Sugar Daddy Day, June 17

No fathers here, so it's Sugar Daddy day.  Sugar Daddy speaking.  I celebrated most of the day, as I would have anyway.  But I had plan to start working on yard earlier than usual time.  Usual time is around 7pm, leaving me two hours of daylight at most, followed by another hour of dark for cleanup.  But now I wanted to finish by 9pm, so I could listen to Pipe Dreams on KPAC.

Plan worked, or at least I started work just before 5pm, washing full face respirator for weedwacking.  Left out in sun to dry, that's better preparation than usual.  But then quickly discovered that reel was out of line, and I had no more replacement reels.  Though I did have the required string to fill another reel, this would be the first time ever for me to do it that way.  By the time I was finished, little time for anything else.  I could string the reel after dark.  So I decided to let the weedwacking go and concentrate on other projects.

The grass around Lyndhurst SW was looking surprisingly good, especially in front of the french doors.  Last year my back yard was a virtual desert, torn up by contractors, festooned with debris.  I mowed around Lindhurst, leaving the back for the weedwacker some time in future.

The I tackled a project that has been bugging me for 6 months.  I moved all the hoses, garden tools, and related junk from the west side of the house.  That stuff had been sitting there since I quickly moved it all out of the way for the contractor last May!  The grass and weeds had grown up to 4 feet high for the first ten feet from my house.  I couldn't mow or whack because it would damage my hoses and stuff.

I had sort of been expecting I would put all that stuff in my shed, the shed that became Lyndhurst.  Then, after Lyndhurst plans got too fancy for that, with nicely finished interior, I decided I would get a second shed to go behind Lyndhurst.  That's where the extra tools and stuff will go.  But I haven't got it yet, so I just moved all the hoses and stuff to the NW corner of my lot, where it's out of the way for now.  That spot tends not to grow anything in summer anyway because it's shaded by a neighbor's tree.

So I was finally able to mow the first ten feet to the west of the house.  Now it looks civilized for the first time in more than a year.  It looks nicer than I ever remember it looking, thanks to Lyndhurst, which provides afternoon shade to the grass, and landscape framing.

I also carried two bags of topsoil from the garage and poured them around the gaps around the SW corner of my house foundation.  I filled in a gap a few feet away from the house there (caused by the lack of Rainhandler gutter--one contractor knocked it off last year and I hadn't fixed that until April) with a bag of sand that had been sitting on top of it since April.  I wondered if sand was the best material for that location, but I didn't want to bring the now dirty bag of sand back to the garage.  After spreading out the dirt and sand, I sculpted and raked it in.

After a bit more weed pulling, and trimming grass around the bamboo, it was time for Pipe Dreams.  I got back out later and watered the Bamboo and the newly mowed grass on the north and west sides of the house, and on the south side of Lyndhurst.

On Monday I got out to Lyndhurst to replace the LED light bulbs with 40W incandescents to help the paint and other materials offgas.  My thinking was that part of the problem is that during the nights, everything cools down, outgassing stops, and outgassing might even be partially reversed, as damp surfaces re-absorb chemical smells.  So now interior drying and outgassing is going to be assisted by three 40W incandescent bulbs, 120W total, running day and night.

I noticed the ceramic sockets said "60W maximum" so I might get larger bulbs for the next round.  I've also been thinking of getting big 500W contractor halogen lights to do assisted paint curing, pointing the light at the shelves, but lights like that would have to be set up carefully and monitored to be sure a fire is not started.

It's probably my imagination, but I though I noticed an improvement in the character and quantity of the chemical smell on Monday night.  On many previous occasions in the past I've thought I made a big improvement, only to find later I made little or no improvement.

Expecting rain, and already feeling high winds, I closed the french doors and left the window open a crack on Tuesday afternoon.

I had hoped to do this on Sunday night, but it didn't get done until Monday night: I watered the grass on the south side of the house.  Lots of grass has filled in this year because of the good spring rains.  Spots that I had been trying to fill in with grass for two or more years finally got filled in.  But now I have to keep watering it, or it will be for naught.  Watering the south side is also good for the house foundation.  That side sinks slightly during the summer, exposing a small crack near the ceiling in my master bedroom.  To keep the grass doing well, it would have to be watered about twice a week or more.  I've never kept that up.  So I'm now thinking about getting a sprinkler system, at least for the south side.

I went to Solar San Antonio presentation on Tuesday night.  I'm not sure if I want to do my solar carport this year.  There are so many other things I want to do to make my estate more liveable.