Fifth of July

It didn't work out to light off any fireworks on the fourth, so we had our own party on the fifth instead.

The kids were entertained with bottle rockets and the like, especially after I gave them some sound-deadening headphones to wear. They loved that and repeatedly yelling, "CAN YOU HEAR ME?"

Yes. Yes, we can.

After they were soundly asleep, Isaac treated us to a show which included some of the really impressive big ones.

He also had some magnificent strobe flashers, to which Paul performed some very hip dance moves.

I managed to catch some video snippets if you care to watch (of the fireworks--not Paul's dance moves):

Hope you had a fun weekend too!

Drywall and Other Fun

It's been a busy weekend, but most of the work you're seeing here was done last week.

I wish I could convey the feeling of looking at 70 feet of drywall all taped and mudded (1 coat). It looks so different than raw drywall.

Isaac has been doing a credible job and has the first coat done on the west wall and most of the north wall. By golly, this might get done yet!

Because of company and requisite entertainments, we decided not to do insulation again this week. Being so close to done with it, I have to admit to being a little frustrated with not having the time to work on it. (Did I just say that?)

Troy, however, very happily kept himself entertained with dressing up his trailer as he had mentioned he was going to do.

You may recall that the last holiday we had (Memorial Day) we enjoyed Insul-a-palooza. But July 4 was quite different. While the company and Isaac went to the zoo, I painted and mowed, and Troy spent the whole day working on his trailer. I mean the whole day. A few breaks for food.

Sunday after our picnic, he did the same. It is getting real close to looking like a box again.

A bonus for me of all this welding is that Troy hooked up an outlet for the welder out in the shop. The two thumbs up on that are:

1. it gets the welder out of my kitchen and frees up 1 more square foot of floor space, and
2. the welder will no longer hog my dryer outlet when I wish to do laundry.

Just in case you wanted to know what's in it for me.

First Fruits

Our strawberry patch is really cranking them out now.

I got so many raspberries, the three of us couldn't eat them in one sitting. (And we tried.)

Those are some hot banana peppers. Troy's first batch failed, so we bought some plants to make up for the lost time. I filled two of my pots with the hot variety and another pot with the last sweet banana pepper plant the nursery had!

Troy is going to dig for some new potatoes this week. I can't wait!

Local Bugs

This was a moth which took temporary residence on the side of the overhead door of the shop.

Care for a little scale?
I think Troy's leatherman is 6 inches across.

And while I was taking this pic, Troy slapped a mosquito on my back:
It's the largest we've ever seen. It may be hard to see scale on Troy's palm, but I would defend the claim that it was an inch from tip to toe. We were all impressed.

And what about the wasps? I did manage to paint a coat undisturbed. The trick is to resume the game without the opponent knowing that intermission is over. In other words, I headed out early enough that the wasp was not back looking to go to bed yet. Or whatever they do in the nest in the early evening.

Then I soaked some rags in wasp killer and left them hanging up there.

That's right, I went all Tonya Harding on their ass.

Insulation: Day 8

We were at it again today. And with a new helper

and a new machine. Both helped us to have our most productive day ever: 72 bags! The new pallet and all the "leftover" ones. It feels good to have the shop empty of insulation again.

Isaac arrived today and was barely here an hour before we had put him to work. He was a good worker and as he could handle the bags, I shifted to helper/project coordinator.

They gave us a different machine because the regular one was broken. This produced some anxiety on my part [change! change! ah!], but it worked out great. I think the machine was quieter and quicker with less dust. And much lighter to move around and lift into the truck. What more could I ask for? And why is this the "back up" machine? Or maybe that's the wrong assumption. Maybe they save it for their favourite customers. Who knows.

In any case, we got a pallet blown in the first two hours and then went back out for another 70 minutes to blow the last 30 bags. (That's 2 1/3 min/bag which soundly beats our previous 3 min/bag time). The attic is nearly finished, with about 3.5 bays (out of 35) to do yet.

The new machine had a lovely picture on it:
They make it sound so easy: no cutting, no fitting...nothing to it, right? And I notice the man in the picture has no dust flying around.

I wonder what we are doing wrong?

The Score is Tied at One

That would be

Christina: 1

Wasp: 1

I scored early in the day (let me specify: early by my standards) by getting up the ladder and actually being able to reach the wasp nests right under the very peak:

They were waaaay up there and I wasn't sure I was going to be able to reach them. But we got the ladder in the right position and I got them. I also got all the boards scraped.

We have a lot of these little wasps nests and it felt good to get rid of a few of them. See:
Doesn't that look better?

The wasps weren't home at the time and so weren't able to mount a protest.

Later, however...I went back up the ladder when the temperature was cooler and was painting happily away. (Happy to not have fallen off the ladder anyway.)

I noticed the wasp come over the south edge of the roof, but he (she?) it was just flying around and walking along the eaves. I was content to live and let live. It didn't take long, however, for the wasp to read the situation and take some offense. For some reason, with its home disappeared, it felt threatened by this big body waving an arm around with a paintbrush at the end.

I warded off the first dive bomb but it got in a good sting on my left hand. (Middle finger, appropriately enough.) Score one for the wasps to tie it up. When the second wasp showed up, I hightailed it down the ladder, not willing to try to fend off two at the top of a ladder.

Not wanting to make my retreat permanent, I went back up with a fly swatter. That didn't go so well. The wasp has to actually land for it to be very effective, and it was too busy trying to dive bomb me again. Another retreat on my part.

Now I am left considering my options, regretting I didn't remember to use the wasp spray earlier, and nursing my finger.

But this is only an intermission...Game on!

Primed to Go

Just a little update of what I got done over the weekend. Two coats of primer where I could reach from this ladder position.

It didn't seem like much when I was up there, but when I stepped back and looked I could see that it's nearly a third of what needs to be done. That's not nothing.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

We have reached the milestone of finishing the drywall in the shop! (Trumpet flourish, please.)

We put up the drywall in the last corner on Friday night:

We are now free to go really crazy with insulation and put it everywhere. It also helps to make the shop look that much more "finished" (from the inside).

West end of shop

Sadly, the first thing Troy will have to do to that nice drywall is drill holes for the insulation. He tells me that's just how it goes.

And in case you want a review, here is the east end of the shop:

We were going to go crazy with insulation again tomorrow, but Troy came home from work very sick this evening so those plans are uncertain right now.