More Of The Same

Pressure-washing concrete by the light of the moon:



Sealing concrete by the light of a different moon:



Fighting off black widows in 85-degree weather with my home-brew super-hero-spider-fighting suit. (The duct tape keeps them from crawling up my arms and legs. Yes, my paranoia is irrational and uncomfortable.)







This is where I live:



I wonder if we qualify as a Superfund site. Or maybe we're eligible for some stimulus funds. We're definitely shovel-ready.

That's my neighbor Bob. Yup, that Bob. He's smiling because he just decimated a bunch of foliage. There were come-alongs and crow bars involved and this obviously provided all the satisfaction he needed for the whole three-day weekend.





He's now boxwood-free and we have a boxwood farm.



If you've priced bushes lately, you'll understand our motivation. We're gonna need some shrubs. They're kind of Charlie Brown Christmas trees, but I'm sure we can bring them around.

And then there was the garden. I did the "mechanical" part.





The girls did the rest.





This weekend was pretty much now-or-never time for planting your garden in Spokane. So we did.

As soon as they got to work with the planting, I got back into my black widow spider suit (that I thought was overkill until my friend Joe told me about his friend who was my age and died from a black widow spider bite, thanks for that Joe!) and crawled back under the deck. There will be pictures someday, but not now. I'm too busy battling spiders. They don't call them black widows for nothing.

It took a lot of beer to figure out the logistics and the execution went late into Sunday night, but I also hung the ladders up in the new garage, which was immensely satisfying because of the fact that I've been tripping over them in the storage container for the last 6 months.



I'll be so glad to get back to work tomorrow so I can rest up.

It's Memorial Day Weekend

Somebody told me I should cook up some stakes.

Stopping To Smell The Tomatoes

When we bought this place, one of the things that appealed to us the most was the double lot. It's SPACE in the middle of the city. I don't know why that was so huge, but it was and still is.

And now we've cleared the empty lot so that we can build another house and eliminate the space and . . . well, it's still the plan. But I'm just not sure we're in such a big hurry. What we're all about right now is cleaning up the mess left over from last year so we can feel good about our place again and then letting the ideas come to us instead of forcing them. And letting ourselves enjoy our space.

Clearing the space has opened up the sky and let the sun in and there are all these possibilities. Like a righteous urban garden. I'm seeing the stuff that is happening in other places and looking at our space and thinking what could be. Despite how it sounds, this isn't spur-of-the-moment. I've been thinking it about it for quite a while.

We're gonna grow a few things this year and tonight I was out building some raised beds. Modest stuff. Maybe it will lead to something bigger or maybe it will kick our butts and inspire us to get busy and build so we don't have to take care of that damn garden any more.

Yes, I'm a Doork

Masking The Pain

Today was a disaster. I'm trying to shore up our rotten deck from underneath. It's way more rotten than I thought. I'm seriously depressed and the pictures are too ugly to post.

So I'm going with the ultimate comfort food tonight - chicken fajitas, done by me, just how I like them. I don't know if tomorrow will be any better, but right now, I could care less.

How It's Really Going

Not The Day I Had Hoped For

The concrete pile is gone. A concrete outfit was doing some work next door and we hired them to haul off our pile of rubble. Good deal. Money well spent. Even if their skanky bobcat did leak oil all over our driveway.



The garage we built last fall needs finished. Kinda the first thing that has to happen is we need to run electricity out there. Unfortunately, the power has to run under the deck and the deck is a rotting pile of krap. Today, was supposed to be the day I rebuilt the underside of the deck.

The job got a little too big for one day . . . especially when it started raining. Trying to rebuild rotted stuff is the worst. It's best to stay calm.



I got the temporary bracing in and the old rotten stuff demo'd. And that's about it. Depressing. So I'm having sloppy joes tonight. Best comfort food ever.





I'll keep at it.