gardening with a sawzall

pampas grass

We're still getting used to the absent tree. The additional light in K's office is nice, and I'm loving having fewer pine needles to clean off the roof and the front walk. And I've still got some work to do on the stairs from the carport. But all those improvements have made some other things more clear.

One is the ugly mound of pampas grass that's been growing near the base of the stairs since forever. The plumes may look pretty when it's blooming, but the main mound is full of dry, yellowed leaves, and the green leaves have a nasty sharp edge to them. K has been wanting to get rid of it for a while, so today after I dropped her off at the airport, I came home and set to work. On Friday I'd purchased a machete from our local hardware store, and between that and judicious use of my sawzall to cut off the dense central clumps, I managed to get rid of 2/3rds of it. I filled our green bin, so after that's emptied on Wednesday morning I'll attack it again.

changing scenery

Yesterday was not a productive day. I wasn't expecting it to be super productive, but I basically got no work done. Our uphill neighbor told us last month that she was going to have one of the big Monterey pines next to her house taken out. I've always been aware of the trees -- the many (non-Eucalyptus) trees are part of why I bought the house where I did. But this particular pine was right next to her house, with a major branch hanging over ours. Over the years, she had an arborist take care of it, but it had become somewhat unbalanced over the last few years. Even before that, K and I worried a bit during big storms or earthquakes that all or part might come crashing down. So I was torn when I heard it was time for it to come down -- it's beautiful, but can be a little scary.

hecka big crane

Taking down a tree that large between houses and power lines is a tricky business. So they brought in a crane. It's a big tree, so it needed a really big crane. (They were also taking out a smaller dead cypress tree near the other side of the house, and the crane would help with that, too.) Between the crane, chainsaws, wood chipper, and general mayhem, I was anticipating a noisy day. I stayed home hoping to work and to deal with any issues that might come up, and K wisely went to the Mercy Center for a day-long retreat. Guess who was more successful?

Friday morning we woke to the sound of a big crane lumbering its way up the hill. We also woke to the news of the massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Although we currently don't have family there, K's brother and sister-in-law used to live in Tokyo (their oldest daughter was born there), and I was there several times on business and worked with some software engineers from Toshiba for a couple of years. So I was not only distracted by the mayhem outside, but I was frequently checking the web for news, praying, thinking of former colleagues and was generally very distracted by the events there. Add to that the relatively minor worries about the tsunami striking California, and it was not a peaceful or productive day.

Despite all that, the they did safely bring the tree down. They started by lowering a guy into the tree with the crane. He proceeded to tie off then cut branches, which were then lowered by crane to the ground for others to deal with. This went on all day, and by 6pm or so, it was all over but the cleanup. They did a lot of that last night, and then came and finished up this morning. We haven't counted the rings yet, but it was a very large tree. You can get some idea of how big it is from the picture of the slice in the back of the truck. It's about 5 feet across at the widest point.

We'll miss the tree (not so much during storms), but removing it has already made a big change in the neighborhood. People further up the hill have new views. We have a lot more light on the north and east sides of the house. And I'll have a lot fewer pine needles and branches to clean from the roof and front walk. One downside is that the azaleas along the path will no longer be self-watering. During the summer, the fog would condense on the tree and drip down onto the flower beds below. Now we may actually have to water them some. On the other hand, it reduces the fire risk, and improves our prospects for solar PV panels.

Steps Toward Steps

the old carport stairs

I haven't posted in a while, but I have been doing work on the house, the steps in particular. But I've been slowed by frequent rains (those of you who are getting buried under snowstorms have no sympathy for me, I know -- but avoiding that kind of weather is one of the reasons I moved here in the first place).

I tore the old steps down pretty quickly. Once I got one board loose, I could use leverage to loosen others. The fact parts were rotted helped a lot, too. Note to those building exterior structures from wood: water will find its way in, so be sure to treat all sides of the wood, not just the parts you can see after assembly. That goes double for any place with a horizontal surface where water can sit. The rotted ledger also lead to some rot and termites in one of the joists of the carport, so it took me a while to get a clean slate to start from.

