the sun has broken through the drizzle for nearly a week straight! the eco lawn (actually fleur de lawn) has come in reasonably well, with only minor patches that failed to do much of anything. it’s had the first mowing and seems to be doing well…

it sure as hell beats the prior landscaping… mud.
the yellow car is my newest project… a ‘72 volvo 142e. 2 liter 4 cylinder ohv (not ohc… pushrod motor), 4 speed. cool little thing, with some entirely ancient electronic fuel injection… runs beautiful, though.

rebecca’s garden is giving tons of lettuce… and some other cool stuff, like the baby carrots:

summer is kinda-almost upon us.  it’s about damned time.

the back yard’s eco lawn (fleur de lawn, to be exact) is coming in quite well.  nice to have some color other than dirt back there.

the driveway has it’s 5 cubic yards of 3/4- gravel laid out.  it still needs tamped, but it’ll do for now.  think we’re gonna hold off on pouring concrete for a while.  the gravel is a HUGE step up from the mud that it replaced.

hauled home a ‘72 volvo 142e. the second cheapest car i’ve purchased in my life. it’s a project car that’s not too far off from being my daily driver. cool little thing, it is.

other than that… not much else done to the house: have been working on other projects and basically feeling a complete lack of free time… which partially explains the lack of posts, and the diminutive size of this post.

damn, i’ve gotta be at work in 8 hours. wish i could afford (and justify) a vacation.

0ld paint is an evil bitch. no nice way of putting it. the stuff on this house is lead based, so not only poses health and some environmental risks… but it’s damned durable stuff, despite it’s age. i feel somewhat relieved that it appears the house has only been repainted once in it’s 95 year life… because getting more than 2 layers of this stuff off would surely suck exponentially worse.

our first experiment was with an infrared “noiseless” paint remover, made from a space heater. this actually pulls off everything down to the bare wood surprisingly well, albeit a bit of a slow process. ok, very slow. one test area done (on the front of our house- poor choice in hind site), we decide to get some quotes on having the house professionally stripped. now… i’ll mention again that i was a contractor… and have had houses stripped in the past. with this knowledge, i fully expected it to be well into the thousands… but not into the tens of friggin thousands. super high quote? no.. that’s about what they all were.

next idea. after hearing some good reviews about Smart Strip, we decided to give it a try. i picked up a gallon of the stuff at the local Sherwin Williams paint supply yesterday. well knowing the silly high price of the stuff, i made sure that it was returnable if it sucked.

upon getting this cool new stuff home, i chose another test area; again on the front of our house… in full view of the street, all passers-by and visitors. (gotta remember to do this on the side of the house where nobody can see, next time). following the directions, i laid a 1/16″ layer along the test area.

now… before getting to the results, i also did more of this yesterday:

have 5 cubic yards of 3/4- gravel… the base for the concrete driveway. fun.tonight, after returning home from dinner at a friend’s house (where there were some killer home made tortillas… always a winner), i did a scrape of the test area. $54 per gallon. one gallon covers approximately 45 square feet. we’d need approximately 15 gallons to strip the clapboard and trim. did it strip the paint off well enough to totally justify the cost? i’d have taken a picture, but my disappointment was proof enough for me. it took off a great deal of the newest layer of paint (estimated at 50 years old)… but that’s it.
i’ll try a second test area, as well as a second application over the first test area… but so far the first impression: not so hot. that’s not to say the product is bad. i’ll keep open minded about it until the other test area results are complete… but if they have similar results, this stuff goes back. it’s supposed to take up to 4 layers at a time… so we’ll see.

Pros:	Cons:
non-toxic no harsh (or any) odor easy application doesn’t burn the skin	doesn’t appear to actually do much

over the past few weekends, some progress has taken place in the back yard!

built a cedar fence to cover the neighbor’s hedge…

the 4 foot by 4 foot raised beds are starting to grow food…

a 15 foot by 14 foot cedar chip filled play area (a play structure will eventually go in it)…

eco-lawn seeded…

also made some kick-ass escabeche… jalapeño, carrot, onion and garlic goodness.
just so i have this somewhere, the recipe:

