Now that it's gotten cooler I can't seem to get my ass in gear

I've made a little bit of progress on the yard but in reality it doesn't seem like much at all.I just can't seem to get outside and get anything done.

The last time I posted , my wife and I had  cleared and roughed out the path for the new walkway. I mixed two bags of quikrete in the wheelbarrow and we poured the star part of our LONE STAR ornament and the rest of the mud went into the first form for the walkway.

I wrote up an earlier page which featured this but I was persuaded to delete it because I was upset about the election results and it unfortunately spilled over into the blog. I have now calmed down enough to make another attempt , but I'm still an unhappy guy.

 While trying to rein  in myself I decided to burn off some of my negative energy by making a supply run. It's amazing how loading , transporting , and unloading a half ton of bags of quikrete ( did I mention my "truck" for this is a Chevy Malibu ? ) can cool you out. Unfortunately , it can also take a bit out of you . While examining my Lone Star I somehow lost my balance and while trying not to fall , stepped squarely in the center of my concrete star. Which snapped off all 5 points . We were not amused.

While all of this has been going on outside , the inside of the house is complete chaos as we have all the carpet removed and laminate floors installed.

We removed all the furniture from two bedrooms and the living room and removed everything from the walls because we were afraid all the pounding from the installation of the new floors could cause stuff to fall. After just over two weeks of this ( everything coated with a thick layer of dust ) we are almost ready to clean everything and put everything back.

After removing the now "dead" star I decided to remove everything from my " star pit so as to rethink it. If only inspiration had struck. Instead , I mixed up some mud in the wheelbarrow and dumped it into the pit , thinking I could insert my star form while it was still wet. This proved to be not so much a good idea.

This is what I have now. Those who have seen it so far have been very solicitous and advised me to move ahead with it " as is ". One person said it had " a certain homemade cachet about it "  , and another said " you want it to look homemade and not exactly perfect " . I would have to say those were very polite ways of saying " better luck next time " , but I'm going to run with it as is . Still uncertain as to the final form of it  , other than that the star will be filled in another three inches with concrete and the area around the star but inside the border tiles will be most likely be some combination of red lava rock and white marble chips. Who knows ? I know I don't. 

I'm hoping this week to remove the grass and weeds from the area between the new walk path and the house , spread the newspaper to keep the weeds down ( I am almost amazed that to date I have only had ONE weed in the other side of the yard ) and maybe get some plants in the ground before I spread some marble and pour some more sections of the path.

with Twila as helper

I have been relaxing and enjoying my retirement , but , there is work to do. My lovely wife Twila told me she wanted to work outside yesterday to enjoy the nice weather , get some fresh air , and to add some input ( and oversight / supervision ) to my yard work efforts. So , out came the shovel , rake , and wheelbarrow . Several hours later , we had what seems to be a definite plan for the new front walkway and progress on my second concrete creation , a Lone Star.

Since I am using a Chevy Malibu to haul my materials it might be a while before all the concrete work is done . Still debating the possibility of edging the new walk with stone to match the sidewalk . Lots more digging if I decide to go that way but it's the expense and the look that will decide it for me , not the amount of time or effort it would take to accomplish. 

The inside of the house is a total wreck right now as a crew showed up on Friday to remove all the carpets and underlying padding in preparation for installation of new flooring.Everything cleared out of two bedrooms and the living room and all of it stowed and stuffed into the remaining bedroom , kitchen , and dining room. And from the carpet removal , everything in the entire house is now coated with a layer of dust. Which is part of the reason Twila wanted to work outside.

Part of me is very glad there is a self-limiting factor to how much I can do on any given day determined by how much stuff I can haul home from Lowe's . At 80 pounds per bag , I only bring home a max of 4 bags of concrete per trip which makes two wheelbarrow loads mixed and poured and finished . Ah , restraint.

Actually , I've been thinking about this walkway for so long , I'm really happy to finally be making it a reality. I just hope it turns out well and no serious problems crop up to hamper the work.

