Whatcha doing today?

[addy1]

Prepping our house for the invasion. We hired a contractor to come and fix some things on our house. (I am not as driven as Sissy and my hands can't do it anymore) After caring for rentals for 10 years always working on something our house was sort of ignored. When here we just did not have the drive to fix up stuff. And the bees take up most of the summer and I can not handle heat anymore, over 90 I am in the house.

So long story short, they start on Monday, they will probably be around for over 3 weeks. It will drain our account nicely, but we have some funds from selling a rental that are being used.

They need to drop our window wall to replace the wood the original contractor used, non treated, it dry rotted. The ants and the wood peckers love the rotted wood! One massive job. We are going to move into our bedroom until they move on to work outside of the house. Keep the dogs quieter, keep a good social distance from the crew.

The base of all the windows rotted out, we replaced a lot of that, but now the support post have also rotted at the bottom. He said they are going to remove the windows and the wall and do a total rebuild. Those windows are extremely heavy. And the outside will be pvc no more painting! With our slope you need one long ladder to reach the windows and wood.

 

[JamieB]

I posted puppies on local fb, have one strong interest and a couple of folks that just want to see puppies. The one who’s strongly interested wants a female, and that’s good, we have plenty of them! I’ve got to go to town and get more dog food today. I’m so over puppies. Pretty sure I just adore puppies until they start their toddler stages, then I don’t like them till they are done teething and settled down to calm adulthood. Still cute, but teething and chewing and pooping all over... the month old litter will be moving outside once weather warms up a bit. Starting to let them out to play, but the litter outside kinda gets rambunctious with them, so I watch to make sure bigger puppies don’t hurt them. And the one short haired pup can’t do cold weather long, she will need time to adjust.

 

[sissy]

They used a combo of pvc trim and cement material on my house and have to sat addy the cement board held up better and could be painted .I had to take down the pvc and replace with cement board trim .I still have 2 more pieces to do but that will have to wait until spring ,I am not crazy enough to get up on any ladder now .I deleted my commiebook account to much spaying done on it and I used it very little ,not worth making Zuckerberg richer he is corrupt enough .

 

[j.w]

That's a good name for it lol, commie book!

 

[JamieB]

The cat ww3 is brewing in my lap! Senior adoptie Seven has decided she’s mad at dad, is draped on my chest. She doesn’t like other cats. DILs cat Toes was using my lap as a pillow, decided to move by my feet because of Seven. And then Ziggy, my cat, decided he’s jealous, and came to join. So far he’s being calm, Seven has growled only when she thought he was touching her, but I was expecting to get cut up as the grounds of the fight. Smart Ziggy instead laid down and ignored her .

 

[sissy]

Well going to take the day off today from some of the work in the bathroom to get things done in the rest of the house .Seems like when you start a project the rest of the house gets neglected .But I have to get done before mowing season gets here again ,Supposed to be in the mid 50's all week and have to go to fergusions showroom tomorrow to look at the free standing tubs and faucets they have .I can't get the yub out of the bathroom by myself so have to wait for my friend Mike to come over on wednesday so figure I may be able to reroute part of the drain line but not glue it until the tub gets here .Faucet I have to wait on plumber to do that since it is pex lines

 

[JamieB]

I’m mixed between highly entertained and exasperated by the pets today. Outside dogs got into it with coyotes again, blondie cut the pad of a paw, and they come to me to make them feel better, but they hate getting treated. They know if they bring me their boo boos, I’ll make it better, but often it stings.
Of the three litters, the two boys in the newest litter earned the name “ poo” storm and walker. Storm made a mess of his namesake, walker walked through it, I had to give them a quick bath to get it all off, and their eyes aren’t even open yet. The middle litter is high entertainment. The fawn girl is super shy most of the time. Her sister is very not. The two boys are sometimes. Brian is calling the not shy girl Sassy, I told him that will have to change, I grew up with a dog named sassy. But sassy and the boys are all very husky, long think coat, like the cool weather. They are now going out during the day, come in at dark, they go in the fenced area with the other slightly older litter. Those six all get to play, chase, hide all day. We need the name the rest, so far oldest litter biggest male is chunk, but the other two still need names, then middle litter all need names other than fawn, sassy, dark faced boy! And Ziggy has a grand time playing with them. He runs his zoomies out playing with them.

