This is a title. It is not a placeholder. Really.

Fair warning: I've been staring at a blank post window for a good ten minutes here. I don't know where this is going, how it's going to get there, or what it's going to do once it arrives, but I figure typing something is better than nothing. It may turn out to be a pure stream-of-consciousness post, or it may have a readily discernable narrative arc. (My money's not exactly on the latter, if you're looking to place a bet. Take the over on the nonsense, double up, and let it ride.) I'm really just typing, and hoping the end result is something like a blog post.

And no, in case you were wondering, this approach doesn't seem to produce worthwhile results at work. I'm hoping the acceptance criteria are significantly more lax in this medium.

If none of the above made any sense, then good. We're all on the same page. Shall we get on with it?

When last we saw our weary, dwindling heroes, we had finished refilling most of the patio hole with roughly 8 yards (or so) of gravel and sand. After, of course, we had taken out 10 yards (or so) of dirt, rocks, and miscellaneous crap.

Oh, hey, while we're at it (we're not, but stream of consciousness, remember), how about a hand for the War Department's green thumb? This particular corner of our garden has four rhododendrons in it that haven't bloomed since the day we moved in. This year, thanks to her tender ministrations and ceaseless garden-based puttering, all four of them have absolutely exploded:

Anyway, back to the patio. The next step was to ... do ... something. Man, I seriously don't remember the order in which we did stuff. I know we had the Tireless Duo return and help us (both days) and that the War Department did a bazillion little things around the house and yard while I putzed about with the stones, but I can't for the life of me remember how it all went down. All I can see are those damn pavers and the never-ending turning, tamping, testing, cutting, and smoothing. Maybe just some pictures then?

Here's more or less where I left off at the end of the day on Saturday:

I know it doesn't look like much, but... yeah, it wasn't. It was bloody hot, though, hence the umbrella. Anyway, here's after a couple more hours most of the day on Sunday:

It was slow. And hard. And monotonous.**

Part of the problem - a HUGE part - was the pattern we picked. Mostly because there wasn't one. It was supposed to be random, but at the same time, we had an equal number of each of the three sizes of stone. This meant that I needed to use roughly the same number of stones as I went, or I was going to run out of one size before the others, making it look weird. (This KIND of happened anyway, but it turned out okay.) Of course, this made it difficult for people to help, as I had to put three equal mini piles within reach, use them all up before getting more stones, and, of course, cutting down the ones around the edges to fit against the soldier course (made up of all square stones of a different color). Oh, and to cut the stones, I had to lug them around the house to the saw station in the driveway.

Hey, guess what? It turns out that we picked an advanced style and design of patio for our very first attempt! Go us!

The down side is that it took FOREVER. Boo us! More pictures of our poor, ruined lawn!

Just for fun, this was exactly (to the DAY) two years ago:

To cut a long sob story short, I finally got the last of the pavers in (with help from Mr. Tireless Duo, who did the marking and fitting, The Crazy Neighbour who carried, toted, and entertained, and the War Department, who carried and planned and kept us all going, and with me cutting in the driveway), and then we broadcast jointing sand over the whole thing and compacted it all down with the plate compactor.

Putting in the very last brick before sanding:

We finished up about 8:00 (yes, EIGHT) on Sunday evening. Here's the War Department enjoying the first of what I hope will be a great many beers on our freshly sanded patio.

And now... well, now I'm exhausted. Utterly bushed. Let me put it this way: if I had known laying those damn stones was going to be that hard, I wouldn't have done it the weekend before Bike To Work Week. I've got four straight days of cycling to go, and my legs are already threatening to secede from my bodily nation after the first day. It's going to take a full week of trade summits with my quads and hammies, and some serious sweet talking of my ankles to get them back on my side. Oh, and apparently, if that last sentence is any indication, I may or may not be delirious now as well. 
Great.
 
I'm going bed. To bed.
 
Sigh.







** That's for Cassandra.

Well, we tried

We tried to get the patio finished this past weekend, but it bested us. Well, actually, it was a combination of the patio and the bloody weather that beat us into submission, but the effect is the same: we needs must spend another week looking at a half-finished project before we can (hopefully) call it done. Let's hope the weather and our moods improve by Saturday, or it might well be another week on top of that...