It's getting to be much cooler. I had to really get after it to work up much of a sweat . During the last couple of weeks of relative inactivity my weight has wanted to inch back up toward 230. I hope by the time the walk is done I will be back under 225 . I then plan to strip the remaining grass off between the walk and the house , cover all the exposed ground with newspaper to keep down weeds , and then cover with rock like on the other side in front which I completed earlier. Then I'll place the collection of plants I have been gathering and saving to complete the overall work and then I'll be done. Until I decide to put something around the base of the tree which was the reason for all this effort. I think. I also still have to decide how to finish off that star. And the model train layout which is DEFINITELY on hold as the room is full of everything that was in the guest bedroom while the floor is being done. And the shed made out of pallets 

has been receiving some thought but no real work . Yet.

Work to do , work to do indeed.

Here we go again

It has been several days since I have really accomplished anything but I feel the need to publish SOMETHING. The little man in my head is complaining about my lack of progress on my projects but the more rational part of my brain is congratulating me for taking it easy and not pushing things as I am indeed a fat , old man and physical labor really should be contemplated first and pursued in a timely and rational manner. I had a bad scare when I did the concrete work on the Texas outline and really don't care to repeat that , as it was a very vivid and sobering experience.
I put a lot of thought into what I would do in the other "flowerbed " portion of the yard and what I have now is NOT what I had envisioned but in all honesty is not bad for what I could achieve using the materials I had on hand ( and my admittedly limited skills could accomplish ).

I want to "complete " the star by filling it with concrete and surrounding it with either another  , lower , application of concrete or gravel. It came to me after I had constructed the star that my tools on hand were not suited to finishing the points of the stars or the very narrow areas of the surround. I went and bought a very narrow trowel which should prove effective in the smaller areas but am still reluctant to attempt any concrete work without Twila being here to monitor my dumb ass. If nothing else , I plan to start the digging and layout of the new walkway so I will have somewhere to put any excess concrete should I decide or realize that my star needs to be re-configured.

In other news , I have taken 1st place in 2 of the last 3 poker tournaments I have participated in and have renewed confidence in my card playing abilities which had seemed to be in a serious decline. I wish I could find a venue where I could have a weekly bridge or pinochle or even euchre game  but so far nothing has presented itself. Maybe I need to try the local VFW or Senior Center. I haven't ever really considered either of those as places I cared to frequent because I am much too liberal for the very conservative views that are voiced often and very prevalent around here. I have found that having a different point of view is not accepted or tolerated especially when it comes to guns, the bible, and Fox News. I dearly miss playing cards , but mixing with these folks just might not work out for any of us. And playing card games online just isn't the same as sitting around the card table having a sociable evening. Ah , well.

So - a guy is supposed to start replacing our carpeting with wood flooring tomorrow. In order to stay out of his way I guess I will be doing some Polish backhoe work in preparation for making my new walkway. Hopefully I will not hurt or overexert myself and have some new pictures of yard work progress for you when next we meet. Stay tuned.

Where's my dinner ?

