Chapter 80...Baby Geese And More Work

Off Grid...Chapter 80 7-14 It another fun filled day for Mike and I. We both have an appointment with our Doctor for check ups. We meet with her and then run some errands. After we get back home we start to paint the second and final coat on the back of the house. Mike and I paint it together and we get it done really fast. Here is Mike painting with the little supervisor. The back of the house is completely done. I like this color so much better than the old color. The man from the paving company finally shows up after 2 weeks to give an estimate. I'm sure this estimate will be extremely high. Oh I can't wait for that, lol. After he leaves I call the Statuary and talk to the owner about our table bench bases. He says they have other bench bases that are 2" higher but they are very plain. I ask him if we can exchange our "too" short legs for the correct ones. He says no problem. So now Mike and I have to travel about 3 hours to fix a mistake that should have never happened in the first place. Just another example of how some businesses and people are today. No pride. 7-15 First thing this morning Mike says we should paint the front of the house. Sounds like a plan! We get out the ladders, the paint supplies and get started. Woo hoo. Mike gets on the ladder and starts painting the upper part of the house. I work on painting the lower portion. This is going to look so much nicer but it will be hotter. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. The first coat is on the front of the house except for the very top by the gutters. Yay we beat the rain. The next part will be harder. We have to take the gutters down, paint the house once, let it dry and put the painted gutters back on the house. This will take some time and we will need at least 2-3 days in a row of hot sunny weather. Good luck with that, lol. After we clean up from painting we load up the table legs into the Jeep and head out. On our way we stop at the Mayor's office in town. We picked up the septic approval for our back property that is for sale. Wonder of wonders the woman running the office wasn't there when she was supposed to be and we had to wait for her to get back from lunch. So much for posted hours. Anyway we got the approval so that's what counts. Next we made the long and windy drive and exchanged out table bench legs. On our way home we stopped at our Doctor's office to get our lab results. Oh oh the Doctor wants to see both of us. Thankfully it is nothing bad just a couple of changes we both need to make. Then we stopped at the other property so Mike could see what parts we need for the motorhome. While we were there I saw the mama goose and her babies. I tried to get a good shot but they were spooked. and Ah- finally we get back home. Mike loads all 6 posts into the tractor and brings them down to the patio. From there we carry them over to the table. There are some rough high parts of concrete sticking out from when the statuary formed them. Mike gets the grinder out to fix it. Now the bench posts are flat on top and we put the bench tops on. Finally our table is in place with the correct bench legs. The rain held off all day but it looks like a storm is coming in. 7-16 It rained all night and everything is wet. Mike and I drive to Lowe's to see is we can find the parts for the motorhome. 7-17 It rained really hard last night. The lawns and my gardens are loving it. at least for now, but we are at a standstill with all the painting. Part of the walkway next to the house got washed out from all of the rain. It will be really nice when that is paved and has curbs. Mike had to take the tractor and fix the washout. We drove down the driveway to check the culverts. They are both clear but we do have a lot of back up mud in front of the small dams we made. Those will eventually have to be dug out. They are doing the job though. The little dams are keeping all of that mud out of the culverts. Soon we will have to call Jimmy so he can dig out the dams and bring us more rock to fill the ditches. Oh how I dread that job. Mike likes working with the rocks me not so much, lol. Mike did a couple of oddball jobs. He raised the drain at the back of our house. Here is a picture of the back starting to look neat and clean. With all of this rain, our clover on the side of the house is starting to come in. I hope you all enjoyed another quickie update in the Mike and Lisa world. Lisa

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