To fully tell this story accurately, however, we'll have to back up a bit, and spend some verbiage recapping some of the finer details that I missed in my barely coherent Q&A ramblings from last week. I'd like to think I did my readers (like I have more than one, shyeah!) a favor by not posting last night or it would have been nothing more than mild cursing interspersed with onomatopoetic grunts.

So, not much different than a usual post, then.

Anyway, I had intended to put up a post mid-week with some of the finer details of our efforts last weekend, but there wasn't really time what with all the prepping we were doing, so you get the tech writer's standard solution to any problem that can't be solved by a table: the bulleted list!

• The excavator we had delivered was actually the larger of the two available. We had hoped for the smaller one, and the sudden appearance of this massive machine resulted in several things happening: first, the War Department became immediately convinced that I would drive the thing right through the side of the house. Actual quote: "It's not like a video game!" Second, we had to modify the hedge in the side yard to make room:

• It's not like we weren't planning on taking out that hedge entirely at some point, but at least the one plant we did have to take out came up pretty easily.
• I didn't realize until the next day that the shots I posted of the "final" hole didn't really capture the sheer grandeur of the pit we made ("That's a nayce hole!") so here's one from another angle that shows the depth a little better:

• This Week In Mayonnaise!

• That's some of the stuff we hauled out of the hole. Mostly a bunch of sprinkler pipe (yeah, that'll have to get fixed) and a big, dirty, old chunk of really-I-have-absolutely-no-freaking-clue.
• This is one of the worst bulleted lists I've ever written, let alone published. Man, it's a good thing I don't do this for a living, isn't it?

(Oh, and by the way? It was EXACTLY like a video game. You know, if a video game could drive through the side of your house.)

Anyway, this past weekend started bright and early, as I headed off to the rental place first thing Saturday morning to pick up a plate compactor and a wet saw. By the time I got back to the house, our sprinkler guy was there to fix the stuff we had broken, followed shortly by the delivery of four yards of 3/4" road base:

Man, I really hate road base.

Wait, already I'm getting ahead of myself. This weekend actually started on FRIDAY morning, when the patio stones showed up just as the War Department was heading off to work:

I see a few wheelbarrow trips to the back yard in our future. Good thing the path has already been carved permanently into the lawn, eh?

Fortunately, the weather on Saturday was fantastic. I have no idea how, but we managed to convince one of our helpers from the weekend before to come and move gravel with us. Which is pretty much what we did all day. It kinda doesn't seem like a lot, but it was really a full day of shoveling, toting, raking, compacting, shoveling, toting, raking, levelling, raking, raking, raking, and compacting. Did I mention the raking? Man, that was a lot of raking.

But by the end of the day, we had filled in our hole with four inches of compacted, level road base:

Sunday, the weather was... less good. Overall, it wasn't terrible: cooler - which was nice for my sunburned neck - with a few isolated sprinkles. We spent the day building a retaining wall, again with help from Mr. Not-Those-Clarks-The-Other-Clarkes:

And then came Monday...

Let's just say the War Department isn't wearing that hat on a long weekend Monday morning because it's fashionable. (I think it's cute, but then I'm weird.) Monday kinda chewed us up and spat us out.

It rained ALL day. It RAINED all day. It rained all DAY. Emphasize whatever you want - it sucked.

I spent a few hours cutting pavers to serve as a cap for the retaining wall. This consisted of either standing in the driveway (in the rain) at the wet saw station, getting sprayed with a thin slurry of concrete dust as I tried to trim off the sides of pavers at just the right angle, or carting pavers back and forth from the driveway to the back yard, test fitting and marking and trying to make the damn pavers fit the curve of the wall.

That, I'm sorry to say, was the EASY job.

See, the gravel we had so carefully laid down? Yeah, that had to get covered up with sand. Exactly two inches of sand, which could not be disturbed or walked on after it was put in. Oh, and of course, the sand had to be taken from the driveway around the side of the house in wheelbarrows. Oh, but of course, we also now had a retaining wall in the way that we couldn't yet backfill because the rain meant the blocks were wet, and some of them couldn't be glued together yet. Which meant that all that sand had to be carted from the driveway to the backyard in BUCKETS and lifted over the retaining wall. And then it had to be screed and leveled.

Man, I'll take a freezing cold spray of concrete slurry over sand in buckets any day.

