Update on Bushman Land

I'll make this quick before my computer crashes again!
Finally got the propane tank and line moved.  Much better.

It used to be located by the rocks you see in the back of the picture.  I know I'm fussy.

The guys did a nice job.  I gave them each a bag of tomatoes to take home.  They worked hard as you can tell by his shirt.

Now I can finish my landscape.  But first I had to celebrate the milestone with a chicken wing fry.

I set up all my stuff outside because outside is always better than inside.

I made 3 different sauces.  Buffalo, honey bbq and a sweet chili.  I used my camp stove to keep the sauce warm and deep fried the wings in peanut oil.  Of course where there is food there is always a big brown dog!

Then it was time for a big fire.  And maybe a splash or two of used cooking oil on the fire.

Tomatoes are doing well.  Made 3 qts of fresh salsa yesterday morning.  Almost time to start the serious canning.  The sweet corn is pretty good too.  Last night I was roasting it in the husk on the hot coals to sample it.  It could have been the beer munchies too.

One last thing before I go.  Danielle if your still reading this blog I took this picture for you.  It was a sign in a thrift shop.  feel free to copy it to your files.

Later gator!

So you wanna be a homeowner huh?

There are things in life that are much easier done at a younger age.  Running, jumping, staying out late, beer bongs, tattoos, sex (well maybe not easier but so much faster), staying awake and the one I most want to talk about (even though now I keep thinking about all that younger sex and am losing my train of thought) YARDWORK!

Man oh man I used to go all day long and never take a break, work not sex!(quite possibly because there was no beer involved) sweat, till and toil in the heat of the day.  That explains mostly why I spent my entire life under the age of 30 being a paltry 165 lbs.  Ribs sticking out, cheekbones at attention and all my jeans a little loose at a 32 inch waist.  So what gives you ask?  Well in short here is what happened.  First I got married, then I quit my job as a landscaper, then I quit smoking, then I was still married, then I got a job inside of a building where the work is about as strenuous as Gary Coleman ducking under a clothesline.  The entire time my passion for food and cooking growing worse than Dick Cheney's addiction to nitroglycerin.
The raziest thing was I finally began to age.  It hit about 32-33 yrs old.  Hips were hurting, couldn't close my hands all the way without them creaking and cracking, back hurting every morning when I wake up and my knees screaming at me constantly like those little devil bitches on Toddlers and Tiaras.

Now don't get me wrong I'm not officially complaining ok now I am but I still think I can do things the way I used to.  (That was my segway)

Case in point.  Today I worked 10 hours in the hot shop ducking under clotheslines just like little Gary and when I cam home I had some work to do. (Shocker)  I struck a deal with the propane company and they are coming on Friday to relocate my tank and install an entire new propane line.
 If you hadn't heard I damaged the old line excavating for my patio and the tank sits in one of the nicest spots in the yard.  The old line ran through all the area that I wanted to landscape and it had to go.

So I needed to find the septic line that runs from the house to the tank and I also had to remove an old stump that was situated right in front of the regulator (where the gas comes into the house).

I was still able to pull up my inspection reports online for the well and septic inspection and there was a general map of the tank, drainfield and pipes.  I whipped out the tape measure, shovel and pickaxe and went to work.  It took awhile but I found the top of the septic.  It was 20 inches under the ground.  Good enough for me.  All the guy has to do is stay on top of the septic tank and he won't hit the sewer line coming into it.  Now the stump.

Once I had finished I felt like jello in the freezer, all loose and squiggly but tightening up fast.  I was covered in sweat and dirt (but for you girls I was a glistening, tall, tan and handsome man with bulging biceps,  makes the story more interesting than a fat guy with droopy pants heaving like a whore on nickel night)

Anyways it was done.  I'm tired and I retreat into the air conditioning where it is 74 instead of 90.

I'm guessing tomorrow at work won't feel so much like Gary ducking clotheslines but more like Calista Flockhart vs that Japanese dude in a hot dog eating competition.

