Chapter 82...Taking Gutters Down and More Rock

Off Grid...Chapter 82 7-23 It looks like another nice day today and hopefully it will stay dry. First thing this morning we got our rock delivery for our ditch line. Originally we were going to have one of Jimmy's guys dump the rock directly into the ditch but we still have too much work to do on the ditch before it can be all rocked. We still have to get it all cleaned out and then Mike and I will start bringing the rock up using our tractor. Then we will hand place the rock into the ditch. We are really not into this job so this could take us a very long time to get motivated for this. Our lawn is really starting to come in. Mike started working on more caulking on the front of the house. He is making up for everything we didn't get to last year. While he is out front I heard the Fed Ex truck. Woo hoo. Our patio umbrella is here. We go down to the gate to pick it up and bring it up to the patio. Mike takes the umbrella out of the box and puts the pole into the table base. Uh oh, it doesn't fit. You have got to be kidding, lol. How can you make a table with a hole that is too small for a standard umbrella? Ok now we have to figure out how to fix this. When the table was made they inserted a metal tube inside the hole for the umbrella. The metal is just thick enough to cause the umbrella not to fit. Mike says we have to get the metal tube out. Right!! How do you get a metal tube out when it is concreted in? He goes up to the building to get some tools. First he tries to bang the metal tube with a chisel in hopes of knocking it into the base. It's too tight. Next he decides to cut the tube with the saws all to loosen it and then maybe he can bang the tube out. Here is Mike using the saws all to cut a slit in the metal tube. Now that the metal is cut he tries to bang it down using the hammer and chisel. Yay, he got it but in the process he lost his 30 year old chisel down the base of the table. We will have to wait for some help before Mike can get his chisel back. There is no way we can move the table top to get it and the metal piece out. After that we go inside and Mike starts going through the yellow pages. He is trying to find another paving company to get an estimate. The one company that we called took over a week to come out and look at the job and now a week and a half later and we still haven't heard from them with a quote. That can't be a good sign. After Mike leaves some messages we go outside and start working on the gutters. In order to finish painting the front of the house we have to take the gutters down. Mike and I both go on top of the roof and start unscrewing the screws. It is much easier and I think safer than being that high on the ladder. Mike taking the gutters off. Once the gutters are removed we see the mess underneath. The old paint and the wood is wet/damp in some areas so we will have to take care of this and make sure it doesn't happen again. I'm glad we found this now. Next we start scraping the old paint from any of the sections where the paint is loose. After it all dries out we will sand it, paint it again, and re install the gutters. Now we need a lot of dry days to get this done. Here I am with a razor in one hand and sandpaper in the other getting it ready for paint. 7-24 It was supposed to be a hot sunny day but it doesn't look so good. We need the house to get really dry before we can paint. While we are waiting Mike, Niki, and I take a walk up to the garden. My little gardens are doing well. We look over to the ditch line and guess who was in the curlex in the ditches? You got it, the cows. They are so noisy. We will have to go down there and put in some more staples before they tear it off the hill. Since we can't paint yet we do some paperwork, yuk. Then we go to David's to pick up more curlex and staples. After we get back home Mike gets the ladder out and starts painting the very top of the house. I went outside to see what he was doing and not a minute later the whole ladder slipped down the side of the house with Mike going all the way to the ground still holding a can of paint. As I'm yelling "are you ok" he finally answers that he is fine. It took him a few minutes to take stock of the situation and make sure he was functioning. Thankfully he is fine but he is really making me nervous this year. Maybe that's why my gray hairs are coming in quicker. It made him a little unsure of the ladder but he got back on and painted 1/3 of the house while I held the ladder. He's a little sore now so he finishes up for the day. 7-25 It's supposed to be a beautiful day so it should be a good day to get the painting done. Since the gutters are off the house we have some morning dew dripping down from the roof onto the front of the house. We will have to wait for the sun to come out and cook it a little. Finally we can start painting. Mike is back up on the ladder painting the highest part. While I paint the lower part. We get the first coat on and we would have finished the second coat but we got a call about the other property. We have to put everything away and meet a couple there. By the time we get back to the house it is too late to finish the painting. Too bad it was a great day to paint. Lisa