Summer at home

Since my last update you would have found me most of everyday outside in our garden. Every year I am looking forward to our summertime and when it is finally here it seems way too fast to being over, so I try to make the best of it. All my jobs got done including that disliked annual sanding and staining of the deck. 

Just like last year when the flowers are at their best and the vegetable plants show their first produce, we get stormy weather. Yup, twice my garden got disheveled in the last three weeks. As the saying goes, when it rains it pours and the aftermath had me scrambling to upright flowerpots, collect broken off flowers and branches and straighten out flowerbeds that got flooded. 

 

And then there is the cutting of the grass. At this time of year we have to cut every week and there is a lot to be cut. We had several huge bags full of cuttings that I had collected with the sweeper because there was just so much of it and a trip to the yard disposal was in order to get rid of it.  Had I left the cuttings on the lawn the heavy grass would have caused ugly soggy lumps all over the place.

 

Benno and I got our second shots of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines a couple of weeks ago and we felt safe enough so we could accept the invite to a Father’s Day BBQ at our son’s place.  Our daughter-in-law had her second shot also a while ago and the family had been housebound for quite some time with all three kids on Internet homeschooling. 

 

While it has been very warm here with the temps in the upper 80F/32C during the day, I do like it and don’t mind being outside, although I come inside the air-conditioned house for meal prep and breaks. Benno has been enjoying some time just sitting in the travel trailer watching a movie on prime while testing the air-conditioning. Life is great!

 

I thought I give you a tour of our neighborhood commercial fishing harbor here in Wheatley just around the corner. It is within walking distance and the fleet is quite active bringing in a variety of fish that is processed at several fish processing plants nearby. Also Hike Metal, adjacent to the fishing fleet, has manufactured another Coast Guard SAR vessel, which is bound for Newfoundland soon. 

 

This Coast Guard vessel was just built inside the building behind the boat

This is another boat for the Ministry of Natural Resources built at Hike Metal

One of the fishing vessels hangs in the slings of the travel lift for maintenance work

Many Police boats are being built here too

There is a yard for repairing the fishing nets

Thank you all for dropping by again and I hope you liked all those fishing boats. (Just like to mention that the professional fishermen here call them fishing tugs!)

Very busy two weeks

Light rain is forecasted here in our area for today. Gosh I needed a break from garden work anyway and it is a bonus for not having to water the newly planted flowers, shrubs and vegetable plants. The month of May is always busy for me but the last two weeks I worked nonstop and I am not done yet! 

The new concrete driveway looks great.  The concrete expert came twice a day to water it for two days after pouring. Then Benno took over with watering four times per day for the next 3 days. After that we got some help in the form of rain for a day. The reason for doing that watering is to strengthen the concrete in a slow drying process after the chemical process between cement and the aggregate had kicked off during the first 24 hours after pouring, according to “Garth” our concrete expert. The wooden forming was taken off after two days and the stress release cuts were also made.  I spent almost a day to clean up the gaps between the grass and the concrete of debris and then I purchased a dozen bags of 25 lb. of black earth from Rona (Lowes Canada) to fill the space with. After that I seeded it and I keep watering every day hoping for the grass to grow. This will be the end of the concrete story. J

 

We decided that a perennial flower/shrub berm would look nice opposite the little flowerbed that we already have at the water meter, which is located at the end of driveway. So off I went to shop for edging stones. That was quite a load and I am glad we have a pickup truck to put those in. Next the question was how much soil would it take to fill that new flowerbed and buying that in 25 lb. bags was out of the question. Benno hooked up our utility trailer and we went to a local wholesaler to purchase a little more than a yard of topsoil, basically the whole utility trailer full, that we both shoveled into the circle of edging stones that I had placed onto the grass.

 

As I did with the two other berms that I had created, I purchased a heavy ornamental rock to place onto the middle of the berm. Again, I am glad we are having a utility trailer, as it was loaded with a forklift onto it and then back home the trailer was positioned so that we used the ramp at the gate of the trailer for Benno to wrestle the rock down right onto the berm.