Onward and upward we go!  Tomorrow I rip out bushes with a chain and my truck!
(insert Tim Allen growl here)

Grab a shovel and dig something would you!
Peace,
-Bushman

A little progress report

Since we seen each other this morning around 10 am I have poured my efforts into the wall construction.
First thing was to find the height of where the future brick paver patio is to be installed.
Once I determined that i could run a line level out to check the plane of the soil.  It appears that the top of the new patio is going to be about 4 inches under the soil that is there now.  oops.  Guess I need to dig some more.  In the mean time I can still begin the wall because I no know where the brick pavers will be.

I want my wall to be lower than the pavers by 4 inches or so.  So I had to dig a big deep trench.  The wall needs to sit on at least 6 inches of gravel.  With 4 inches of the wall being buried that means I had to dig a trench 6" for gravel, 4 inches of buried wall and the 4 inches of remaining soil that needs to be excavated for a whopping total of 14" deep trench.  Of course you can't just slam a wall into a trench.  Well you could but the odds of it being straight and square to the house are decidedly not in your favor.  So the next step is to put of a string.  Pound a stake at the house and one out towards the end of the wall.
For this I use a little geometry.  Like this:
To create corners, we use the 3-4-5 rule from basic geometry: A² + B² = C². This means the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the square of both legs.

I figured you would get it.  What?  It sounds like Portuguese?  Basically you measure 3 foot down one wall (house) and 4 foot down the other (string) and when it is square then the measurement between the two points will be 5 ft.  You just move your line back and forth until you hit the mark.

Yes I learned this in geometry class and yes I forgot it but luckily while doing bits and pieces of construction work my whole life I was taught a second time and this time it stuck.  (probably because there were no hot chicks around)

So now that I had a square line to work from I began setting blocks.  One at a time.  Leveling side to side and front to back using a torpedo level.  Once I had a few laid i could further check their levelness with a four foot level.  It's easy to stray from the mark when your only leveling 12 inches at a time.
A little tip when using cut faced blocks like this is to use a 2 or 4 foot level on the back side of the blocks to make sure they are in a straight line.  Using the split face on the front doesn't work so well.  Just make sure all the backs of your blocks are touching the level.
The beauty of it is once you get the bottom row done you simply stack em up, back filling as you go.

I use 23A which is basically processed road gravel for the base in my trench.  It compacts well and also drains the water away.  I also used it to back fill behind the wall.  You don't want to use soil that holds a lot of moisture because when it freezes in the winter it will push your wall out.

Now as soon as I get the propane line relocated I can finish the wall.

Until then I guess I'll dig out the soil for the pavers.  Under my pavers I will need at least 6 inches of gravel and 1 inch of bedding sand.  Let's see pavers are 2 inches thick plus sand and gravel plus the extra soil I didn't get out the first time.  12 inches.  Son of a............!

Dig Dug the Gardener

Howdy campers!

Just a quick shout and a few pics.  The heat has subsided for a couple days so I have a little energy in me for now.  Although it looks as though the 90s will return once again and not the collar up and pinned up pants 90s I'm talking about the make your b&!!$ stick to your leg kinda 90s.

Here is a shot of the deck.  I had to replace all of the posts and most of the framing.  It looks much nicer than the concrete blocks that the old posts were sitting on.  It takes a little bit of preplanning and some good muscle to do this with one person but hey it's me right?

Here is a shot of all the digging I had to do under the deck.  You can see the exposed propane line to the left of the wheelbarrow.  I only had a short amount of time after work before the shade disappeared as the sun lowered in the horizon so I had to work quick.  3 wheelbarrows and one beer, three wheelbarrows and one beer.  I usually quit after 3 beers.  Damn hard work for a fat guy!

This shot is the roughed out excavation.  The wall will run along the length of the dirt wall and fade into the ground as the wall gets shorter.

There will be a bar in the corner where the wall runs out.  The remaining area under the deck will resemble a tropical jungle but with native plants.  Tall ferns and hostas, Japanese iris, many others.  The first main objective is to screen the AC unit.  So a small lattice panel will be installed between it and the patio area and then planted with taller types of vegetation.  I will also be installing a small "creek" on the back side of the wall where you see the wooden bench swing in the pic above.  It will have a very small splashing waterfall and the water will run directly behind the wall and follow it's course and will disappear into the ground just before it hits the bar area.  A pump buried in the ground will recirculate the water back to the top of the waterfall.  An outdoor ceiling fan will be mounted under the deck to provide a nice air circulation.  The quiet burbling brook will provide a place to sit and relax.  I'm thinking about some misters to mount above as well for those hot days.

