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

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