did not want to do it. The work is not very hard but it takes some time as the pieces have to fit and properly match up to the window on the one hand side and to the hole in the roof on the other hand side. It took,me 2 itterations to match both aspects and the product is certainly not perfect but it does not look terrible either. I am writing this while I am waiting for my flight to leave to Seattle and cannot add the picture but I will do that later. Some painting will still be required to make the attic look beautiful. It certainly is functional right now.
New sink
New sink…. almost as good as having a new bathroom.
Wall in white
Ready for Christmas ….
