May 17, 2010

So far this entire visit has been all work - and the work has all been staining.

Until today!

When I arrived, I was surprised to see the amount of leaves on the trees (and on the ground) and how high the grass had grown. Even my newly formed flower beds were overgrown.

I was also surprised at the amount of dandelions that seemed to pop up everywhere. Not a fan of weeds, but it is ground cover and the bright yellow is actually pretty nice!

We did a little cleaning up in preparation to seal the back deck since it was clean and we wanted to seal it before the moss got to it...so I found that some critters were living under the cover that was on the patio table and they tore it up and made a mess and ultimately trashed an otherwise quite nice table cloth!

Carlo has been filling the bird feeders, but outside of hearing them, we haven't really seen any. The only wildlife helping themselves to the morsels have been chipmunks - and quite possibly a lone chipmunk! Even the shepherd hooks didn't keep this frisky fella from getting to the feeders; and he has been fun to watch as he romped all over the back deck.

Time for breakfast so the staining can commence - AGAIN!

Still another busy day, but I did find time to snap a bunch of photos.

We sealed the back deck and it took four and a half gallons of waterproofing. We went with the Cabots - clear. The sealing took several hours and we gave it two coats. We actually ran out of this as well...but managed to cover the parts that would be most affected by the weather.

I then worked at clearing out the flower bed and rake a ton of leaves. A ton? Well, it sure could have been a ton and if it weren't a ton, then there were a gazzillion leaves. Yep, a gazzillion!

While I raked a gazzillion leaves, Carlo moved the grass and by 7:30 pm we had really spruced things up.

Some minor set backs of the day - not limited to but including the following:

* The excitement of getting a chance to watch my soaps...plural, yes. Now I also watch OLTL (One Life to Live). This was thwarted by the loud boom noise. I asked Carlo what happened and he told me the "storybook" tree not only snapped and fell, but it took out the power line. He said there was some arcing and the pole also bent a bit followed by a loud "pop" of the transformer. Now, the funny thing about this event is that this occurred at 1:10 pm and at 2:05 the tree was off the lines and the power was restored. And I was comfortably tuning in to GH. Now that's what I call service! Too bad the tree is now another chore on our list along with all the other trees that have recently fallen.

* While Carlo was cutting the grass, one of the blades to the tractor broke and of course the part is out of stock. He was able to cut the front, the immediate back and some by the river. In between, the jungle lives on! But due to the broken blade, he was cutting with a 24" sweep rather than a 48".

Don't think we weren't tired, but Carlo managed to get in a little one-person kickball! Hey! Get back to work!!!