2025, Family, gardening, home, Nature, Uncategorized, work

Pavers & Bricks

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Yesterday YA had the day off so we decided to tackle a couple of outdoor projects first thing in the morning before the heat took over the day. 

I started with putting some paving stones on the south side of the house under the water spigot.  The pavers were left over from when we expanded the little patio two summers ago so I thought I’d put them to better use than just being stacked up in the garage.  Unfortunately the ants didn’t think this was a grand project and it took a bit for them to give it up and I did get a couple of good bites out of it before they moved their party elsewhere.

By the time I was done, YA had made a good start on edging our northern “garden” with bricks that we inherited from our neighbor who just moved.  She asked which of the jobs I wanted – digging or placing the bricks.  While placing the bricks seemed like the easier of the two jobs, I know my daughter well.  If I placed the bricks, she would eventually come behind me and “fix” what I had done.  I admit freely that she is more patient with a lot of home projects and therefore does an overall better job.  This made it an easy choice – I dug and let her place the bricks.  It was a great decision.  As I dug I watched her running her hands along the bricks to make sure they were even and using her finger as a measurement tool to make sure they were all the same depth.  I would not have thought to do either of these steps. 

We didn’t finish yesterday.  It got a bit too steamy so we knocked off about half way through and vowed to finish in a couple days when it’s a bit cooler.  Looks good so far.

Any projects for you over the holiday weekend?

37 thoughts on “Pavers & Bricks”

  2. My own WordPress blog is stocked up to run without intervention until mid-August. What I’m “going to put in there” for the days until the first day of Advent is lurking somewhere on the hard drive and needs to be posted. I suppose I’ll work on those. The process is slower than I would want it to be, though. The result is less satisfying, too. I suppose that before I have to begin the stuff for the coming liturgical year, I should work out a better system, and maybe some better posts. http://www.aboksu.wordpress.com

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  3. I’ve pretty much given up on trying to improve the world, let alone me. BUT, I’ve talked husband into taking his annual respite at Will’s sanctuary near the Boundary Waters, so I’ll have a two or three week window of opportunity to do something creative.

    An old neighbor and friend has agreed to come stay with me (husband doesn’t think I can be left alone!) during his absence. I see this as an opportunity to do some things that would otherwise be difficult to arrange. My first idea is a “spa day” for a group of my female friends at my house. Facials, manicures and pedicures are obvious choices, but I’m also thinking there may be some that have not occurred to me.
    Any ideas for how to pull this off?

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    2. there is a marvelous spa over by pragna on main but its probably $50 for 2 or 3 hours. zen sort of thing. hot water big pool. cold water immersion, steamer, sauna, and lay on the lounge are i believe all the offerings they had on the basic package. no talking. just go do the mantra in your head and cleanse the soul. i loved it. let me know if you want me to find the name.

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  4. i thought about looking into what it would cost to plug in those ootions and also offer facial mud bath massage and reflexology on a multi location basis and become the spa to go to. the one i went to was booked out fully into the forseeable future but that was in february when bones need warming up. maybe july would be more available

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  5. i need to get a bunch of stuff downloaded of multiple hard drives to my 5 tig harddrive and get photos of hats and coats sent over to my returning employee in the Philippines to have her help me kick start my ebay craigslist marketplace thing ive been itching to do instead of delivering for a while. that will also enable me to visit all the google cloud windows storage i have on an ongoing basis.
    i had a guitar buddy who is a geek show me how but im wondering if i can hire him to just do it. he retired and just plays guitar these days but he really likes just playing guitar

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  6. We were asked, previous to this, if we had any plans for the holiday weekend. We don’t. Having been retired for several years now, weekends—even holiday weekends—mean very little. Every day affords equal opportunities to do whatever we like, so we don’t feel any urge to plan something special.

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    1. i once heard being retired means you get up 6 and by 9 o clock you are 4 or 5 hours behind. i hope to figure out a way to enjoy retirement one of these months. not there yet. got to clean up some messes from that life back there

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      1. We find working part time is as exhausting as working full time, especially with the hysteria of buying one house and selling the other. We have a showing tomorrow morning, so we want the front yard veggie bed to be relatively weed free. I keep putting things away out of sight so the house looks immaculate inside, then I can’t find where I hid them once the showing is over. It took me a whole day to find my favorite pajamas.

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        1. I don’t think you have actually experienced much retirement yet, given the big life change that is coming. Buying and selling houses is exhausting.

          The other day someone mentioned burying St Christopher upside down in the front yard. I always heard that it is St. Joseph (father of Jesus). I knew someone who did this and her house sold quickly.

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    2. I hear you, Bill. Holidays are becoming more and more just days when some or a lot of businesses aren’t open. We do what we want to do when we want to do it, and tend to avoid traveling on holidays because it’s so much more crowded.

