projects – Page 8 – The Hermits' Rest

Ranch Work Never Ends

That declaration should come as no surprise. There is always something new that needs to be done, or more likely, something broken that needs to be fixed. It’s a good thing we get to enjoy such lovely sunrises and sunsets! Today, the sky was pink 360 degrees around the ranch. Ahh.

The good stuff is that the dog fencing is all done, and most of the gates are in. The big ones are wide enough for a tractor or truck, so that equipment can get into the yard to work on various projects.

Dogs get to stay in, people and equipment can move about as desired.

The gates are already handy, since some repairs needed to be done within the fenced area. For one, the pool guys discovered a leak in the pipe leading from the garage to the septic system. I guess it’s a good thing that water isn’t used too much. We would have guessed the earth shifted and broke it or something, that is until our intrepid team found the duct tape that had been holding the pipe together. There’s no way we would ever have known if the pool guys hadn’t dug that hole.

Perhaps you now see why we no longer use the general contractor for this house. But wait, there are more reasons for that, right near the problem pipe.

Whoever ran the water lines and air conditioning stuff to our garage building did not bother to seal the holes into the building. That was sort of okay at first, since in the tack room (former office, living quarters, and other things) the walls kept the room sealed. But, something broke at some point and a hole had to be put in the wall.

You could easily see daylight from that hole in the wall. Guess who else could see it? Rats and mice. They got in and ate a bunch of chicken food and made a huge mess. Worse, they ate the plastic cover on my expensive refill container of fly spray. Why on earth? I really didn’t like them in there, and neither did anyone else, since they also ate cattle cubes.

One hole blocked. And yes we need to get the mold off the north side of the building. Of course, the pressure washer is broken. Ranches also break a lot of things.

Today we got them sealed out or in. All holes have been covered up. Now we just have to kill off whatever rodents are still in there. Otherwise, they could live a long time, and reproduce just like rodents tend to do. I’m not sure what we are going to do, since I don’t like keeping rat poison anywhere around dogs.

Now wasn’t that an appetizing blog post? Let’s see if I can produce something less icky for tomorrow.

Projects? We Always Have Projects

There always seems to be some house or another than needs to be worked on in our little community. The focus right now is on Anita’s retirement house, Pickle’s Pink Palace. I’ve probably mentioned that a few things have come up, so she isn’t in there yet (she’s in my office, right where I am typing).

The crew (the nephew and his helper, Marcus) have already taken down some walls, made some openings, and come to the conclusion that the whole place needs rewiring and insulation on the outer walls (there is NO insulation).

On the other side of that tar paper is the brick. No insulation.

But the place actually looks a lot better already, thanks to painting the walls a neutral color and removing the old cabinets and scary appliances (the stove is not scary, just dusty, and the fridge holds beverages for the crew). The biggest eyesore, a heater that took up the best wall in the living room, is also gone. The hole it left is much more attractive.

The heater hole is exactly the size of a full-length mirror, and I tried to look at myself in it.

An electrician and a spray-foam technician have already been scheduled, so that will be taken care of soon and the walls can go back up.

The kitchen also had no insulation, but at least the cabinets are gone.

Then will come more painting, flooring, cabinets, and the all-important HVAC installation. And oh yes, new windows and roof.

The garage, which is on the other side of the wall that’s been removed, will be the main bedroom and bathroom.

Much landscape cleanup has been accomplished, but there are a lot of nandina plants and other nuisances to get rid of. I hope we can save some of this beautiful little “weed,” though.

There are a few very large, very old trees that were planted when the house was built in 1955. They are in their old age, but we hope to pamper them a few more years. The oak and pecans make Anita look even tinier!

We’re all extremely excited to get this house livable. We know it has a good vibe from back when we bought it. Anita is going to make it so true to its lineage, and so livable as well.

Want to see “before” pictures? This post from 2019 has some!

