I know some of you worry if I miss a day posting, so I’m sorry I missed yesterday. I was busy with work and a Master Naturalist meeting. And I must admit some pretty yarn showed up and I wanted to knit.
I’ll tell you what I’m making after I show the recipient the work in progress tomorrow.
Today was also a really busy day but let me just say I got good news and a lot done. Highlight? I saw Drew!
More tomorrow. For sure.
I’m happy as heck with my tile choices in the Pool of Dreams, though I had a bit of a scare partway through the day. I’m glad we had a relatively dry day in between rain events, so the tile could mostly get done. I don’t blame you, by the way, if pool construction makes you want to take a nap; I’m mostly doing this so I can look back at it later, same as I did when we were building the house.
I enjoyed going out on my breaks to watch the progress, and thought how pretty the square ceramic tiles were looking on the waterfall area…but wait, wasn’t that supposed to be shiny glass tile? I checked, and sure enough, I had selected a glass tile.
That sent me into a panic. They were just about done with all that tile, and I was pretty sure it was the wrong tile. And I’d already noticed that glass tile was nowhere to be found on the premises (I mentioned that in a blog post last week). So, I called up the pool place to find out what happened.
The nice pool lady, Audrey, said she’d get back to me, so I had to sit through a long meeting hoping that the tiles wouldn’t be totally glued down before the guys had to remove them.
I sure was relieved when she came back with the explanation. It turned out that the glass tile was discontinued, so they couldn’t get it. She was supposed to tell me, but she totally forgot. I didn’t get upset, because that sounded like something that wouldn’t be too hard to do in the middle of a busy day (and she’s nice and likes my horses, which was in her favor). Besides that, the tile looks just fine to me the way it is, so no harm, no foul.
The tiling artists got a lot of the rough limestone tiles up, and its matte, bumpy texture makes a beautiful contrast with the shiny ceramic tiles and the smooth limestone on the edges of the pool.
Lee pointed out that they were really having to do a lot of work on the round part where the fire pit will be. The tile didn’t fit without a lot of finagling. They told me it was, indeed, hard to do. I think it’s worth it. I’ll be adoring it for many years, I hope.
I’m glad it’s all working out as well as I’d hoped. I like how subtle the pool will be, most of the time. But don’t worry, Suna’s love of bright colors will show up when we turn on those dazzling light shows! Even if we have another extreme cold event before I get to use the pool, I’m going to fire up the fire and the lights.
It could be my mood, since I’m settling in at my new job and starting to do fun things. Job Aids! Woo!
That’s part of it, but I was happy to see the tile guys putting the accent tile around the edge of the swimming pool. It’s sparkly, but not TOO sparkly.
I really love the earth tones. They’re going to be so soothing. I wonder if they ran out of the edging limestone, because they still have some left to do. We will see.
The tilers were fun to watch on lunch break, making perfectly smooth surfaces for the application. It was like icing a perfect cake.
It looks like they are going to move on to the tile around the outside surfaces next. It’s more limestone, from Turkey. Its rough surface will contrast nicely with the accent tiles.
I don’t think the tile for the waterfall is here yet. I looked all over for it, but it isn’t hiding anywhere easy to find. Here are more pictures of today’s progress, including mortaring the limestone tile.
Speaking of water, it rained almost an inch last night. That made for an ugly mess at the bottom of the pool. I’ll spare you photos. You can sorta see it here.
I am enjoying a little break in my anxiety. The stress is manageable at the moment, and that feels GOOD.
If, by any chance, you were wondering what was going on with the swimming pool project, well, it was taking a rest, waiting for the crew that makes the pool lining to be available. Today, like a thundering herd, many trucks and many workers showed up, before 8 am. The dogs have been barking since.
They need a lot of trucks, because one bunch of trucks carries the shotcrete mixture, or gunite, while another powers the machine that shoots the mixture through a hose. Actually, the ingredients for the shotcrete are mixed as they come out of the truck. There is a sand area (the sand is finely ground granite) and a concrete bin in the trucks.