      Chris

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  7. We are weeding the garden today. I am told Vice Predident Vance is going to be in town. Pulling weeds is a good activity instead of going to.see him.

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  8. One project is pulling everything away from the walls in the kitchen to see if I can find where else the ants are coming in – I’ve found one gap at the back of the countertop.. house must be settling.
    I chose to not go the chemical route when they first showed up (hate to harm ANYthing), but now I’m kind of sorry. I’ve tried Terro before, but read that they removed an ingredient and it’s no longer as effective… Anyone heard of Advion?

    If any baboons have had success with getting rid of ants in the kitchen (mostly), I’d love to hear about it.
    Anyone heard of

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    1. Ants in the drawers in Taiwan were deterred by socks full of cloves. I wonder if ants in the kitchen might be put off by the application of powdered cloves or clove oil. If nothing else, it would be a pleasant fragrance.

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    2. there are many different kinds of ants. Some are grease ants. Some are sugar ants. I just had a whole bunch of little teeny tiny ones outside that had infiltrated my grandkids trampoline, and we’re crawling all over them as they were trying to bounce
      for kitchen ants the only success I’ve ever had has been with the tarot and stuff that you put on the wax paper and tuck back behind everything and let the ants come up and taste it and then take it back into the nest and kill off everybody in the nest. I’ve tried other things, but for kitchen ants that’s the only success I’ve ever had.

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  9. Oh it was already muggy when I went to check the planters in our apartment building’s 3 deck gardens at 8:30. Our 5th floor garden deck has a nice breeze so it felt a lot better than the first floor. But the air quality is not great so eating my yogurt and fruit out there is not recommended unless you like PM 10 and 2.5 with your meal. I will go out tonight 1/2 block towards the Stone Arch Bridge to see the fireworks over the Mississippi. I thought I was already looking forward to fall but …. there is local corn, raspberries, black berries or black raspberries (if you can find them), local tomatoes to celebrate the summer.

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  10. Rise and Light a Firecracker, Baboons,

    My project today is slow grilling ribs. Several people who helped me so much during my surgery recovery are coming over for some gratitude payback. (My son and my close friend, Tracy. Margharitas, beer, ribs, baked potatoes, salad, root beer floats).

    Sunday and Monday after it cools a lot, I will be back out in the garden with the chiggers and mosquitoes, weeding and digging up my profligate raspberry canes. Let me know if you want some to start a patch. I will also be reading the Patricia Hampl book now that I have an attention span post anesthesia and pain and pain meds. Man, do those mess up a body.

    My other project is simply refusing to ruminate about the sad state of our nation at this time while I increase my Resistance activities.

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  11. Husband and I just wrapped up a week of babysitting our 4-year-old grandson. Our only plan for the weekend is to recover and put the house back in order. Like Renee but for different reasons, I have to hide things before a visit, then try to remember where I put them. The pens and tchotchkes are back on my desk, but I can’t remember what I did with my earbuds. Husband recovered a silicone pastry brush from the sofa cushions. And on and on.

    We get ant invasions every year in June. They come after the cat’s food. I tried putting cinnamon down where they enter, but it didn’t work. They disappear just as mysteriously as they arrive around the end of the month.

    So I don’t have any good advice about ants, but I do need advice on how to discourage a very energetic 6-month-old cat from climbing up our legs and backs to get to our shoulders. It’s making meal preparation extremely difficult.

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  12. No big plans for the weekend. Some friends are getting together for a potluck this evening but I should be home by 9. Tomorrow afternoon some of my Mankato/St. Peter friends are getting together at Lake Washington for a potluck and playing a little music.

    I have a yarn swift and a ball winder now, so I can wind hanks of yarn when I need them. I just wound four of them and only one gave me trouble. I don’t know why that’s such a satisfying task.

    I’m doing a little clean-up of my online data too.

    I’m trying not to think about the current state of our country too, but it’s not working. I am reading The Parable of the Sower, which isn’t helping.

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  13. Cinnamon didn’t work here, either, but I tried something a friend told me about to “erase” their trails: white vinegar & water combo with several drops of Eucalyptus Oil. Hardly seeing any of them today, so we’ll see…

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    2. Erasing the trails is something we did when we were in Taiwan. It doesn’t kill, neither does it eliminate the problem (because “scout ants” lay down new trails soon enough), but it is a satisfying temporary thing to do. The formula doesn’t have to be all that complicated. Do, indeed, concoct your own, but in a pinch, the Windex works just as well.

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  15. One goal is to clean the garage floor this week. But we’re still waiting for the cottonwood fuzz to stop falling. It’s insidious about getting into enclosed spaces like garages. 😦

    Chris in Owatonna

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  17. I need to clean out my mind. It seems like commentary about our current political affairs is everywhere. It seems unavoidable, and I admit to being easily captured. It’s depressing.

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