No new pictures with this installment , just talk. I have started on a new project but I'm not far enough into it yet to talk about it ( much ) or have pictures , but I hope to produce the pics and the "how I did it " fairly soon . I have decided that the left side of the house in front should feature another Texas symbol  -A Lone Star . For whatever reason I have also decided that the star should be within a ring or circle , both the ring and circle to be made of quikrete like the state outline on the other side in front which was reported on and described in earlier posts to this blog. I was looking for a use for some of the materials I have salvaged from clean-up and the removal of the garden . I was looking at a pile of several dozen 1" thick x 1' squares of red tile when I realized they should make an ideal 5' x 5' surround fro the area of my lone star piece. I plan to dig out the 3' x3' interior of this surround to a depth of about 5" . I can then form the star in the center using hinged plastic edging pieces which used to surround the garden , some of which now are being used to block the gaps under my back fence . I can then place a ring of the edging material I used to make my texas outline around the points of the star in a circle. Using a package of wooden shims as spacers I can then form a second ring around all this  , hopefully with all of this contained tidily within the area of the surround. I then fill the ring inside the two circles and the star with concrete. Unfortunately , two separate structures ,but I couldn't think of a way with the materials at hand to make a unified structure. Maybe you'll get a better idea what I mean when I can show the pics.
My wife is in Pennsylvania for a week , helping out her mom and brother while her mom has cataract surgery. She had the surgery today and I got a blip a little while ago that everything went well and they are all back home now and acting like it was just a trip to the store for a gallon of milk. I can only hope that last is factual. My wife has given me strict instructions not to work too hard while she is away. She must have me confused with some other guy. Working hard has only very rarely been something I would or could do and most certainly not something  I have in mind now. Probably she's referring to the impending concrete work for the lone star piece and the new cobblestone type walkway from the sidewalk in front around the side of the house to the new gate we had put in. I almost had a VERY bad experience when I did the concrete for the texas state shape on the other side of the yard and had the bad luck to have her stop by the house on her lunch break. She found me trying not to black out and very much feeling my age. It was about 15 degrees hotter then than it is now and I was a pale , sweaty mess. Lesson learned. Slow but steady wins the race. I have nothing but time stretching out before me and no deadlines to meet , so a little at a time will get it done eventually. And , by the way , anybody who wants to help can stop by any time and pkitch in. I'll even take your picture and give you a shout out like I did for my daughter when she helped me rake off and cover the first part with newspaper for weed control.
While I am typing all of this I am watching tv with the sound off and every time I look up from this screen I notice again that all the furniture is gone from this room. It is also gone from two bedrooms and closets. and stuffed into the dining room , kitchen , and garage as we are having our 20 some year old rug taken out and replaced with wood flooring by the guy who in several previous instances redid our kitchen , bathrooms and the tile floors now in our entry , dining room , and kitchen. With both my wife and all of the furniture gone I am reminded of my dad living out his last year alone in his room at the nursing home. I don't like it. At all.
Hopefully , the guy I see in the mirror wearing my face will make some progress tomorrow on that star thingy and I'll be able to post some pics. Other than that I guess I just keep breathing in and breathing out and hoping for the best. I sure do miss what'shername.

I don't owe you an explanation but...........

A little hiatus , friends and neighbors. I took a little time off from all the yard activity because of
1) the rain
 2 ) because
3) I haven't really gotten that much done that I could photograph or that I felt was worthy of documentation
4) hey , I'm retired - I don't HAVE to do anything ( Twila said this to me , but I don't think she means it )

Well , of course ,there have been SOME things happening and since it's too dark for pictures right now and I feel like writing this  , I can just blithely prattle on now and then try to produce something of substance tomorrow.
Some of what I've been doing, is trying to clean up around the front and back yards and garage and try to consolidate and catalog all of the various materials I currently have on hand for all of the various projects underway and planned. In anticipation of an upcoming and greatly anticipated visit by my son Jim , his lovely wife Jenna and their little dog Popper ( a rescue Basenji ) who we will be babysitting while they travel on to New Orleans for a few days I have been doing some "patch " work.

When we got the new fences installed , they did a great job of making them level and even. Unfortunately , the ground beneath them is anything but , leaving some impressive gaps that that very inquisitive little dog could all too easily exploit to investigate the neighbors yards which she would most certainly do if allowed to indulge her curiosity.
I had some years ago, after being kicked to the curb by the demise of TELXON ,spent a summer of what I thought was to be my retirement putting in a concrete deterrent to keep our dog SPIKE from digging under the fences to visit the neighbor dogs. I dug out a trench about 1 to 2 inches deep and between 1 1/2 and 2 feet wide just inside the fences ( a LOT of digging ) and then mixed quikrete in a wheelbarrow and poured that into the trench. It made a nice walkway for Spike to "patrol " the perimeter of the yard and kept him from being a nuisance to the neighbors.
Anyway , the new fencing left a gap in some places between it and the ground  , and also between the fence and the walkway. In the wider gaps I was able to install a quantity of brick I had accumulated and for other portions I used plastic edging which had surrounded the garden plot where I hope to someday build a shed using pallets we are currently collecting.

