Plugging Away

This week saw us working on a variety of projects – none as major as renting a bucket lift – but all checking off our list of update and maintenance tasks. Here are the details.

Monday was a “driving day” as I returned the bucket lift to the rental yard in Decorah, Iowa, followed by a shopping stop at the Decorah Walmart. Later that evening I drove a couple hours to a town named Houston, Minnesota, to rendezvous for dinner with my brother Jon, his wife Dianne, plus their oldest boy Garrett and his wife Cassie and their two children Heidi (7) and Colin (4).

We had a pleasant dinner and caught up on a number of topics. Garrett and Cassie, who live on the eastern coast, had traveled to visit family and friends. I had not seen them for many years but had kept up with them a bit through our holiday cards. All the family members seem to be doing OK. (A side note: Houston, MN is noted for its annual International Owl Days.)

Pam continued working on her holiday wreath project. This involves adding patriotic-themed ribbons and bows to wire frames. She will finish and hang these outside, adding more color around the house just in time for the 4th of July.

Pam took advantage of a calm day to move along on the LP tank painting project. Done with four spray cans of Rustoleum, a calm day was essential to this task; there have been few calm days lately. Here are photos of the tank and west end of the garage from the time we moved in until yesterday.

I continued painting the house in (for us) a novel way. Since we had run out of time to do the white trim using the bucket lift, I decided it was time to try painting from my 10-foot wooden ladder. This gets me part-way up the trim but my reach fell short of the upper parts of the trim. Going through a bin of painting supplies that had been stored in the garage attic, Pam and I came across a 4-inch roller. Coupled with two extension handles, taped together, my reach was extended to within an inch or two of the top of the trim boards.

After many repositions of the ladder, Pam stayed on the ground to dip the roller into a paint tray, handed the extended roller to me on the ladder, and in this way we painted the trim boards around the front of the house and a few other places I could reach. The bare wood that had been exposed during the pressure washing now has the first coat of paint on it, making everything look better and adding some protection from the showers that are in the forecast.

I worked at an “indoor” project involving photography. My brother Jon had given me a carton of Mom’s old cameras and photography gear. I went through these items, removing old batteries (most corroded) and sorting through accessories and manuals. I found film in many of the camera bodies.

I do not plan to get these developed as the films themselves are very old and have deteriorated over time, but will keep them as examples of film types used over the years. (A note, though, to readers of this blog: If you are going to store cameras for a long time, please remove the batteries.) Eventually I hope to display my growing collection of old cameras somewhere in the house. I have several old Argus 35mm cameras, a couple of Brownies, and even a couple of “bellows” units. None are very valuable but they are of interest to me. More on this hobby in future posts.

A few things are happening around the yard. Various lilies are beginning to bloom.

The east wall of the front porch is looking quite colorful; the geraniums are doing well. Hostas in the Mary Lynn Memorial Garden are getting huge this year.

Out in the garden we set up some retaining walls. Pam hopes to train the various vining plants – pumpkins and gourds – to stay (mostly) within these bounds.

It was another typical week: painting, project work, yard maintenance. Sometimes it seems we are not moving ahead as fast as we wanted to, but every project improves the appearance or livability of the house. We are reinvigorated to see paint on the 2nd story; that’s a big step forward for Heart House.