Dirt and Columns

Heya Everyone!!

How's the heat going? We are in the low triple digits still with a heat index between 110 & 112. We even had a major heat advisory issued for us this morning!

Today was also a sucky day to be doing what my father and I did today - dirt moving.

If you remember, about this time last year we had our sewer line re-done and hocked up to the city sewer. Since then we have had a large pile of dirt, and a few other little piles we hadn't gotten to, in the west yard. Today we worked on them.

Yes, we are nut - doing this type of work on a day like this. At least we started fairly early and were finished about noon.

My father drove the tractor and I used the hoe, rake and shovel to help level as well as cleaned the junk debris that was in the dirt.

For those of you who know me I'm a HUGE history buff. One of my favorite periods to study is Ancient Mesopotamia - specifically Sumeria and Assyria. I also enjoy studying about Ancient Egypt as well as Rome.

Today however my mind drifted to Sumerian farmers. Perhaps it was the heat and the dirt but my mind kept going back to them.

While playing in the dirt, with the heat beating down, I couldn't help but think of those ancient farmers toiling in the dirt in one of the most harsh areas of the world.

My father worked in the tobacco fields and cotton fields of Georgia when he was a kid in the '30s and '40s. The method of farming they used was not much different than what the Sumerians used. Dad even remembers using mules to pull the plows.

And here we are today with air-conditioned tractors and combines!!

Anyway, here are the pictures for you.

This is dad with his 50s tractor and yes, that is the original high-loader.

The pile that was left over from the sewer main hook-up is almost gone.

And here he is taking care of the scar from when we tried to fix the septic system a few years ago.




Now that we have given the sewer trench almost a year to settle we can fill the depression with the dirt.


Here's where the new line connected to the house.

To the right, and the biggest reason for smoothing the dirt here, is where a landscaping experiment took place. Let's just say it's better we not talk about it.

Looking West along the new sewer line trench.








Looking South along the line of the original septic system repair.






And here is the area where the contractor removed the last of the foundation from the building we had to tear down.


Now we have nice, flat, spots. It will make mowing a lot easier!!

As an afternoon project I tackled something interesting - a porch column.

Remember a couple of posts back when I said we needed to plan in case the porch could not be re-done next Summer? Well, I spruced up one of the columns so SWMBO would get an idea of what I want to do.

The new columns will be similar to the experimental one and will give us an idea of the 'over all' look.

This is one of the columns as they are now.

Not to whoopee looking is it? At least this is one of the 'better' ones.












Here is the new, enhanced version.

It is missing the quarter round for the base as well as the crown-moulding for the top. I thought I had a stick of quarter round but was mistaken and the crown-moulding will be attached the closer we get to painting (I don't want to scrape around it).

Hopefully you all think it looks 'okay', I think SWMBO is not too sure. She thinks the top doesn't look quit right but it will look better once the moulding is attached. All-in-all it looks better than what's on the porch now!

Base close up - not yet finished.










And the top.

I do need to add a second, support piece, for the crown-moulding, but this will have to wait till I'm done scraping.

Well, that's about it for today.

Let me know what you think of the column.

Till next time...

Cheers!
Larry ~

Blast from the Past #5

With all the talk, in the previous post, about the foundation wall of the old outbuilding I though I'd do another 'Blast from the Past' post. This one will be about that nasty outbuilding.

I don't even know were, or how, to begin to describe this building. Have you ever seen the movie 'Ghost Ship' or 'Raise the Titanic'? You know how the interiors were on these ships (?) - filled with rotting crap and the whole thing was wet and gooey? Well, that's what it was like in the building. There were also cobwebs everywhere.

No one wanted to go inside. Even during the auction people just sort of looked in the door (you could barely open it) and backed away.

You wouldn't believe the junk stored in this thing. Mounds and mounds of rotting, gooey, crap stacked to the rafters. To give you an idea there were dozens and dozens of those Styrofoam mashed-potato containers from KFC. There were also dozens of bags (large dog food type) of corn cobs (just the cobs). There was no rhyme or reason fo keep any of this.

Now, in order to get rid of the building, everything that could not be burned had to be removed. This took about a week to do. We had to were masks, gloves, old clothes and such just to keep from getting the gooey slime off of us. When we were finished we even burned the stuff we wore.

With all this done the building could finally come down.

BTW - the pictures were taken May 25th 2001.

This is the back of the building. See the mold growing up the side?!

Right now the backhoe is moving some cast iron door parts to get them out of the way. We have no idea where these cast iron lentils and columns came from but think they might have come from an old building in town that blew up in the 40s.

The guy who tore it down for us is an old family friend. The skinny guy is his youngest kid.

If you look right behind me you can see the beginnings of our current burn pit. At this time we had a larger one about 30' to the rear of where the camera was to get this pic.