Hexagonal Rainbow Stripy Glory

Hooray! My mistaken “invention” is finished! It’s perky, trippy, stripy, and glorious. If I were a baby, I’d want it for my floor mat, and I’d want to gum those wormy fringes.

I had so much fun watching the stripes develop. And the fringe cracked me up. It makes the blanket a little feminine but won’t hurt babies.

How to Make It

Intermediate and above knitters will want to know how to make one of these, so here we go, informally. Beginners, make the actual pattern! It’s easy.

Lion Brand Mandala in Gnome and Sprite with a little Honeycake.

The basic pattern is NOT by me. It is an adaptation of Meadowland Baby Blanket by Irina Poludnenko. (It’ a free download.) The pattern is supposed to create a square blanket, and if you follow the instructions correctly and pay attention to the diagram of how to make the triangles link up, you will, indeed, get a square blanket, just like the one on the pattern front page. Lots of people have made it, and it comes out quite cute.

However, I made a mistake after finishing the first triangle and picked up the stitches for the second triangle along the edge with the decreases, not the straight edge. If you look at the close-up above, you can see that I picked up the 96 stitches along the edge with a little jog in it (where the decreases that create the triangles are). So, you do this, too.

Other than that, follow the Meadowland pattern, but don’t stop after four triangular wedges (because it will NOT be a square). Keep going and make one more.

It really adds that pop of color to one’s bland timeshare condo.

For the sixth section of the blanket, you’ll attach the new triangular wedge to the first one as you go. To do this, end each right-side row with K2tog, knit next stitch together with the next cast-on bump from the first triangle. There will be 96 of them, and since there are 96 garter ridges in the triangle, you’ll end up having invisibly seamed the blanket. (In the close-up photo, the blue stripe was where I cast on, and the pink stripes are the last triangle.

You could also just knit the last wedge the same as the others and use mattress stitch to sew the edges together.

When you’re done, work the same edge as the Meadowland pattern calls for, or any other edging you’d like, such as single crochet.

Note that the two extra wedges meant I needed to start a third ball of yarn. If Sprite had been available, I’d have used it, but I used another color instead.

There you go, how to make a hexagonal blanket from a square pattern. If you read this and know a better way to describe the way I finished the last wedge of the blanket, let me know.

Knitting Report: Regrouping and Planning

I spent a lot of time knitting for the past couple of days, as well as talking about knitting while my friend Kathy was here. It’s really a rare treat to have someone around who is an expert knitter to bounce ideas off and get input from. For much of my life I was surrounded by knitters and up on all the latest cool patterns, etc., but for the past decade or more I’ve been more of a lone knitter, just watching what friends do but not interacting much.

I like my replenished fresh flowers, so I will make you look at them. The prices here for fresh flowers are not bad at all!

Having Kathy around to look at the “square” blanket I was knitting for baby Ruby was helpful. I felt a bit better about not understanding why it did not in any way, shape, or form make a square. I MUST have misread the diagram, picked up on the wrong sides of the triangles, or something, but I’m still not sure what I did.

Well, it looks kind of cool. it is not a square.

Kathy was a fan of ripping it out and starting again. I think if the baby wasn’t coming sooner and if I hadn’t really disliked knitting with that particular yarn, I might have done so. Her next suggestion was to just add another wedge to it, and see what that does. I think she had a good idea. I’m pretty sure I have enough yarn for another wedge, and if it curves around a little more, it could be a little baby wrapper, or maybe when she’s older a “hug” she can wrap around herself. That makes me feel better.

We also talked about what pattern to make with the new yarn I ordered to make another blanket. I think I’ll make it a diagonal stripe, alternating colors, as with the failed blanket.

Let’s hope this one works out in these two colors.

While the “square” blanket was in time-out, I worked on this other project, which is Saroyan, in a corn and cotton yarn. This is odd. Both pictures look upside down here, though they look the other way in the files list. Anyway, I got a bit more than halfway through it (knit all the straight parts) before running out of yarn. Oops. I should have brought along another skein. The cotton/corn blend is a little weird to knit with, but it’s sorta pretty, I think, and at least it’s coming out right.

