Oregon Living 2022 – Blog #11 – More ‘Island Work’ and Some More Two-Steppin’!

 

Monday, March 14^th., 2022……  We made a run to Jamie’s when we were in Albany on Saturday, so we didn’t need to go there today. So, after walking the pups we fed them and then headed off to The Point in Sweet Home for breakfast. We chose that place because on the way back we stopped and picked up 2 buckets of river rock to add to the new ‘rock waterfall’ feature out on the island. Corey will take those out next time he’s here. I finally got all of the holes drilled and ready to bolt onto the wrought iron bench. I disassembled it for painting. 

Cathye sprayed the metal and then painted the wood. She has chosen several pops of color for the island - the first bench was painted teal and this one will be bright blue. Later, we went out shopping. I needed more stainless-steel bolts and she needed boots!  We made the rounds at the local stores and then headed over to Albany where we both found what we wanted. She bought a nice pair of western boots for dancing.

While we were in Albany, we decided to go for seafood and chose The Depot. Great as always!       

Tuesday, March 15^th., 2022……  The weather is off and on this week. Today it was cloudy and a few showers came through. We walked the dogs and then had breakfast. We then headed off to Sweet Home. We were asked to help move a recliner from Robin’s house to Julie’s house. Cathye had given Jim’s nice lift-up electric recliner to Robin after he passed. Today, it was going on to its next owner, who needed it now. Julie has been having health issues and needed a little extra ‘help’ getting in and out of her chair. We did have some help at Robin’s which was nice but Cathye is a strong woman and, together, we muscled it in to Julie’s and were done!   We came back home and rested and hung around the house for the rest of the day. Later, I went out and helped Cathye paint the second coat on the bench and then worked on my rolling ladder project for a while. As I mentioned before, I am combining both of my existing ladders to make one that rolls well and will reach the upper section of the rv when I need it. This project involves a lot of steel pipe cutting and unbolting and re-configuring but it is going pretty well. I need to go get some extra ½” pipe to help extend where I need it.  That will be for next week.

Wednesday, March 16^th., 2022…… Nicer weather today. After breakfast, Cathye took off to go to SHEM. I dropped Jama off for her grooming appointment, then went to Albany to get a shutoff valve. I had a valve burst probably because I forgot to keep a trickle dripping in the irrigation valve. I had a hard time finding everything. I also used the trip to Lowes to pick up 6 more bags of rock salt for the water softener.  I stopped for lunch and on the way home, Cathye called saying Jama was ready, so I picked her up on my way back home.  Later, when Cathye got back, we went out and stopped at the yard supply place and loaded up 4 buckets of ¾ stone for the end of the new ramp. I only needed two of them to finish the job. It looks pretty good.

I got the tractors backed in and they fit inside nicely. That frees up space in the shop garage.   

Thursday, March 17^th., 2022…… Happy St. Patrick’s Day!! Corey was coming over today. The plan was to have him move rocks and place stones, which he did in a few hours!  It’s starting to look good out there!  I worked on the weatherproofing coat for the bench.  We set up a station in the shop garage and we paint one side, then the other. Two coats of paint and two coats of varathane, so it takes a while!  Penny came over to visit. With all of the work outside, Rylee and Jama get to run and play outside. Rylee takes advantage of us being busy by taking a quick dip in her favorite mudhole! I think we have hosed her off three times just this week!  Later, we cleaned up and then went out to dinner for St. Pattie’s day. She said that Appletree had really good corn beef and cabbage. I’m not that much into cabbage, so I had their corned beef sandwich melt, which was very good!  While we eating, Dana texted that she had emailed me the bid for the deck. This would be in three parts and the first was for the new deck by itself. This would include the very expensive (%$#@) decking material, priced by the linear foot, and we needed a lot of it!   After the sticker shock, we responded to go ahead with the project! Money flies out the door pretty quickly these days! They will break ground the end of this month. Next quote will be for the existing deck replacement and then the third quote for the roof/truss system and lexan panels. All of this coming about the same time that we are planning another trip – this one to Hawaii. Oh well, I guess you can’t take it with you!     

Friday, March 18^th., 2022……  Sprinkles this morning but the sun is supposed to push through later in the day!  I needed to go buy two more stainless bolts to complete my project on the bench. Of course, Lowes still didn’t have them!  Neither did Home Depot. So, I called Cathye to tell her I was heading down to Eugene to the Lowes there to look. I did find them there (at a cost of $3.98) but considering that it was a total of 80+ miles, these would be very expensive bolts! But at least everything matches and will go together now! While I was out, Cathye got picked up by Lona and Robin who were headed off to Robin’s son’s house to visit. They were also going to have lunch out and hit a thrift shop or two. When she got home later, I saw she had found a nice metal footstool which she says she will paint black to match the bench. Cool!  

Saturday, March 19^th., 2022……  Today we had a few errands to run. Cathye had a really nice piece of maple that she wanted carved with our names for the garage wall. She had a guy and we needed to drop it off today. We also had some more paperwork from the Crawfordsville house that we wanted to get to the new owners for their files. Also, she had found her second PO box key and wanted to turn that in. So, we made a big loop, going to Sweet Home to The Point for breakfast and then to Andrew’s for the wood, then to the old house and then finally to the Crawfordsville post office. That took the better part of the morning, which worked out because our landscape guy was coming today to do more yard work. Mario was due at noon and we made it back in time, but turns out he didn’t come until after 2:00pm! I spent more time out in the shop and I did get everything assembled and the bench is now done!

Corey will be here tomorrow and they will take it out and stage it.  We came in and rested. Later, we fed the dogs and changed and headed off to Eugene. Tonight, we were joining Lona and Misty at the Eagles Lodge in Springfield. Lona’s cousin Arnie, who recently moved back to OR from back east, joined some friends and plays drums in their country band. We drove ourselves there and got in and seated and ordered chicken fingers and tater tots (yeah good old bar food!) and got drinks. The girls showed up a bit later and we visited while we watched Arnie and the guys set up for their gig. These gentlemen are ’senior’ citizens but that didn’t mean they couldn’t play and sing!  They were excellent! We really enjoyed the evening and got in some two-steppin’

before we called it a night and made the drive back home. It was a long day and we were both tired and ready for bed!