Garden Project (Part IV)

As promised, here is a pic of the new garden area as it stands right now... sort of.

This pic was taken while I was in the process of dry-stacking the capstones to determine what sort of cuts will need to be made to navigate the curves. As you can see, the garden is starting to look like the preliminary sketch from way back.

The leveling job took forever. The land is sloped oddly and I had to do this part myself. Like I mentioned in my last project post I needed to build the first wall three times. The first redo was because I was unhappy with my choice of dealing with the sloping land. The second redo was due to trusting a faulty line level more than my own eyes. The third attempt went fine.

BTW, if you have the means, download the Johnson Visual Level ap. It rocks.

The next step is to cut and mortar the capstones into place, then it will be time to dye the concrete blocks a slightly darker shade of grey.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

I was fortunate to experience two moments of absolutely pure joy recently.

Here they are:

1) While mortaring the garden walls into place in the 90 degree heat, my wife and son came out to see how I was doing. The 22 month old says "Whatchu doin' Daddy?  Diggin' in the garden?"  I tell him yes and he asks "Why?" I tell him so we can grow lots of food and flowers. He says "Ok, daddy, ok. What's that?" while pointing at the hose. I say "It's a hose.  You want to see how it works?"  "Yesh!" Came the reply.

I stopped what I was doing and picked up the hose and misted the air for a bit.  His eyes lit up in the awesome way they do when something new clicks in his head and he said "Again!" so, of course, I misted him a little.

He went into fits of giggles and ran around so I spent the next 10 minutes chasing him through the backyard spraying him with the hose. He was soaked to the bone and he loved it. I showed him how to use the nozzle and he got a kick out of watering the grass, the garden, all my tools, a formerly dry bag of mortar mix, and me.

Totally worth it.

2) The wife and I started moving some of his toys from his bedroom to the playroom/family room. I put together a simple loop train track from his Trax set on the coffee table.  I didn't think too much of it since I mainly did it just to pass the time while he was busy coloring.

Later, he dragged down "coco-bear" (a stuffed Coca-Cola polar bear he got from his uncle) and "brown bear" (a traditional Teddy bear) from their shelf and sat them on the floor next to the table. He told them "See, coco-bear? See brown bear? My daddy buil' those train tracks".

Excuse me. I've got something in my eye.

Many Updates

After a long hiatus, I am back to writing. The usual kid/work/project excuses apply, of course, but the past few weeks have been more chaotic than usual.  I don't really have time to even post some pics, but they are coming...

Meanwhile, here are the Cliff's Notes for the last several weeks:

1) The pool table is gone. We gave it to a neighbor to make room for a family/play area upstairs. It was little used and took up a lot of room, meaning that area of the house was little used. New furniture has been moved in and the Playroom Project is 50% complete. Painting is the next task, here.

2) The hardwood floors and ceramic tiles have been installed. The workers did a great job, and we are very happy with the results. Trying to live in a house with this project going on would be challenging if we lived alone, but having a two-year-old dashing about construction areas made the past week uber-chaotic. You try answering the question "Daddy, why the carpet going 'way?" in a way a toddler is likely to understand (in an informative, truthful, and non-sarcastic way) is actually pretty tough. The house has a much warmer, more elegant feel to it now (not the Wow-it's-like-you-live-in-a-steakhouse vibe I thought it would give off).  Outlet covers and some final caulking will close out the Kitchen Project.

3) The new deck has been framed and is coming along great. I am glad we found the people we did to do this job.  I am a little disappointed I do not get to learn how to build one first hand, but I am greatly consoled by the fact that it probably would have taken me 10,000 years to get to the point you see here. These guys got to this point in 2 days. It should take them 5 more rain-free work days to finish up.  Here's to hoping. 

4) The garden became officially "a garden" on Mother's Day. Me and the wife and the boy had fun planting all the new stuff. It took me a little longer to get to a point where it could be used because of the awkward slope of the land and the semi-circular areas. As a matter of fact, I had to undo and redo the entire house-facing wall and trenches three times before they came out right. The blocks were mortared this weekend and the capstones are next. On a related note, the capstones I am using for the garden will be used on the existing firepit as well.  I guess we can call this 80% done.

5) Book News: I read Monster by A. Lee Martinez. The wife was at the bookstore and thought she remembered that I read some other stuff by this author so she picked it up. I am not going to do a writeup, mainly because I don't feel like it. It was good. Funny and odd, but mostly interesting. Story elements are sort of like a combination between Terry Pratchett (good) and Jim Butcher (mostly meh).

Lots of other stuff to say, but my lunch is over and the balance of the Universe depends on me getting some paperwork knocked out, so back to work before those project milestones turn into millstones, eh? (ironic chuckle, sigh, and close scene).