Still a bit unbearable to work outside, not that I’m complaining, but recently it has been all over the place. I would prefer that it was a little cooler especially with the hard physical slog that I’m doing. I hope that we will be able to get the pool out once it’s finished.
I have to move the hardcore by the bucket and that is heavy, I will end up with arms like Popeye. The thought of manhandling sixty slabs one at a time is even more daunting, but that’s next week’s challenge.
I headed out to my favourite man heaven, Menards to pick up a few things to finish the prep for the hardcore base.
I have been drinking more water than I have in a long time. It is not the substance of choice, but as I sweat so much I need to drink a lot just to keep up.
The dogs are alway lapping at their bowl, I don’t know why they drink so much, they don’t do anything. The most activity I see them do is run to the door whenever I come into the house to be let out.
The humidity was up to 98% this morning, a mist hung around the trees, making it look like a autumnal scene.
I continued on the hard labouring moving the turf and dirt to under the pine trees. I had filled the yard waste bin with as much as I think it could take, and didn’t want to risk tipping the collection truck over.
There was an abundance of ants in the soil, and they climbed up my shoe and bit my ankles, the little bastards.
Early afternoon the truck arrived with my crushed concrete. I set out the area I wanted it poured with sheets of cardboard and a plastic sheet. The driver took care not to damage the trees as he reversed up the drive.
He started the pour, he was close, he almost emptied it in the right place. I thought it was funny, I’ve just took out two cubic yards of soil from the garden, now I’m going to fill it with two cubic yards of hardcore in the heat, I must be crazy.
There are times during the past year when I felt trapped, first it was the pandemic and now with Kelli’s illness. I try to remain objective, but when I fundamentally disagree with the treatment she is taking, it’s really difficult and I get so angry inside.
It has been four months and there hasn’t been any change to her condition. Applied Kinesiology cannot diagnose any serious medical problems, so what use is it?
She keeps saying all she needs is a good sleep, and it has got to toting up the hours she managed to get, she remains weak, and unable to do much at all.
Today she took an appointment from her mother to see a different doctor at the same surgery. I didn’t go into the room, I rather wait outside than be in the same room and listen to all the bullshit. Yes I’m not having a good day, I’m a “I need to see improvement” kind of guy.
If sleep is the key to feeling better then treat that first. That can easily measured, all these other supplements could be messing things up.
With Kelli in this state, I wouldn’t be able to fly back to the UK and leave her here, because she is in no fit state to go anywhere. This all adds to my entrapment, yes, I am still tied here with the residency bollocks, and heaven knows what I would do if an interview date came through whilst we are going though this nightmare.
I had to tackle unloading to the truck on my own. I inched the dresser out far enough to remove the drawers. Each of those was really heavy, but made the carcass easier to handle.
I lowered it on to a trolly, then loaded back in the drawers.
Wheeling it into the garage one of the castors hit a slight ridge in the floor, and fell off. The weight of the dresser and the obstruction, was enough to shear the fixing bolts. Now I had to fix that, after I removed all the drawers again.
Luckily I found two replacement and quickly fixed it.
I had to finish digging up the grass in the area where the pool will be, that was hard work, lucky it wasn’t as hot as it was, so a little more bearable.
We sold the project piece that I had been working on for ages, or it just seemed to, but they were repeat customers who are the best.
“Can you pick up two pieces of furniture at Holland heights” requested my wife. We were off to another good start as it was going to be another hot day.
I knew the area from when Kelli lived there, in fact there is nowhere in Holland that she hasn’t lived at. Between her and her brother, who has nearly worked everywhere, they’ve had the city covered.
I set off with my GPS bleeting in my ear, of course it set me around the houses, once I deviated from the prescribed route it went into “Redirection” mode. Luckily I remembered the house number and street, and found myself outside a children’s playground. There was a trampoline, a bouncy castle, and an assault course. I decided the best thing to do was reverse into the driveway, being careful to miss the arrangement of vehicles.
I have noticed that I have a restricted neck movement when I’m driving on the left hand side, it feels unnatural, so as I swung round, I over steered slightly ending up on the lawn, I quickly pulled forward and made a better job of it. There were two young girls sitting together they obviously saw my feeble attempt, but I greeted them with a happy sounding “Hello”
Both of them looked at me expressionless,
I said what I was there for just as the mother came out of the house.
She pointed to the two pieces of furniture just outside their garage. I worked out the best way to get them both in the truck. The first was a small desk, just the right size to fit across ways, the other piece was a dresser that was the heaviest I’ve encountered. If felt like it housed their rock collection and they had forgotten to empty it.
With our combined strength we managed to load it into the back and close the back door.
I headed home with no intension of unloading them today.
In this time of recycling, of which I’m a supporter, Holland has recently issued wheelie bins purely to put cans, bottles(glass and plastic),cardboard and paper. The rules are that bottles and cans are washed.
That is okay for most things, although washing out the dog food cans is a challenge, but trying to clean out peanut or almond butter jars is by far the worst.
This stuff does not dissolve in water easily, even hot water. All you can do is scrape it off the inside of the jar with fingernails. This is most disgusting, and feels like scratching a blackboard, only slimy.
The only fun thing I do with peanut butter is feeding some to the dogs, it’s the only time you can see just how long their tongue is.
