Quick Fixes

Didn't do much this weekend, as we were super busy with our social schedule. I did however, manage to thatch the front yard and pull a lot of dead leaves and grass out of the irises in the back. I don't know how bulbs normally work, but I think there's something wrong with these. they're not individual plants growing out of one bulb each, there's this hideous, mutated mass of bulb with a ton of plants growing out of it. It's huge and gross-looking. I want to dig it up and break it up and replant them or something. I know literally nothing about bulb plants so I'm going to have to figure out what to do with them to keep that from happening in the future. A giant mass of bulb isn't ideal for any area of my yard.

I did do a minor repair in the front yard. Here's the situation:

This downspout thingy consistently comes undone and flops all over the place, especially in high winds.

Solution: Rivets. I had to punch the holes a little larger to get these rivets through, but i didn't get pictures of that.

If you haven't used one of these rivet guns, you're missing out. They insanely handy. They let you attach two pieces of metal semi-permanently (can be drilled out) even if you only have access to one side. That's something you don't normally get from any other fastener I've tried. Not expensive, either.

And there we go. One of these bad boys in each side and I'm all set. no more pulling free. Eventually, we'll be digging under the sidewalk and running a drain directly from the downspout under there and then into the lawn so we don't have to step over this thing all the time. That's a bigger project for another day, though.

Thanks for reading!

Beds, and the raising thereof

Well, you've seen me dig a trench and put gravel in it, now you get to see my dad and I pin those wooden timbers to the ground!

We got the timbers at least roughly level, then pulled them up one by one and drilled holes in them with a 1/2" spade bit. We started with my dad's new tiny cordless drill and it has a lot going for it. It weighs like 2 pounds, doesn't have the giant dongle battery on the bottom, and actually managed to grind through one full hole and about half of another before we had to change the battery. I think for any kind of simple around the house projects, it would be an awesome workhorse of a drill, especially for the size. This was a heck of a lot to ask of any drill, I think. For reference, here's the drill: Bosch Drill My giant cordless drill I've had for years couldn't even finish off the half hole we had left. We ended up going to the corded Black and Decker we've had for years to finish them up. Battery power can't really compare to coal-fired power plant in the end.

Drilled three holes in each timber and pinned them at both ends and the middle. We used 24" pieces of 1/2" rebar, and pounded them in to the bottom of the board over here, so we didn't have to do quite as much pounding on the gravel.

All of the pins in place and ready to be driven down into the ground.

A little hammer work and voila!

This part wasn't on the plans, but we figured a little belt and suspenders never hurt anyone. We're driving some of the 10-inch timber screws through here to tie the corners together. Everything will be screwed together 6 ways from Sunday anyway, but why not throw in a few more, eh?

Here we're starting to put on the second course. It took a lot of switching and rotating to find the best fit. We had issues with the board fitting at least partially because we took Lowe's at their word when they said the timbers were 8 feet long, and didn't actually confirm that all of them really were. They're so big and there were so few of them, we just grabbed the ones that looked best on the surface without checking them for being straight and all like we would with a 2x4 or something. So anyway, we're doing the best we can with what we have.

Two 10" timber screws in the corner and one inthe middle of each board should tie these all together pretty well. And because we're Reeces, we also put an addition screw in the other end of each board.

Now that the second course is on and locked down, we put in the base layer of gravel for drainage. Once the next two courses are done and on top of this, we'll fill the whole thing with a mix of compost and pet moss and who knows what all else. Should be sweet!

And this is where it is right now. We'll be working on it again soon, hopefully. Right now, it's just settling in and looking darn good, I think.

Thanks for reading!