I can't help but think of Clint Eastwood as I talk about this. From several of his movies :
Improvise , adapt ,overcome
Endeavor to persevere
Maximum utilization of available resources
And when it comes to doing the concrete work again - A man has GOT to know his limitations

I know it doesn't sound like much or look like much but it really was quite a bit of work , especially since I had to keep stopping to fix the wheelbarrow. Due to constant flexing ,several bolt heads holding the barrow to the frame had broken through the bottom of the barrow. My solution was to save the tops and bottoms from a can of mushrooms and use them as oversized washers. I also had to remove the tire which had gone flat , allowing the valve stem to retreat into the core of the wheel so that it wasn't accessible for reinflation. The wheel and axle assembly had to be completely removed and the tire taken off the rim and then reseated with the stem available for reinflation. Pumped it back up , reinstalled it ,  and it seems I'm now good to go.
Twila suggested that we could just get a NEW wheelbarrow but I think she appreciates all the effort I put into refurbishing this old workhorse. It has really come in handy over the years and I have a certain sense of pride for being able to fix it. Making that old , rusted , concrete coated hardware eventually bend to my will and determination was a victory of sorts. A small one to be sure. But a victory.

And I think I finally have MOST of a plan for putting a small wall around my big oak in front and what I plan to put into the other side of what was the other flowerbed in front of the house. And of course , the new concrete walkway from the sidewalk to the new gate on the side of the house .

I'm not sure how long things are going to continue to be on hold. Twila will be leaving me ( again ) for about a week to be with her mom and brother in Pennsylvania and we have ( finally ) contracted with Mr. Gary Harmon to tear out our 20 some year old rug(s) and install new flooring in the living room ,hall , and two bedrooms. Mr. Harmon has previously remodeled the kitchen after we had water damage ,installed tile flooring in the entryway ,dining room , and kitchen , remodeled the master bath and replaced the floors in both bathrooms. House by Harmon.

Twila shows you what we did today

Yesterday was such a beautiful day that I mostly just napped outside and enjoyed it. Today was equally beautiful and Twila said we HAD to work outside. So we did. I mounted my plywood Texas that was used to make the form for the rock garden centerpiece in front. We're most likely going to paint or varnish it or something , but for right now I just wanted it on the fence to see how it looked.

I'd say it looks pretty darn good.

Next up was to mount the lattices on the back fence. Twila took a number of pix of me and so... here they are.

So . Texas outline , Texas flag , totems , suns , moons , stars , and frogs. Always on the lookout for things to add . Especially frogs.

Twila wants me to start work on the shed because she's already tired of having all these dirty , nasty , old pallets cluttering up the place. So I think I'll start on the walkway as soon as I fix the wheelbarrow.

We haven't used the grill for quite a while because it's just been so hot , but because it's cooled down to only the low 80's ( low last night was in the 50's !!! ) she thinks we should grill or smoke something tomorrow. I'm thinking about making another bacon wrapped meat loaf and some chicken and sausage so then we'll have meat prepared for the whole week or more. She gets up at about 5:30 every morning so as to be at work before 7. Staying with that schedule ,she has developed the habit of grocery shopping early on Sunday morning . She also likes it because it's not crowded then and they are just stocking fresh produce and bakery items ,etc. Whatever she brings home , that's what we'll do . We always discuss what plans we have and meals we want for the coming week. She makes a list. She has never -to my knowledge - NEVER actually taken one of these lists with her to the store. I would like to be able to say that she has never forgotten anything or failed to bring home what was on the list. Indeed , I would like that very much. Instead I will say " I LOVE YOU , TWILA . " 

 We need to get some STEELER and TEXANS stuff up in here.

