Leavenworth WA for Christmas

Bruce and I arrived in Seattle WA, on Tuesday just before dark.  After relaxing for a day we took a rode trip to Leavenworth, WA, even though we thought it might be to tourist like we found we were wrong, super groovy, had a ball.

Nine Days No Work

My cousins daughters and one of the girls son relax after turkey

Thanksgiving was great we had two dinners and it was the first day of my nine day vacation to Florida much of it in Cape Coral. 

Leo Klejnot

I flew out of Fort Wayne, IN where I finally got a photo of my dad's name on the Art Smith exhibition in the air museum at the airport.  I have no idea why his name appears here as he was never a pilot and served in the Marine Corps during WWII.  Finding the answer to my question is on my to do list, additionally I want to research his service record I have always been curious about my fathers time in the Marines and the war. 

Mother, mother ocean

Just the thought of the sunshine put a smile on my face as I flew across the country, I have been in my long underware for nearly two months already. 

The first stop for fun was my favorite beach in Lee County for high activity, Fort Meyers Beach, which offers lots of bars, shopping, restaurants, all water sports and activities yet somehow maintains its charm and character.  We popped down for the sandsculpting contest which is super cool and we saw chain saw carving as well.


I finally got up to see a friends place near the Peace River.  We went to the local bar for lunch and listened to a few tunes in the Chickie bar where a man and woman were performing.  Great atmosphere, cheap cold beer and fine chow, who could ask for more?  I always liked this area I worked for a landscape architect who had a great house on the Peace River in Port Charlotte, the gardens were fabulous, every square inch was plant material.               

My pal Sue came to visit from St. Pete, she stayed a couple of days we toured Pine Island one day eating, chatting, checking out the sites.  Sue is buds with my sister and brother in law as well, we go way back, talking one of those 45 year friendships we don't see each other all that often but when we do an easy rhythm develops quickly.

There is a lot of art and color in Florida which is one of the things that turn me on about hanging south.  Of course the other big deal is being outdoors in the sunshine and cruising past mother ocean.  If I lived there I would have some form of small watercraft a small runabout and a kayak or two.  It would be great to live on the water perhaps a river, I don't know that I could live in the city after all these years in the country.

The wildlife can often be found on the walls;  gators, herons, egrets, boars and fish are mounted and displayed in restaurants, bars, boutiques and roadside stands, personally I was never a huge fan of stuffed critters hanging over my dinner plate but it must appeal to the masses.

Of course when you can see plenty of species of living wildlife in Florida if you take a bit of time to stop and smell the flora and fauna.  Birds are especially prevalent, shorebirds, birds of prey, waders added to the many migratory birds that flock south each winter and you have a birdwatchers dream.  Gators are common in most any pond or water source and my pals on the river say they see bobcats regularly. 

A priority with any visitor to SW FL should be to get out on the water, whether it is in the mother or down the river, include a airboat tour in the Everglades and your FL vacation will be complete.

Christmas lights and displays abound in FL as well.  Must be the warm temperature inspires more people to go all out stringing the lights, no problems with frozen fingers and toes leads to some pretty tricked out trees and palms.  I think most of Collier county is in some type of decorating contest all agreeing to use white miniature lights.  Oh well works for me.

My nine days off was fun and relaxing I caught up on some much needed sleep and cruised my sisters new hood on her bike.  Riding in FL is fun and easy since it is so flat.  The thing you need to watch out for is traffic when you pedal in the city, the most dangerous time is crossing near a Publix market.

 My oldest sister now lives very close to my other sis so we will be seeing more of each other.  We are all that is left from our family of seven.

One week from today I will be blogging from Seattle.  Bruce and I will be going to the pacific northwest for about three weeks.  We will be visiting Oregon and California.  Our itinerary is wide open right now so we have a bit of planning to do before we split.

Fort Meyers Beach Sand Scuplting Championship

It is good to be back in southwest Florida especially with the temperature being in the teens back
home.  Attending the annual sand sculpting championship on Fort Meyers Beach yesterday was a pretty groovy start to my vacation.  The contest started on the beach in 1990 that first year my sister Cass, her husband Jim and two friends entered and won the amateur division. 

It has gotten to be a much larger event with vendors, chain saw carving, food, drink and even live music.  The sculpture area itself is now contained by fencing and they charge five bucks a head to view the artist at work, but it was worth it to see the beautiful and intricate designs. 

Over the years I have helped produce a couple of different sculptures (not in a contest just for pleasure), it is challenging but lots of fun.  Points are awarded for creativity, difficulty (arches are especially hard), theme adherence and making sure your sculpture stays standing and does not crash to the beach.

They also had a children's play area with lots of sand toys, a mock rock climbing wall and these great colored balls that allowed the kids to walk inside while floating in a small pool.  We ended the day with a cocktail and stone crab claws at Pincher's bar.  A fine young singer entertained us filling the air with a few great tunes.  All in all a pretty good beginning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finishing Touches

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Today is Thanksgiving Eve and the only good smells to come out of my house would be if I lit pumkin scented candles, no cooking here.  We are going to eat at two homes and do lots of visiting.  On Friday I will fly to Florida and spend time with family and friends.