After a lot of thinking, measuring, re-thinking, re-measuring, and consulting various stair stringer calculators, I laid out the stringers for the stairs. I managed to screw up somewhere, so one stringer was re-purposed for other uses. After more measuring, thinking and consulting stair stringer calculators, I tried again. This time I was successful, so I spent a couple days cutting the 3 stringers. The bottoms of rest on concrete and/or the ground, and it's a generally wet area (under trees that catch the fog in summer, north of the

new stairs rising

house), so I used pressure-treated 2x12s for them. The added density of the wood from the PT process almost burned out my little skilsaw, even with a fresh blade part way through the process.

I don't have a picture of the current status, but I cut, stained and installed boards up to the landing, as well as the rectangular part of it, so with the addition of a temporary piece of plywood, and the top railing on one side, we now have functional stairs. They're a long ways from finished, as I still have to do the trickier triangular part of the landing, and the rest of the railings, but given all the rain we've been having, it's nice to have functioning steps. That way we can avoid using our neighbor's steps, and tromping through the mud around the corner of the house.

One other note: I said in my original post that "I'm sore, stiff, and with bruises aplenty, but no broken bones." So about that... I've been having some minor but lingering pains here and there after almost two months, so yesterday I went to the doctor. He said if I was 80, he'd worry I had compression fractures of my vertebrae, but at 44, I was probably OK. But he ordered up some x-rays to be sure. I heard from him a little while ago: the x-ray tech failed to do any useful x-rays of my lower back, but my mid back looked OK. However, the odd pain in my ribs in my side is because I have...a broken rib, with a mild displacement. There's nothing to do (except stop doing anything that makes it hurt), but I can expect some pain from it for the next 2-3 months. Sigh. At least it isn't too painful, but 2-3 months more?

rotted post where landing was

Watch That First Step...

gaping hole...

I've been planning for some time to rebuild the steps to the carport, at least since January. When I had concrete delivered, I put in the footings for the new stairs, but mentally the task has been on the "nice to have" list, not the "do sooner rather than later" or "do immediately" lists.

Last night, it took a big leap forward in priority. K and I took a walk around the block after dinner, and when we returned I stepped on to the landing at the top of the stairs...and kept going. I knew some parts were starting to get a little rotten, but it seems that was considerably further along than I thought. The ledger board that holds up one end of the boards for the landing was completely rotted. I dropped the 7 or 8 feet to the ground and landed on my back.

Today I'm sore, stiff, and with bruises aplenty, but no broken bones. Once I'm feeling a little more limber (and I'm past the current work deadline), I'll build a new set of stairs. Fortunately we have our neighbor's steps to use, but I have to admit I was a bit nervous walking on them at first after last night's excitement.

With a Little Path Running Down the Middle...

3 big piles

Wednesday morning I started working on the front walk again. Gravel and sand were due at 10AM and the pavers some time after that, but I wasn't sure how long the break in the rain would last, so I worked at a faster pace than I might have otherwise. The gravel and sand arrived as scheduled, and then I went and rented a plate compactor before the pavers arrived. In short order I had 3 big piles of materials, a heavy machine, and a flight of stairs to take them all down.

the machine

I lost track of how many buckets of gravel I carried down, but eventually got the space filled and then turned to compacting it. The compactor made quick work of compacting the gravel (actually, "engineered fill", which is recycled concrete that's ground up into something like gravel) to a good level. I checked the level of things with my screed, and added some gravel where needed, then recompacted.

At this point my arms were tired enough that I was happier bringing down the sand one bucket at a time instead of two like I did with the gravel. And I didn't need as much, since it was about 1" of sand vs. 3" or so of gravel. Laying the pavers went fairly quickly, but even for a 32' long walkway it takes a lot of pavers. So I only made it about 1/3 of the way down with pavers before it was too dark to work, and waited for K to come home to be sure she saw the piles in the carport and could fine her way down the path in the dark.

screeding

Thursday I started up again early, hauling more sand and placing more pavers. On one of my countless trips up to the carport, a couple of guys drove up in a pickup asking if I had any work for them. We talked for a bit, but I was somewhat distracted because I wanted to get back to work. They were really hungry for work, so we settled on a wage and they got right to work. They brought down more sand and pavers as fast I could place them, so in short order I'd placed all but the pavers needing cuts at the end. While I worked on cutting the last pavers, Rene and Raul put some gravel along the edge opposite the concrete berm and spread sand over the top of the pavers to fit into the cracks. I fired up the machine again to help work the sand in and to firmly set the pavers into the sand under them.

