Pictures Of Spring!

Time for some Pictures Of Spring! Finally the plants are growing again. Woo-hoo!








Finally things are turning green again. Robins are all over the place and worms are creeping around as well. Maple trees and other plants are sporting their springtime buds and soon I'll be crankin' up the lawn mower. Goodbye snow, see ya next year!

Thanksgiving

Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving Holiday (if you live somewhere that celebrates it on the last Thurs of November). While we should all try to be thankful for what we have any time of year, this Holiday allows some reflection time on being thankful.

Well, to start off with, I have good health. Then, I still have my job. Family seems well these days. My truck is running great. I have a new concrete driveway and sidewalk. Got some fresh coffee going, I've got a fridge that is about 2/3 full of food, and some home improvement projects I can do to save some cash, instead of hiring someone to work for me.

Well, life is good this Thanksgiving for me, hope it is for you as well.

Painting Project - Part II

Well here's Part II of my recent project to paint the garage exterior.

Here I'm at the stage where all the old paint was sanded down, whatever came off easily. I'm just doing the trim at this point. I then put down my masking tape. Odd, this is one of the few times I use masking tape for it's original intended purpose.

Kinda like duct tape.








Putting down the tape is definitely worth the time & effort. Then I can paint the whole section I want and not worry as much about accidentally painting the adjacent area of a different color.

So far this is just the trim. I still have the main door to go. Looking at the weather forecasts, looks like I won't get to that until spring, unless we get some sweet warm weather at some point.

Buffalo weather for ya.

Painting Project

Today I'd like to post some pictures of my latest home improvement project - painting the garage door and trim.




It's pretty bad when the paint is curling up like this. Ouch.












Time to dust off my painting shtuff.

These pictures are sort of a 'before' and in a later post I'll show the progress I've made.

The weather has not been cooperating - haven't had must rain-free weather where the temperature stays above 50 degrees (F that is - AKA 10 degrees C) for 24 hours so the paint can dry properly.

http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/tempfc.htm - here's the link for converting between F and C temperatures.

Pictures Of Roses For An Anonymous Friend

This post is for a friend who talks all the time, and she let me know, no, she demanded, that I post some pictures of roses. She wishes to remain anonymous. I hope I spelled that right.

These are rose bushes (or maybe bushes is too good of a term) from my house and they were left behind by the previous homeowners. Somehow they have survived my brown thumb for 10 years.

I think there's some photo re-touching needed on this one. The sun was so bright that day that it seems the camera got overexposed.

Homeowner DIY - New Toy

Well I finally had to break down and buy a new week-wacker. I figured I would go on-the-cheap and get a Feather-Light one. It was on sale cheap, $64.













The only assembly required was to put the little shroud on, the thing that attaches to the end where the string wacker wheel is.

I like the 3-way choke - 2-stroke engines seem to always need a minute or so to warm up before they run at full power. The medium setting on the choke proves somewhat useful in keeping the engin sputtering along until it's warmed up.

Here's a nice close-up of the back of the engine. It's a 25cc engine.

Joys Of Owning Your Own Home - Part 2 - Snowstorms

Oh how I love my home. Normally I am quite proud of being able to do yardwork and landscaping on my own without having to hire a landscaper. Unfortunately, this also means I have to shovel snow myself. Here's a nice little video I took of our latest snowstorm here in Amherst, NY. I took this video AFTER I had already shoveled out the driveway. Looks like I'll being doing it again soon...

Joys Of Owning Your Own Home - Part 1 - Patching Concrete

Oh how I love my home. Recently I worked on a project to patch some concrete sidewalks in the front yard by the road. The town sent me a letter saying I was a bad boy by not taking care of my sidewalks. I had to "repair" them by a certain deadline. They did not specify the exact nature of the repairs, except to say I could not allow any cracks to exist that were more than 1/2" wide, and I could not allow any part to be 1/2" taller than the next part. I guess this is to keep people who have trouble walking from getting injured or killed by the sidewalk's cracks. At first I said "I'll get right on it - yeah, really" but then I kept reading the letter and found something about getting fined if I did not comply. So naturally, I concluded I could patch the cracks rather than replace the whole section. Why pay someone else to do something you can do yourself? Especially today with the internet. I found all kinds of websites with info on how to patch concrete. The concept of what to do is fairly easy. The work needed to do it is not terribly physical unless you have to move conrete around in a wheel barrow. I did have aching muscles though.

Here are some "before" pictures. I thought it was very nice of the paint can operator to mark where the repairs were needed by the letter R.

First I had to get a hammer & chisel, and chop out the areas in the cracks. For the largest cracks I also had to get the weed-wacker out and carve out the mud, grass and roots from between the cracks. Dirty work. I wore goggles. I felt good about doing dirty work that requires a little muscle.

Here's a section with the biggest cracks in it.

Nice.

Here are some shots of the patched concrete.

Well I have to admit I actually had a good time doing this project. Ever since, when I see some freshly poured concrete as I drive around town, I feel like I'm part of a brotherhood. Huah!