These are the two top lintels.

Look at the left end of the one on the ground. That black smudgy area is the edge of the old burn pit.

To get the party started, the building was whacked.

This was done to test how stable the building was...it wasn't.

The walls were nothing but chicken-wire with adobe plaster on one side and tar-paper on the other.

The east end of the building caved in.

There was a large, meat-locker type door here on rollers. I guess this is where the large stuff was brought in. The door itself is the slab you can see at the base of the tree. It's about 3" thick and covered in metal.

The part that is still standing, to the left of the picture, is the greenhouse type porch added to the front of the building. I'm still kicking myself for not getting pictures of it.

2/3rds of the building is now smashed. The part that's left is the west end.





Okay, this picture should have been before the previous one. This is the halfway point.




Here's an 'okay' shot of the greenhouse porch that was on the front.






The organ on the trailer is a Halloween prop I was getting ready to move out of the way.

Geeze...you'd think I could have organized these pictures better!

After the building was down, and most of it gone, Lacey (our 1st Papillon dog) and Spartacus the cat, were going nuts around this little pile of debris.

We had no clue what they were all excited over, but after about 30 minutes or so I went over to check it out.

They seemed really interested in the slab of adobe plaster (at the 45 degree angle in the picture). So I decided to help them out and flipped it over for them.

Here is what we found.

Do you see it?!

It's the only living one we have found since living here.

BTW - the slab it's next to is the meat-locker door.

Well, till next time...

Cheers!
Larry ~

It is done - the sewer that is!!

YES!!! Finally - something around here is 100% done!!!

WOOWHO!!!

Time to partay!!

The sewer is done!!!

The contractor showed up this afternoon to finish the job and here is photographic proof!!

After about two whacks with the backhoe bucket the top of the septic tank disintegrated and reveled the original tank.

Remember the second picture here?

Well, take a look...that is exactly what we have here. However, there are a couple of differences. Instead of a stretcher bond, like in the drawing, our septic tank is bed/bottom face bond. There might have been cement holding the bricks together at some time, but there there really was no trace of it. Also, each brick is the standard common type with the three holes in it. The holes were left open to help with filtering.

Look how deep down the bucket goes - and it's actually on the way up!

He was able to shove the bucket all the way down without hitting a bottom.

You can see the bricks better here and if you look real close you can see the holes.






This is the original pipe coming from the house.

What's really weird is there was a little water still coming out!! All we can figure is that the original pipe has so many holes and cracks that the ground water was seeping in and flowing into the tank. So, this helps explain why the tank was filling so fast - especially with all the rain these past three years.

The replacement pipe that was actually connected to the house (we think it was installed sometime in the 50s or 60s) was about two feet above this one.

Okay, the next few pictures will take some explaining.

Way back when we first got the house there was an icky outbuilding that had to come out. Due to all the trees, and debris, the guy who tore it down for us was not able to get all the foundation out.

So, for all these years we have had a small foundation wall over by the burn pit.

We decided to ask the sewer contractor if he would remove it for us and the cement could be used to fill the septic tank. He said "sure". The following pictures are of the removal.

Here's the little wall.

It is about 20' long. On this side of the bucket is a small bush; there's about 5' of wall on the other side. On the right hand side of the picture you can see a Catalpa tree sapling. There's about 3' more wall on the right side of the picture.

I was hoping this could be done without damaging either plant, but wasn't sure if this was possible.

So far so good...












Most of the wall is now out.

Along with it were several more bricks!





The interesting part was watching the contractor pick-up the pieces of cement with the bucket as if using a spoon.

All the cement is now gone AND the bush and tree were unharmed!

The Catalpa tree will stay where it's at in order to replace the one close to it that's getting really old. The bush will be moved either this Fall or next Spring.







This last picture is of a bone.

It's only about 3" long and so old it has yellowed.

The interesting part about this bone is that it came flying out of the ground when a piece of the foundation was removed, at the end of the run, by the Catalpa tree.

I have no idea how the contractor saw this thing from his viewpoint, but he stopped what he was doing and came to have a look at it. He asked me if that was all the cement and I said "yes". He looked at the bone again and said "this might be a good spot to stop at".

We doubt it's human (probably a soup bone), but it was under the cement. Neither of us wanted to find out if there were more bones. With all the stories about this place that's all we would need, the County CSI unit poking around.

Well, till next time...

Cheers!
Larry ~

Two Down - One to Go

Hello again everyone!

Well, two down - one to go!

I've now applied two skim coats of plaster and have sanded them down. If all goes well, tomorrow I will be applying the last coat (keep your fingers crossed).

There really isn't much to show in the way of pics, but here are a few non the less.

I'm not sure why the pics are a little fuzzy. The only thing I can think of is the plaster dust still in the air.