The garden has rebounded well from the storm although there are a few things that were flat out destroyed.
Compare this picture to the one at the top of the page.
We are getting red tomatoes now and the sweet corn will be ready in a couple weeks.
The section of White corn I planted has three ears per stalk.  They are nice ears too.  Usually when you get three one is kinda runty!  We have been eating squash, zucchini, green beans and onions so far.

Well it's time to make breakfast and head outside to start the install of the retaining wall.

I'll see you soon!

-Bushman

A day of musty!

They stood in line, straight, unwavering.  A multitude of colors bursting forth, tearing at the eyes.  So hard to concentrate.  I feel dizzy. 
The eery sound of metal on metal, screeching, clawing at my ears.  I stagger slightly.
The smell of a thousand, no, ten thousand lives all hanging, waiting, wanting.  I crinkle my nose.

Thrift store, Goodwill, Volunteers of America.  They all do the same thing to me.  A brutal attack on my senses.  Yet I go or rather follow as the woman of the house browses incessantly and I casually peruse the eight track tapes and the stained bread making machines.  Sometimes I find things.  Once I found a small grease gun for $1. 

I prefer the antique shops.  The musty smell is tolerable, the history is believable.  The Italian trunk?  Untouchable at a mere $2500. 

Hours and hours we search.  Looking for something, not sure what it is but the comfort in knowing as soon as you see it makes it all the worthwhile. 

Two pictures, framed in antique barn wood.  Riding in the back seat of the truck.  I can smell them.  They need fresh air.  Soon they will reside in my lower level.  Much cooler than the hot and humid shop where they may have laid trapped for a lifetime.  They will be warmed by my fireplace in the winter and in turn will warm you as you admire the calmness of the picture and the softness of the wood frames.

Nothing is in vain if you have the right attitude. 

I thought it was global warming not global broiling!

The pool was refreshing.  A bit too warm but still refreshing.  I suppose it's hard to keep the water cool when it runs a hundred degrees for 5 straight days, he thought to himself. 
"Thanks for the dip", she said.  He mimicked, waved goodbye to their friends and they made there way from the deck of the pool and onto the crunchy, brown grass.  Sweat immediatley began to soak into his t-shirt.
"Lets grab a burger at Joe's before we head home", she suggested.  He nodded in agreement.

Perched on two bar stools, a cold, draft Summer Shandy soon found its way in front of him.  A 32 oz mason jar with ice hanging from the rim.  He drank greedily and let out a big sigh.  Three old men sat down the bar from them commenting on the heat and every play of the Tiger's game.  As the barkeep took the order, dust began to swirl down the once paved street now under construction.  The barkeep headed towards the front door.  "Eddy", she said.  "Give me your keys and I'll roll your windows up, looks like rain".
The three old men scoffed and joked at her.  "What the hell is this rain you speak of?  Never heard of such a thing".
Thunder rumbled in the distance and Eddy quickly retrieved the keys from his pocket and tossed them at the girl.  She dissapeared out the door into a giant dust tornado.  The wind picked up its intensity.

