It’s that time of year.
Even before the autumnal equinox arrived the mornings were growing cooler. Just 60° at 9:15 today. I’ve contemplated knickers a couple of times, but haven’t gone there yet. Arm warmers are once again part of the uniform of the day, though.
Since I’m decidedly unhandy when it comes to anything useful that needs doing around here, barring cookery and comedy, with fall all up in our grills we’ve been entertaining a parade of tradesmen plugging various leaks in our fauxdobe rowboat.
The to-do list to date includes: repairs to stucco come unstuck-o; fresh weatherstripping; askew garage door set aright; haircuts for trees and shrubs; flat roof weatherproofed (flat roofs are stupid; in case you were wondering); the remains of the lawn prepped for winter; and finally an irrigation-system blowout.
How I long for a van down by the river. But the house is paid for, and so is the Subaru.
And the river … well, the river needs work too. Mos def a fixer-upper. Hard to find good help for that little project, though.
Mad Blog Media 
I’m hoping to get another few weeks, perhaps a month, out of our lettuce, radish, carrot, eggplant, squash, zucchini, and tomato plants. Even though we are getting tired of zucchini in everything. The two tromboncino plants have pretty much taken over the yard. I love it. They look like something out of a science fiction story about plants taking over the world. Twenty foot runners in all directions.
So as long as Ma Nature cooperates and doesn’t hit us with an early frost, we will eat out of the raised beds. The watering system will stay on.
The stucco that came unstuck on Chez Annie-Hatch (the sixty pound part Chow and fourteen pound mega-cat) was discovered when the front wall in the living room showed water damaged when the monsoons hit. Thankfully, we know someone who does great drywall and stucco repairs. So that is hopefully fixed, as is the roof, which required some R&R after our home insurance company jettisoned us on that pretext. Flat roofs are ridiculous examples of trying to make the Southwest quaint.
I’ll try to get a short ride in today. The back injury tolerates about an hour on the double boinger set up with road hoops. But not much more. Today, I’ll probably use it to run errands. Running low on coffee.
You come into this world broke, and if you own a house, chances are you will leave the planet with a $0 balance. Gives me the blues is what. This is from a neighbor and buddy that I jam with, Scott Olson. Met at a bar patio watching another friend’s gig. When Scott, Paul, and I jam, they make me sound real good!
That’s really good. And now for something a little different.
O, lawd, that’s the way it sometimes goes … and goes, and goes, and goes.
Gotta love some slide guitar coupled with the Hammond B3 organ. Assuming it’s an electronic setting of the Hammond cause lord knows, nobody wants to schlep those around any more.
As for home repairs….new furnace, rain gutters, tree removal, more tree removal, entire house exterior wash, all in the past 2 months. I think I should remove the sign out front that likely says “C’mon down the drive and help yourself to Old Herb’s bank account.”
Just leave your wallet down at the road, save ’em the drive to the house.
Right you are Herb ole buddy. Scott has a home recording studio. That is his original song. He sings and plays guitar on three tracks. The rest he buys as tracks and patches into the final recording. He gigs around here quite a bit. Real nice guy.
PS: You just gotta love a B3 with a Leslie speaker cabinet. Nothing else sounds like it.
What kind of a furnace replacement did you do Herb. Was a straight replacement or did you go with a heat pump / gas furnace combo setup? I need to bite the bullet on our place. I’m not able to get parts for the old set up anymore.
Shawn the Lennox was 20+ years, maybe 80% efficient at best. “Natural” gas fired -forced air. Replaced with Amana furnace/AC which claims 92% efficiency and after the last muggy, murderous heat wave we believe it. HUGE improvement. Couldn’t justify heat pump crossover cost but as we have solar panels we can chill (pun intended) on electricity bills. We are content in winter to keep temp at 68 during day and 62 at night so we should see a smaller fossil fuel consumption as long as we don’t bake cookies 24/7.
Your list sounds like my list. How we sposta get any biking done with all them chores? Jeez!
How to know that you’re a middle class American homeowner:
1) You only have two responses to everything that you plant: One, it’s growing too fast and you can’t keep up with trimming it, or two, it’s not growing the way you want it to so you’re gonna rip it up and start all over
90% of my yardwork is self-inflicted misery.
But, hey, complaining about Japanese beetles, or the grasshoppers who think they are locusts on a mission from God … gives me something to chat over the fence about.