While I was out shopping with Kathy, I also got a cute embroidery pattern that’s easy, but I like what it says, which is “Notice the small things.” I may work on it tomorrow while I watch football.

I do have other yarn waiting to be worked with, and we talked about a really pretty wrap that Kathy had made before. If I get the embroidery done before my other yarn arrives, I’ll give it a start. So, that’s my exciting knitting update, which took way longer than expected, thanks to realizing I needed to update my Ravelry page.

Patiently waiting yarn for the next project, along with the book queue.

Good thing the time changes tonight!

It’s Not Sunday, It’s Sunaday

Have you ever wondered what Suna would do with a day entirely to herself with no one else’s agenda (other than a deadline)? Truthfully, neither did Suna.

But, today was indeed Sunaday, and I got to do whatever the heck I wanted to, all day long. I did have a newsletter to make, so I did it MY way, and gave myself little incentives like if I worked for an hour I could knit four rows, go for a walk, or have a mini Hershey’s bar (you know, in case anyone knocked on the door looking for candy, which did NOT happen in this building full of old people).

Other than that, quirkiness ruled. I did many things I can’t do at home, like set food on the coffee table with NO consequences, burn a smelly candle all day long, sit around in bed watching CBS This Morning (what a comforting show), and watch things on the computer (gasp, not eating up all Lee’s bandwidth!).

One thing that I did that wasn’t atypical was watch football all day. But, I did do other things, so there was no lolling on the couch without being productive. I still can’t manage that.

The highlight of the day was going around the neighborhood. It wasn’t too cold yet, so I got to look at all the trees and listen to all the fun birds around here. The most fun birds, for sure, were the magpies, who were very vocal and active. They and the crows seem to be the biggest birds here.

My other favorite site was perhaps the cutest squirrel I ever saw. It was an Abert’s squirrel. They are small and have fun tassels on their ears. Of course, I did not see any moose or other large animals, since I was in a neighborhood of condos and resorts.

Still, there were a lot of remnants of flowers and beautiful evergreens to enjoy. It smells quite nice here up in the sky.

In other news, I got a few photos of the pool, and I was surprised to find out that the little tiles they put on the steps glow in the dark! I guess we hadn’t gone outside after dark since they put them in.

According to Lee, there is still a lot of tile work to go, since we chose that difficult but visually stunning Versailles pattern. Good for us.

Tomorrow starts my week of 6 am meetings. I have a great attitude and am sure I’ll do fine. Today put me in a great mood. A Sunaday is a good day, whatever day of the week it is.

Resting? Not According to My App

Honest, I was going to rest all day today. But I felt good and at peace, so I kept coming up with things to do (other than knit, because I’m trying to finish this baby blanket.

This does not look like it’s making a square.

I’m just having faith that the blanket will work out.

For some reason I have been energized by all my vaccinations, so I decided to clean all the windows in the doors. They have, um, “some” dog nose prints on them. I say have, because I didn’t get it perfect, but now I can see what’s outside. We will see if I’m up to downstairs window washing when the pool is done.

I knitted and watched football a while, then BOOM I got an urge to sweep the back porch. It’s gotten pretty messy with all the pool construction. I swept and swept a LOT of dirt and the inevitable bugs.

Then I rearranged our sad old furniture to look as nice as it can. I didn’t clean anything, knowing that if the pool dudes come back (and I assume they will since they left stuff here), more sand, particles, and such will be deposited.

I’ll clean everything up once it’s all done. And I think perhaps we will get some slightly less ancient and more comfortable furniture.

The benches will go sit outside by the ponds. This is where my iron dining table and chairs will go, if I can find them. I’ll paint them red.

