Chapter 119...How To Seal A Driveway And A Pool Table In The Living Room

Off Grid...Chapter 119 Mike and I are winding down. We have just a couple of more projects we would like to finis before the cold weather sets in. We still have no idea what we will be doing with our other lot but the grass is coming in...at least on the bottom part of it Mike and I have been going back and forth about what to do with the extra space we have in the kitchen. I wanted and Island for more storage so when my stepdaughter called me from Lowe's one day to tell me my cabinets were on sale I got excited. Then Mike started doing the numbers. He said for that money we could get a pool table and have some fun So we thought about it some more and I looked for some online. We found one we thought we would like. It took a few weeks to finally make the decision and order it but we did. 8-3 Now for the pool table delivery saga The driver with our pool table called early this afternoon. He was supposed to be here a few hours later. He called at 5:30pm and by then the rain started. He wanted us to drive to meet him about an hour away to get our pool table. Hubby said we can't do it. We only have an open trailer and we did wait all day and we did pay for delivery They will be back tomorrow. Looks like we will have to wait around again tomorrow until they show up. Ugh!!! 8-4 Ok lets try this again A new driver called us this morning to tell us "now" after dealing with this company all week, that we need a docking station to unload the pool table. Well we didn't know that and we don't have one..so we will have to make do. Mike told him we will have to open the pallet and unload each piece. We met the driver and truck on the main highway since we knew he couldn't make it into our place. Mike and I had the trailer ready to go The driver opened up the back of the freight truck and the pallet jack was under our pallet and also in the way of getting the table out. Uh oh. I jumped inside the truck and started to rip open the box. Finally we got the box off and Mike said "we have to get it up on it's side to get it out of the truck" This thing was really really heavy. I was having serious doubts about us being able to get it off the truck. We finally got it lifted and found out all of the wood sides and legs were taped to the bottom. Whew....we can get rid of some of the weight Finally Mike and I get the pool table off the truck and onto the trailer. The driver helped us one time.....I guess they don't have to unload anything. So we got it back home and into the house. Mike and I put it together. It may look a little strange in our house but it works for us Mike and I play our favorite game of 101 everyday. We have also had our grandson over for some pizza and pool Mid month we went to an art show called Art In The Park. It was a long way and a lot of people. Unfortunately what they call art I wouldn't hang on my wall if they paid me Seriously, I find it hard to believe that we can;t find any nature pictures when we live in the mountains. Oh well....we are still looking. 8-16 Mike and I re painted the sides of the house. Now the front and the sides are re done. The back still looks good. and Our next big job. We need to seal the paving that was done the first year. We ordered 55 gallons of sealer Oh this should be fun, lol, and this is only for the top part. 8-22 Time to get messy This is supposed to be a no stir seven year sealer. Well it isn't a no stir and I sure hope we get 7 years out of it Mike opened up the containers and we started with the curbs. We are working together to get it done faster. Mike starting on the curbs. Working his way down the side of the drive. Of course, at that point, little Miss Niki decided she wanted to go into the house. So she walked across the wet sealer and had black paws I had to take a break from helping Mike to get her cleaned up and put inside. And back up. OK..cool the curbs didn't take us too long although we did use 10 gallons just on the top curbs. Now it's time to start rolling. We have 45 gallons to roll. Hopefully it will be enough to get a first coat on. Mike and I each have our own rollers. Mike rolling. Well we rolled almost all of it and what a messy splattering job. We both have black sticky stuff all over our arms, clothes, and sneakers. Mike is rolling the last of it and we didn't have enough. Wow...55 gallons did not go far. We had to strip down outside before we could go into the house. We will save those nasty clothes for the next round. 8-24 We ordered more sealer and took the last 4 that they had at the Farm Supply. Mike starts off by mixing the buckets. I spread the buckets out along the drive and we are ready to go down the walkway. We work together going back wards down the side drive. It is much easier to do just the width of the driveway compared to the big open area of our parking area. Yeah...we got it done. 8-26 We have stayed off the driveway and have plans to do a second coat. Mike fills some cracks. Niki tests out the new sealer on the drive. We gave the drive a few days before we drove on it. Once we drove on it it left tire marks. Mike was not happy about that so I looked it up. Supposedly tire marks will be left but will disappear after awhile. I sure hope so. All of that hard work should stay nice once you park on it. That's all for now. Once the new sealer arrives we have to start working our way down the driveway. Mike has also been working really hard on the outside of his building so we can get it painted. Hopefully I will have another story for you next week. It all depends on the weather. Lisa

