Pokemon Here!

Clayton and Faith know how to find Pokemon that are around us and they got a couple for us!

A Major Ceiling Repair

Natalie had been hearing scratching in her ceiling and then it also started leaking.  So while she was gone on a trip, Andy decided to repair the ceiling and asked Ron to help.  He was not sure what he would find when he would cut open the ceiling, so he wanted protection of some kind, so we went to Lowes and Home Depot to see what was available.  There were disposable body overalls, plus masks with hoods and footies.  They cut a hole in the ceiling, cleaned it out, then put insulation and sheet rock over it.  Andy had to teach lessons in between the work so it took two days.

RON - A SPACE GHOST???

Bought at Lowes: Body suits, including hoodie and shoes - $10  each

Goggles: $4, Masks: in a pack of 4, about $1 each.

Throw-a-away plastic gloves:  very cheap, 10 for $2

Then painting plastic drop cloths to cover everything in the room, took down the bed. 

     “Professional" respirators are very expensive. We checked on renting them, but  could not find easily;  then we saw these suits.  They are paper throw aways,  but quite thick.

     Andy was afraid of what would be up there. Ron not so much: he thought the paper masks would be sufficient and they were.  The suits made it real nice.  It wasn’t as bad as Andy thought, but it was still good to have had all that protection with the dust, insulation and sheet rock pieces dropping down.  There were wasp nests there, but all empty.  So beautiful with the patterns.

     Meanwhile, Joan spent so much time "painting" vine roots (with weed killer) - - from a cup with a little brush.  Then she used the sprinkler can to spray the rest of the buttercups

     For 50 years we have "painted" weed stems of obnoxious weeds, particularly blackberry vines. 

     History of weed-killing for us:  In 1953, Joan’s parents bought a triplex overlooking lake Washington on two lots, one being filled with blackberry vines.  In 1961, they remodeled the triplex extensively, making it one home for us . The lot with blackberry vines was still there and we had to cut them back all the time.  The only way to really kill one was to clip the stem at the base and using a small brush, put the concentrated brush killer on the cut stem. 

     Ron and Joan did that 3 weeks ago when we were working in Andy’s garden, took us 2  1/2 hours just taking care of the blackberry vines. Carefully finding the base of the stem, Joan would clip it and carry the vine away while Ron "painted" the clipped stem.  We couldn't get as strong as stuff as we used to (it used to come in a little brown glass bottle) but still, in one day, the stems were already turning black and now they are totally DEAD.  

     There is a leafy weedy vine here that can cover everything and looks like Katsu but is very much smaller, thinner and not so bad; it just looks like it when it is totally blanketing the garden and shrubs.  The thick white roots are like crabgrass roots and it spreads by rootings.  So since Joan last worked on the garden, ending July 2, it has come back.  She felt, therefore, the many vines needed to be painted individually with weed concentrate in order to kill them. The directions on a lot of weed killers, like for poison ivy, say to spray ON leaves , then the poison goes to the roots … And it works. 

     These leaves are smaller though and were throughout the shrubs, plants and ferns in that large back yard hill so she could not spray with the concentrate.  So I needed to just single out the vines stem and as much of the root as I could to try to paint some root  hairs as well as the lower stem and some  leaves. 

Then I could clip off the rest of the vine .  It was very time-consuming...(7 hours)   But she did it!!

Flower Arrangements from the Garden

Joan wanted to be able to make flower arrangements from her garden, particularly with the daisies.  Kim let her have sweet peas.

    It’s fun to play with photoshop and make Impressionistic pictures.

More Beautiful Salads

    Every few days, we had another beautiful salad.

Flowers are always a great addition

Joan’s Community Garden Is Growing

We return from our trips to our beautiful garden that is in the community garden, right next door!  Friends keep it watered for us.

Well, this is a little overgrown, but peas and green beans.

Daisies and yarrow

Fairy garden plants really grew

Lavender, lettuce and Johnny jump-ups

Garden Work

     We arrived back from Vancouver Island the 26^th and on the 27^th, Joan started her next “Project” at Andy’s house: the back yard garden.  It really had not been taken care of for 3 years and so it was massively overgrown.  Andy had talked about letting it go “wild”, but when the blackberry wines started coming in that may have been the deciding factor that maybe “wild” wasn’t such a good idea.  They covered the bottom part so thickly that you could not push a wheelbarrow through (Clayton thought he could – and got stuck, so he had to go around the long way.)

     Here’s what it was when Joan started on June 27th. .. there are two sets of stairs going down with a flat area at the bottom, before the wooded area, that was covered with buttercups and blackberries.  All garden areas were stuffed with vegetation:  plants and weeds.   Many ferns were overgrown.

Buttercups with blackberry
ies in back

blackberries up close

     After 5 days of 5 hours a day, it was like a park.  Ron had assisted with the blackberry vines:  Joan located the stems and clipped them off and dragged the long vines away while Ron “painted” the end of the stems with concentrated weed-killer.  That gets rid of the root, too, then.  The buttercups were raked away but will be killed with the granular weed killer with a spreader.

Where the blackberries were and you couldn't walk.  Buttercups in front raked, 

Meanwhile Ron worked on various projects around the house.

And had fun eating together