We started off the month with a nice extended family vacation. Much like our extended family vacation with C's side earlier this year, we had to juggle differing schedules / routines, but we were able to do that fairly well and I think everybody had a great time.
The vacation was a good chance to spend some together time before I had to leave for a work trip to Brazil. The trip went fairly well, and I enjoyed seeing a new place and meeting my counterparts down there, but after two weeks I was more than ready to get home.
When I got back from my trip, I saw something I hadn't in quite a while; rain. It wasn't alot of rain, but enough to show me that the roof in my under-deck shed was not as rain-proof as I would like it to be. When I first built it, I was OK with it not being totally dry. It was mainly for bulky kids toys that were mostly plastic anyway, so it wasn't a big deal. As I have increased the number of lawn and garden items stored there though, the moisture concerned me more. The portion I recently added was better than the first part, but even it had some problem areas. With a touch of fall in the air, and seeing more normal levels of rain the forecast, I decided now was the time to address the problem.
Initially, I thought about just repairing/reinforcing the problem areas. (In retrospect, that still may have been a better option.) However, I decided that my original design was flawed and I would be better off redoing the roof. To do it the new way I wanted to, I would need to remove the decking boards from the deck. I had wanted to take some of them off anyway to re-level some joists that had settled/shrunk anyway, so this would allow me to kill two birds with one stone. Looking ahead in the weather forecast, I saw rain was coming on Sunday. I knew there was no way I could get done by just working Saturday, so I took a day and a half off during the week to get it done, leaving me Saturday as contingency to finish up. Well, long story short, I drastically underestimated the amount of work it was going to take. I blew through the vacation time, and still needed all day, and nearly all night on Saturday. The rain arrived right on schedule Sunday morning, and I finished the roof work with less than a couple hours to spare. That still left some revisions to the walls, which took a couple additional afternoons of vacation time, plus evenings to finish. With the remnants of the hurricane scheduled to hit this weekend, it should be a good opportunity to test it out.
Not surprisingly, the shed project has left time for little else, but before I started that I managed to sneak in a few other things. Shortly after I got back, I did have to mow, which I hadn't done in quite a while. Although a little rain and some cooler weather have helped the grass perk up, the dandelions have perked up quicker, prompting me to finally try out the sprayer I built last spring. It worked pretty well, although the wand part broke before I was done. I did the wand spraying while L was asleep, and must have looked pretty strange (although the neighbors are probably used to it by now) pushing Junior and the sprayer around the yard so as not to wake L up. After he woke up, I could run the tractor and tried out the broadcast part, which worked well without any issues.
Johnny got a little workout too. One of the neighbors ordered some landscaping rock, and they delivered the wrong stuff. He got the rock for free, and offered some to me if I wanted any. I figured it would be good to line the creek with. I got alot of help loading it in the wagon too.
I have made a tiny bit of progress on the new Cat wagon, but still have a little more to do to consider it done. The Wheel Horse sits pretty much as it did at the start of the month, except I did coat the inside of the gas tank so now it hopefully won't leak the next time I try it. September is going to be a busy month, so progress on these projects is going to remain pretty slow.
No comments:
Post a Comment