Once again, we were assisted by our friends so tried-and-true. (Seriously, if it weren't for them, we'd still be working on the damn road base. They were absolute troopers.) Oh, and the Crazy Neighbour™ toted his fair share of sand and pavers around to the back of the house for us. Not to mention all the tools, wheelbarrows, and materials he loaned us.

Of course, then we ran out of sand. Which is when the whole damn weekend kind of ... fizzled out.

I mean, we tried to keep going. But I couldn't actually attach the caps to the retaining wall because - again - too wet to glue. So the War Department raced off to Home Despot and found some bags of playground sand that would work to fill in the last little bit, and I got started installing pavers into the base of sand. But the pavers looked like hell, and we couldn't quite reach the last few holes without wrecking the rest of the sand. On top of all this, the rain was intensifying, and everyone was kind of cold and miserable. So we called it a day, and packed up. Our helpers didn't even stay for a beer, it was that depressing. (We'll make it up to them - promise.)

So we've got a half-finished patio and we'll have to rent the compactor and wet saw for another weekend.

Great.

(I had to wait until this evening to take pictures anyway; it was still raining...)

See how this post just kind of fizzles out? Yeah. That was our Monday.

Testing the limits of a good cliche

I'm not sure what people expect when they come to this blog, but I can't imagine anyone's expectations are very high. (Unless, of course, they reached this blog through a combination of search terms like "how do I best go about hurting myself while accomplishing simple, everyday tasks?" THOSE people are happier than clams. Why are clams so happy? Well, that's probably a question for a different part of the Internet. We just do renos and mayonnaise here.)

For our regular customers, good news: this week, I thought I'd aim for a new low! We're going to test that aged saw about how pictures are worth a thousand words. If it's true, this will be wordiest damn post you ever read...

To best present our wealth of visual imagery, I give you:

Every single conversation I will have at work tomorrow morning!

Let 'er rip!

Unsuspecting Coworker:
Hey Don! How was your weekend?

Half-asleep Don:
Uh, well... we, uh.... kinda. Well, this:

UnCow:
What the hell is that?! And what is it doing in your driveway?!

Don:
It's called a rock box, apparently. It can hold up to ten yards of soil or, as the name would suggest, rocks. Of course, like everything we do, it wasn't quite smooth sailing:

UnCow:
That would be an inconveniently positioned sprinkler head, yes, but what the hell did you need something that damn big for?

Don:
To fill up with rocks. From here:

UnCow:
Oh, right, your patio! Man, that looks like a lot of digging. I sure hope you had some help!

Don:
Yeah.

UnCow:
...

You're nuts.

Don:
Yeah.

UnCow:
I meant help, like, other people.

Don:
Oh, absolutely. We had another couple come over with their picks and shovels and crappy-ass wheelbarrow. Couldn't have done it without them, actually. But we bought extra beer and snacks, and filled them full of pork before we sent them home:

UnCow:
Oh, man... Amy's Famous Pulled Pork. I bet that was good, eh?

Don:
Oh, yeah.

UnCow:
So did you drive that Bobcat yourself, or did you hire somebody?

Don:

UnCow:
Uh... wow. I guess they let just about anybody drive those, eh?

Don:
Yeah.

UnCow:
So how much of that rock box thing did you fill, anyway?

Don:
Well, even with the Bobcat, it was pretty slow going, actually. When we stopped for a quick lunch, we had really only done half of the earth removal, and hadn't even started on the tricky bits:

Of course, the skip was filling up pretty quickly:

In the afternoon, though, I was starting to get the hang of the controls on the machine, and by the end of the day, we'd filled the skip almost to the brim:

But you could really see the shape of the patio coming in:

UnCow:
That looks like a pretty good weekend's work to me.

Don:
Yeah, but then on Sunday, the War Department noticed there was some room left in the skip, and figured we should round off the corner a little better to make room for the retaining wall we'll have to build. And then we went and got a yard of road base:

At that point, the skip was REALLY full, and the gravel place had closed for the afternoon, so we had to call it a day.

UnCow:
Huh. And here I thought you were just going to go to the Times Colonist Book Sale this weekend!

Don:
Oh, I did that, too.

UnCow:
You really are a nut job, you know that?

Don:
Sigh. Yeah. I know.

UnCow:
So, uh, I almost hate to ask, but...

Don:
Go ahead.

UnCow:
Really? Sweet! So, uh, Don? Any, uh, updates to everyone's favorite feature,

The Injury Report?

