HARLEY RAKE

Friday I was here with Tom's parents. We loaded the truck with some garbage wood and stumps and dumped that off at the recycling center. Then loaded the unused pavers on the truck and I returned them to Home Depot. And the rest of the day we continued to clean up the yard and his parents shredded some more. When Tommy got home from work he sharpened the stump grinder and ground a few stumps.

Saturday was a short day. Tommy moved some dirt out of the future patio location and I moved some mulch around a few trees. Then we went to a fun BBQ!!!

In general Sunday was the last big push to clean up the yard... grinding stumps, moving dirt, moving mulch, shredding sticks.... Then in the evening Tommy changed the oils in the kubotka.

On Memorial Day we got up early and picked up a few last piles of roots and rocks... Then Tommy's uncle came with the rototiller and helped tommy take the backhoe off the kubotka. Tommy and I took a ride to the rental place and picked up the Harley Rake. Got it back and the guys hooked it up. Then we spend the day with Tommy straining his neck to drive the kubotka around with the harley rake while the rest of us raked and picked up piles of rocks. The Harley rake is pretty decent at removing the rocks and it certainly does a great job of leveling the dirt.
The front yard is pretty rocky soil so it took a good part of the day to get the rocks out and it was HOT!!! The back yard has a lot less rocks but a few more roots so we still have some cleaning up to do there.

These are pictures of the yard before the Harley Rake, I didn't take any at the end of the day.

WE HAVE A/C

After work this week we have....

- Monday Tom's parents came in the evening and Tommy and them did some chipping of the trees Pawel cut down last weekend... but eventually the belt broke so that was the end of that.

- Tuesday Tom's parents and Mr. Markowski were here working on the A/C compressors, electric connections and charging the units. Yeah we have A/C!!! Then the fixed the shredder... Tom's mom worked on some mulch around a group of tress in the backyard...After they left we did some front yard clean up... picked up stones, moved the bark from the trees off the front lawn, and cleaned up some brush and the orange and black fence along the stream

- Weds we figured out the level of the driveway pad so when we get debri from the harley rake we can put that gravel as the base of the driveway pad since it needs a bit more height in the one corner. I leveled out some of the mulch around groups of trees in the backyard... Planted some marigolds that Tom's mom gave me to protect the 'patio garden'.

Hooper is doing great! He does so great by himself while we are at work and he is a 'velcro' dog... he does not leave our side when we are outside! Love him so much!

WHO DRIVES THE BOAT?

HOOPER... DRIVES THE BOAT CHIEF!!!

So we went to Tractor Supply for kubotka oil this morning after breakfast at the diner and on our way to Tom's Aunts birthday party... they had a pet adoption going on!!! so we left with a puppy! An australian shepherd lab mix. He is so good! Their were 4 puppies in one 5x5 fence inside the tractor supply... one of them peed in the crate so the lady came in with a paper towel to wipe it up and three of the dogs went after the papertowel and tore it up... one didn't even blink... so we knew he was ours...

PEPE 'LIL' PEW

We had some helpers this weekend and got a bit of work done...

Tom's dad worked on putting a hose spigot outside the basement door and he started working on the A/C compressor piping and electric...

Tom's mom planted 300 bare root vinca's on the slope in the front yard. It was quite a bit of work and we didn't have enough...

Pawel came in the afternoon and he cut down some of the rest of the dead and/or ugly trees...

Tommy and I worked on a couple things... We cleaned up the orange and black fencing, dug the sewer stickups out and cut them so they would be underground, spread some mulch, and graded the front yard a bit...

On Saturday night we went to home depot after we got done working and on the way home we pulled into the driveway and there is a little baby skunk!!! Pepe 'Lil' Pew!!! We couldn't get up the driveway for a good 5 minutes because he kept walking back and forth in a zig zag pattern up the driveway... He doesn't quite walk either... he has a chuga chuga cho cho type of walk... one butt cheek up then the other... so funny! What are we going to do with a resident skunk!!!

BEECH TREE MOVE

We finished the top tier of the wall out the basement. We moved the A/C Compressors onto their pads and then filled in between with the river rock. We also moved the beech tree into its place, planted some azaelas and junipers and some creeping evergreens... then we put mulch... this area is completely done...

HARD AT WORK

I am STILL taking a class at Ft. Monmouth so it took me a long time to get to the house tonight so Tommy worked by himself all night. He is working on cleaning up the little odds and ends on the basement side of the house. He ground 3 or 4 stumps that have been in his way over there for quite some time... cleaned up the pallets from the pavers and picked up some of the rocks that have surfaced out of the dirt... And he is grading the dirt on that side to keep his swale going and put dirt up against the pavers...

