After being spoiled by three summers of good weather (ie not
typical Pacific NW iffy weather), we start this summer with the usual Seattle
area June-uaryL Most of June is low 50s, cloudy, & some
rain during the day. Very few stretches
of warm & sunny days? Combined with
corona virus issues, this adds to the general feeling of what the locals call - June gloom. Other than Fathers’ Day most of month was
projects around the house/property.
First up was Dan continue building (& finishing) the outdoor
workbench/potting bench for Corrie he started last month.
Then we had to deal with two major repairs (to us they were
major?). First up was replacing the
mower deck to our Ariens lawn tractor/mower.
Mowing almost two acres of not very smooth grass, combined with Dan’s
less than gentle treatment, caused one major weld to completely fracture! Dan decided that finding someone to pound the
distorted metal back into shape & properly reweld was probably wasted
money. A new one from manufacturer was
reasonably priced; it was purchased & Dan swapped out all the remaining good
parts.
Next up was our kitchen undermount sink completely separating
from the counter & falling into cabinet.
Luckily none of the PVC plumbing pipes broke. Turns out sink should have had metal brackets
to hold it up, but was installed with epoxy only?!!! Even though house was long out of warranty,
we contacted original builder (Lexar), & they fixed it for free. Repair cost was okay, but it took two weeks to
get one hour repair done.
Knowing we will be grandkid sitting every other week thru the
summer; we set up our standalone, above ground pool. Since we have had pretty poor weather so far,
Dan decided to look into solar heat for pool water. He purchased a 4 ft high by 10 ft long
panel. Then built a “rack” to mount it
on next to pool. Next he decided the
solar heat would be much more efficient if it was on wheels so he could track
the sunJ! So even with so-so June weather we observed: 2-1/2 sunny days raised our 56 degree well
water to 74 degrees; & a later 2 days of sunshine got us to 80 degrees.
Corrie continuously works on the house landscaping & her abundant
fruit/vegetable garden. See is very
pleased with the results of here efforts & posts many pics on facebook.
On Sunday, 28JUN, Dan takes the truck over to Rebecca &
Raymond’s in East Bremerton, to help them pick up a pallet of laminate
flooring. They will be ripping out all
their first floor carpet & replacing.
Then he took the grandkids (Jaxson & Mason) back to our house for
the first week of grandkid sitting thru the summer (one week on, one week
off). They immediately checked out our “heated”
swimming pool. The last day of June Dan
takes grandkids back their house, because Mason has doctor appointment the next
day 01JUL.
The hi-lite for June was Fathers’ Day, 21JUN. Rebecca, Raymond, Jaxson & Mason drove
over for the day. Our grand boys have a
ritual of getting out of car at foot of driveway & racing up to the house. Made for an amusing pic on our recently moved
game camera🙃 Corrie prepared her delicious steamed mussels w/garlic dipping sauce for our al fresco dinner. A great day😍
