Hiking at 9 months

We've been saying for the last few weeks that we needed to go on a hike, do another BBQ, and eat outside under our new (new to us...) shade umbrella. Well, today we were able to do all of that with a few twists thrown in to make it interesting. Since there have been a few really hot and dry weeks, the forest service decided to close all of the hiking trails. I guess the reason is that humans and lightning are the main causes of fires of the fires that have been burning around here and they don't want people out there causing fires or getting caught out if there is a natural fire.

However, the local "ski" resort was open so we drove up the canyon right by our house and just started heading up the mountain biking trail. It wound around a lot so then we started heading right up one of the runs until we saw the second mtb trail and started hiking on it. Kinda reminds me of Tahoe, one of my favorite places in the world. Smells similar too, with the vanilla-scented pines. This is great mountain biking that we're going to have to hit up real soon.



One of the reasons for the hike was to put Bri into labor. We figured a good hard hike at high altitude would do the trick, but...no dice. I start tomorrow, so I guess I'm just going to have to bail out of my first rotation when she calls me.


According to Bri, this will be the last official "Belly Pic." She's not obscenely large, but she's getting bigger. Mostly, she's just ready for it all to be over. About 15 minutes after this picture was taken we started hearing rain drops. I noticed that they were hitting hard and seemed like big drops. Then one of the drops made a white smudge on Bri's shirt and I realized it was something between freezing rain and hail. It didn't hurt and it wasn't that cold, but it started getting heavier and heavier, so we turned back. It took a good 20 minutes to get down the mountain and we were cutting straight down the runs. It got going pretty strong, so we were plenty wet by the time we finally made it down. Crazy to think that it was hot down at our house and cold and raining up here. The drive down the canyon is beautiful.

I'm sure we looked pretty interesting to people going into Albertson's half wet and with dirty shoes when everyone else was trying to escape the heat. Sirloin steaks were buy one pack get one free, so we decided to finish off our "to do" list with a BBQ. Ben suggested Lawry's seasoning salt and we added black pepper and a little garlic. A great meal to chomp on after a good hike. Then, I fell asleep while enjoying our wonderful construction-zone backyard. Not a bad way to spend my last day of freedom before 5 years of residency starts. Oh, yeah, the other thing I did today was take some paperwork down to the local IRS building because our identity got stolen. the perfect end to my vacation...

A Real-Shaped Yard - Finally

This guy was by far the cheapest of all the bids (about half the others!) so I decided to forgo the "do it myself" thing. Boy am I glad I did. It would have been a nightmare if I tried to do this on my own. First of all, the little Bobcat I would have gotten (this one is twice as big: I had to take out that WHOLE wall on the side of the house so he could get in) would have just bounced off as "the platform" laughed at me.


Even if it would have dug in, it would have taken years to dig and never, ever fit in one dumpster load. It would have ended up costing us more than this guy and taken a lot longer. Not to mention the fact that it is very likely I would have removed roughly 2 feet of the corner of our house since it was a tight fit taking the loads out to the front and I noticed while watching that it actually take some major skills to drive a "skidsteer" well.

I was the cheap labor, moving all the railroad ties, bricks and pavers out of the way as necessary. I also busied myself making a plywood protector on the grass so that the Bobcat would do minimal damage. It got pretty thrashed, but we were going to reseed that part anyway since it was looking pretty dead.

After today's work, here's how it stands. He thought he was going to be able to do it in 2 loads, but it took 4! We really got a deal, even though it was a big chunk of money for us.


It's amazing sitting there, looking at our yard, thiking about how normal it is shaped now. It's hard to come to grips with the fact that we now how something respectable to work with. In one day, our yard went from Huh? to do-able.