Yep. That’s boring. But it sure gives one exercise and steps. Then I went out and rode my sweaty horse for a while. When he got twitchy, I got even more steps in. I guess I’m getting ready to go hiking with my friend in Colorado (I assure you I am hydrating and will get used to the altitude first).

Good thing I cooked a good dinner. Leftover steak with onions and mushrooms. Well, that’s all the news of today that’s safe to blog. Still. It’s so weird to feel okay.

Gotta Watch That Pool Construction!

We dodged a bullet yesterday with the pool. I’d been wondering why nothing was happening in the planter area, so I brought it up to the Men at My House, and they said, “Oh, we found out that there will be no planter. It was one of the things deleted to bring the cost down.”

I was really confused, because I remember the planter and plants being in the contract. But, they said they’d talked to Kevin the Pool Guy. I went ahead and called Kevin the Pool Guy myself, and said that I thought something was wrong. He said yes, indeed, there was something wrong, and he was about to call us about it. The planting area IS in the contract and paid for, so we WILL get it.

The mix-up happened when we made the pool bigger and the designer had to hurry with a design. He’d omitted the planter, because he was just showing the changed part. Everyone thought that was THE design. Um. Not good.

My assumption is that the people who will be here today and start working on that, too.

Ready for the fire pit insert. It fits, by the way.

Speaking of those people, wow are they doing a fantastic and thorough job with the preparation for the patio area. We can’t stop watching. All the workers are so skilled and careful. There is a LOT of smoothness. I especially thought how they worked on the drainage pipe for the gutter that’s in the way of the patio. One guy (the very large man with the very high voice) has been pretty fixated on that piece.

A nice surprise came yesterday, when they put in some shiny blue tiles (what, a color? I didn’t pick that!) on the steps and seating areas. That will be pretty under the water, plus it will be a great visual reminder of where the steps are.

More than just patio work happened yesterday. They also installed all the lighting (except one, which needed a longer cord) and the fittings for where the water will come in and out. The jets already had their cool outlets. That hot tub will sure have plenty of jets!

You can see the little light bulbs in there.

It’s cool seeing the area around the pool take shape. I keep wanting to go sit on the patio! Here are some more pictures of the action.

We Made Them Fix Stuff

The day is over, and it was long but good.

More work got done on the poolside patios, but it got slowed down a bit because the Men spotted exposed rebar that happened when the workers chipped off the pool edges.

So, they made some concrete and fixed it. They even dug up some areas to check. I’m sure that didn’t go over well, but it will make the Pool of Dreams last longer.

I was impressed at how much work it took to build steps from one level to another. These are going to be STURDY. No corners are cut. And wow, they measured a lot.

There was more pounding, including a manual pounder for smaller spaces. This patio ain’t going nowhere.

We were happy to see drainage pipes in the retaining walls they’re building. Lee approved big time.

So, that was today. I worked a lot and then hugged all the horses. Ahh.

Enjoy more work in progress!

We had a beautiful sunset and moonrise to enjoy while feeding horses and planning future improvements. Ranch life is pretty good.

Intense Day at the Pool Site

Whew, it was a whirlwind day at the Pool of Dreams, with deliveries coming and going, plus machines zipping and banging. It was the big day for preparing the edges of the pool for installing the pavers.

Trucks brought loads and loads of fine sand, which was then packed down as hard as possible by one of those vibrating things that packs sand down well.

One of the men was zipping around on some kind of little tractor thing that dumped sand and smoothed it a bit. Let me tell you, there was a lot of dog barking, back-up beeping, and banging going on. Oh how I miss my office at the Pope house! But, hey, I’ll get a pool. That’s good.

Lee and his nephew have many opinions on what the guys are doing, so I can’t wait to see how that all works out. I was just impressed at how much got done!

Gracie thinks it looks really good so far.

Trucks also brought in the pavers, which look like they will blend in very well. I think they’re the color of the dirt here. That was a creative choice of mine…I guess. In addition, a decision was made to make little retaining walls, so some retaining wall blocks showed up, which I had not selected, but will look fine. I’ll not be complaining about that.

