Bucket Lift Weekend

You may be tired of seeing more “painting” details, as much as we are of painting, but the work continues. Here are a few photos from our weekend work on the west side of the house.

We rented a bucket lift for the weekend to get the lower “weekend rate” from the rental shop. The lift was in use both Saturday and Sunday, with Sunday not quite as intense as Saturday. Both of us were pretty well tired out from the hours spent scraping, detailing, and painting but we did get the wall done in red, some white trim painted, and a couple minor repairs on the east side of the house as the ending tasks for the two day effort.

We begin with this “Before” shot of the west wall as it looked before we removed the A/C unit from the upper floor and had the new windows installed.

Pam on the lift this past weekend.

The first task is always scraping and wire brushing the old paint off the siding. In the above photo you can see where this has been accomplished on Pam’s left side. I generally do this work then take a break while Pam does the detail painting around the trim. Also note the yellowed vertical trim on the corner of the walls. (This area will be shown again in the next photo, for reference.)

At this point the trim painting is pretty far along. I am painting the white trim and will shortly move to my left to paint the under-eave areas. Some wood, behind the gutters, had not seen paint since the house was new.

This is a shot of the completed red and white painting on Sunday evening. While the “gingerbread” trim in the peaks still needs to be painted, we are quite pleased with the looks of this west wall after about 12 hours of hard work. (I still need to put the dog run fence back in place.) Getting this work done was a main goal for 2022 and the house is starting to look pretty good. What a feeling to have finished this particular wall!

Next we will move to the east side and deal with all the windows and trim, more detail work than on the west wall so progress will be slower. A few repairs will be needed on some of the siding boards; the east elevation is where many telephone and internet cables were drilled into the second floor, resulting in broken and damaged hundred-year-old siding. The siding will be replaced with Hardie Board because (as I recently found out) original redwood siding is no longer available. Hardie Board is the siding used on the garage and on the south wall of the house and comes pretty close to matching the original stuff.

Also this week…

I had my first appointment with the oral surgery place in Mason City. The work to replace a broken front tooth will commence after I return from my upcoming trip to Colorado. It is hoped that the extraction and placement of the implant will be done in a single session, but it turns out my diabetes may be a limiting factor. I have scheduled a blood draw for later this week to verify my current A1C levels. The cost for both orthodontist and dentist to replace ONE tooth is in the “crazy thousands of dollars” range. Unreal.

On a non-health related topic, I’ve mentioned in past posts that the Elma area is home to many Mennonite families. One of their prohibitions is they can’t use tractors with rubber tires. A steel-wheeled tractor was parked on Main Street so I took a photo of it which represents a very common conversion to steel wheels. This is the type of thing one can see on Main Street in NE Iowa.

I have ordered some bits and pieces for the new trailer, mostly replacement marker lights and “D-ring” tie downs. The later will be welded in place by a local shop. I would like to locate a set of ramps but may end up getting a set made. New ramps are quite expensive and I would rarely be using them but they sure would make life easier for loading and unloading the Ford 8N tractor and other heavy equipment. If anyone reading this has a set they would part with, please let me know!

Otherwise, life goes on as usual. Pam has been working in the garden and I am getting ready for my Colorado trip. (The next post will be delayed until after I return.) Leaf season has begun and I am moving ahead on building a hose attachment for my lawn chipper/vac. New hose kits are around $380.00 but I hope to have mine completed for around $100.00. The hose should aid in cleaning up around fence lines, flower beds, the LP tank, and other places difficult to rake.

Photo Archive

I have a few miscellaneous Black-and-White scans to show this time. The first photo is from the early ’60s and is my family with my Grandpa Joe at the far right. Back left is my mother, Emily, and in front of her is my Dad, George, and in front of him is my brother Jon. Next to Jon in the front row is me. Behind me is my sister Mary and to her left is my other sister, Carol. Photo was taken at Grandpa Joe’s home in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

This next photo is of our home in the mountains west of Boulder, Colorado and taken in the early ’80’s. It shows some firewood cut and stacked up. We did a lot of heating in our fireplace with this wood.

Finally, an “artsy” shot of an old wagon. It may have been a manure spreader judging by the large gear on the back wheel.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

The pageantry surrounding the funeral activities of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain held my interest this past week. Many of the coffin viewing locations (both in Scotland and in England) are places I have visited in my travels to the UK over the years. The Brits can always be counted on for an over-the-top display of colorful uniforms, banners and ornamental braiding. (I would observe bagpipes should only be wailing while disappearing into the distance – up close is TOO MUCH. Kilts however, well, who can ever have too many kilts?) And, of course, including her Majesty’s horse and dogs in the Windsor portion of the proceedings was the most touching part of all to me.

Daughter Felicity and I both watched BBC coverage of the funeral from our respective locations; both of us were struck by how their commentators knew when to stop talking and just listen — listen to the marching feet, the jangling of harness and swords, the murmur of the crowds– to the sounds that conveyed the import and solemnity of the event. In contrast, American commentators seemed to talk nonstop, cancelling out important audio information that set the mood. Those BBC folks really know what they are doing – a class act.

Happy Trails.