As some of you know, it can take 2 to 3 skim coats to get a final finish. The first two are fillers and the third is the top coat (from what I've read).

If you look real hard you can see some spots on the wall. These are the last of the 'high' spots.

So, the last coat should take care of them. There are still waves in the wall, just like there were in the beginning, but they are smoothing out.

This wall has the worse 'bump'. It is not as noticeable if the back door is open, but if you run your hand across it it's very noticeable.

I will be doing some touch up on this spot later tonight.








Oh yeah, for those of you who have noticed that the ceiling hasn't been touched, that is the next thing on the list. I hate plastering/mudding ceilings - I just can't seem to get them right. Hopefully this skim coat method will take care of it.

I'm throwing this pic in just for the fun of it.

I was on top of the ladder and never got a shot from this angle.


For those of you who relish in my trials and tribulations, nothing much happened except one thing.

The shop vac I use when sanding the plaster fell over and popped open! Dust went everywhere!! It took me longer to clean up the mess (if that's what you want to call it) than it took to do what I did today!

I will probably not post any more pics of the kitchen walls until they are ready for priming, so it might be a while.

Also, I will not be able to complete all the wall sections, or ceiling for that matter, until after the new floor to ceiling hutch is in place. I know I'm going to screw something up either taking it out or putting it in so I just don't see the sense in finishing those parts till later.

I also thought I'd throw in a few pics of the yard now that the grass, or should I say weeds, are greening up and the trees and bushes are leafing out.

Remember this pic from the fall?

At this time of the year it's easy to see the house.




Take a look at it now.....

Within about two more weeks it will be hard to see the house from any angle except from the very front.



The rest are just some general pics from around the yard.

This is the only spot in the yard that we can not get any grass, and that includes weeds, to grow.




We are still trying to come up with a plan for it.

Here's a view of the woodshop and burn pit area.









Everyone who comes over loves to congregate here. Just don't look too close, I haven't finished mowing yet.

This last view of the yard is perhaps my favorite. It is the main view that's seen when doing anything in the kitchen.



It is very lush and filled with about a dozen different varieties of trees and shrubs.

Last but not least I will leave you with this final pic.

I think it sums my day up quite nicely.











Well, I'll leave you all alone now. I need to go batten down the hatches. There have been reports all day about the potential for a massive, tornado producing storm for our area tonight.

After what happened to Greensburg, this time last year, the weather people just aren't going to take any chances. One of the stations is even going to have a special on tonight about how to survive durring a tornado The promo reminded me of the old nuclear bomb warning commercials from the 50s.

Till next time....

Cheers!
Larry ~

%&^%#&($^@^%)

I think the title says it all.

There is an old Mexican proverb, I can't remember exactly how it goes but it's something like this:

"Life is like a water fountain. For every cup of happiness you draw you also draw a cup of sorrow."

Well guess what, the past couple of days I got a couple cups of happiness - remember the blooming Crocus and the wood replacement board? Well last night and today I got my cups of sorrow.

Here's the back-story.

About a year and a half ago we put in a new, state-of-the-art septic infiltration system. I can not recommend this system highly enough! Any one needing to put in, or replace, a lateral septic field needs to go with this system. It's from Infiltrator Systems Inc (listed in the links section).

This is basically what it looks like. You can see it better if you go to their web site.















This side view shows you how ours is installed.

We did not need to go with a double application, like in the above picture, but we did install one chamber more than we needed - just in case.

This is the scar left behind. It isn't all that bad and will be smoothed out this year (the guy who installed it suggests we leave the scare alone for at least a year).

The best part is that it only took about 1 hour to dig the trench; one hour to lay and assemble the chambers and connecting pipe; and about 20 minutes to backfill.

In the middle of this pic you can see a muddy patch with a clump of leaves in the center.

Early evening yesterday I walked past the spot and noticed a 'funky' smell. I turned around and coming from this spot was a little spring of dirty water.

%&^%#&($^@^%)

So I checked the site for trouble shooting and new it couldn't be the septic tank its self. But there in the literature was a statement about drought conditions and lots of rain. So, we think that all the rain we had last summer and fall, plus all the snow this winter, has caused chamber system shifted and knock the connection pipe out of kilter.

The strongest evidence to this is the fact that the little spring is right above the pipe’s location, not above the chambers or tank.

So, guess what I get to do tomorrow!!

To top it off I will leave you with this pic - the first blooming WEED of the year.

Isn't it nice....




AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!


We have so many friends, and family, ask why we do not apply weed killer to the yard. If we did this we would have no yard! Right now, green is green. When the weeds are mowed they look nice too. Besides, the grass is making a comeback in some spots.

We just figure "why redo the lawn at this point when there is still so much landscaping to do".

Oh well...I guess I've got my two cups of sorrow. The next cup should be happiness.