just some stuff

I decided to take today off. I am writing this as I sit in my screened in porch at the back of the house , looking at parent and baby birds jockeying for position at the bird feeder and hummingbirds flitting back and forth from my neighbors' tree to my hummingbird feeder. Just watched a squirrel race down the 2x4 at the top of my fence from one side of the back to the other.It sure was in a hurry. Didn't even pause to investigate the lizards sitting up there sunning themselves. But they didn't seem to take any notice of the squirrel either.
It is a beautiful 80 degrees with a light breeze and absolutely clear blue blue blue sky. I would think I had died and gone to heaven but I don't see 72 virgins anywhere in the vicinity , nor pearly gates or streets paved with gold.
Another reason for taking it easy today ( HEY - I cleaned up the kitchen and am doing laundry. Not a TOTAL out-of-work jerk slob ) is that I went to the bar last night to play Texas hold-em( I finished 5th out of 14 players ) and see some friends. There were a couple of folks there that I had worked with at COMPAQ and FOXCONN and we had a drink together in memory of a guy named Jim Baxter . He was my first boss at COMPAQ and we were all part of a gang that would get together after work on Friday and drink at a Mexican restaurant near the campus and then move on to someplace with music and dancing ( and more drinking ). Jim was from Beaver Falls and we hit it off immediately as Pirate / Steeler fans . His birthday was Sept. 29th. He recently passed after battling with leukemia for a number of years . We also had a drink in memory of my parents who are also gone. Their wedding anniversary was yesterday , the 2nd.
Just so the wrong idea doesn't get presented here ,I am also looking around the back and planning on what we're gonna be doing to pretty this place up. Also spent some time this morning at Amazon looking for diy and how-to books for building a shed out of pallets in the corner of the yard currently occupied by the garden which will have to be relocated. Didn't really find what I was looking for but the search will continue.I think this project , unlike the yard work , is too big and structurally complex to just jump in and attempt without some sort of working plan.
The front. Well , I finally got around to leveling it out so I would have a better idea of what I will be working with.

 It's actually going to extend further out into the yard a bit. It won't be worked on until I do the concrete work I am planning which will be a new walkway from the current front sidewalk around the corner of the house to the new gate we had put in. The picture below is the walkway I did several years ago using the same type of form and mixing the concrete in my wheelbarrow.

I cleaned up the yard debris that had accumulated on the walkway I made just inside the fence perimeter as a deterrent to our dog digging under the fences to get to the neighbor dogs. When they were in heat he was a digging fool even though he had been fixed. Guess he didn't care if he was shooting blanks , he wanted what he wanted.

I was considering making a walkway out of pallets from the gate to the site of the shed-to-be but the dimensions of the alley here at the side of the house don't quite mesh with the pallet dimensions Yet another thing to think about. Maybe just extend the new walkway and merge it to the old one.

I'm now down to a weight of 220 and feeling pretty good. I've noticed that my clothes are feeling a bit looser so I guess that's a good thing too.

Well , the dryer is buzzing at me so I guess I'll wrap this up for now , and just keep on keeping on.

I talked to my daughter and she says she tried to comment but the site wouldn't accept it. Have to see about that as I would surely appreciate some feedback from anyone actually checking up on me and this blog.

Later.