There was a lot of preparation before all the shooting, however. They use pegboard to make the barriers to shoot against. It’s all flexible, and lets any excess stuff ooze out. That was quite cool to watch.
They brought in at least three loads of the gunite mix, and it went everywhere! Luckily they put up a barrier, so it wouldn’t get all over our back porch or windows. That did mess up Lee’s and my ability to watch them, though.
We have gotten plenty of watching in, however. The masons smoothing the stuff out are real artists and good at geometry, too. They got the hot tub in a perfect circle, and I watched as the guy made the bowl for the fire pit. It looked like lots of fun making the benches and the edges all smooth.
I was surprised to see workers sitting on the edge of the hot tub and on the “beach” area, but it turns out the stuff is practically dry when it sprays out! Our job for the next week or two will be to water it down every day while it cures.
But, by gosh, it looks like a “real” swimming pool now that they are done! We have steps, a tiny beach, a sitting area, a hot tub, and the fire pit structure. Wow. Bonus: Lee says they made it a bit deeper for him, so he won’t worry about hitting bottom if he wants to jump in.
There will be sanding next, then plastering with the really cool mica mixture that will make the pool shiny. And then will be the fun of tiling and putting in the decking. Plenty more steps, but this was the big one!
I hope you enjoyed a break from me ranting and writing book reports.
Hmm. Our front “yard” suddenly has interesting sculptures or something. And it’s not rebar, it’s metal pipe.
They just erupted this evening. They weren’t there earlier today!
They certainly look sturdy. Luckily I figured out where they were coming from, because I found a welding table over by the garage.
There’s actually a good reason for these structures. There will be a new fence going up, a bit sooner than originally planned. That will give the dogs the ability to run around in front of the house without the problems we’ve been having.
Yeah. Goldie loves to go across the road to visit the neighbors. The very cute neighbor dogs like to come over here. We are all worried our dogs will get hit, like Brody did. and our dogs like to chase slow vehicles and people who are running or cycling. We don’t want that! They get over-excited and misbehave.
So the fence that was supposed to go up after the pool was done is going up now. There will be a temporary gate for pool vehicles. There’s plans for gates that will make it not too annoying for us.
Still, it looks like modern sculpture to me.
I haven’t written much about the chickens in a while. They have been blessedly normal and fine for quite some time! The only thing that has been bugging me is how long it has taken for the new bunch of hens to start laying. All I can figure is the few weeks of really hot weather may have delayed them. The older chickens, on the other hand, have been moulting, so there sure are a lot of feathers all over the place.
On July 27, there was one egg laid with an unfamiliar pattern on it, but nothing since then. Today, however, there was another pullet egg, on the ground, with some interesting spots on it. So, someone has started up.
I’ve been getting four eggs a day lately, and I have a suspicion that Blondie, the Buff Orpington, may already be laying normal-size brown eggs and I just don’t realize it’s her. She has very red comb coloration now, and has for a while (that is a sign they are ready to lay). There should be some colored eggs at some point, since I have an Easter Egger and another breed that lays colored eggs, but those two haven’t started.
The other chicken news is rather predictable. Once again, Star, the world’s most persistent chicken mother wannabee, is broody. I thought about it today, and went ahead and stuck one of Butternut’s eggs and one from either Bertie Lee or Springsteen under her. We’ll not miss those three eggs, and if these hatch, well, Star is already setting in the cage where she can raise the chicks. We’ll see!
In pool news, the guys seem to have finished the rebar today. The highlight is the shape for the fire feature. I will be interested to see what is next.
Right now, I’m busy holding onto rocks for grounding, trying to look my best, and exuding positive vibes. It’s always a good thing!
That’s what I asked myself when I went out to check on the Pool of Dreams after work. It’s looking very sculptural.
