projects on the go
Some of the wild flower seeds must have been what Sandra has identified as “wild lettuce”. They grow like trees! Now my fruit trees are inundated by what amounts to giant weeds. I’ll have to pull some.
Some of the shrubs in the front, next to the sidewalk, have died off. I pulled four dead shrubs and kept two that were half-dead. I’ll have to trim them sometime. In the mean time, I watered the two new shrubs. I hope they take.
The wild flower garden has filled in with various colours.
Unfortunately, some of it is just wild weeds. … But what is a “weed”, anyway?
The rear tenant wants a little privacy. To that end, we’re adding pickets to the rear deck which will create a visual barrier between the two areas. They still have to be cut to the appropriate height (i.e. the tallest point not rotted away!), power washed, and stained.
The fence posts are painted now, in Tremclad black, ready for holes to be drilled for rails. Four new pads are now installed, gravel and sand underneath.
Next: move the shed out of the house’s rear walkway, drill the holes, exchange the bolts (should have 5″, not 4″), and put up the rails.
I took a wire wheel to the steel fence posts to remove the surface rust. I could have painted right over the rust with Tremclad paint, according to others around me, but, according to the directions on the can, this is a no-no. Take the rust off first!
We’re mixing cement today, putting in the last (hopefully) fence posts.
All went well enough except the last post – too many roots. The hole was in the wrong place because the roots pushed pushed the power auger off to one side.
Now what? Next time I’ll cut the roots off as far down as I can and complete the job.
Fourteen bags of Quikrete weight in at 420kg (924 lbs), more than I would like to haul, but nothing broke off the van, so we’re good.
The post holes are all dug, ready for cement. (The last hole was full of roots. What a pain – especially for the roots!)
Okay, so the puns aren’t great.
The new walkway from the rear of the house to the parking area is underway. Floyd and I went to Lethbridge Landscape Supply for some gravel. The guy there calculated how much we would need – 0.6 cubic yards. We slowly drove back with 1.071 tonnes of ‘fractured road crush gravel’ loaded onto the trailer and shovelled it in, wheel barrow by wheel barrow, into the bed.
After reshaping the bed a little, we found it was too shallow. The 2’x2′ concrete slabs weren’t level with the gazebo concrete. We stole some gravel from another place until it was level. The end result:
Next: turning part of the gazebo into a walkway.
Wouldn’t you know it – a piece of concrete is exactly the same place as a future fence post! I bought a blade for cutting concrete ($55, Rona) and, with Floyd pouring water, cut it in line with the rest of the concrete. This was my first time cutting concrete.
It wasn’t bad, but I now know to cut full-depth rather than just an inch deep at a time. Why? Cutting only an inch deep creates enormous heat on just the outer 1 inch of the blade causing warping. Cutting at full-dept, heat is evenly distributed throughout the blade.
I did the ‘call before you dig’ (or now they call it ‘click before you dig’) and hung up my permit notices. I marked the proposed fence line with marker paint.
Of course, this line will likely change, depending on the utility location markers when they come to mark, the tenant(s), Floyd’s advice, and my ongoing vision for the place. It will change the rear entrance pathway for the guys in the house and the rear tenant’s entrance.
I’m still a little undecided on where the fence should be. Originally, I envisioned a motorized sliding gate, keeping vehicles inside the fence line.
The neighbour down the alley has this fence. It looks like it has been disused for some time.
This project will likely prove to be too complicated and costly. So best go with an ordinary fence inside the property with the vehicles outside.