More random thoughts

For a variety of reasons I've decided to post even though for the same variety of reasons nothing much has been accomplished on the home improvement front. It's still pretty warm in these parts and I'm still not fully recovered from my cold ( I HATE colds ) . Working up a good sweat is one thing but having to cough , hawk , spit , and blow your nose every few minutes puts a serious crimp in getting anything prolonged or meaningful accomplished. It also doesn't help that the mosquito population has EXPLODED due to all the recent rain.
Still haven't come up with a design idea or plan for the 2nd part of the front yard revamp. I still think I should make a walkway of some sort from where the walk bends in front and then around the side of the house to our new gate that was installed when the new fence went up. Bought a plastic form like what I used once before to make a walkway in back , and a number of bags of quikrete to mix in the wheelbarrow. Part of what has me dragging my feet is remembering how difficult the concrete work was when I made the concrete  Texas and almost giving in to heatstroke. Don't think I'll do any more of that strenuous stuff unless Twila is nearby to check on me and maybe offer suggestions about how this part will go. I really WANT to get moving on this because I have so many more plans piling up in my head . A pallet boardwalk along the side of the house from the gate to the new shed I hope to construct out of used pallets where the garden is now , moving the garden to along the back fence , which will entail putting all the plants now in the garden into pots until the new garden is ready for them and digging up all the current garden soil into old trash cans for safekeeping until the new plot is ready. Work to do , work to do.
I'm getting to the point where I'm just gonna get after it , and whatever happens , happens. It's not like I can't change it if an idea occurs to me.
I've also been thinking about putting a low wall of some sort around the big oak in front and then filling that " moat " with some red lava rock. I've been looking around the subdivision at what others have done ,and by far the most common effort has been to build a circle of stones 2 high , fill the space with dirt and mulch and plant shade tolerant showy , leafy things. Twila insists that we not plant in this space as she believes neither the tree nor the plants thrive in that type of proximity. I'm thinking about making a small triangle ( just to be different ) out of a few cinder block I have and facing the thing with the red clay tiles currently surrounding the garden. Definitely different IF I can make it work.
Anybody wants to stop by to pitch in or just take a look at what's going on or discuss what COULD happen next - please feel free. Beer and wine available upon request.

I've mentioned before that some of my best ideas have come to me in my dreams. As a truly random thought , in my dream last night I stumbled upon what I thought was a remarkable item. When I was in the Navy from 66 to 72 I spent almost 3 years ( 68 to 71 ) as an electronics technician working in a program called DASH which stands for Dr one Anti-Submarine Helicopter . Yep. I worked on a drone aircraft more than 45 years ago , WAY before it became a cool thing. If I can figure out how to make it happen I'll try to post a picture or two  , which might also show what I looked like back in the day.

Did I mention that my wife left me recently ? For another woman ? I am thrilled beyond words that she has returned from spending this past weekend with our daughter in Boston , who today celebrated her 29th birthday.

random thought

No outside work at all this week. A lot of thinking and planning but no actual improvement to anything. There are quite a number of factors that come into play for such a disappointing week. In no particular order or position of importance , here are the facts. First , somehow last Sunday night I started with chills and coughing and sneezing ,etc. As of Monday , it was a full blown , raging head cold. I hate having a cold. If even half of my body could work as well as my mucus glands I would be a superhero with my own action figure doll and comic book. I'd probably even be able to stand up straight.
The next impediment was a wide ranging humdinger of a storm named Hurricane Odile. After ravaging Baja and the Gulf of California it became a massive area of disturbed weather which flooded a good deal of Arizona , New Mexico and far west Texas and absolutely drenched the rest of Texas. We managed a total of almost 10" of rain in the last 4 days which caused any number of flash floods and flooded streets with all the attendant havoc such events foster. Luckily , we just had lots of wet here which made driving miserable , but since I was sick and not going anywhere it didn't matter much to me at all. EXCEPT - all that wet allowed the mosquito population to grow almost exponentially. I've spent a lot of my down time trying to work out what work would come next and how I would go about it but i'm not going to set myself up as a bug buffet. It's still just a little too warm for long pants and sleeves so it might be a little while before I start any of the strenuous stuff that comes next.

Just to kind of rough out my plans I know I need to do something worthwhile with the other side of the front yard. I have a stock of plants and some stone but the overall form things will eventually become continues to elude me. The plans for the boundary of that area however have begun to take shape ( in my mind anyway).

From the first picture in the series above I hope to extend the sidewalk in some form to the corner of the house and then through the ( new ) gate and down the alley beside the house to the site of what is now the garden . We were planning to move the garden anyway because the tree has grown enough to shade most of it most of the day. We hope to relocate the garden to the opposite end of the back yard and on the current garden site , construct a workshed out of used pallets and reclaimed lumber from other pallets.

In total , this is more than a little bit of work and I hope to be able to continue to chronicle all of it to completion. Although , at the rate we are coming up with new ideas and activities , I wonder which will arrive first - lack of ideas or lack of time / money /physical capability.

