the little wild kingdom

[flowerbug]

That’s a lot! Hopefully this is a once and done project! (Or at least once in a great while-like 20 years or so)

for sure! i hope to either be dead or decrepit enough that i won't be able to go up and down the ladder that much. the stain says it is good for 25 years on vertical surfaces so that puts me in the 80's (eek where does time go?! so fast for sure).

what i need to do once every few years is go out and spray the whole house with a cleaner to get rid of the mildew and other gunk (especially in the back where the shade from the tree keeps everything more damp and above the shed on the back of the garage).

i guess it could be worse... hahaha!

 

[flowerbug]

i am done caulking the edges of the flat roof and also filling in some other areas that needed it. that and checking up on what i did yesterday and puttering around wasted most of today.

i should have been staining the back of the garage above the shed (and the front kitchen window). nope. i just wasn't going to be able to do that with all that still curing caulk being there.

i do admit it all looks much nicer and some of the fixes should help prevent problems in the future - a few are just delaying (temporary squirt caulk and hope it holds things together long enough until i can get back to them) one fix i should have done better but oh well, and another is basically going to also have get done again some other time, whenever, but that will not be this year!

so now tomorrow will be nothing but staining day and it has been nice to have a few extra hours today to rest up.

after that we'll see... weather is still showing signs of being cooperative enough i may get the eaves done.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I bet you'll be glad when this job is in your rear view mirror!

 

[flowerbug]

I bet you'll be glad when this job is in your rear view mirror!

you got it. so ready!

 

[flowerbug]

scrubbing eaves today, over half way done, will make tomorrow easier. weather is sort of cooperating so i can't ask for different. when i need a break it has been tending to rain.

today i saw some spots i missed with stain so i have to remember to hit those once or twice again before i call that wall done. but generally all of the walls are now done i just have a few fascia boards to put two coats on and then the rest of the eaves and any touch ups i can find before i run out of stain.

way back when they first built this place they used a specific stain and i did like the look but it wasn't a very good stain and they absolutely did not clean the wood or prep it at all before staining. now, here or there some bubbles are forming, but short of stripping the areas down to the wood and starting over it's going to happen. and as they say, so it goes. a few big bubbles i'm going to have to pop and see if i can squirt some stain inside and see if that will stick better than nothing. if that doesn't work then those spots i'll carefully redo but i'm not redoing entire, large areas.

no, i'm not at all happy about that, but it's just the breaks, when you home build and don't know what you're doing stuff happens...

today we were joking about blowing it up. the whole house. i said, "Hey if we were going to do that we should have done it before I put all this work into it!" so there ya go... warts and all it is home.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

DH always - "A house is like a jealous mistress." It always wants more, lol. Sounds like you're making good progress.

 

[flowerbug]

DH always - "A house is like a jealous mistress." It always wants more, lol. Sounds like you're making good progress.

that would explain the herpes... just kidding...

making good progress in that i've fixed so many things this time that about all i can do now is use about 10 tubes of caulk to seal some edges along the roof to keep the bees out. way too many gaps yet, i won't likely do it this year, but i have caulk for next summer.

i'm really ready to call this good enough once i get the eaves done and any big touch ups done. after that, yep, good enough, i'm tired of up and down ladders and i have a boat load of gardening i need to get done soon.

we got the numbers for the stain. i can get gallons more if i have to. hope i don't ever have to... should burn the numbers and pretend i don't know anything about this ever again. aliens came and did it. wasn't me. i was possessed. yeah, that's the ticket...

 

[flowerbug]

today was the end of an experiment of a few years. growing weed, it's legal in our state up to 12 plants per household. the price to buy it is very expensive and we have someone we know who uses it for pain relief so to have a free source for them to use is a big help. when i was a kid we grew some but i never grew it very long and it wasn't much like these plants.

all told we grew seven different varieties, the plants are beautiful as they grow and i really like their leaves, but the real downside is that after a few months they stink. Mom had such a hard time with the smell that she'd not even go in the gardens. to me the smell is strong but i can tolerate it enough for a while to get them weeded and watered. by the end of the season when they start looking beat up and falling down with the stems spltting they're not so lovely looking but it's only for a while and then they are harvested and gone. they really really stink by the end of the season. *phew*

gladly i don't have to do any of the post harvest processing or deal with them in any way.

it was an interesting few years but also nice to have the garden space back - they took up a lot of space.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Who knew pot would stink so badly out in the growing area? So, if it's legal to grow I guess it's legal to use. Glad you were able to help your friend!

 

[flowerbug]

Who knew pot would stink so badly out in the growing area? So, if it's legal to grow I guess it's legal to use. Glad you were able to help your friend!

yes, legal to use, cannot sell it without a license and all the regulations around that, but for what we did it worked out well.