Posts Tagged ‘contractor estimates’
Mostly Clean
The problem with taking on a chore like picking up downed branches is that there is no end. Even though my focus was on the area beside the lane around the back pasture, as we made progress, just a few steps away lay another pile of branches equally deserving of attention. It is frustratingly difficult to just leave them be for now and stay focused on the limited original target area.
It has been three years since we paid professionals to cut off dead limbs around the two large maple trees. At the time, we had them leave all the cut chunks on the ground where they landed to reduce their time on scene and save us money. My plan was to clean it all up myself on my own time.
How’d that work out for you, John?
Yeah, I didn’t make much progress with that. Then, a large limb they didn’t cut snapped off in a storm. We cut some of that back, but the rest just added to the mess from before.
We haven’t removed every last chunk that was cut down three years ago, but we accomplished a heck of a lot in the last two days, pulling out what was most visible near the lane by the fence. I’m calling it mostly clean, which is good enough.
I’m exercising my ability to accept that perfection is not a requirement.
It was all rotting in place. Now it can continue to rot in the long, tangled pile of branches forming a border fence along our northern property line.
Late in the afternoon, I met the contractor who will be helping me with the shade sail project. Delivery of the canopy was pushed to today, same as the scheduled delivery of the lumber.
The contractor, Justin, will return on Friday to take precise measurements and provide a cost estimate for his services. He will find me a post-hole auger to rent, and he sounded very supportive of my plans. Looks like he will be available after next week to do the work.
I do believe a new source of shade for the horses will soon be achieved. I am excited to find out how it will look, and how different it will end up being from the images I’ve been creating in my head for the last few months.
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Moving Hay
When we moved to the country twelve and a half years ago, there was a lot that I didn’t have a clue how to do. After a career in manufacturing, you’d think I would have a better perspective on inventory management, but I struggled a little bit in figuring out how to manage turning over our firewood and bales of hay.
“First in; first out” (FIFO) is a classic method of using the oldest inventory first. That can be a trick to do when stacking your wood or hay in storage. The oldest ends up at the bottom of the pile.
For our firewood, I quickly changed from stacking it horizontally across the width of the shed to short rows, back to front. I just use the rows up from right to left and stack new wood behind them as space opens up.
That method doesn’t work for our hay. Since the bales arrive in large numbers all at once, we fill up the hay shed, and the last bales stacked become the first bales used. The routine I’ve settled on requires that we use up almost all of the last delivery before ordering more, which gets a little nerve-wracking since we don’t have complete control over when the next delivery can happen or how fast the horses will be burning through bales any given week.
When we do get close and the delivery is scheduled, I then hustle to move the last of the old bales out of the way in the shed and stage them in the barn. That is what I worked on yesterday, moving the last 21 bales from the hay shed to the barn.
The chance to meet our new handler, Jeremy from This Old Horse, ended up getting postponed yesterday afternoon. However, while I was hauling hay bales, I received a call from a contractor who wanted to come out this afternoon to talk about helping me put up a shade sail. I anticipate it will be a challenge to get a firm quote since there are so many unknowns at this point, but at a minimum, I hope to gauge a level of interest, knowledge, and ability for the project as I imagine it.
I’m expecting new hay to be delivered on Sunday, and if all goes as planned, I hope to meet Jeremy at the same time. It would be great to have another person to help toss bales into the shed for stacking.
It feels like a lot is happening here while Cyndie is in Florida. Of course, yesterday morning, before she left, Cyndie baked oatmeal raisin cookies for me to give the folks stopping by.
The more I give away, the fewer there will be for me to resist eating. Now, that’s inventory management.
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Quick Turnaround
It was a novel adventure to hop Asher into the car to scoot up to the lake with little fanfare on Sunday afternoon and then return home the following morning. Cyndie met with a contractor to request a quote for some fixing up that is needed on the dwellings. The trip also gave us a chance to assess the status of the feared mouse infestation we discovered the last time we were up.
A mousetrap I left in a drawer had caught one, but the other trap did not snap despite obvious activity all around it. On the bright side, we found no other evidence of activity, particularly in the bed that was a mess when I climbed into it last time.
Asher was a very busy guy, scrambling to leave his mark everywhere we walked. I let him romp on the ice for a short distance, and he was thrilled to sprint around on the slippery surface, sliding, turning, and leaping in gleeful doggy fun. It’s too bad that our little ice patch in the paddock at home doesn’t offer him the same opportunity. It would be easier for him to leap over it than slide on it.
There were trace amounts of snow up north, but after we got home and went for a walk, it made the absolute lack of snow really stand out to me. Our property feels bone dry. Freeze-dried. Last winter, when we experienced a similar lack of accumulating snow, the temperature frequently rose above freezing. After our recent bout of extremely cold temperatures, the 10-day forecast shows a continued run of normally cold days and no hint of precipitation. This will be a very long spell of below-freezing, yet very dry weather.
So much for the prognostications of a snowier winter this year. At least for now. I have a suspicion there will be a couple of snowstorms here before winter is over.
The later in the season it comes, the greater the likelihood of a quick turnaround after a significant snow event.
In the meantime, I will admit to appreciating the lack of needing to plow and shovel. However, I’m at risk of developing an unhealthy attachment to sedentary pursuits on couches that lend themselves to easy snacking on deliciously salty and crunchy processed foods.
My quest for optimal health has developed a bit of a wobble, dare I say.
I should probably have a serious talk with myself one of these days about putting a quick turnaround on that trend.
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Decked Out
We’ve limped our deck along thus far using patches for the boards that rotted out, but it is getting to the point where the bad spots almost outnumber the good ones.
It’s time to replace them all. For us, the process starts with a search for a crew in the area who are willing to quote the job. Cyndie’s first call landed a person who lives remarkably close and seems hungry for the work. Maybe too hungry. He’s made three visits already, two of the times with a different potential “assistant” in tow to analyze the scope of our project.
He wanted to get to work right away with a verbal “rough estimate” and a willingness to start removing boards yesterday. We’ve got another quote scheduled for Friday, so we are making him wait.
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Cyndie and I took the steps of removing all the furniture and I pulled up a couple boards to reveal the condition of the joists below, hoping to make the quoting process as easy as possible for our estimators. It’s enough to almost entice me into trying to do the whole thing myself, if it weren’t for the nitty-gritty details for which I have no experience, such as what to do about the railings.
Ain’t home maintenance grand?
I’m leaning toward the extra expense of choosing composite boards for the job, specifically to reduce the amount of ongoing maintenance required. The boards that receive some shade from pine trees tend to get mossy and the boards out in the open face extreme UV abuse.
It would please me immensely if we never needed to deal with rotting boards ever again.
Of course, there’s always the other option of just selling this property and moving away to a place that doesn’t involve doing our own maintenance.
Is it too soon for us to move into a senior living retirement apartment?
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Relative Something 