The man in the sweaty t-shirt looked at the woman he was with and commented something like being about time.
 Halfway through the burger and beer the building began to quake.  A few drops of rain splattered outside on the dusty sidewalk.  Then all hell broke loose as rain began to pour from the sky.  50 mph winds buffeted the building and tossed the rain completley sideways.  Soon the people inside could not see out the windows.  All eyebrows were up, all was quiet except a few holy shits that floated around the bar room.
As quickly as it started it ceased.  A total of bout 7 minutes.
The man and woman exited the building, climbed into their vehicle and headed home.  Hoping that all was ok at their house.  Little did they know.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Well despite the heat we have been able to hang on.  The little big storm that whipped through here that day was intense.  When we arrived home we found our patio set had been thrown from the second story deck and onto the ground below.  The glass table top had shattered into a million pieces.  The umbrella was almost unrecognizable.  A big maple tree in the sideyard had its top snapped right out of it and my garden was in shambles.  Much of the corn was laying flat,  tomato plants lay on their side.  Egg plant, broccoli and cauliflower were snapped off, and many of the onions lay flattened.
We did our best to clean up the glass but the wind was so strong that broken glass lay in a streak 60 feet long.  I was heartbroken.  The patio set was our housewarming present from the parents and it was almost exactly a year ago when we first got it.  My beautiful tomatoes were over five feet tall.  All the tops were snapped off.  There isn't much more to say.  Very depressing.  All this on the eve of our ten year wedding anniversary.
We headed to Lake Michigan the next day to salvage something.  The water was beautiful and it was much cooler by the shore.  The only bad thing was the sand was so hot it burnt our feet.  When we left at 2:30 the temperature in my truck said it was 90 degrees.  15 minutes later as we stopped inland for a late lunch it read 103.  We returned home exhausted and spent the rest of the day dozing on and off watching tv.
Today the temp is back at 100.
Somone please tell the devil that we found his weather and he can have it back!

Damn it's Hot

Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed as I stepped from the house.  The humidity outside caused me to gasp as I struggled for a breath.  The weight of the air pressed in on me, persperation beaded instantly.
A few rain drops bled from the sky.  I smiled at the thought of rain.  I revelled in the idea of green grass once again. 
I could hear the tomatoes in the garden chatting excitedly as they awaited their long overdue bath.  The ground was hard as iron and dust was the common denominator for everything.  The landscape was alien.  The drudgery of the heat, oppressive at it's best, mind boggling at it's worst.
It was 5 am.  Darkness still shrouded the land but the birds were begining to awaken.  Soon they would be flocking to the birdbath to quench their thirst and wash their little dusty feathers but for now the lightning gave only brief glimpses of the day to come. 
Just as quickly as it gave hope, it departed, leaving only the smell of rain in the air.  The tomatoes began to weep.

I hope everyone had a great Independence Day.  We laid around the house in the AC watching a program about the Revolutionary War all day.  It was nice.  I've spent the last 5 days working on the deck project.
The deck is complete for now.  I still need to rebuild the railing but that will be done when I build the pergola overtop of the new deck.  A later project, once the money begins to flow again, or drip is a better descriptor.

Replacing the posts turned out to be the hardest part of the project.  I had that finished by Saturday and then we started to dig out the dirt from under the deck for the patio while the concrete cured around the posts.
It was hot.  The ground was hard.  The propane line was buried under the deck.  I have no idea why they would have buried it under the deck but they did and I found it.  Unfortunatley with my pick ax!
As luck would have it I only pinched the copper line in half.  It was not leaking and there was enough gas flowing to run the water heater.  Emergency call to the propane company revealed it would be a $150 service call to repair the line.  If I could wait until Monday it would be better.  I waited.

He showed up on monday to repair the line.  We discussed moving the tank to a more suitable location and running all new line.  They agreed to pay for the first 50 feet of line but I would be responsible for the remainder and the service fee of $45.  The line is $2 per foot.  The distance is 150 feet.
Drip, Drip.
So by the time he left a good chunk of the day was gone and I couldn't work on the deck because he was under it.  I did manage to replace all of the header and side joist boards.  Levelling and straightening as I went.  Half off the deck boards were also installed and I stumbled my way back into the AC.
At one point the thermometer reard 101 degrees.  I was whooped!
Tuesday rolled around and we were having company over for dinner so I needed to finish the deck and mow the yard, not to mention prep dinner and all that goes with it.  I did it.  Just in time but I did it. 

So now I need to finish the excavation and build the retaining wall under the deck and eventually put the brick pavers in.  Drip, Drip.

The garden is looking great although some of the veggies are struggling in the heat.  The tomatoes are five feet tall, beans are being picked along with squash, zuchinni and cucumber. 

There is a burn ban righ now so no campfires allowed.  The yard is mostly brown.  My valiant attempts at watering just can't keep up with the heat and drought.
The computer died and we had to have it fixed.  Dust bunnies and overheating were the problem.  I'm using the daughter's laptop right now.  Once I get the computer back I will post some pics of everything.

For now this is all you get.  I'll be back later.
-Bushman