10 large green jalapeños

2 carrots

1 small white onion

6 cloves of garlic

1/4 cup olive oil

1/3 cup braggs raw apple cider vinegar

1/3 cup water

1 teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon sea salt

slice jalapeño, carrot and onion… peel garlic cloves. sauté all of this for 10 minutes, until jalapeños begin to soften. add remaining ingredients and simmer for 10 minutes. put it in a jar, close the lid and refrigerate once it’s cooled. the longer it stays in the jar, the better it’ll taste (assuming the jalapeño was cooked well enough… it gets a funky bacteria growth if not, that kinda blows the flavor). hot damn is it good… basically had that and jalapeño onion bread for dinner.

made 2 of our 4 rain barrels today, also. portland has a pretty good storm water disconnect program going on… $53 per gutter drain that is diverted from the sewer + a reduced sewage bill.
we’re using 55 gallon barrels to store rain water, then use it for irrigation when needed: basically a barrel with the gutter down spout running into it… a hose bib at the bottom… and an overflow tube leading to an area that’ll absorb the excess water. we’re putting one on the carriage house, two on the back of the house, one on the front of the house. the barrels catching the rainwater from the house should fill pretty quickly given the size of our roof.

back to the work week, now. the weekends pass much too quickly. at least it’s light outside until 8:30 or so, which makes me feel like the entire day isn’t blown at work : )

posting more than once a month!
accomplishing things!
hot damn!

right when i got home from work today, i planted a plum tree. minutes later, i changed the oil in the car (sadly, it’s been put off for a while). then, as a triumphant finish, i put the license plate on the car (that’s been sitting in the glove box for a few weeks now).

now we have, as far as trees (and actually in the ground!):

• 6 in 1 espalier apple tree
• 3 in 1 cherry tree
• dwarf pear
• dwarf plum
• one very old and rotting away fig (the only thing left from when we bought the house)
• 2 japanese lilac trees street side

the apple tree f’ing blew my mind. 6 different apples, from ONE tree? the branches grow horizontally, three per side? an absolute trip! there was a bit of a numbness when rebecca told me of them, as my brain was having a difficult time processing this amazing… almost too amazing information. it’s good i was told about the espalier tree before seeing one, ’cause i’d have made a damn fool of myself (i’m good at that), by yelling “HOLY SHIT! LOOK! HOLY SHIT! LOOK! HOLY SHIT! LOOK!” over and over, as if aliens were landing a spaceship in my front yard. i suppose in retrospect the concept of grafted and trained branches shouldn’t be so wild and on the edge of utter disbelief, but wow is it ever craaaaazy man!

the espalier apple is between the windows on the garage… the cherry in the back corner… 4 raised veggie beds that rebecca built (soil-less gardening!)…

temporarily bordered future play area… we’ve got 2 cubic yards of chipped cedar waiting, and need to procure a play structure suitable for the size.

plum and pear trees. not sure which is which.

chicken coop…. about 90% done. needs a bit of trim, two more drip rails, and UV protection (same thing we did the deck with)

the run is 4′ tall, 13′ wide and 3′ deep. it still needs the roof section (currently has a sheet of OSB sitting on it), and a bit of trim.
overall, the coop about 8′ to the peak of the roof.

finally, the driveway. sad as it may be, this is the best it’s looked since we got the house! it’s a bit tight, but once poured it’ll be fine to get a car up it and to the carriage house. at the chimney, the driveway is a bit under 7′ wide, the rest is about 8.5′ wide. pretty reasonable, i suppose. the section that’s currently soil is 64′ long… going to bring in 2″ of 3/4″ gravel that’ll be the underlayment (yes, that’s a word) for the poured concrete that’ll eventually go in. for now, the gravel will be a hell of a lot better than dirt…