Phase 1 - c'est fini

For those of who either came in late or would rather not revisit earlier postings , here is what I started with when i began this yard art project.
And here is what I have accomplished so far :

For now , I plan to allow this to just be what it is. The plants all seem to be doing well and I like the idea of showcasing a portion of my frog collection. Some of the frogs will probably be migrated to the next phase which is the plot in front of the house on the other side of the sidewalk. Already have several pieces and a group of plants selected for incorporation into Phase 2.

Some of you might be wondering " why frogs ? " , and/or " where did they come from " ? It started a very long time ago when one of my father's younger brothers ( known as "X" ) was wondering what to give me for xmas. A female acquaintance was dabbling in ceramics and to help support her he had acquired the large frog which can just barely be seen in the far , upper left corner of the yard/picture. When it was presented to me , he said he wasn't sure how I would feel about it. I told him I thought it was great , and that I might start collecting others to keep it company. Luckily , when I was first dating my wife and presented her with various froggy gifts ( pins ,pendants , earrings , planters ,etc. ) she thought they were cute and even at times has encouraged me in the purchase of additions to the collection. Frog phone , frog lamp , frog cookie jar , frog pictures , doorstop , planters , candle holders , and so on in many different sizes , and materials. The smaller ones are in several display cases and many others are scattered as decoration throughout the house. My kids had frog toys when they were growing up and their housewarming gifts included frogs which they assure me have pride of place in their homes.

We really haven't come to a consensus yet on what to do with the other side of the front yard and I don't want to invest any sweat equity in it until we have a clearer idea of where we're going with it .Lots of other things to do while we think about it. My daughter's new coffee table made from the wood from used produce crates has sparked an idea. Our sycamore tree in the back yard has grown to a point where it overshadows a large portion of our current garden plot. We are considering relocating the garden to a less shaded portion of the back yard and using the present garden site as a space for the creation of a covered work shed type area which would be constructed using wood from used pallets. There are construction ideas galore for projects like this all over the internet - my wife showed me several THOUSAND ideas on just one site ( PINTEREST ).

As the url for this blog suggests : work to do , work to do. No one needs to fret that retirement will find me depressed because of feeling useless. What you DO need to worry about is hammer damage or strain from overuse of my Polish backhoe.

a fat old man should know better

I don't know what exactly prompted me to believe that I was still young enough and strong enough and capable enough to : 1st -mix several bags of concrete in a wheelbarrow , 2nd - get that concrete into my slightly misshapen form , 3rd - put a decent finish on all that mud.
Well - it is what it is and once I started it was too late to turn back . I'm not TOO disappointed in the finished product but neither am I satisfied with the way it turned out. It was just too much effort in too much heat for a fat old man who cannot get to things on the ground as well as he needs to for projects like this.
Learn to live with it. I plan to.
All that remains for this part of the yard is to remove the " form " and backfill around the concrete. As of this evening , none of the plants Twila and I put in have withered or died ( as far as I can tell ) so at least that part seems to have gone reasonably well. I hope all that newspaper my daughter and I put down acts as effectively as weed control as it SHOULD. Finished product picture coming soon.
The wife and I are still discussing various different plans for the other side of the yard . I have nothing definite in mind . I thought about incorporating a STEELER logo in different colored rocks and was informed in several different firmly but nicely expressed ways " do you really think that's such a good idea ? " which was wife code for " oh HELL no . She has stated a preference for something free form and colorful using either red or black lava rock and the marble chips or perhaps large black rounded mexican beach pebbles and the marble or some other abstract but colorful formations. Best I can say right now is that the jury is still out and it remains to be seen what shall be.
My lovely daughter Hallie shown here with my awesome wife Twila says she was inspired by my project to

create something of her own. A coffee table made out of used produce crates surrounding a small rock garden :

This prompted Twila to search PINTEREST for projects involving the creation of things ranging from boardwalks to wine racks to bookcases and tables using wood from deconstructed used pallets. I sense a series of projects stretching into the future after we have completed all the yard and fence art projects currently either underway or being actively prepared for. 