Chapter 116...Staining The Patio

Off Grid...Chapter 116 Mike and I are slowly running out of projects. The stories now will be just a little shorter now. So let's get to it. 7-9 The cow family brought a new bull in for our girls. He is a new small bull and Mike and I are keeping our distance since we don't know his personality yet. Of course on our way down to do some work, what do we see? Yup..the new bull is in our rocks in the ditch line rubbing his head on our nice rocks Mike and I picked up more rocks from around the property. Here is another area next to one of the ditches. We loaded up the tractor bucket and cleaned up another area. We took those rocks down to the pond and picked up a bale of hay for the side of the house. We also stopped off at the dirt pile and got some more dirt to bring up top. Oh the fun things we do On the way back up we saw the new bull pushing Mike's big burn pile around I really hope this new guy settles down soon. The rest of the day I did the mowing and Mike did stuff in his building. 7-10 Time to get the patio ready for staining Mike starts off by scrubbing the concrete off the front of the house. Then we move the patio benches off the patio. We stack them on top of some logs by our wings. Mike uses a new concrete filler to fill in the cracks on the patio. It looks pretty good. Hopefully the stain will cover the line. Then Mike uses his grinder to grind down the rough edges on the patio table. Since the table is too heavy for us to move we are going to tape off the bottom and stain around it. We don't normally do something like this but we don't plan on ever moving that table Next we clean the patio and get it ready for staining. I use the scrub brush on it while Mike hoses it down. 7-11 Today we helped Mike's daughter with some of her trim work. It is hot hot hot today. The outside temp got to 102 The house is very warm but not unbearable. It is the humidity that is very high. 7-12 OK...it's time for the fun stuff. First we are going to repaint the front of the house. We want everything to look fresh and clean when we are done. I do the cut in while Mike does the rolling. It takes us about an hour to paint the front. Mike finishing up. Now it's time for the stain. I really hope the color is OK. We picked up a solid stain of a color that is a lighter green. We are hoping it will compliment the house and make it cheerful. Uh oh...it's not looking good Mike is rolling the stain on and it looks like mint ice cream Ugh!!! This will not work. It is downright ugly. Oh well...you all know how bad mike and I are with colors Mike rolls out the rest of the can to use as a base coat. We have a sample color of paint that was off the same card as our house color. We thought about using that for the buildings. We try that sample color out....and it is too blue. Yuck!! another color we don't like. It's back to town to get more sample colors. This time we try the tan colors. We don't like those either. Oh well...so much for trying a new color. It's back to town and we stick with a weathered concrete color. We also switch to a floor paint since the solid stain didn't cover very well. 7-13 Mike starts out by painting along the crack that he filled in. I use the brush to paint the expansion joints, around the table, around the posts, and near the house. Mike rolls the rest. Now we have to let it dry and then we can do the second coat. 7-14 Same story different day We get the second coat on. Mike rolling again. Well we didn't get a color but it is clean looking The crack filler helped but they didn't get completely covered by the paint. I really thought the paint would cover the fill in. Oh well..it's still better than it was For the next few days it was just the usual chore...cleaning and yard work. On Saturday the neighbor's bull from behind us got in again Mike called our cow people to let them know. They were not happy about it since our neighbor was supposed to put his bull in another field. So our cow family, Howard, Eric, and Ivalee showed up along with our back neighbor to get the bull out and then fix the fence line. It took awhile but they finally got the bull into the barn and locked him in before loading him up. He is so strong that he bent the steel gate They finally got the bull loaded up and Eric found a buyer for him. That bull is on his way to Virginia For the next few hours we all went up and worked on the fence line. At least we won't have any more trouble from that bull. He actually got into a fight with our new bull and our little guy did get hurt but he is OK. I know it was a short story but Mike and I have really been knocking things off this year. Next we have to get the driveway ready to get the final section of paving done. I hope you all enjoyed the story. Have a great week and I'll see you again next Monday. Lisa P.S. Nike says she can't wait for it to cool down so she can get back to supervising us