Even though I saw the outlines they drew on the ground before starting the work, I’m not a hundred percent sure what the whole outside patio and planter will end up looking like. I know there will be steps! And retaining walls. That will just have to do.

I tried to do Apache’s schooling this afternoon after work, not realizing that the noise of the pool building might not be his favorite thing on earth. So, I got a lot of chances to settle him down and practice not getting all nerved out when he got jumpy. He simply would NOT walk over to the cones. So, I ended up running him in circles in the round pen and doing figure eights in the field and around the fencing pipes in front of the house. After that I walked him over to the cones and let him look at the workers, then I walked him around his circles. I figure that was a win in the long run.

No picture of Apache, but I thought Mabel looked rather pretty out in the field. She is looking much better.

I took so many pictures, plus Lee took some, so enjoy the process of building the paver foundation.

Complaints? Nope.

Well, it’s been a nice couple of days, that’s for sure. The worse thing that happened to me was driving through the confusing world of Dallas, Texas traffic. But, I lived! So, what’s up?

Here’s the progress on the little baby blanket I’m working on. So far it’s very blue and purple, but you can see that will change soon.

House News

The first good thing is that the Bobcat Lair house finally sold! We were surprised it was on the market for so long, but we guessed it’s because the house has zero curb appeal. You literally can’t see anything but its miniature driveway! But the best part is it sold for what we asked for, minus an allowance to replace the deck, though apparently the new buyers are normal people and not afraid of a house with imperfections. Anita says the folks are nice and will fit in well, which makes me happy for our wonderful neighbors.

Pool News

We have good pool news, too. Yet another surface is going in (probably done by now, since I’ve been gone for a couple of days), this is some lovely flagstone that is covering the “beach area” where we can sit in little chairs and the dogs can safely enter. It was another one of the works of art that the tile guys do. Laying the flagstones was like filling in a jigsaw puzzle where you’re allowed to tear up the pieces to make it fit! In the end, it turned out really pretty. I can’t wait to get home to see it all grouted in and smoothed out.

They also did a pretty cover for the fire pit. By the time I get home, it will have a circular opening.

Horse News

Before I left yesterday, I checked on Apache’s eye. It looked way better. However, it sure was hard to keep his head down to put the drops in. I ended up with a sore arm! Glad I had help, for sure.

Fun Times

I’m in Plano this morning, because I drove up to attend my bonus daughter, Ellie’s baby shower. I’m so happy she and her cute husband are going to have a baby! They announced the name by showing us a cute sign they’d had made on Etsy. I was thrilled to see her name will be Ruby. And they were all dressed in ruby clothing. So cute.

The baby’s middle name came from her grandmother.

I was so happy to see Ellie. There were multiple extremely long hugs exchanged. She is just a dear person and has done so well with her life. I met her when she was in college with my older son, and our families became good friends after we let her stay with us while she was doing summer internships and stuff.

This young woman is a therapist in her own practice now. Go, Ellie.

I am so happy to have also gotten to see her mom, Pouri, who has been a great friend to me for the past decade and more. She is one of the kindest and most generous people I ever met. And the best cook. If you’ve never had a home-cooked Persian meal, well, I’m sorry for you, because they combine some of the most interesting and delicious ingredients. I still dream about a beef dish with some kind of fruit in it that Pouri made once, no exaggeration.

Anyway, it was a sweet party, and then I got to spend an evening all alone. There were no dogs, no noises, and no distractions. I enjoyed knitting, reading, and watching mindless HGTV. Pouri and I agreed that that’s the best part of any trip or vacation!

The cake had rock candy on it, to go with the gem theme. It was a moist lemon cake. Really good.

I hope, so dearly, that all of you get a chance to enjoy your friends, rest, or recharge this weekend or soon in the future. All of this good stuff has really helped me, and I wish it for all of you.