Category: around the house

Danielle is wanting to get her garden planted, so today she rented a tiller and I got to work on the gardens at her family’s house. Earlier in the day it had been covered by compost by her and her dad, and with the underlying sand all that it needed was a tilling.

I’d never actually used a rototiller, but it really wasn’t too bad. My arms and elbows are a bit sore from both keeping it moving and holding it back to prevent it from walking on the soil and not digging in. Beyond the 26′ circle shown above where the pool was, there was also another rectangular garden to be done, so I’m feeling a bit worn out.

Then, after the tilling there was anti-weed sheeting to lay, bricks to place, pavers to set, and her brother’s truck (which she’d borrowed to get the mulch) to wash. I’m pretty worn out. Hopefully I’ll still be able to get my bike wheel finished up before going for a test ride this evening.

When I arrived home from work yesterday I found that someone had turned the dirt in my planters (more detail) and removed the roots from last year’s flowers. I think it may have been the lawn care people, as they seem to have cleaned up the leaves left over from autumn.

I’m looking forward to early May so that I can plant some new things. I’m not yet sure what I’ll plant this year, but hopefully it’ll look nice…

To deal with the stripped cleat screw problem mentioned earlier I headed over to Home Depot, encountered a toilet, then bought a Black & Decker Screw Extractor Set (#16270). Also known as “easy-outs”, these conical, left-hand threaded tap-like devices allow you to drill out the head (or center) of a screw and then thread the extractor down inside and remove the screw. These are useful when you strip the head of a screw, have rusty parts, break screw heads off, and other things like this. That is, they are useful when they don’t snap on first use.

I drilled out the hole, set the extractor in the hole, attached a tap handle, then started turning the extractor to embed it in the screw and break the screw loose. Right as I did this, there was a subtle POP and the whole tip of the extractor broke off and remained lodged in the hole.

While I was able to drill out the other screws to a slightly larger size and use the broken extractor, the first screw now had a bunch of very hard metal stuck in the center of it. This particularly hard steel thwarted all efforts at drilling with the bits I had on hand, so I had to slot the screw with a cut-off wheel, then go at it with a screwdriver. One very large screwdriver and a surprising amount of torque later and all four screws were out.

After working on all too many projects without taking the time to properly clean up my basement, tonight I did so. As can be seen in this photo taken by Marty while we were doing the MMBA website work and waiting for the forum data to migrate, I had a rather large pile of stuff to go through.

None of it was trash, just a lot of it was redundant, spare things which I had to go through, wrap up and sort, and generally find a place for or put back where they had been. I’ve also recently (Sunday) put a new shelving unit in the basement against the far wall (that one on the right), so my bike stuff can be stored down there instead of in the garage. While I don’t mind keeping parts in the garage in the summer, I don’t think it’s the best idea for longer term storage.

I’m just glad this is all straightened up. I feel much, much more comfortable working in a reasonably organized environment where I have room to do things. Now, if I could only get the terribly strong Pro Formula 409 smell off my hands.

This is why bathrooms generally have exhaust fans.

(Taken while Danielle was having a very hot shower in the bathroom just off of my bedroom. This is also a good way to make the house more humid, should it be needed.)