A new yard, a new set of trees...a new security system
I keep thinking that I'll get back to posting more frequently but things have been hectic since the semester ended almost two weeks ago. First I went home to sort through some things with my family and then I returned to a bunch of projects that I'm trying to get done in the few weeks I have before summer school begins.
So first I had Green Bean come and spray closed cell foam beneath the house to close off all the air that was sinking out of the house in summer and blowing up through the floor in winter. The difference is remarkable, and once I made the commitment to get it done, the process was only about two hours, with little to no fumes.
Then came the BIG project: moving our eight-foot high side fence (about 110 feet long), which was built less than two years ago, to our new property line, about thirty-five feet away. This involved dismantling the whole thing and carefully reconstructing it piece by piece. Good thing someone else was doing the work. But there were unexpected complications: the cement that had been put down to keep the poles in place required quit a bit of jackhammering, and the enormous trees along the rear property line made it impossible to build the fence there. So we brought the fence in about eight-feet, creating a little storage area between it and the existing chain-link fence that is now part of the trees.
Meanwhile, I was frantically trying to plant some trees while I could still, technically, claim to have come in under the May deadline for getting things in the ground. So, I added three new crepe myrtles, a mulberry tree, an avocado, and few others, digging every morning before eight, when it became too hot to continue.
Sula, of course, wanted no part of any of this, and has been defiantly camped out in my bedroom through all of this work. Last night and again this morning, she finally stepped outside and ran and ran and ran around the huge new yard, stopping only to roll on her back and then start over again. See, I told her, it is a good thing.
And now we'll be installing a seven camera surveillance system before taking a renovation break for the rest of the summer.
So first I had Green Bean come and spray closed cell foam beneath the house to close off all the air that was sinking out of the house in summer and blowing up through the floor in winter. The difference is remarkable, and once I made the commitment to get it done, the process was only about two hours, with little to no fumes.
Then came the BIG project: moving our eight-foot high side fence (about 110 feet long), which was built less than two years ago, to our new property line, about thirty-five feet away. This involved dismantling the whole thing and carefully reconstructing it piece by piece. Good thing someone else was doing the work. But there were unexpected complications: the cement that had been put down to keep the poles in place required quit a bit of jackhammering, and the enormous trees along the rear property line made it impossible to build the fence there. So we brought the fence in about eight-feet, creating a little storage area between it and the existing chain-link fence that is now part of the trees.
Meanwhile, I was frantically trying to plant some trees while I could still, technically, claim to have come in under the May deadline for getting things in the ground. So, I added three new crepe myrtles, a mulberry tree, an avocado, and few others, digging every morning before eight, when it became too hot to continue.
Sula, of course, wanted no part of any of this, and has been defiantly camped out in my bedroom through all of this work. Last night and again this morning, she finally stepped outside and ran and ran and ran around the huge new yard, stopping only to roll on her back and then start over again. See, I told her, it is a good thing.
And now we'll be installing a seven camera surveillance system before taking a renovation break for the rest of the summer.
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