"The forecast for today is mostly cloudy with only a slight chance of widely scattered rain showers. Any rain will amount to less than 1/10 of an inch."
So.... wanna guess what it's doing, and has been doing for the past 3 hours? Yes... raining. With thunderstorms on the way, apparently.
Weathermen suck.
The reason the rain upset me so much was because I was working outside today. Since it's cool today (65° at the moment) and it WASN'T supposed to rain, I started digging our new path. This is the trampled area from the new side (laundry) door to the street.
Several ideas were tossed around, but we ended up deciding on the "cheap" option, since we're...well....cheap. Bendy wooden border sections from Wal-Mart, black anti-weed cloth, play sand, and red rocks.
I started by digging up all of the lilies. Yes, the path goes right through a flowerbed with lilies that have been there for 50 years. I moved the lilies to the side for later replanting, and took the path down about 6 inches. I uncovered several bricks, the heel of a shoe, broken porcelain (white with a blue pattern), and a bottle from "Conrad Cook - Druggist - Greencastle, IND".
It started raining when I was almost done digging the path. I kept at it. I knew that there was an old brick sidewalk under there somewhere, and I planned on using it as part of our path. I found it and uncovered a "pad" slightly wider than the path. I wanted to use it as the ending point, but there's still some grass between the brick and the street. I may use some of the bricks that I have (from the sidewalk...from when the water company dug up my yard last year) to fill in that area.
After the path was excavated, I put down the black fabric stuff, poured sand on top of it, and covered it all with the red rock. We didn't have enough rock, of course.
Yesterday wasn't a very busy day. I put up a gutter on the laundry room part of the house. Inexpertly, I might add...it leaks at every junction. I also did some insulating and beadboard work in the laundry room.
Also, just as a note, we're finally upgrading to 200 amp service on Monday. I'm using Green's Electric here in Greencastle. Their estimate? $780. That's for installing the new meter base, conduit, wire, installing the breaker box, hooking up the lines that they can, and turning my current fuse box into a sub-box so that I can change the rest of the wiring at my leisure. Why now? Dave's can't hook up the AC, that's why. lol
So, I'll leave you with some pictures and a few comments. Oh, and the obligatory cute cat pic.
I forgot to post this the other day. It was underneath the first layer of linoleum.
Here's the pretty new path.
The mud pit at the end is actually the brick sidewalk. I haven't gotten it all cleaned off yet.
Another 'Wife-With-Camera' moment. Me putting up the gutters yesterday.
The bottle I dug up today... [UPDATE: While searching online, I found that Concrad Cook - Druggist - was in business in 1882. I don't know any year other than that, so I can't determine the age of the bottle positively. 1880s-1890s would be safe, I think. I'll probably see if the local museum wants it.]
Beadboard on BOTH sides of the door now!
You can see some of the ceiling insulation in this shot.
I decided to make little built-in knick-knack cubbies over the doorway. They'll be visible to anyone standing at the door, so it'll be a nice "welcome" to visitors (once there are cool little things up there, of course).
Sian has been busy potting plants and cleaning up the porch.
Obligatory Cute Cat pic. Sassy and Elmo.
Comments to date: 5. This is page 1 of 1.
Sandy Michigan
Posted at 6:06pm on Saturday, November 24th, 2007
Love the obligatory cat picture!
Jen West Virginia
Posted at 12:09pm on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007
I love that siding. Your hard work is paying off.
Patricia W. Jackson,Michigan
Posted at 4:13am on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007
The path is very pretty. I like the curve and how it's surrounded by the lilies. Very pretty.
The bottle is a neat find. It's hard to believe that druggists could have them personalized. Of course, they would be used over and over again.
Gwin Arizona
Posted at 12:13am on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007
Looking good sweeties. :D
Luis&Laura (VJ) Puerto Rico
Posted at 5:36pm on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007
The path looks lovely, as does that porch with the new plants.