Now I need to do a retaining wall that continues where the other one now stops midway. I was thinking about doing that, then putting big, wide quarter-turn steps over by the wall with a planter-box next to it. The steps would let us put either a garden up above, or (gasp!) a sitting area, which people here seem to be so fond of. BTW, someone asked what use a garden is here when it is so hot. I guess there's a reason people down here eat a lot of salsa, because that's what grows well: tomato, onion, and peppers. We could do other stuff but it would just take more water. Then, we'll have grass from the rocks possibly all the way over to the place where the steps and planter box would be.

Suggestions?

This picture really makes the platform look bigger than it is. Use pics from other posts for real proportions.

This is the view of the back yard from the atop the wall. We were thinking about not taking out the whole amount of dirt that we first planned on since it is so expensive to get rid of that much dirt!

At first we thought we might just take out dirt to make the retaining wall continue across the yard like it is over the by the rocks on the right in this picture. However, since it will likely cost over $1000 to do that, I thought I might just take the dirt from the corner of the platform (enclosed by the line in the dirt) and put it over by the shed. Then I could make some big wide steps that curve up to access the second level. That would take away that annoying, jutting corner and give us a reasonable shape to put the grass in by the middle of the yard. I could probably do that with a Bobcat I could rent for $200 and just use the railroad ties we already have, maybe buying a few more. Then, over time, we could cover the existing cinder block wall with cultured stone ("stone veneer") or just remove it, since there are railroad ties behind it anyway.

This would be the cheapest, quickest thing, but would still leave a pretty big second level. However, the lower part would be a lot more usable and normal-shaped. Then, we could use the second level as a garden/planter box.

Anyone have any other inexpensive suggestions?

1 Person, 3 Days, Average Temp: 97 Degrees...And No Shade

Before:
Pretty stark, lifeless and cold. "The slab" is just the perfect height for Caleb to ride his tricycle off and really need the helmet he'll be wearing.

During #1:
You see that jackhammer on the left? It was my friend for 24 hours. I had to make use of every minute since I was paying for it.

During #2 (After...for now):
Anyone who has done this kind of work will appreciate the blood sweat (and tears) that went into this.

And, since I had the jackhammer, I figured I would make the pathway for the Bobcat that will need to get to the back of the house to get all of the rubble and dirt out. Otherwise, I'd need to either rent it again, or just get up plenty of speed in the Bobcat (and rip off the side of the house probably).

So, how does this all happen in 3 days? First, I had to pry up, lift and carry about 200 pavers, about 20 pounds each. Those are all now stacked on the side of the house and being sold on Craigslist right now. That took a whole day, and destroyed my hands.


Step two, rent the biggest jackhammer you can hold sideways and start blasting away. I was optimistic until I saw that they had put rebar down about every 5th hole in the cinder block wall and poured in the strongest cement known to man. It didn't help that the rebar/cement went down below ground level, so that I was jackhammering blind when the the dirt would vibrate down into my working hole. As I type this, my hands are swollen from inflammation because they've been vibrated to death. I would like to think they are just muscular now, but the inability to make a good fist disabused me of that notion.

While I was apologizing to the neighbors for the jackhammering, they filled me in with all kinds of info. We found out that those "stair rails" are actually parts of a bed. We'd had our suspicions, and now they're confirmed.

"Hurry, Bri, get the camera so I can look really strong when I pull these things out."

Like uncovering a dead body (which we still think might happen), we found out that the cinder block wall is really just a facade over a previous railroad-tie wall of similar proportions. Previous owners will never cease to amaze me with their poor decision-making abilities. And no, I'm not faking it - railroad ties are really really heavy.

Even Bri, at 8 1/2 months pregnant got in on it for a few minutes. That just proves that she is the TOUGHEST woman out there period (well, except for my Mom, who is probably a tie, since she moved about 40 wheelbarrow loads of dirt a couple of years ago all on her own when she was working on our back yard in Moraga!). I've got a true pioneer wife.


