Chapter 79...Our New Concrete Patio Table

Off Grid...Chapter 79 7-11 Today is the day Mike and I pick up our new outside table. Woo hoo. It's about an hour away so we hook up the trailer and start the drive. When we get to the statuary we have a choice of 2 table tops. We pick the one that has more brown chips in it. Did you ever wonder why they make such funky colored outdoor furniture?Things should blend not stand out like a sore thumb, lol. The top of the table is so heavy that they have it on a skid. They load that onto our trailer first. Then we load up the pedestal and the bench tops and legs. It's a very slow ride home with about 1200 pounds on the trailer and driving a very windy road. Yay- we are through our gates. Now we just have to make it to the top. We start up the driveway and we are almost at the steepest part and Mike says "do you think we can make it?" I really don't think so. We are pretty heavy. While Mike was waiting for my answer he slowed down and in that little hesitation going up the hill the Jeep started to struggle. Oh well. We can't make it up. Time for plan B, lol. We pull over into a fairly level spot at the bottom of our steep spot and leave the trailer there. Here is our loaded trailer. We get up to the top and then we get the tractor. We have to load each piece into the tractor bucket and then bring it to the patio. First we load up the bench posts and drop them off on our side walkway. Then we go back down and load up the table base and the bench tops. Everything except for the top on our walkway. Last thing is the table top which is extremely heavy. Mike and I can't lift it so we carefully slide it off the skid and into the tractor bucket as far as it will go. We also leave that in the walkway. We can't bring the tractor onto the patio so we will have to walk everything over. Using the hand truck we got all of the pieces onto the patio. The top is just to heavy for us so we will have to wait until we can get some help. 7-12 I have an "orphan" garden with some extra plants that got planted next to the green building. I dig them up and move them to the garden in front of the house. This is just a temporary spot until we find real plants. Then we worked on the door to the green building. It is really hard to open and close it using the handles. Mike says it will be easier if we take one of the handles off. So Mike stands on a bucket out side the building and I stand on a bucket inside the building. I hold the bolt with the vice grips while Mike unscrews the screw from outside. I end up breaking the vice grips. Mike says "you animal no one breaks vice grips, lol" I asked him how old they were. He says about 25 years. Well there ya go- at least you got your moneys worth, lol. Here is Mike working on the handle. Ah now it opens and closes much easier. 7-13 We woke up this morning to another cool cloud picture over the mountains. And about an hour later. We feel kind of slow today. Mike says we should try and find Randy(the bear/bull) and see if he can help us with the table after work. Mike calls Jimmy to see where he is at. He is at his bigger property planting trees with Randy. We are in luck because Randy is with him so we go over to talk to them. We get over there and Jimmy has done a beautiful job on his property. It's nice having your own grading crew to work on your own property, lol. We all end up taking a break under the covered shelter next to his pond. We end up staying and talking for a few hours. So much for getting work done. Randy told us he would stop over after work to help us with the table top. On our way back in the gate I took a picture of our new sign. The cows are starting to nibble on the corners of the sign. It's a nice day so we decide to do some painting. Mike starts by finishing the paint on the side of the house by the satellite dish. I move over and start to paint the first coat on the second side. The first coat is done on the second side. Now that we have a first coat on the back and the sides of the house we can see what has to be filled in. Mike fills in any of the holes and mars with caulk. Here are all of the touch ups and marks that will get covered with the second coat of paint. Randy shows up with more help after dinner. He brings one of our "good" kids who used to come to our skating rink. He has a wife and kids of his own now. It seems so odd because we knew him when he was just a teenager. Anyway, I am so happy for the extra help. Now that there are 4 guys here I can just stay out of the way and let them take care of it. Here they are getting the table top on. And it is done. The table top is on and the table is set up. There seems to be a problem. I go and sit down on one of the benches and it's too low. I tell Mike "this can't be right." He sits down and tries to tell me the benches are ok. So now I have to get out the tape measure and start measuring the distance from our kitchen chair to the table. And I also bring over one of our resin chairs and sit on that at the outside table. Yup, the benches are definitely too low. I will call the statuary tomorrow and ask them if we got the wrong legs. Lisa