More work on the pergola today, after a trip to the lumber yard to pick up eight more 2×6’s. I’ve been looking at the structure as it exists: currently four posts set in concrete, and the 2×6’s fastened to the top of each post. Each 2×6 has a 30 degree triangle cut. I got that by measuring 2 1/2 inches from the end, then cutting on that diagonal. The long edge of the 2×6 is at the top after the cut. The 2×6’s are fastened to the posts with two galvanized lag bolts.

I’ve used ‘construction common’ redwood, which means that there are knots in the wood, but they are ‘tight’ (not open). The color of the wood is red and lighter color, although the posts are full red color. I had been thinking that I needed some sort of stain or protection against the wood weathering to a gray color. So I got some semi-transparent stain in a ‘honey’ color at the local “Wally Worlds” (that’s what people call WalMart around here).

Todays’ task was therefore cutting the top boards to 100 inches, so there is a 14 inch overhang on either side of the top, then cutting the 30 degree angle on each end. Then I applied the stain to all of the top boards and the posts and rails. I am letting them dry and will install them next.

Except: what would be the proper spacing for 16 rails mounted vertically across the top of the pergola (the width is 119 inches)? It would be similar to figuring out the spacing on stair balusters (them’s the vertical boards on a stair railing).

And I know the answer on how to do that. Which you will find out in the next post. And there will be pictures when it is all done.

In the meantime, it’s time to mow the newly sodded back yard. The sod has been in place for two weeks, so it is time to start mowing it. So that is also on the agenda for tomorrow.

Started work on the pergola area of the back yard. The structure is about 7 feet square. Got four 4×4 posts 10 feet long, and 12 2x6x8′ for the top side and top rails from the lumber yard this morning, along with four bags of cement mix.

I had previously dug the hole (two feet deep), but wasn’t sure of the exactness of the placement of the posts so that the structure would be square (or rectangle). The dirt around here is very silty (leftover from the ancient Lake Bonneville, which covered most of western Utah from the Wasatch mountains – those are the ones east of Salt Lake City – and into Nevada). It’s a grey-ish color of ‘dirt’, compresses OK and holds the shape of the hole, but is easy to dig through. I had some good topsoil brought in when the landscape guys did the back yard.

Anyhow, I set the first post, then used a string to get a straight edge to the next post. Although, now that I think of it, I could have used one of the 2×2’s I grabbed from the waste pile of the house next door that is under construction. (Yes, I got permission from the builder to raid their scrap pile.) I ended up getting three of the posts done before I decided that was enough work for one day. (Yes, I am a bit out of shape, but I do have lots of time to get this done, since I am not working.) I’ll get the fourth post done tomorrow, and top off the holes with more cement to get the cement up to the grade.

Our house is in a newer subdivision that has lots of empty lots. I have one house to the NE of me, and no others in my block. There are three houses across the street, and more empty lots. It is sort of nice to have all the empty space around here; nice views all around.

We had a neighbor (who has a landscape business) get the back yard in. A nice concrete border, sprinkler system, and sod. The sod has been in almost two weeks, and gets watered three times a day. The sod is ‘knitting’ into the topsoil nicely, and looks pretty good. I’ll have to start mowing it (carefully) next week, I think.

Anyhow, empty lots all around. Until a couple of weeks ago, when two different builders started a new house on the lot next door and across the street. It has been interesting to watch the progress, although they do start a bit early. The usual noise ordinance states that work is not supposed to start until 7am, but the workers start showing up a bit earlier than that getting ready to work. Since the house next door is on the master bedroom side, we don’t get to sleep in as much as we used to. Probably a good thing, though.

Right now, both builders are at the same point in the process. They both finished up the main floor subfloor today. (Houses around here have basements, so they put rough wall framing in the basement, then the floor joists, then the subfloor. It’s been interesting to watch the whole process, even if it starts a bit earlier than I would like. (Hey, I am retired! And I’ve always been a ‘stay-up-late’ kind of guy.)

Tomorrow’s plan — finish up the fourth post, top off the cement, and maybe mow the front lawn.

Did a bit of work on the garden area today. Mostly levelling the grade of the dirt. (It is back-to-school time….) I also figured out the paver area in the flower garden area next to the area that will be the vegetable garden. That area will be a memorial area for Jason. The plans are for a bench on the pavers, some sort of small shade structure over that area, and a tree with some flowers and bushes.

We had an early birthday party for Stacy last night. She is turning 25, so, being the clever person I am, I gave her some “25” presents. There was a movie about a quarter horse (at least it looked like a quarter horse), a roll of quarters, a box of crayons (there were 24, since that’s how old she is now, but they cost 25 cents), and a small stuffed toy quarter horse. Max (grandson, 5), who is the cowboy in the family, grabbed that stuffed horse toy. Pam got her a Wii game she had been wanting, and a book. The grandkids each made a little card, and Joelle (9) made a nice crafty-type card. Fun was had by all.

To catch up:

The grass sod was put down last Friday (plus a bit more on Saturday). The sprinklers are in, and watering the sod three times a day to get the roots established. Right now it looks a bit ‘stripey’, but a lot better than the weeds that were there a back in June. The border areas are still dirt. No trees yet, since you don’t want to plant the trees when the grass is getting so much water. The trees are scheduled for a few weeks from now, when they will hopefully be on sale. The first frost around here is usually in the middle of October, so they should be able to get a bit established before going dormant. My landscaper knows what he is doing, though, since he has lived in this area his whole life.

