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Olivia's Garden

This is Olivia.

She belongs to our neighbor Chett

She is a really good dog.  If you are ever bored she will chase a stick for hours.  She always comes over to greet us when we get home.

She got into our garbage a few times.  She delighted in going through everything looking for snacks.  (no worries Chett, it was our fault for leaving the lids off)

I was out there the other day and noticed a rather nice patch of tomatoes growing where she must have spread some tomatoe scraps around.

It's amazing, we worked so hard last year trying to grow tomatoes and Olivia has this nice bed going by just planting them and ignoring them!

She also must have spread some parrot food around as she is growing sunflowers too.

I have tried to grow sunflowers for two years now without success.

So, thanks Olivia!  Next year maybe some lettuce and cucumbers?

Blackberry Picking

The blackberries are getting ripe now so we were out picking what we could reach.  There were a few places were the deer sleep at night along the path.  We were wondering just where they were during the day that we hardly ever see them.  I said the are probably right in front of us and we don't even know it.

Well, how true that turned out to be.  They were probably not 25 feet from us as we picked our berries.  They too, were enjoying a few!  Lucky for me I had my camera handy.

   

Staining Doors

I have been dragging my feet on getting the doors stained for some time now.  No reason really, I am busy...........I can always find something I would rather do................I have a list of excuses.

Linda got me fired up last night about getting some of the smaller projects done rather than focusing on the larger ones.  Lots of little progress is good too.

These are the main doors out to our deck.

It would have been much easier had I sanded and stained them the day they were installed.

I am now faced with water stains, oily finger prints and spiders.

I started out with a coarse 100 sandpaper on an electric palm sander.  I filled the nail holes with stain-able wood filler and after that was dry I sanded it again with 220 sandpaper.  They came out pretty good.  There is a little bit of water stain at the bottom but that will be covered by the, hmmmm, don't know what it's called.  The rubber strip that goes on the bottom that keeps the cold air out.

Some things to be wary of.  Careful with that gorilla glue.  It foams all out of the cracks and cannot be sanded. 

I used this tool to scrape it out.  You have to be very careful here to so that you don't gouge your wood.

This is a messy job.  They suggested using a brush and brushing on the stain cross grain and wiping it off with the grain. 

This just flipped stain everywhere.

I ended up using a rag to put it on and wipe it off.

There were some surprises along the way.

The caulking that they used on the edge of the glass will not take the stain.

There are several places where they used a non stain-able filler.  I could not see it at all once the door was sanded and cleaned but it sure does show up when the door is stained. I'm not sure what to do about that.

I'm not even sure what this mark is.  It was clear as a bell before I stained it and now it is black.

I am thinking of a new door handle that is on a plate (since this is right above the deadbolt) unless I can sand it out and re-stain it.  I am awaiting consultation on that from the husband.

All in all I am very happy with the color.  I want a red door but not a bright red painted door.

This color is Cabernet.  It needs to dry overnight and then I will seal it.

So, one more little project (very nearly) done. 

Thanks Linda!

San Diego Wild Animal Park

I had the opportunity to do a Roar and Snore at the San Diego Wild Animal Park while I was in California last month.  It is an adult sleep over.  While it basically sucked (they really need to do some more planning.........our behind the scenes tours were in the dark!) the park was really nice and I got a lot of good photos there.

Problem Solving

I spotted a weasel.  While he was pretty cute this is not a good thing considering my five hens.  I have a chicken tractor butted up to the hen house but the weasels could get under and inside (as well as other vermin). 

We had been putting a large piece of wood between the tractor and the house but that was cumbersome.  So we needed a better door.

I rooted around for some scrap so I could build some channels to slide a thin wooden door in.

I found some trim pieces from the latest door project and some of the maple that we used for the front of my fridge.

I pre drilled holes so the thin piece of trim would not split and attached the rails to the front of the hen house with screws.

I put an eye hook on the front and tied some bailing twine to it and threaded it through another eye hook.

Problem solved!  The tractor is back in place and the door opens and closes pretty easily.

Now I can sleep better knowing the hens are safe from critters that might want to eat them.

While the Cats Away.............

..................The mice will play, and play they did!  While I was off on a two week vacation my husband, his Dad, my folks and our friend Joey got an amazing amount of work done.  I should go away more often :-)

Dave's Dad got our garage so organized that we can almost start thinking about actually parking in there!

It's getting there anyway, we can see the floor.  At least he can park his bike inside now.

Dave and Joey hung three doors!!

This is the door to the sewing room.  They even got door nobs in and trimmed them.

The sewing room door was particularly tough since we didn't really leave enough room for the door, in fact it had to open out into the hall. All the door frames were just a tad too short so all the doors had to be trimmed.

Now they need to be sanded and stained.

The next big project will be the floor in the guest room.  The three guys got that room emptied so we can first level the floor and then get ready to lay the bamboo in there.

It's nice to finally have some momentum again for finishing this house.

Thanks everybody!!!

Orcas Island

Wednesday

Kitchen Sink Installation

janeybug.refurber.com

Our kitchen sink has been installed now for...........well, I'm embarrassed to say but it never got caulked.  Ideally you would want to do this right after installing the sink before using it.  That didn't quite happen here and once you start using it there is always a reason why you can't caulk it.  It's full of dishes, gonna be full of dishes ect....

Today was the day.  After all, what could it take? Ten minutes?

First I propped up the sink so I could clean out all the gunk that had accumulated under it.

I needed to make sure it was cleaned of all grease and dry so the caulk will stick to it.

Since my sink is colored and the counters dark I used a clear silicon caulk.

I put a nice thick bead around the entire sink and then I used my finger to smooth it in.

I used some paper towels to clean up the edges.

All done!  In a matter of 10 minutes my sink is finally caulked.  No more damp wet things under the cabinet. Whew!

Next project, drawer pulls.