They’ve been working on the rebar framework for the pool for a couple of days now. The idea is they make a ten-inch grid on all the surfaces. That’s for the gunnite to stick to when they build the shell of the pool.
I learned from the men in the family why the rebar sits on bricks. It can’t touch the dirt, or it will rust and degrade and cause problems. They thought it was gonna do that and got all worried. But, the pool boss guy assured them anything touching dirt would go away when the frame was done. Yep.
It’s been fun watching the shape of the pool come to life. I’m figuring out where the skimmers will be, where all the fancy lights will be, and stuff like that.
I also found out that because our fire feature will be propane, not natural gas, we can’t put those fancy glass rocks in it. We have to use lava rock. Why? Because propane is heavier than LP gas, and it would get trapped under the small pieces of glass. It would go boom. Not good.
We enjoy sitting and watching the clouds and animals now that the evenings are cooling down. It sure helps with the anxiety, which is better today.
Tomorrow is a big day for me, so send me lots of positive energy if you have any to spare. As a reward, I’ll share some pictures of my animal buddies. It is so pleasant outside with clouds, a cool breeze, and normal September temperatures!
Been a busy work day, so here’s a quick update. Today a big pile of gravel showed up. They also covered all those water lines coming from the future pool controls.
Lee was nice enough to bring me samples of the material in the gravel. They look like they, too, could have once been ocean, especially the one on the right.
What they did with the gravel was fill in where the water lines are, I’m guessing to protect them.
They used sandbags to hold the gravel. That’s good, since I think we will be getting some rain from Hurricane Nicholas.
The other main thing they did was get all the holes covered, so that’s why the machine is going. If I said that already, we’ll, it’s been a long day! I even crammed in a writing workshop at lunch!
Yes. My spouse was right. It is true. We doubted him, but he was right. What about?
Lee saw a guy starting to fill in the hole with all the pipes leading to the pool and stopped him, saying they need to do a pressure test before filling it in. So they stopped.
As you can see, today the workers finished all the water lines. There was a lot of use of the bending torch deal! There are so many curves.
Eventually they got it all completed. So, they did the test. We were just sure it would al be fine.
Darn it, Lee was right. There was a cracked pipe.
The good news is that it was easy to fix, and the second test went fine. The pool is looking really cool. Cool pool.
Today they finished early, I guess so everything can dry. Knowing they are coming back gives me something to look forward to tomorrow. I also have a writing workshop if it works out!
Think of my relatives in the path of the latest hurricane. Hope it’s less awful than the others so far this year.
I guess the whole swimming pool thing will happen after all. I’ll spare you the drama of the past couple of days, and instead share progress and learnings as the excavation phase took place.
It’s pretty cool that this morning there was just a painted outline on the ground and now you can see where our little pool is going to be! And yes, it’s not Olympic sized. I just want to bop around.
It was lots of fun watching them building the very complex setup that will recirculate the water. Geez, there are a lot of pipes in there.
They had to bend some of the pipes, and had a big propane flame that softened the plastic.
I was really interested in the hole they dug. You could see that the top layer was a lot of sand and fill that Lee and the builders put around the house. Next came very dark soil from when it was a pasture here. Some was very clayey.
The guy running the mini-excavator was really good. He was expert at digging circles and curves. As the actual pool part got deeper, I had another surprise. There’s a layer of very light soil about 4 feet down. I wonder what that is? Was the area a lake for a while?
No, I didn’t crawl down there and get some. But I’ll get some from the dirt pile later.
I can’t wait to find out what’s up with the soil! But, watching how quickly and efficiently the guys worked on the project. They also used these flexible boards to form the edges of the pool and hot tub. And they had an interesting measuring poke that beeped, I guess to get the dimensions perfect. Hmm.
I must say we all enjoyed watching the process. Vlassic just kept jumping from lap to lap all morning. It’s great that they started on a Saturday so we could all watch for a while.
Wonder what I’ll see tomorrow?
The Hermits' Rest 