This summer has been rather wet and cold. But that’s been a good thing I think. It’s kept that horrid sun from baking our garden and kept us from having to use a ton of water to keep our garden growing. In fact I don’t think we’ve had to really water it more then I have fingers on one of my hands.

But how’s it holding up?

Well let’s look at see.

There’s a flower on the strawberries! If it actually works, this will be our first real batch of them. I really hope so, maybe we can make some jam (like we’ll get that many..hahaha). It’s still neat though, and if I’m lucky I’ll actually get one this year. Those kids pick everything before I get home from work.

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With the rising price of everything these days, we decided we’d have one last project for the summer. Of course this is aside from any maintenance projects or garden projects that may need attention down the road.

It’s a set of shelves for the garage because, like everyone else in the world we have too much stuff, and not enough places to put it all.

So we decided on where we’d like the shelves to be, on the south wall against the back, and how long we wanted them - 12 feet x 2 feet.

We quickly drafted up a plan and got started on picking up material.

6 2×4’s

12 2×2’s

4 12×2 particle board sheets

1lb box 2 1/2 inch screws

1lb box 1 5/8 inch screws

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So as we all saw last weekend, we got our pad poured and finished. Now we need to seal it. Have you been to Lowes lately? Concrete sealer is like $23 bucks a gallon!

Luckily my father in law came to the rescue again, suggesting a home made method of sealing the driveway. It’s comes out to be about $33 for 3 gallons, instead of the $69 dollars it would take to buy 3 gallons of the other stuff.

It’s only 2 ingredients and dead simple - watch out for the concrete labor union though, they don’t want the secret out (hahaha - think Simpsons and the garbage can back fixer).

Across the isle from the concrete sealer, they have some other items. Look for a gallon of “Boiled Linseed Oil”, grab it. That was actually $23 bucks. We also needed a couple of things so we grabbed a 5 gallon bucket while we were there.

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Yes, I’m behind - way behind. I really didn’t want to post anything till we got that stupid driveway finished. Then I got busy in other projects and never got around to dumping the camera. But here we are, a post to conclude the concrete project!

The weather had been pretty wet all week, with the weekend looking like it was going to be pretty bad too. But the concrete had been scheduled, and we weren’t going to get it done, and since the weather looked pretty bad everyone was canceling their appointments for concrete. Is that a bad sign or what?

But let’s recap a little, a few weeks ago I had gotten it framed in. There were a few issues, but we worked it out. Then we had the gravel delivered and I set about smoothing it out. It also happened to be like one of the hottest days of the year (not last Saturday, but the one before) and I just about fell over in a gooey pile of nastiness. But I recovered and got it all fixed up.

Posted in Do It Yourself, Family, House and Garden, Saturday Recap 2 Comments »

It’s Saturday again (well as I sit and write this it’s past Saturday), and what did we find ourselves doing? That’s right, if you’re any sort of regular here - you know it’s just another work day (I’ll fight liking it till I die I think).

This Satuday, I was tasked with framing in the cement pad - no biggie, I’ve done it before (and I would have linked to a post about it, if I hadn’t lost everything earlier this year).

My father in law dropped off some 2×4s and metal stakes to set it up. So I started getting everything in place by measuring 20ft from the sidewalk - marking it and then measured from the drive way 8ft.

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As some may remember, last Saturday we started digging out a pad for a second driveway, we also were working on our fence.

Well this Saturday we worked on them some more!

My father in law brought over his little tractor and finished digging it out, compared to last week (digging by hand), this was WAY better. We only had to dig it once - by that I mean he dug it up and dumped it in his truck and we went and emptied it, instead of digging it up and then dumping it out (digging it twice).

Then we finished up the gate, got an extra 2×4 on the edge of one of the doors (did I mention we somehow ended up with some extra space?). My father in law also helped design a door stop for the left side door. It was just a tube driven in the ground, a piece of rebar held to the door so you basically pull it up and the door will swing open. Pretty neat. We also got the hardware back on the door too.

Posted in Family, House and Garden 2 Comments »