the carriage house is green. not the color, the… ahh… movement? dunno what it actually is… guess “movement” works well, as the garage is also moving, along with self composting. yes, it’s returning to earth… the entire back wall has studs that are completely rotted and literally composting: a mound of what used to be 2×4 stud and shiplap siding is actually warm to the touch and looks like soil! lovely.
i’ve got grand plans to renovate the poor carriage house. ok, not exactly “grand”… but plans none the less. i suppose “renovate” might be pushing it, too. basically, i’ve got plans.
4×4 pressure treated skid foundation, as the poured foundation’s footings are crap and the floor is only 2″ thick (and broken). the floor can be drop/framed in with 2×4 PT, wide side down, 12″ on center, 3/4″ CDX subfloor, commercial linoleum tile (cheap). keep the side walls, double sill on top of the 4×4 skid. new rear wall. new front wall. gable roof. walls and roof 24″ on center, 2×4… a 10.5′ span doesn’t need much. a random commercial single glaze fixed skylight (they run about $24, used), larger multi-lite side windows (sometimes free, if’n ya keep your eyes open), an exterior entry door and real carriage doors. exterior walls sheathed with some exterior “t&g” plywood, stained, cleared or painted (don’t really know or care). interior walls sheathed in OSB. bare rafter ceiling (no sense in worrying about insulation).
best part about all of that: all up to code, and a skid foundation non-living space without plumbing… isn’t a permanent building. can’t be taxed on it : )

now that it’s monday, i’m sitting in the office (in a dreadfully boring meeting), mildly sore, and anxious to get back home and dig more holes.
one thing i think might be beneficial in the future, though: keeping my blood sugar up, because damn if in retrospect I don’t seem to get awfully testy. I feel pretty crappy because i yelled at (or at least got snappy with) rebecca yesterday, for stuff that seems silly now.
it’s kinda hard to show that ya actually enjoy working alongside someone when you’re cranky…
On that note: sorry! actually really love doing this stuff with you! i’m sure it must take a lot of the fun out of it when i’m not pleasant to work with… so i’ll try to keep hydrated, nurished and therefore more relaxed and show that i’m actually appreciating the time we spend together working

since the ground here in portland is crap, we fixed it….. with crap.

took delivery of 4 cubic yards of rotted steer manure (yummy), and 2-ish cubic yards of cedar wood chips on saturday.

41 trips from the street (where the crap was dumped), up the paved driveway, across 64 feet of very bumpy/rutted dirt driveway into the back yard, with a wheelbarrow.  laid about 1 1/2″ of the manure on the entire back yard.   while rebecca raked the manure evenly across the yard, i cursed the damned wheelbarrow because it’s 4″ too short for me to walk comfortably.

to mix the crap into the crappy yard, i had to rent a gas powered tiller. again. have i mentioned i don’t have a truck? tillers aren’t lite. at all. got the 5.5hp, 28″ wide honda tiller into the trunk of my car after pulling the tines off one side, by hefting it in. lift with my legs? yeah, right. can’t lift something like that with your legs.  the only method is to dead lift the awkwardly shaped, handle-less, far heavier on one side hunk of equipment in one quick motion using your lower back.  but… aren’t those the muscles so often and easily injured? yeah. those are the ones.
so after lifting the fucking heavy thing into the trunk, i loaded the lumber i purchased at the same time onto the roof… then went home where i unloaded it all, again hefting the heavy tiller out of the trunk.  this was on Saturday night.

took myself a nice hot-ish bath, after loading/unloading… which was after a good 4-ish hours of shoveling and pushing of the wheelbarrow.  as i slept, spasms would contract one side of my back (or the other, totally random), waking me up much like a calf cramp… ala “sleeping soundly, then BAM! MY LEG! A FUCKING RABID ALLIGATOR MUST  HAVE CRAWLED INTO BED AND TAKEN A CHUNK OUT OF MY LEG! OH DEAR GOD THE PAIN!”  but instead of the calf, it was my lower back, so not nearly as bad.  or it was worse… one or the other.  luckily a bone in my right foot is screwed up and falling apart, so that pain kinda took my mind of the searing back pain from time to time. it’s nice to have options, really. get tired of the back, can focus on the foot… and vice verse.

sunday morning comes (much too quickly), and i’m awakened by a bright eyed, energetic little girl that wants a book read to her.  as i try to focus on the book (tough to do when your eyes aren’t open yet), i realize that today’s work will be much longer and much harder than yesterdays… and with body parts that are already done for.  we dress and stroll (only somewhat painfully) down the street to the local stumptown coffee for a bit of caffeine and a bagel.