I’ve reserved an area for a garden, although it it too late to plant anything around here in Utah. I was planning on some raised boxes to use up some of the extra dirt that is left over. I went to Lowe’s today to get some lumber, but didn’t find enough good 2 x 10 x 8′ planks. Then I saw a book on “Square Foot Gardening”, which uses raised beds and sort of a high-density growing technique, rather than the traditional ‘row’ gardening. I’d heard about this before, and it looked interesting, so I bought the book (same title, by Mel Bartholomew, Cool Springs Press) instead of going to a different home store for the wood. I did pick up a wheelbarrow, though.

Since I won’t be able to plant anything until spring, I have some time to get together the materials for the boxes. The Square Foot Gardening technique looks quite interesting. Minimal weeding (almost none), easy planting and maintenance, and other things make this technique appealing. You can find details about it at their web site (www.squarefootgardening.com ). It looks interesting.

No progress on the ‘get a job’ front. Haven’t heard from the last company (the work at home gig), even though they were quite positive during and after the sit-down interview lunch. I did send them a “just curious” note last week, but no response. Oh well. Still looking.

In the meantime, I’m working on a site redesign for an old friend. It’s a bit of simple Content Management System (CMS) for the variable content. The plan is to allow the site owners to FTP an ‘article’ to a specific folder with a specific name, and then convert the text (no html code needed) to get it displayed on the page. A bit of PHP does that task. Some other tricks are used to provide a common look to all pages: the content fits in a CSS box on the main page, and a URL parameter is used to display the page template and the content. Not ready for prime time yet, but it is interesting to do, and is helping me gain some PHP experience.

The houses next door and across the street are both at the ‘finished the foundation’ phase. The next step is to pour the basement floor, I think. I don’t suppose they would appreciate some ‘concrete angels’ in the wet cement.

Really windy today! Sustained winds 35mph, gusts to almost 50mph. The wind is coming from the west/southwest, so lots of dust in the air. The dust is obscuring the mountains (about 15 miles east of my house, I think), and very dusty over the Salt Lake. The afternoon evening sun was just a dim orange/brown ball. As of 10pm MDT, the winds are still blowing, still in the 25-35mph range.

Last night there were thunderstorms all around here. When I went to bed at 11pm MDT, the storm was farther north. Another thunderstorm cell to the NW. And then about 430am this morning, we got a nice cell. Mostly cloud-to-cloud flashes, but there was one big cloud-to-ground strike that was so close the thunder sounded at the same time as the lightening flash. Quite loud. And then the wind came, blowing all day and into the night.

With the lightening, there were several lightening-caused fires. As I went outside tonight (at 10pm MDT), there was a definite smell of grass smoke in the air. Nothing nearby that I can tell, though. The forecast is for more wind tomorrow, then a few cool days in the low 80’s before back into the 90s next week.

The back yard had all the topsoil spread out yesterday. Most of it is still there; the back patio has a fine layer of topsoil dust. I ran the new sprinklers for a while to wet down the bare soil, but got uneven coverage due to all of the wind. Not sure if that was worth the effort, but it kept me out of trouble. Hoping to have the concrete edger guy come tomorrow, so we can get some grass sod put down, but I expect that won’t happen until next week.

We had Christine and all the grandkids over for dinner (Jared works evenings), so it was a bit noisy for a while. Joelle (oldest, 9) gets to spend the night. She’s upstairs watching Disney channel (some ‘princess’ show). I’m lucky that there is a TV downstairs also, so I was able to watch the season finale of “Burn Notice”, along with others that I have recorded. Last night was “Man vs Food” (Discovery channel), which is quite entertaining. And I found some airings of “Carson Comedy Classics” (Johnny Carson), which is still funny after all these years.

In the meantime, a bit of work on a web site redesign. Using PHP code for a lot of it, which is a good learning experience. I also did a bit of work on the FileHurl site (free file transfers at www.filehurl.com ). That site is working pretty well, although it has a problem with really large files (over 750mb) related to limits in the HTML POST command. I’ve been looking for a nice alternative, perhaps in Flash, but haven’t found one yet that will work with my 1GB test file (sent to my local server, a IIS7/ColdFusion/PHP server running on Windows Server 2008). Still looking, though.

Much progress on the back yard today. A crew of 6 quickly graded the yard, trenched, then finished up all the sprinklers. And there were two dump trucks of dirt delivered late in the day. They will be back tomorrow to spread the dirt and then the grass sod is next (after some concrete edging).

In the meantime, the big pile of dirt attracted three young grandsons – Liam (7), Max (5), and Dane (3). They had a bit of fun climbing all over the pile for about an hour. A bit of water from the hose got most of the dirt off, but I suspect there will be baths in their near future.

My day was spent watching the landscape crew work. And realizing that it would have taken me eight months to do what they did in about eight hours. Heck, it would have taken me 8 days just to figure out the sprinkler plan!

Lessee….work week started, but didn’t seem any different from any other day around here. I had a nice lunch with a prospective employer, where we discussed how wonderful and talented I am. (heh) Our landscaper came over this afternoon to discuss the plan for the back yard. They will be starting tomorrow morning (early) with a rough-out of the plan. It will start with removing the top 3-4 inches of sandy soil here, doing the rough grade, and starting the sprinkler system. Then the edging guy will come in with his magic concrete machine to put in the mowing strip, and continue from there. I’ll be supervising, of course, or at least watching from the patio (or from inside), trying to stay out of the way. I’ll take some pictures of the progress so that Pam will have something to scrap if she wants. It will be nice to get the back yard done, although that will require a bit more mowing.