Notes For Me ( and You)

For the past four days we have been taken right to summer weather – temperatures into the mid 80s. And while the humidity is not at summer levels, the air is instead thick with tree pollen. Cars turn yellow overnight, and even those, like myself, who do not consider themselves to very allergic to things, are rubbing their eyes, coughing and wheezing. At least ( so far) it is not swine flu!

The picture gallery is back in operation. I don’t know what happened to it. One day it was working, and then the next time I checked it, it was completely screwed up. Some kind of deep rooted permission problem was all that Google could advise, along with the advice to restart things – which is what I have done. I will (re) upload many more pictures once I am sure things are stable.

A few weeks ago, a stong, gusty storm ripped off several rows of shingles, in a section about three feet long, starting on the west side of the front of the house. We did not have a leak – the tar paper underlay is actually the real water barrier with the shingles there to protect it from the elements and for looks – but it needed to be fixed before the spring thunderstorms start in earnest.

Now I do tackle most home stuff myself, but for this I wanted to get a professional in, mostly because I thought the risk/reward of working on the roof wasn’t a good deal! So I contacted a local company that was recommended by some friends. They came by one day – we were not here – and mailed in an estimate. The cheap option was $600, the expensive option was $1,200. Although it was a small repair, they said the shingle style/color was no longer made and they proposed to pull off some from the back, replace those with new, non matching, and reinstall the used shingles on the front – hence the price.

I then thought again about doing it myself. I took one of the pieces of shingle that had blown down and went to the main roofing supply house to find a close match ( maybe). The guy behind the counter took one look at it and said it was ” such and such” – and they had tons of that in stock ! I bought a couple of bundles and went home via Home Depot for a few new tools, then up on the roof (carefully). One hour later – all finished and looking good! Cost of materials used – maybe $15 ( not counting the unused shingles in the bundles). New tools, $30. A profitable afternoon.

Alex is now 18. We had a nice family party yesterday with all the local family present. The only one missing was Jake – he was coming back from Chicago. The Frost Middle School band and orchestra travelled up to Chicago for a music festival. He was gone for four days, and seemed to have slept maybe 4 hours!

The weather this weekend was simply wonderful, right up to Sunday evening when a change moved in and today ( Monday) it has simply poured all morning.

At the end of the spring break week, we – very much on the spur of the moment – took off south to Williamsburg, VA. We stayed (using points) at the Marriott and spend a day at Busch Gardens, ridding the coasters and relaxing.

Everything at the park was fresh and bright, with the flowers and gardens at least a couple of weeks ahead of ours.

Many of these theme parks have a narrow gauge railway running around the place, more as a attraction than as transportation. At many of the parks, the steam engines that hauled the short trains looked very authentic, but there was never anything about them to found at the park.

So back at the hotel I used the ever powerful google and found that there was one company, Crown Metal Products that made these trains for parks all across the USA. Although build in the 70s and 80s, these were effectively old style engines, the only “upgrade” being propane firing.

After a short wet spell, today was dry, sunny, and very windy. The mild wind dried the ground sufficiently to allow me to get out dig over all the vegetable bed.

The potatoes are sitting by the basement windows, and next weekend they should be sprouting and ready to go in the ground.

To my surprise, part of a row of lettuce survived the cold winter.

They will be the first crop of the year! Tomorrow, if the wind dies down I will spread my one application of fertilizer on the grass. The main reason for this treatment is actually the crab grass preventer that is part of the application.

This year I am trying a “no-name” brand “Pennington rather
than the Scotts. We will see how effective this is.

This weekend also saw the first soccer game for the Thistle. Jake scored twice in a 4-2 win.