Poor old Dhama, it looks like she swallowed a whip.
Continuing on the patio project, I dug the ditch to sink the wooden frame into, I had to chose the hottest day to do it.
I had this large brimmed hat that had a reflective surface on the top supposably to reflect the heat back to the sun, guess what? It didn’t work.
Apart from blocking microwaves, it made my head sweat, then my eyes were stinging from the sweat, it really wasn’t the right day to do this.
I had been careful making the frame square, checking the diagonals and fixing a piece of wood across the corners to hold it all square.
As soon as I lowered it into the ditch, and shimming it level, it wasn’t square any more.
So with my head hot, eyes stinging I gave up for the day.
I did another furniture collection today. I ventured into God’s town, Zeeland to get a cabinet that Kelli had found. Cheap furniture is difficult to find at the moment, so when something that is promising comes up, she’s on it.
With Kelli out of commission we haven’t even been to Goodwill, the people there must think we’ve moved.
I have somethings to work on in the garage as well as the additions to the patio.
Digging out the walkway was nearly the death of me, it was only six foot by four foot, so not exactly a football pitch.
All I had to do was remove four inches of turf and dirt. The term “turf” was not strictly true, there were a few tufts of grass held together with dirt.
That was exhausting, just doing that, and I still have the main area twelve by twelve to do. I might just dig it a bit deeper and throw myself into it.
I had ordered the crushed concrete and paving on my way back from collecting the furniture, so that should be delivered next week.
We carried our latest creation into the house, this was a piece were got free because some of the drawers were missing. It was re-purposed as a low entertainment unit, these are quite popular because they could support a flat screen,
Carrying this into the house was about the limit of Kelli’s energy, afterwards she crawled back to the sofa in the sunroom to recover.
We had someone on it straight away, another triumph.
I do not see many flies about normally, but as soon as the dog poops there are dozens of them. Where do they come from? Do they circle the house at ten thousand feet waiting for the shit to hit the grass? That is one of the many question that go through my mind every day.
It’s like when I drop a crumb or morsel of food on the floor, the dogs appear from out of nowhere, I swear they hear, or sense it hitting the floor, they are more effective than a Dyson.
When I fill the bird or the squirrel feeders, the critters must be watching my every move, because within an hour or so they are empty again. I have to ration the food or they would eat us out of house and home.
I finally assembled the chair and set it next to its mate.
We had a lady turn up to pick up the maple cabinet, but not at the price we had listed.
What is it with people? Why does everything negotiable, it really pisses me off.
We had it listed at $150 she offered $100, but Kelli turned that down, eventually settled at $125.
The lady turned up in a smart truck, so not short of a few bob I bet.
The only consolation I take, is we hadn’t done anything to it apart from cleaning and polishing it.
This is more like it, well into the seventies, just right to sweat like a pig doing the most trivial things, but I like it.
I screwed together the frame for the walkway that will connects the deck to the pool area, now comes the difficult bit, digging down and levelling the woodwork. This would entail removing two cubic yards of dirt and grass, but in this heat?
I decided that was for a different day, and got on finishing the painted parts for the Adirondack chair ready for re-assembly.
Loaded with three old televisions I headed off to Best Buy the US equivalent of PC World, where I had been assured they would take them to be recycled.
I walked in and found the customer service desk without being accosted by an eager sales associate trying to sell me a smart TV.
Half expecting a “ sorry we don’t do that anymore” response, I was delighted, and relieved that I wouldn’t be carrying them in the back of the truck till the end of time.
The only down side was the cost, thirty dollars each “to do a real recycle” as apposed to “dumping them into the lake”. She took my money and called for an assistant to collect them from the truck.
I parked in front of the main doors, and a young chap with a cart came to meet me.
We loaded all the TVs, it was then that I noticed the PC base unit that I forgot to mention. I asked the lad if there was room on the cart, a little sheepishly.
“Yea throw it on there’s room” which is exactly what I did.
I was in the truck, and down the road before he was through the front door.
I felt that I had spent enough money, and I was giving them a gift, anyway I don’t think they would notice.
If I write that I have two broken legs, then they did, and they found me.
I bought the last fifteen gallons of rocks to fill the bed on the deck, then headed off to Menards for more timber.
I have noticed that a lot of young men walk leaning back on their heels, they do that to counterbalance their enormous fat gut. I saw one today with his wife a son in tow, I wanted to say to the kid, “take note, get reinforced heels in your shoes for when you grow up”.
Poo man chew turned up this afternoon to suck out the dog muck. I had stirred it up earlier to make it a little easier to suck it up. It didn’t take long, but because of the sandy soil, he probably took a couple of cubic yards of soil with it, although it didn’t make much difference to the capacity, about a years worth.
I went to check the plants, and the one that was ripening had disappeared, what a bummer, I need to read up on how to avoid it happening again. I already supply food to all the birds and squirrels of the neighbourhood, they’re not going to have my strawberries as well.
I built up, and positioned the frame for the pool area, it looks bigger than I imagined, but it is in the best place to get most of the sun during the summer, the rest of the time it will be another seating area with a fire pit.
What lies ahead is more digging, levelling and paving, but I hope Kelli will be in a fit state to use it.
Another Lifetime to go 