 

[JamieB]

One puppy gone! My mom took one for herself, she fell in love.
On a bad note, fat butt cat shifted the mini pond lid, and I was out. No one noticed, I lost 80+ gallons, leaving just inches of water in the pond, my bog ran dry, and apparently there was just enough water to keep the pump running, but not go up the hose with out burning up the pump. So I’m cooking dinner, decided to check the mini pond to see if I needed to do a water change/ top off evaporated/ cat drunk water ( it was a bit low which is why I’m guessing 80 gallons instead of more) saw the problem, and started filling buckets. Lid is off the pond right now as I work on this. I overcooked my pork chops, trying to fill the pond to a better level, do quick cleaning in there, rearranging things, etc. My first step was to unplug the pump and heaters. Then once I had it back to a good level, I turned the pump back on. I’ve got it almost filled to where I need it, look in the bog, and saw two small guppies. That thing was dry for a good bit, like pump was off for 30+ minutes, who knows how long the pump wasn’t moving water, cause it all spilled out the side I can’t see by the wall. I’m just praying there’s no water damage to the drywall we are storing back there for the living room. Those two guppies somehow made it through the pump filter, which admittedly is a cheap firm mesh block, up the hose, through the bog rock, and were in there who knows how long, possibly with little to no water. These weren’t fresh born fry either, but decent sized almost juvenile sized fish.
Now I’m resting my back before hauling more water, have devised a spillway cover that prevents this issue again, and will be cutting the lid down so the excess can be screwed on at an angle to form a lip to prevent it from shifting forward and under the water flow.

 

[JamieB]

Fat butt, who can’t occupy the lid since it’s off, this is reduced to consorting with “ the others” out in the living room. She claims the pond lid and associated windows as her area, and comes out only when she requires a good scratch or for select treats.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

More Farm Sim tonight.

I bought a honey bee house and greenhouses.

and a new tractor.

 

[JamieB]

Working in the pond a bit. Sister called with info, originally she was going to give me one pool, but that fell through as it was too small, so she got a different one, which has been used one summer, apparently a big high end fancy pool. I don’t care how fancy, I want sturdy. Anyway, she’s discovered that her new place has little room for a pond, due to flood issues. So I just spent about an hour working on staking the sub liner, and raking out leaves and dirt that got in there. Anyway, I’m debating on changing my bog layout, using the liner that the mice chewed for that which will give me a bigger bog. But it would go to the opposite end of the pond, the rounded end. If I use the dirt bermed up from digging the pond that is left in a pile as sides, I could make a very large bog, fill it with flowers and such. The problem will be getting enough rock in one go. I’m thinking I need to think outside the box. Instead of buying rock, I’ll go to the creek and just get buckets full, wash well, let it dry, then use it. I’ll have to set up a leaf net, as that’s under the maple. And if I use a used liner, I’ll have to fill, drain, then fill again, add dechlorinater, and let it run before I add any established pond water. I’ve got the test kits I need, so I can test it frequently until I’m sure the liner isn’t leaching any chlorine out. I don’t know if they can, but better safe than sorry. Now I need to finish the pond cleaning, and rethink my plan, since she won’t be taking the koi back. These are standard, not butterflies, so I’ll hold off on adding shubinkin.

 

[JamieB]

She just called, it’s three koi, all large, and 6-8 goldfish she’s not sure just how many of those. Which means I need around 4000 gallons, which is a bit under what I calculate the pond to be. 1/2 oval, 20ish ft long by 15 wide, around 3 ft average depth. That came out to 5376, minus shelves plus the deep area I set up to catch mulm, debris. So I’ll just say 5000 gallons. Three koi plus 8 goldfish means I need at least 3480 gallons, planning extra for the next spawn of fish, which I hope to keep down by not feeding when I see mating behavior.

 

[JamieB]

I’ve removed 3 buckets of gunk. Swept what I could to the mulm hole, used gloves hand to scoop what wouldn’t sweep, gathered it in buckets, and moved it out and dumped it for birds to pick through. Lots of duckweed and algae, worms, a few grubs and snails. I’ve been tossing bird seed out to the birds in that area, so I expect the birds will adore my pond set up. Lots of cardinals and sparrows. I need to measure out where I can put the bog. I’m debating on just how to lay it out.

 

[j.w]

Take a garden hose and lay it out and see which way you like it best. Hope you take lots of pictures!

 

[JamieB]

Grumpy now, I don’t have a program on my phone that will let me draw on the pictures of the pond. I went out and took measurements. My pond is 16ish foot long, not the 20 I’d originally planned/ thought. I say ish, because it’s lopsided, not too noticeable, but like 17 on one side, 15 on the other, hubby pointed it out. Either way, I need roughly 75ish feet of bog. I’ve got just under 6 ft from the edge of the pond to the concrete slab. With retaining berm, that is just about right if I curve the bog along the edge, but I may need to do some seaming on the liner.
My current thoughts are that I go move around a lot of dirt, dig out a shallow bog, about a shovel scoop depth. With the built up berm walls/ especially if I reinforce them, I’ll have my bog depth. If I plan for 5 ft long by 15 ft wide, curved around the pond, that will be roughly 75 ft of bog, but if I square it off, that will be more bog, more filtration, but also more digging, rock, and work we aren’t quite ready for, with all the other tasks we have. That will probably be a project for next year, to complete the bog, along with the frame for the netting it and the pond will need.