un-nourished but at least not starving, i begin hauling manure to the back yard again. this time with added soreness and a sometimes spasming back thrown in for fun!  after a good couple hours, a neighbor showed pity upon me and brought over a much larger wheelbarrow… one that’s only 3″ too short to walk comfortably with.  who the hell do they make these things for? at 5′ 11″, i’m not especially tall.  anyway, this one had a much larger barrel… bucket… whatever the load part is called.  sped things up a bit, despite being twice as heavy.

once the manure was evenly dispersed through the yard, the power equipment could be started up. unfortunately, this is the damned tiller… which does a good job of kicking your ass. the first few passes through the yard were great… pulls hard, stops pulling and digs so you gotta throw some weight on it, pulls hard again, grabs a root and lurches to the side. such fun when you’re feeling like you’ve been hit by a train already.

tilled and mixed in well, the ground being much less clay-like, we could compact it a bit.  a 55 gallon drum was filled 1/4 with water, tipped on it’s side and rolled about.  roll, rake. roll, rake. roll. rake. over and over, until the yard is flat and graded decently well.

yard done, i figured the rutted and horribly bumpy driveway could use tilled and evened out in preparation for gravel (ugh, gravel is heavy too).  the tiller cuts great, then hits a rock and jumps all over the friggin’ place while my limp and sore body holds on.  throwing it around was no longer being done with only mild effort… it just wasn’t being done. the tiller was now throwing me around.  a few passes up and down the 64 feet of drive, cutting back off-camber embankments and ruts, and it was looking a little better.  what’s great when your back is sore? shoveling! shoveled and raked until the drive looked half way level-ish, before deciding the day is done.

hose off the tiller, lift it back into the trunk (this time with assistance!), and off to dinner with the kids.

as i write this, my back is utterly destroyed feeling. it’ll be sore for a couple days. it seems entirely pathetic that i’m so sore and so falling apart.  mid 30s, and some parts of my body feel 30 years older.

so as to not have a post with the majority being a complaint:

• coffee/bagel with the wee one was cool.
• dinner with the kids was cool.
• the weather was absolutely amazing! mid 80s on saturday, high 70s today, no rain!
• the yard is level and ready for the ground cover to be planted.
• the driveway is ~3/4 ready for gravel.
• only one tree left to plant.

ok, it wasn’t too bad…  during the week, while i was at work! stuck in an office with a window that’s directly beside a steam outlet… so i didn’t even get to see the sun people were talking about.  oh, then once the weekend got here: so did the rain.

the chicken coop is taking way, way too long to complete… long enough that i should be ashamed.  i’m not, but i should be.  in any case it’s a pain in the ass, but it’s at least coming out pretty cool.

this weekend marks the first time the weather in portland has seriously pissed me off. sun and spotty clouds most of the week… then saturday comes and it: rains, hails, sleets, snows, hails… sun comes out for 3 minutes… repeat. this had the oh-so-convenient effect of turning our clay-like soil into… well… clay. sticky, slippery, mucky clay. you could actually watch the backhoe sinking as the ground turned to quicksand, err, quickclay.

on the plus side…

the two trees along the street, which were horribly diseased and rotting away, have been removed complete with their root packs.

the *huge* evergreen stump in the back yard is gone (unfortunately a great deal of soil gave way when the backhoe sank/got stuck for 4 hours).

the driveway is removed/cut in and (almost) ready to be poured.

and let’s not forget… the wee one got to drive a tractor! she sat on my lap and we went up and down the street, while she steered!

more pictures to come once i get a chance to get the camera outside while it’s still light out. after the usual work day in the office, i came home and we went to home depot not once… no… but twice. by the time we got home, the sun had set, it was time for dinner, and the chance to get anything productive underway had gone. maybe tomorrow…

the wee one calls chickens “chi-chens.” we have some of the feathered things living in a cardboard box. as they can’t stay in there forever (well, not alive anyway), we’re giving them a proper home. actually, i doubt they care much about what their home looks like… but as it’ll be sitting in our back yard, i care.

on that note, i’m building something quite along these lines:

yup… the chickens will have a nicer house than us. coop is 5′ wide by 3′ deep, overall run is 9′.  changing the style a bit to match that of the house, and it’ll have proper un-painted cedar shingles (like the house will, one day).