5 hours ago, Aimless1 said:

Do you have galvanized plumbing?

Oy. There is a section of our house fed by galvanized plumbing wrapped in "an asbestos like material" that runs through an unreachable crawl space. Redoing it is going to involve demoing much of the entryway which looks like this.

Oh my.

Cant you just cap and isolate the lines through the offending area then reroute with new lines? I have done this before. The new pex stuff is super easy compared to even no solder copper let alone galvanized BTW. 

Took the dog out for a late night bathroom break and ran into this little fellow-

the body is12mm across

Daw!  I would take him home and feed him and cuddle...um..him or her...and call him (involuntarily shudders)

Damn Greg, you really do live in Jim Stafford country!

 

Pre-Dorian, full moon, high tide walk on the beach 

By the way, the first picture is a part of the beach open to vehicles. The posts mark the furthest toward the dunes that vehicles are allowed. Vehicle access was closed down due to the high, high tide.

 

 

Edited September 1, 20196 yr by morphsci

Not quite yesterday, but last week. What passed for grass in our garden was 50% weeds and infested with ant hills that defied all attempts, chemical, biological and thermal, to kill off. So after three weeks of preparation (painting 35 metres of fence twice, painting walls white, all after digging out 15 metres of Virginia Creeper and ivy) a team of five guys came for four days to fit artificial grass. Cheap it was not, but the effect is so much better that the mess it replaced.

 

Needs some artificial weeds!

I did my last little bit of cross training for the 100 mile ride I'll be doing next weekend.  Here's to hoping the nearly 1,200 miles I've logged this year so far were enough.

 

6 hours ago, swt61 said:

Needs some artificial weeds!

Don't laugh too hard, Craig. We spent an obscene amount to put turf down over packed crushed stone in a 20' x 25' yard in SF and it is now a terrible weed patch because the weed roots grow laterally under the mat and sprout up throughout. We fought it for a while but between that and gophers making holes in it we gave up. Diligence -- and some kind of edging where the turf meets soil -- is necessary but not nearly as much as a natural lawn requires. 

If whoever pulled up the weeds left any root structure at all, you may not have to spend any money on artificial ones.

Well these guys went down 6 inches, started with dense nylon planting film, 4 inches of hardcore (about 20 tons), and 2 inches of fine crushed grit (10 tons). All compacted at each stage. So nothing is coming up through that lot. Things might get out at the edges, but if anything sprouts there I'm just going to hit it with kick ass weedkiller.

The planting film is there sure to stop weeds (and ants) getting through, but also to stop the hardcore from sinking into the ground underneath.

The thing that astonished me is that everything they dug out, and all the hardcore etc was brought through in an endless relay of wheelbarrows. They worked their asses off from start to finish. When they arrived in the trucks, it was only a minute or two before they were at it full tilt. Lunch was ten minutes and then pow back to it full bore.

Ours was put in similarly and I refused the herbicide that they can put under the turf mat because of our dog. The damned weeds did not sprout through the compacted stone but rather between the stone and the mat. It became a mat of weed roots that would them shoot up weeds through the turf. If you pulled them out, eventually you pulled up the turf with the weeds because the roots were so widespread underneath. I wish now that I had put in some kind of edging board around the turf because that was at least partly how the roots worked their way in. Just a word of caution not to let the weeds get established. 

The reason weeds are called weeds is because they are astonishingly resilient and able to grow and actually thrive in areas where you think it is impossible. So as Al said, keep vigilant. 

Thanks for the heads up guys. I'll keep an eye out for any weed intrusion and kill the bastards as soon as they raise their ugly little shoots.

Spent the weekend on the lake! I’m addicted.

Started my daily walk in light rain.  Rain became heavy.  Raised umbrella.  Saw lightning and heard thunderclap less than a second later.  Realized I was a walking lightning rod.  Turned around and went home.

8 minutes ago, Dusty Chalk said:

Started my daily walk in light rain.  Rain became heavy.  Raised umbrella.  Saw lightning and heard thunderclap less than a second later.  Realized I was a walking lightning rod.  Turned around and went home.

You should probably always fly a kite (with key) whenever outside to be safe. 

11 minutes ago, blessingx said:

You should probably always fly a kite (with key) whenever outside to be safe. 

 

3 hours ago, Dusty Chalk said:

Started my daily walk in light rain.  Rain became heavy.  Raised umbrella.  Saw lightning and heard thunderclap less than a second later.  Realized I was a walking lightning rod.  Turned around and went home.

I used to enjoy running in a lightning storm - I really like the deluge of rain after the hot and humid that led up to it. But one day, about a mile of so from home, there was a simultaneous flash and BANG. Followed by a strong smell of acrid and ozone. Must've struck not many yards away. Scared me really bad.

That cured me entirely of running in a lightning storm 

 

Best not to mess with nature's fireworks.  

Shelly, I highly recommend getting a buoyant sunglasses retaining system and/or floating sunglasses. My Maui Jims that I used for such things are now residing at the bottom of the Tennessee River after I rolled a waverunner a couple years ago. Glad you're having a blast!

Most people don't fall off things nearly as often as you, but still sound advice. ?

Probably closest approach to us. A lot of rain and winds from mid 20s to low 30s mph. Actually happy as it saves me money as the irrigation system can be rested.