A Productive Sunday

Today was a good day. We stopped in at Cafe de Leche for a spot o'caffeine + pastry, where we ran into Andrew+Phil (formerly Yermo). Then onwards to Atwater Farmer's Market where we picked up amazing organic veggie goodness and a gaggle of plants for the yard. We started right in on the yard work, er, landscaping when we got home. Security light was replaced, front and back lawn+parkway+ribbon driveway was mowed, and armfuls of weeds pulled. Plants were potted+planted+re-potted. Most importantly, we swept up heaps and heaps of leaves and old lawn cuttings laying in browning mounds around the property. We filled up that green bin to the very tippy top!

Our arms+back+legs ache. ouch. But, we're satisfied with the hard work we managed to squeeze into the final moments of the weekend. Our front yard is finally getting some love and countless yard project debates nearing (semi)conclusions. The key is to pick a single project and focus. We have a tendency towards the shotgun effect when it comes to targeting a project. This year, we're gonna switch on our sniper skillz and finish projects, one at a time.

Here's Sergio, laser scope on.



It was a nice weekend on Almaden Drive overall. The atmosphere was especially convivial with everyone out in their yards, readying for warm weather living. That's Andrew's mower Sergio is running around with and Andrew and Jen gifted us three iris plants we put right into the ground out front. Sergio helped Scott move a BBQ grill and Craig helped mow Saul's parkway. It's downright suburbia in Highland Park.

P.S. I just realized that my knuckles ache. While weeding, I twisted the especially stubborn clumps around my fingers for more leverage. Boy. My knuckles are such babies. Shush! There's no crying in landscaping.

Our Roof

This is our garage roof. It's a little mismatched but it works now, thanks to Sergio.



During the deluge a few weeks ago, while our friends were visiting, we witnessed a torrent of water washing out from under the garage door, down the driveway.

Hmm...not normal nor ideal.

Sergio climbed up top and well, found that he had a little roofing to finish up apparently. It had two different kinds of shingles, which was fine, but was also missing quite a few rows where the roofing paper was exposed! Yeesh. Now, it sports three different types of shingles and is watertight. :)

And then, there was the leak in our master bedroom closet discovered at the same time. It shorted out the closet light too. sigh.

He climbed up into the attic to take care of it and donned a particularly stylish full body clean-up suit to protect himself from fiberglass insulation.




He was serious. He got it done.

One of the most gorgeous sights...

...I've ever seen is our new sewer line being connected to the city main line:



Another beautiful sight--our new, UNBROKEN, non-clay sewer pipe:


















Ain't it pretty?

Duran & Sons was a professional, clean and courteous company. They almost finished the entire job in a day. And, they had the most competitive pricing. And, they specialize in trenchless piping!

This is f-ing awesome technology. Basically, holes are made in the concrete at both ends of the pipe location. The new pipe is melded to this snake head like apparatus which is connected to a very thick cable at the tip, which then is squeezed into the back end of the old pipe. A hydraulic machine sitting in the hole at the front end of the pipe forceably pulls the head through the old pipe space, using the cable. Since our pipe was clay, it just broke the old pipe apart as it snaked its way through, leaving the new pipe in its place! Genius.

This saved us from having to jackhammer the entire length of the driveway - saving time, money and materials.

Making the back hole:



A hole is made at the front on our driveway (below right two).



See the thick cable (below right)?



Before they left, they cleaned up, rinsed and swept up the entire area. They took away the jackhammered concrete debris. And they put tape around the concrete patching they did for the hole. Stray Tabby didn't seem to care. There were paw prints in it about an hour later. But, the guys came back the next morning to finish filling the upper hole with concrete and fixed the paw prints in the driveway.




The guys. The one in the middle is one of the Sons from Duran & Sons.

Hydraulic machine:


Yay!