It has  gotten bitterly cold and working outdoors has lost some of the charm for me.  The show must go on.  We finished up for now on two bigger projects.  The ice is creeping up onto the shorelines and the boat lifts are on the beach.  I spotted some deer tracks on the beach as well.

Mid November Rocks, Tons and Tons

LEAF SUCKING TRAILER

This beauty makes fall clean up much easier and will save the customers a few bucks as we are more efficient removing leaves.  Oh giant leaf sucker truck where have you been all my life? Seriously this is just one more advantage of having sold our business, the mother ship has lots of groovy tools that make life easier.

LEAVES DUMP OUT

We are wrapping up leaves but will make one more pass over the properties we manage to collect any stragglers.  The weather today is supposed to be severe with high winds even possible tornadoes so if that does not drop the rest of the leaves I don't know what will.

The team of Ryan and Scott took a break from their difficult job on Coldwater Lake and installed some snap cuts and a rock wall for a job the boss sold on Lake Gage.  I think they were happy to be away from Coldwater Lake, Ryan says he moves 3 ton of dirt to install 4 snap cut stairs.  We should finish this week with the most of it.

SNAP CUT STAIRCASE

We concentrated on building new block walls, finishing the dry creek bed and installing snap cut stairs on the Snow Lake job this week. We replaced ugly red block with Versa Lock block, added to the old Versa Lock wall but had trouble matching block color, to eliminate the problem I decided to use the old block as a color band on both walls unifying the theme, looks great.

COLOR BAND ON BOTTOM & 4TH COURSE

The dry creek bed is an efficient, simple easy care choice for a hillside all you need to do is blow it out once in a while.  The creek looks like it terminates behind the new block wall.  In the spring the homeowner can decide if he wants to add some plant material, I think some ever greens would be stellar.  This installation was crazy hard because the entire hillside was back filled with 100% number 4 stone, as usual we were up to the challenge.

DRY CREEK BED FILLS STEEP HILL

As I have said before you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet and we made some dust and dirt running the wet saw and the concrete cut off saw on this job so blowing created a dust storm.  When I am on site at a job I try and do the lighter tasks these days and blowing is one, I was wishing for a breathing mask when I finished and I am certain that back pack blowers are getting heavier.

A TINA MADE DUST STORM

Bill and I went round a bit on the design and concept of the dry creek bed but it worked out just as I had envisioned.  There was nothing easy about the execution but you are not always sure what you're gonna get into when you open up the earth, especially if another human has been there before you.

Traveling Kitty

My husband Bruce left the shop Monday morning business as usual.  He drove about four or five miles to a job site on Lake Gage and returned to the shop for some materials.  Upon exiting his truck he thought he heard a slight mewing but could not locate the source.  He got his materials and headed to Lake James Estates another four or so mile trip.  This time when he got out of the truck the mewing was unmistakable and coming from the engine compartment.

Fearing the worst he and our worker Gary gingerly popped the hood.  Much to their relief and surprise a small orange kitty lay curled up on top of the air cleaner.  Gary reached for it and ended up chasing it through the engine and out over axle where he caught it for a brief moment before Mr. Lucky kitten scratched him and Gary dropped him.  They spent a few minutes trying to rescue the little dickens but had to eventually return to work empty handed.

Enter our Lake James customers who upon hearing the story vowed to attempt capture once all the commotion settled down.  A few hours later with coaxing from food the kitty was caught in a raccoon trap.  The kitty quickly became calm and turned on his motor when loving hands stroked him.  Because they already have pets they are unable to keep the kitten but have taken it to the vet who declared it perfectly healthy.

Coincidentally our book keeper Bonnie suddenly just lost one of her cats and may have room in her home and heart for this little doll, if not he may be up for adoption.

Easy Creek Bed

These past couple weeks we have been on fall clean up and working on a few projects around the
shop.  Spectacular best describes the display mother nature treated us to this autumn, the colors were stunning I  remiss as I did not photograph a single tree.   Leaves have hung on and in fact are still on many of the oaks and a few maples so we waiting to do our major leaf removal.

EASY DOES IT, DOUG BARELY HAD ROOM TO SPIN

Oddly enough we have been commissioned to build another dry creek bed the fourth of the year.  We are taking this one right up the property line.  We discovered this hill was completely backfilled with number 4 glacial stone, not just a few feet but as deep as 8 feet down and up to 15 feet from the foundation, it was not a welcome discovery.  We ended up hauling out a few loads of stone and tried to disturb it as little as possible.

This homeowner wanted a easy care hillside and this dry creek bed is just the ticket.  These shots are in progress and we should wrap up pretty quickly.  The red block wall is going to be replaced with a block wall that matches the other side of the house.  My original design called for boulders to replace the block.

