I picked up Dawn at her class and we went by the Super Chinese Buffet in San Jose for lunch then I dropped her off in Mountain View to go to the Book Buyer's book store there. Lou had a doctors appoint there so she picked her up after the appointment.
Tomorrow is garbage day, sometimes known as Wednesday to some. I had two almost empty compost barrels that I thought should be filled.
Lou and I had discussed removing our apricot tree because the two main branches have rotted away to the point they may fall.On the left above is the tree trimmed except for the big branch removal. Above right the final appearance of the tree.
Underneath one is our reading bench so that might be problematic. I whittled all the little branches up and deposited them in the bins. My little battery powered chain saw may have to work for a few days at trying to cut up the main branches which each are about 8 inches in diameter but the rest is in the bins. Or almost so. I actually left a few of the newer branches to see if there might be a tree left in there after I remove the big old guys.
Lou and Dawn also went vegetable shopping. Our dinner was pop corn and blue cheese and bacon potato salad. An odd combination but very good.
Oh, and surprise! The Bigfoot "find" announced a few days ago here was a fake.
Wednesday: (08/20) Lou had her doll class and Dawn her class and of course i have no class at all.
I worked in the back yard removing bricks and chipping the grout from them. I needed to trench through them for one of the drain inlets for a down spout and they also need re-leveling. So I'll be removing all of them installing the drain pipe the reinstaalling and also expanding the area of the brick patio. I also started sawing the patio to install the other drain inlet. I have to remove about 6 inches by 21 feet of concrete. In addition to the drain inlets for the down spouts I'll install some drains for the patio as well.
Since the saw blade needs to cool quite often, I mixed working on the brick removal with pruning the apricot tree. I sawed off the big branches that remained from the revious pruning. It took four battery charges to chop it all up but now it is quote a bit smaller and shaped nicely. Hopefully it survives.
Thursday: (08/21) Breakfast at The Country Gourmet Cafe in Mountain View. Lou and Dawn had a Salmon Omelet and I had a Field Mushroom Omelet. All very good.
From there we did a little shopping. Lou's fixing the bed so we needed new pillows which she had seen at Costco. We also stopped by Orchard Supply Hardware for a plant saucer and some "tree seal" to seal the apricot tree where I severely pruned it.
When we got home they were hooking up power to the new house across the street. Always some good show.
We learned our neighbors camping trip to Yosemite was cut short There was a bicycle accident and the neighbors knee didn't fair well. They came back home days early and surgery is upcoming. It doesn't sound like fun. We watched one of their sons while they were off to the doctor and I had the duty to assemble a new child seat for the car pool vehicle. It looks like today isn't a working day?
We went over to the neighbors for dinner. Having three young children seems like a real challenge. It was nice to visit and nice to be able to say good night.
Friday: (08/22) I broke out more of the bricks having decided to remove them all to level and adjust the grade instead of just putting in the drain pipe. I cleaned all the grout off the bricks by chipping away. Unfortunately some of the grout was really good having had too much cement added to the mix so the work went slowly but eventually was completed.
Saturday: (08/23) Today was a play day.
We went downtown to a street art fair. We really wanted to see the chalk art drawn on the pavement. The two above are really good. My favorite is the cat looking into a mouse hole.
The wind god above left is nice and there were several Disney characters including the Lady and the Tramp drawing above right.
Before we left we stopped for a late lunch at the New York Cheese Cake Factory sharing a pistachio chocolate swirl cheesecake, Cesar salad, and a shepherds pie. We always start with the desert first. You never know when you might get full and if you have to leave something we don't want it to be desert.
I did get the car loaded for a dump run which included getting the old wooden bench under the apricot tree into the car. It's rotted a bit and looked pretty bad but there really wasn't too much danger of it collapsing. it was an 8 inch thick, 18 inch wide, and 8 feet long piece of redwood. It was the former sign to the downtown Palo Alto library that we've enjoyed for the past 15 years or so. It was a nice place to sit and read or enjoy tea or breakfast. We'll miss it a lot.
Sunday: (08/24) We started the day with a visit to the dump I worked all day sawing the concrete on the patio and breaking it out. That 75 pound breaker bar gets heavy after a while.
About 5pm I cleaned up and we went back downtown to view the complete chalk drawings on the street. Every thing was good and many great! Since the Art show ended at 6pm and they started removing everything to be able to open the streets we didn't want to be late so i ate dinner of an grilled open face chicken and tomato sandwich. Lou and Dawn had enjoyed theirs early as i was cleaning up.
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