Cheers!
Larry ~

Spring has sprung!

Spring is finally here!!

The past couple of days the weather has been in the 70's and beautiful. I have even been wearing shorts!!

Sure makes it hard to stay inside and work on the house though.

The first sign of spring around out house is the blooming of the Crocus.

For the first few years of living here we might be able to enjoy this little flower for a day or two. Our youngest niece would see and immediately pick all the blooms.

Now that she is older we are able to enjoy them for the entire time they are in bloom.

The only bad thing about this little Crocus plant is that it's the only one on the property.

We have no idea how old it is, but it has bloomed each and every year so far.

I know you can’t see the single bee in the pic, but you can see the opening to the hive.

Last year we found out that we have a colony of honeybees living in the old Catalpa tree in the west lawn. We had debated about cutting this tree down because the top died out, but it still leafs out every year. Now that honeybees have moved in it will stay put.

BTW - we discovered the colony last year while working in the yard. I happened to walk past the tree and heard a subtle 'humming' sound. I looked up and saw thousands - and I do mean THOUSANDS - of bees all over the tree around that opening. We had several people over to have a look, but never even though to get a pic! I will this year though.

Cheers!
Larry ~

Cement, Bricks, and Crap Oh My!

Believe it or not, once I was finished with the front walk (as far as I was going to go anyway) I decided to round up all the small piles of junk cement, bricks and crap from around the yard. Throughout the late summer and fall I had been making little piles of this stuff with the intention of getting rid of them this spring.

Whenever it rains, or I do some yard work, this stuff comes to light. One of the running jokes in the family is that you can't stick a shovel anywhere in the yard without hitting cement, rocks, or bricks. It is frustrating, but it gives further proof that the yard had been landscaped sometime in the 10s 0r 20s. More on that later.

Instead of waiting till spring to clean these piles up, I decided to just go ahead and do it. So I got the old trailer we use for this type of thing from my father and took care of it. I'm sure I'll pay the price tomorrow with a sore back though. But hey - at least it is done.

Can you believe all this junk?! What amazes me is that this is a very small amount of the same type stuff we remove every year!!

Here's a better view of the bigger pieces.

In case you are wondering, all of this is not going to a landfill. Instead it is going out to my brother's property in the country. He is using this stuff to build a path in one of his fields. So, it will go to good use.

The sad thing about it is that there is a lot more of it in the yard. We still have part of the outbuilding we removed a few years ago as well as an old sidewalk and an old slap we have no idea what it was used for.

Cheers!
Larry ~

Speaking of Future Projects.....

Okay, speaking of spring and future projects, let's talk about the fence.

Remember this picture?

This is the schematic drawing of the fence we plan to put up starting this spring.






The drawing is rendered in the correct proportions and measurements. Hopefully the fence will look like this when it's done!

Anyway, a little over two years ago is when we seriously started looking at different fence designs.

The style we plan to go with was one of the first considered. So, with that in mind, have a look at the following pics.

I built this version of the fence two years ago. We wanted to see how well it would stand up to the elements. It doesn't look all that bad.

I used treated lumber and didn't bother with priming it or putting a clear cover over it.

Here you see the side that would face the house. Originally it was to look just as you see it. However, I found a set of plans for a similar fence and there were rails on both sides of the pickets. It looked really sharp so we decided to add a second set of rails. Other than the addition of the extra rails, the only difference between this prototype and the drawing is the width of the rails. On the prototype all three rails are 3.5". In the final schematic the two top rails are 3" and the bottom one is 4".

BTW - if you look close, you will see the tip of the end picket is broken off. I dropped the danged thing last year and it snapped off where a knot was located. When selecting the wood for the pickets, I will make sure that they are knot free.

Hopefully, this is how the fence will look on both sides.

At this point, the plan is to paint the fence the same color we will use on the body of the house.

Now the next project I hope to get to this summer is purely vain. I have no clue as to why, but everyone around here, and several of you out there, are very fascinated by the three globed gaslight.

Right now, the only way it can be used is by putting candles in it. My father-n-law and I tried to get the thing working our first fall in the house. We really thought we had it fixed and ready to go. With that in mind, we invited some friends and family over to watch us light it.

Sure enough, I lit the mantles and a nice, warm, glow started emanating from all six orifices. Then with out warning, flames started shooting out from every crevice there was!

I made a dive for the emergency shut off valve and killed the gas. Oh well, at least we gave everyone a good laugh!

So now the plan is to completely remove it off the spot, dismantle it and rebuild it. We will have to come up with some clips that'll hold the glass in. Right now a gentle breeze knocks them out of kilter. We will also need to replace at least one of the eagles, but might opt for replacing all three so they look alike.

Hopefully this fall we will have a working gaslight again. Wish us luck!

Cheers!
Larry ~