HILLSIDE BEFORE

HILLSIDE DURING CREEK BED INSTALLATION

Hidden Lake Gardens, Tipton MI

Great spot, close to home and well maintained.  Saw several shrubs labeled "dwarf" that were big as trees, same ones we plant.  The conifer garden was huge and fascinating .  Nice conservancy and hosta hill blows me away.  Great day for a garden tour. 

What Did You Do This Week?

It was a pretty busy week and we wrapped up a couple of short projects.  Sometimes the short ones are the more rewarding because we can get in and out quickly while making big improvements other projects like the big stone wall in this video take weeks.

It was foggy most every morning these past couple of weeks and the combination of fog and morning light made for some stellar views.  We started the week with a seeding job just outside of Angola, the chickens were eating the seed as fast as we put it down.  The cocky rooster took a liking to our truck and we had to shoo him out several times.  To slow down the seed eating the men set up a sprinkler and blasted the foul.

The dry creek bed took us a couple of days and I thought it was fun.  I selected each stone and pretty much knew where each stone would set before we installed it.  The largest stone we cut in half with the concrete saw that doubled its use and cut the weight in half.  We used the tractor to lower the Missouri boulders down the steep hill from the road to the bottom of the staircase was 88'.  Using slate as the stream bed stone adds to the illusion of water.  The stream bed adds needed  weight to the other side of the stairs.  I thought it turned out pretty cool.

Ryan and Scott are still at it up on Coldwater Lake.  We used Allan Block provide much needed foundation for the pavers that will sit a top it.  We will be stacking a stone wall in front of the block that will disguise the block.  The next step is to start a matching stone wall on the other side of the stairs.

We Tame Hills

Last year we installed a snap cut stairway on this steep hill on Lake James.  Earlier this year Dave built a stone wall around their parking lot and we are back yet again to create a dry creek bed between the steps and a tree because it is just so darn hard to mow.  We kicked around different ideas and settled on the the creek bed which I thought was pretty much fun to build, of course I was on the tractor or the ground and not actually hauling around all these giant Missouri boulders.  The three largest rocks weighed 2800 pounds and we had to tote them down the hill.  In order to get them in place we used gravity, a tree cart, rope, our John Deere and a few good men.

Pink Droyd Montage

The Dekalb County Free Fair
was rocking Saturday night when Pink Droyd took the stage.  The Pink Floyd cover band had a great light show and were tight and polished.  We enjoyed the show and it was free.

Mountain Clilmbing or Landscaping?

Two very difficult hills have been our  landscaping challenge for the past couple of weeks.  One job is on Lake James, Ryan and Scott have been the primary installers each rock is handled five times by hand before is carefully nested in the glacial retaining wall.

 This one is a logistics nightmare back up the narrow steep driveway with a full load of rocks, wiggle next to the six foot tall concrete retaining wall and dump to a wooden backstop which prevents the rocks from rolling down the hill.  Pick up rocks hand drop to the next level.  Pick up rocks hand drop to the next level put in wheel barrow push ten feet.  Drop rocks pick up rocks hand drop to the next level.  Each drop point has a wooden backstop the lake is nearly two stories below.

It is back breaking work standing on a hill all day is hard enough but add to that toting 30-50 pound

rocks and shoveling uphill, hats off to you men it is another beautiful job.



The lot actually has treated timber terraces with a wooden staircase and brick insert.  Glacial rock is what the home owner wants to replace all the timbers with eventually, it would be a huge undertaking.  I know Ryan and Scott would not be anxious to work here again.









The other hill we are working is rather unique, very steep in a short distance 135" drop in 8' we have to have a extension ladder laying on the hill to wall up, in the beginning the men had a rope to repel up and down.

First order of business was to strip the hill of all plant material, Travis ended up covered in poison  ivy he had a very nasty rash had to to Urgent Care and get steroids.

It was necessary to jackhammer the seawall where we were fitting in the snap cut steps, that was a unpleasant surprise we were hoping just to saw and chisel but the concrete steps were poured right over the full seawall.  We removed a full staircase and found a second buried in the dirt.

Getting materials down this hill requires three men and a machine.  The bobcat operator lowers down the limestone and the snapcut stair tread, the bluestone weighs between 400-600 pounds.




Safety is paramount when handling these heavy steps the men take this busy very seriously one small mistake and it is goodbye finger and look out toes.

We had to stop work on this job because we need exact height for our last three stairs it has been difficult finding them but Matt at Felger's thinks he will have them Monday.

The renovation of this lakeside landscaping might be next on my list, I will give the customer a bid this week. We installed the block retaining walls several years ago for the previous homeowner and installed the snap cut stone staircase for the current owner last year.  Now they are ready to update the plant material.

Dale and Judy on Lake James have asked us to take a look at the space between the steps and the tree and suggest some landscaping ideas that would eliminate this difficult mowing.  I have a idea for a dry creek bed while Bruce is favoring ground cover, it will be interesting to see which was they go.

Catching lots of sparkly water and early morning fishing on the lakes these days, hear they are pulling some big bass out this fall.