Here's the gate pillar on the side of the house that had to go bye-bye so that a Bobcat could get back and carry away all the dirt and rubble. It also had the rebar, especially big cinder blocks, and the other-wordly-strong cement. You'll also notice the stack of pavers to be sold. There are two kinds, the big, heavy 12 by 12 flat ones and the smaller crooked-brick ones. Note: this is only less than half of them, the rest are on the other side of the house!

Here are my piles. I'm pretty proud of them if I do say so myself. For about 5 minutes after I finished today I just sat and looked at them. The pictures might not do them justice, but for little old me, working all by my lonesome, I felt pretty good. That is, until I collapsed on the couch.

Fixing Up the House - Fun Stuff

This has been the greatest vacation in a long time. Not only am I not working or going to school, but I get to do my favorite thing every day: fix stuff. If I had nothing else to do, I would spend my time with my tools fixing things up (car, house, yard, whatever) and that's exactly what I've been able to do every day for the last month. If I had a nickel for every trip we've made to Home Depot, I'd be rich. Good thing HD is about 3 minutes away.

^ First little part to test color v Whole wall

The whole wall, with the velvet texturing, done. Remind me to never texture a huge wall again when it requires you to do the second coat with a 3" brush!

So, here are some things that have kept me/us busy. First, I finally finished the big wall in the main room. We also got the entertainment center. Too bad one of the glass doors was cracked (being shipped now), so it is missing. Also, we haven't decorated, so it looks pretty bare, we know.

Front door, notice the "body work."

Front door, after body work, just needs the locks.

Next, all of the doors that go outside in the house were totally thrashed. I guess when the window panes were put in 14 years ago they were probably white plastic, but they had faded to a miserable yellow and the weatherstrip (sealant) had gooped out, collected dirt, and was looking nasty on all of them. Most people with money would have just bought new doors, but I decided that I could revive some of my long-lost auto body working skills and restore the doors. Seemed easy enough, just replace Bondo with wood putty, and instead of spraying $400/gallon paint, just roll on $40/gallon paint. I must say I'm pretty happy with the results.

A back door with awesome locks and WHITE panes. No more cruddy, goopy dirt in every crevice and no more 14-years worth of dirty hand marks.

We found some really cheap but good-looking (that's becoming kind of a theme with this house...) antiqued-brass door knobs and deadbolts that look nice and actually work, unlike the old ones.

Restoring these doors was not small feat, mind you. The back ones have an integrated window that we took completely apart and spent an entire day (each!) scraping, pressure-washing, and GooGone-ing. I wish we had taken "before" pics, but you can watch the original video of the house and keep an eye out for the hideousity of the old doors. Believe us, they were bad.

Here's the videos of the "before" when we first saw this house. Look closely and you'll see the yellow window panes, dirty doors, atrocious southwestern fixtures, and lack of color on the walls.

Front entry chandelier. This brand and style we found at Home Depot was our favorite style, and just happened to be the least expensive of all! So we used this brand for all of the fixtures in every room.

Our big fan in our main room. It cost more than some of the other fans, but it fit our style, is quiet, and moves air really well. Kinda the center-piece of the house when you walk in.

Mini chandelier in the eating nook. Same brand as all the other stuff, antique iron finish and antique ivory glass.

And, a fiver in the office.

Here's the old stuff. Ehhh, sorry, I just vomited a little in my mouth.

So, I think I'm ready to begin my foray into landscaping as I attack the South 40. The back yard is horrifically done-up in a prison-style all-cement motif. We have no idea what the previous owners were thinking by taking the effort to bring in dirt and erect a 3 foot raised platform occupying roughly 30% of the back yard and nullifying any shot at having grass in a reasonable location.

You'll also see Bri's wonderfully thriving tomato plants up there. One of them we actually brought in a plastic cup with us in the moving truck. It was almost dying then just last week decided that it wanted to get huge.

We'll post some video when everything is coming along a little further. Also, I just realized that when I actually start doing ortho surgeries I'm still going to be doing my favorite vacation thing: fixing stuff with tools. I love it!