While grappling with the frustration of trying to transfer pictures from my phone and Twila's phone into this blog I came across something I wanted to share. A meatloaf .But not just ANY meatloaf. This one used shredded potato instead of bread and was wrapped with bacon. And SMOKED.

Smoked , bacon wrapped , and absolutely , utterly delicious.

almost done part one

Several hot , muggy , rainy days have gone by since my last update. Twila and I made a run to for more materials and we are ready to put in the last of the plants for this first area. It is really starting to look like a real ( almost ) finished project and I now have only the concrete Texas to complete to do to finish the first part and it actually looks pretty good ( if all the plants actually take hold and start to fill it in.

First part today was unloading all supplies from our last trip to Lowes.They are starting to really love us there. Then took my file and sharpened the shovel and the trowels. Even with all the recent rain , the clay is still not that easy to work through

Then we started putting smaller succulents along the edge. Hard to see in the pictures ,but they are there.

Moved a lot of the removed material from the rock garden and relocated it around the tree which prompted all this effort by killing all our plantings .

Next work area . May in fact start on this before doing the concrete. Kinda depends on the weather.

Still trying to decide if I will blade off the sod and relocate it or just cover it all with newspaper and let it die . Stripping it off is really a pain , but I have a large bare area on the side of the house where it MIGHT take root if I first spread a layer of mixed garden soil and sand and then put pieces of the stripped off sod on top and water it good.

I'm starting to really feel comfortable about being retired. I have to admit it is really nice being able to just roll over and go back to sleep when Twila kisses me and leaves for work at 6:30. I get up (eventually ) and take a shower and make some kind of breakfast - sometimes full blown , sometimes just a banana or a bagel. And then sometimes I either just spend a while reading the paper or SOMETIMES I take a nap. SWEET .

This has been a tough week to deal with emotionally. It's the anniversary of my father passing away and I got a text from a friend in California telling me my first boss when I went to work at COMPAQ had passed away after a long bout with leukemia. He went through chemo and radiation treatment and within the last year he underwent a bone marrow transplant which just didn't fix the problem.

Neither of my parents ever could be persuaded to learn how to use a computer and it is highly doubtful that either of them would have ever attempted to read this blog or my son's blog ( jacobswellproject.blogspot.com ) about the projects we are undertaking. I truly believe they would have enjoyed seeing the pictures of our efforts and would have been proud of what we were doing and what we were trying to achieve. My mom especially felt I got a raw deal because I was born almost 2 months premature  because of the effects on her of the DONORA SMOG of October 1948 ( I was born that December ) . I wasn't expected to live because of how small and  - let's say "unformed " - I was at birth. All the way up through high school I was one of the smallest in my class , and suffered from respiratory problems , allergies , bouts of pneumonia , and chronic ear and nasal infections. When I finally hit my twenties I started to attain my full growth and stature . Then an inherent arthritic condition , a form of rheumatoid arthritis ( ankylosing spondylitis ) , flat out began to kick my ass. In it's initial assault on my system I had severe back pain and muscle spasms and neck pain due to the growth of spurs on my cervical vertebrae. To put it simply , I developed severe scoliosis as my spine and all attendant structures calcified from hips to head and everything was reshaped as my back muscles pulled things one way or another. An x-ray of my spine taken during my physical exam for disability had the appearance of a river road ,twisting back and forth. I went from 6'1"to my present almost 5'9" , although , since I can't stand upright , that's like as close a guess as can be made to my actual height. Although the chronic pain has subsided , I still am fairly limited in my physical activity and capability. I do my best to take meds as seldom as possible , but muscle relaxers and Ibuprofen are sometimes welcome additions to my diet.

All of this is to say , as long as I don't over exert myself or try to " reach beyond my grasp " I am capable of doing things my parents might have believed were beyond me . It's taken me a long time and sometimes been a very rough , tough ride to get here. But I'm not done yet , and I believe they would have both appreciated that and urged me to keep moving ahead. I hope they would have enjoyed seeing me through this.