I ended up doing a local jobs stimulus plan, paying two workers for half a day instead of renting the machine for a second day. Besides the path, I had them move the leftover gravel and sand to various places around the yard, move some stuff, and they even helped me carry an old stump up to the carport for eventual disposal. I was pleased with the trade-off, and they were pleased with the paying work. I got Rene's phone number in case I have more work for them later.

final results

With their help to speed me along, I even had enough time to rearrange some of the low voltage lights along the path and add a new one at the bottom of the stairs. I'm very pleased with the final result. Well, almost final. I'll need to add more sand to the cracks as what's there settles, but it's a joy to have a smooth, level, sturdy path to walk down now instead of the lumpy, wobbling brick path that was here when I bought the house 16 years ago.

Rain Barrel Ready!

rain barrel

One of the things planned for the new front porch was a place to put a rain barrel. Given the weather patterns here in California (rainy winters, dry summers), there's a limit to the usefulness of a barrel as it won't get refilled from roughly May to October, but every little bit helps. Today I cut the downspout and added an elbow to get it ready.

Eventually I'd like to have a big tank under the deck that gets fed from multiple downspouts, but for now I'll have to settle for this 50 gallon one. It should get its first test Saturday night, and the overflow system some time after that as the forecast has rain on and off all next week.

What's at Stake

stake puller

Today I stripped the forms and pulled the stakes. Or at least most of them. The ones for the steps are hecka difficult to pull, even with the rented stake puller. But the path is ready for gravel, sand and pavers, and the drain for the overflow from the rain barrel is connected. Tomorrow I'll deal with those last stakes, and cut the downspout to feed into the rain barrel. More rain is due Saturday and beyond, so I doubt I'll get the path dealt with, but it's finally starting to look like a porch instead of a hodge-podge of construction detritus.

Concrete on the Way...

Which is a good thing, as rain is due for Tuesday and Wednesday. The total should be around 2.5 yards, which isn't that much in the big scheme of things. But it would be around a hundred 80 pound bags, which is way too much to mix by hand alone.

Breaking Up...

busted bricks

Actually isn't so hard to do, at least if it's brick and a bit of mortar and you've got a jackhammer. It's even easier if said brick and mortar has spent years in damp ground. There was a bit of concrete, and even a clay drain pipe (full of dirt and roots), but nothing like the über-thick layers of the front walk I'd taken out before. As is usually the case, cleaning up the debris was more work than busting things up.

As happens with many DIY projects, this has gotten bigger than when it started. Initially I was just going to pour concrete for the front porch area. It was more than I could reasonably mix by hand, but not enough to get a concrete truck and pump. So we added in the steps to K's office. Then I decided I should take out the brick steps down from the walkway, as they were a bit sloped and would surrounded by concrete. Then I realized I could do the footings for new steps up to the carport, too. Now after busting out the steps, I'll need to build a little retaining wall above the area, too. I haven't calculated how much concrete I'll need altogether, but I'm pretty sure it'll be at least a truck load now.

the front walkway

The plan for the walkway is to have a concrete berm along the side to keep things in place, and then use permeable pavers (over a nice bed of gravel and sand) for the main part of path. That'll lead down to a couple concrete steps down to the front porch area. The porch area will be home to a 50 gallon rain barrel, and the overflow from that will go into a drain pipe through to the downhill side of the house.

Eventually, I'll build some new steps up to the carport. The current steps are getting a bit rickety, and they've always been a pain for moving large items (like refrigerators) up and down, both because they're just barely wide enough to hold such items, and there's a 90 degree turn to navigate. The new steps will be a straight shot (basically the hypotenuse of a triangle with the current steps being the two sides), and about 8" wider. But first things first -- a decent walkway. Rain permitting, that should happen Friday or early next week.