Don:
Yeah: apparently, I'm not so hot with ramps. I was wheeling a wheelbarrow up into the skip, and the ramp jumped up and bit me:

I pretty much stayed in the Bobcat after that. Well, I tried to.

UnCow:
I'll bet! So, uh, any of that pulled pork left?

Don:
No. Go away now.

 

 

 

I'm missing SO many details, but everyone wanted to see pictures (DAD), and I'm unbelievably tired. So I'll sign off here, but a HUGE, mega-big thanks to Not-Those-Clarks-The-Other-Clarkes, who worked their butts off on our patio for nothing more than a few beers and some pulled pork. Sure, the pork was pretty damn good, but still - we owe those guys, big time. Oh, and everyone involved wanted me to say a special thanks to my ol' buddy, Theo, who had the bright idea to rent the excavator in the first place. Saved us a lot of time and effort, seriously.

And oh. My. God. Was it ever FUN to drive! I WANT ONE!!!

Yard Work Part Two: The Fence

It's Sunday night at the old Tudor hacienda, and I suppose that means it's time for a blog post. Good thing I already started this one last week, eh?

Of course, I'd be a lot farther along with this post if I hadn't spent the last half-hour cursing at Blogger because it won't format my posts properly, but there you go. You get what you pay for with this blog, and I get what I pay for with this free blogging software.

Anyway, enough belly-aching about things we cannot change - let's start belly aching about the things we already did change!

When last we left our heroes, they had successfully, and largely without incident - aside from that whole building, dismantling, and storing the storage space part - assembled a brand new resin kit shed! A feat of which we are inordinately proud, considering it took us something like seven months to do what most people can do in an afternoon.

But with the shed complete, it was time to turn our attention to enclosing our plastic storage solution with a nice cedar fence. Why, you may ask, did we want to hide such a regal and well-made structure? Well, we noticed, on our many, many walks around this neighbourhood, that storage and garden sheds seemed to be mostly either in people's backyards, or else tucked carefully away where they were less conspicuous. Not wanting to disrupt the aesthetic of the neighbourhood (any more than we already have), we had planned to extend the existing fence and wrap it around the front of the shed to connect to the wall of the garage.

As much as it pains me to report, and as disappointed as I'm sure all my loyal readers are with the news, it was a pretty straightforward process. I mean, we had already prepared and set the spikes, so it was just a matter of installing the fence posts, and then building the panels in place.

Oh, sure, there were some weird angles, and the spikes weren't EXACTLY in line, but really - it was a fairly simple manner to just build the damn thing. So here are some shots of the work in progress:

I took that last shot up there about 6:30 on a Sunday evening while the Crazy Neighbour™ - who was helping me install the fence boards into the panels - was over at his place digging around in his pile of wood. He was looking for one last piece of cedar 1x6, because our materials estimates were so damn precise that I had accidentally used ONE too many of the full pieces while cutting down boards to make the panels look symmetrical. As always seems to happen (seriously, best neighbour EVER), he had a board tucked away in the ceiling of his shop, and we were able to finish installing the fence pieces that evening.

After that, it was a matter of truing up the gate and installing its hardware, building a little accent piece for over the gate (that also ties the two sides together a little better), and lopping off the tops of the other posts to match the rest of the fence. Which we finished yesterday:

Oh, and here it is from the back:

So far, the most common comment we've heard from neighbours and passers-by is: "Why did you cover up that lovely little shed?"

I haven't actually punched anybody who said that, but there's still time.

Remember the palm tree? Well, this weekend we made use of a perfectly good house guest to finally pull that damn stump out. As you can see, it left a hell of a hole (on the left side here):

Oh, and see the nice bare earth on the rest of our makeshift patio section there? Yeah, next weekend we're completely abusing our friendship with a lovely couple and making them help us dig it all out in preparation for putting in the REAL patio. Good thing for us they like - and will work for - beer. Man, that's gonna be fun! Yeah!

 

 

 

NOT.

Hey, just for shits and giggles, how about a return of everyone's favorite feature!

The Injury Report

Oh, man, my hands.

So.

Many.

Splinters.

I've got splinters in fingers I didn't know I even HAD.

To say nothing of all the times my fancy impact driver slipped off the screw head and started burrowing into the flesh of my hand, or - in at least one memorable occasion - the webbing between my thumb and forefinger.

But mostly it was the splinters.

Ouch. Stupid rough cut cedar.