Our goal this week is to finish this side of the house so we never have to bring the tractor over there again... :)

PATIO BISTRO

This was a busy weekend. On Friday night I picked Tommy up from the airport at 11ish so after a whole week of not working on the house we were eager to start on Saturday morning. This weekend we built both of the 2nd tiers of the retaining walls for the walkout basement. We finished the gutter drainage for the back of the house out to daylight. We poured the slabs for the A/C compressor units and Tommy started to take dirt from where we will eventually have a patio in order to backfill the tiered walls. Also put some concrete along the pavers so that they cannot move out. And I got some vegetables (tomatos, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini and strawberries) and planted them in the flower beds made by the retaining walls. I will call it my Patio Bistro Garden... haha...

RESTING THIS WEEK

There is a lot of resting going on this week as far as the house goes... I have a training class this week AND next where I have friggin HOMEWORK every night... it sucks! and my Tommy is on travel making stuff go BOOM! this week...

During my class though the teacher showed some pictures of SAFETY ISSUES and some of them reminded me of building the house and things in our lives... so here goes...

This reminds me of some structure that Tom's dad, uncle, and Mr. Markowski would put together to change the lightbulb...

Oh, wait they did build something similar down the shore so they could fix the cracked spackle on the cathedral ceiling...

And Tom and I are always so determined to get going on what we are working on that we have put 2x12's on my car roor for the 5 min drive from Home Depot... nothing this drastic, but it reminded me of US...

WE'RE LEGAL NOW...OMG

Today we got up early and made the last trip to Home Depot for the 6x6 pavers. We went to the service desk and the girl their got a guy to get the last pallet. I followed him while Tommy brought the truck around to the garden center. The guy found one pallet that GASP! already had the correct number of peices but he was looking for the other pallets (ummm yeah we took those last night and the guy helping last night must have gotten the last pallet ready in case we got there before they closed)... So all he has to do is shrink wrap it and put it on the bed of the truck.... 1 hour later we were finally on the road... The guy couldn't find a shrink wrap that worked, he needed to get the gates to block aisles but couldn't find enough, then he needed a spotter and a key carrier to open the gate to the side of the building!!! When he finally found all that he needed he said " OK we're legal now", but he couldn't even drive the forklift... So painful to watch. And of course as soon as we got to the house it started raining.

Thankfully the rain stopped and we went to down on laying down the pavers. I laid them while Tommy brought them over, as fast as he could bring them I laid them. We finished the full size pavers by noon... Then we went to Home Depot to return the 200+ extra pavers that we got (somebody can't count) and that took forever again... (normally our home depot is good but today they were terrible) We rented a paver saw and then we spent the afternoon cutting all the pieces along the border. Got some sand and compacted the pavers. Done by 5! This was just one of those days that besides the episodes at Home Depot was perfect, we got so much done.

So here is the patio...it is much bigger than we thought we were going to make it but we love how it turned out. So pretty!

STONE DUST

I took the day off today and was planning to seal the tile in the kitchen but after I washed it there is still a haze so I didn't want to seal that haze in. So instead I painted the crown in the powder room and then I painted the ceiling in the office.

Tonight after Tommy got back from work we spread the stone dust for the basement patio. It went down quickly and then his Mom came down with the truck. We went to Home Depot and bought the pavers. In one hour we were able to pick up two loads of pavers and off load them, but we didn't make it in time to go back for the third load.

GRAVEL BASE

We decided that the wall on the right side of the door should have been built a little longer so that we had more space for the second tier wall. So we extended it a good 6 feet atleast and hopefully the 2nd tier will run into it and allow enough room for a staircase off the porch.

Since we got more gravel yesterday Tommy brought it over to the basement tonight and we spread it out for the paver patio. The patio is turning out to be larger than we expected but still really nice.

WALL TWO

Tonight we built the bottom wall on the other side of the basement door. We ordered a truckload of gravel so Tommy didn't have to scrape the driveway gravel anymore to make the base and backfill behind the wall. We got the wall done and filled in the dirt behind it to start getting ready for the second tier.

WALL ONE

Today we worked on the block walls outside the walkout basement. We got the lower wall on the right side completely finished. We had to scrape gravel off the driveway in order to make the base and also to fill behind it for hydrostatic pressure so that was a pain... I guess we will have to order another truckload... Then we worked on getting the pipe for the gutter drain put together so that it can go behind the 2nd tier wall that we will eventually build when the dirt we put behind this wall settles a bit.

It turned out really great.