 

The fun part was going out to all the nurseries to shop for plants, flowers and vegetable shoots. I did that several times, although time consuming, to find what I was looking for. It seems because of the cool spring some of the shrubs and flowers have not arrived yet or are still very small.

 

Some of the radishes are ready to be harvested

I surprised a rabbit as it was going to nip on the buds of the Azalea
that is probably why it has only so few blossoms

In the meantime Benno built a new post for the electrical and water outlet for the RV, which will fit even under the open slide. He wanted to use cedar wood and none of our local stores had any. We ordered online and went all the way to Wallaceburg to get it, quite the drive for a piece of wood. The new post was painted, although the wood looked also nice unpainted, but this way it is even more weather resistant. We are waiting for a solar light with “Bengal Blue” LED light to brighten up in the dark, shipped from Amazon.

 

Our truck was allowed to drive over the concrete a couple of days ago and is back in the garage. The travel trailer, however, has to wait a while longer (about 28 days after pouring) before it is coming home to its new pad. 

Hopefully some of my perennial flowers and shrubs will have some buds or blossoms to show in my next post. Thanks again for dropping by.

 

Happenings at our place

Yes, I know another blog post is overdue so here it is. While the spring weather has been rather disappointing here in our part of the province with abnormal cold days and several frosty nights, we went ahead and tried to do all the things we had planned anyway. Every year at springtime I look forward to the blossoming of my Azaleas and just about every year, just as the shrub is in full bloom, we get some heavy rain ruining the blossoms. However, for a few days the red blooms looked good until the rain came down. 

 

The Hummingbirds, Finches, and Orioles arrived about mid April and I spotted a Brown Thrasher in the yard among the Robins. I put out the usual sugar feeders and some grape jelly for the Orioles, but what I hadn’t counted on was that other birds, like the House Sparrows and Wrens, all like the jelly too, and they are fighting over it!  

 

It was in our plan to do something with our driveway this year. For the most part is was covered with gravel up to the concrete pad that is to the side of our house. I have been struggling keeping the weeds at bay that sprout out of it no matter what I do. Also at the side where the travel trailer is parked, we have a bit of a retaining wall made from 4x4” pressure treated wood that developed a bit of a slant. With the purchase of longer travel trailers over the years the space between the RV and the garage has become pretty tight to maneuver our truck. So a few weeks ago we took out the first two of the ornamental shrubs that were next to the concrete pad so we could widen the pad for easier access to the garage. I had to relocate a bunch of spring flowers too and saved some of the good dirt from the flowerbed.

Next Benno went and dug up a section of the drainage pipe from the RV pad so it could be extended since our present trailer has the drainage outlet further back. Also the post for the electrical hookup and water faucet were dismantled and Benno will construct a new one.

 

We had hired Ciliska Contractor, a local company close by. We know their quality work because they did our seeping tiles and sump years ago and other jobs on and off for us, who sent a crew to start working on the driveway. They removed the clear stone gravel, brought more sand and a different type of gravel was installed to compact and prepare the ground. Then the area was graded with the help of a laser level that sat on a tripod so the lane will be slightly sloped for water runoff. The retaining wall that was made from pressure treated 4x4 wood got ripped out and for several hours Benno painstakingly pulled out the long rebar rods with a vise grip that were holding the old layers of 4x4 wood together. The whole driveway and RV parking spot were then covered with wire mesh inside of the concrete forming. In the existing concrete pad there were holes drilled into its sides for the insertion of rods to bond the new and the old slabs and to insure they sat at the same level. 

 

In-between we had a weekend and then the concrete trucks were booked out so we had to wait another day. Finally the concrete was poured. It took 18 cubic yards to fill the new addition.

 

For a final photo of the driveway you have to wait a couple of weeks, I guess. And you know I just realized that we could now easily park a 52 foot Tiffin Class A motorhome in front of our place. 

Now that's a thought ;-)