We finished a few fall projects in the last couple weeks. Depending on weather, these may be the final jobs of the year except for on-going leaf pick-up. I don’t have a lot of photos this time, but continue on to see what I have!
One project was to repaint the east porch steps. Not as easy as it sounds, as the last paint was oil-based and the steps had to be sanded to give the new latex-based paint something to adhere to. Still, the results were worth it as the new paint (and treads) look good.
Pam painted the steps above and painted the railings on the south porch and touched up a lot of white on various window sills and hand rails. Much scraping of old paint was involved…
We checked with the tree removal company and confirmed we are still on the list to get our old oak tree removed. To make room for the trucks and equipment we needed to reconfigure the dog run. This project took place over a couple of days, as I had to pull up old posts and wire, then put the posts in their new locations and re-stretch the wire. New arrangement has posts at a 6-feet spacing where the old spacing was 8-foot, so a couple extra posts were installed.
The ramp had to be modified to point to the North-west instead of west to gain the needed room. The dogs picked up on the change fairly quickly so using it is proving to be OK.
We are not sure this will be enough to allow all the access the tree company needs; we may have to remove the closest corner post and make that corner more rounded. After the tree is gone I will put in a wood corner post, in cement, as a final step.
Other yard work continues with cutting back more hostas; east and north flower beds were cleared. More leaves were mulched and raked then taken to the town’s compost site. There are day lilies and a couple hostas to remove from under the oak trees so there is more to do in the yard before the snow really flies.
In past years I have used a kerosene heater to warm up the garage when I needed to do winter work. This year I am trying a different approach, using a propane heater. I found a Mr. Heater unit on Facebook Marketplace for sale not far from us, in Stewartville, and bought it. While I have a spare 20-pound propane tank (from an old grill) I have moved a 100-pound tank a couple of times now. I dug it out of the corner of the garage and had it purged, re-certified, and filled. Tanks like this have to be transported standing up and getting the tank into and out of the truck was a chore in itself. Nearest place to get the tank certified was in Protovin, about 18 miles away, and they (Fencl LP) also did the re-cert, purge, and fill.
I tried out this combination and the heater did a good job of warming up the space. Since the garage is not insulated I will use the heater as-needed, which I hope will not be often as I don’t know how much propane the heater will use in any one session. Price to fill the tank plus purge and re-certify was $94.00. Heater was $50.00. Certification is good for 5 years.
Fall continues. Snow flurries are expected later today and high tomorrow (Sunday) is expected to be below freezing, well below average for this time of year. However, a return to more seasonal averages is in the forecast for late next week so we are hoping to get a few more days of good weather.
That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!
Pam’s Penny
The dog run is smaller in size, but there are still plenty of locations for Grayce to dig. <sigh>
Rock on.
Today’s Humor
