June 6 to 12, 2010

June 6 to 12, 2010


Sunday was cloudy and cool with intermittent light rain ( sigh ). So what else is new ? ! ? Joanne cleaned the truck interior. Really cleaned it ! I dismantled the crate that the gazebo doors and windows came in, then hauled the scrap lumber to our park’s burn pile.

Monday was another long, hard day of shopping in Penticton, mostly running around to a lot of different places looking for materials I needed to finish the gazebo.

On Tuesday … I finished “building” the gazebo ! ! ! I didn’t “finish” the gazebo, but I finished “building” it. In the morning I cut the pieces of cedar I bought yesterday to be the inside and outside door astragals. While I worked on installing door hardware Joanne stained the wood. After lunch we replaced the screening in one upper wall section. And finally, we installed the door astragals. I declared the building of the gazebo to be complete ! Then I began to work on “enhancements”. I installed door threshold sweeps. And … ( sigh ) … cut one of them to the wrong length ! Will have to buy another section of door threshold sweep. I installed some weatherstripping around the doors in a few spots where I thought it might be possible for mosquitoes to sneak in. I drank a beer to celebrate my accomplishment. Congratulations, Daniel, you’ve built a gazebo. It still needs caulking, weatherstripping, and some minor hardware to be “finished”.

On Wednesday I finished sealing around the bottom perimeter of the gazebo with silicone sealant to keep out bugs like ants and spiders. We have pretty deadly spiders around here. It’s become quite common for us to see Black Widow Spiders and Brown Recluse Spiders. I had to shoo away a Brown Recluse Spider today while I was sitting on the ground caulking the bottom of the gazebo. And I intend to move my after lunch naps with Sully out to the gazebo soon. If the weather ever gets better !

HA HA HA HA HA … bring it on, you miserable little bugs ! You can’t get me now that I have a gazebo ! Thursday was the first day of mosquito season. I applied foam tape weatherstripping around the upper screens of the gazebo, sealing any and all little gaps between the screen frames and the wood. HA HA HA HA HA … bring it on, you miserable little bugs ! Finishing the gazebo one day before the mosquitoes hatch reminds me of studying the Japanese industrial strategy of Just In Time manufacturing in the early 1970’s. We gave Bo a bath today.

On Friday we built a very small garden beside the gazebo using a garden frame kit we bought in Oregon. We hauled a couple of wheelbarrow loads of soil from the burn pile. That soil was fairly poor. We’re going to have to buy quite a bit of good soil to put on top of that.

Saturday was the first really warm day of this summer season … but windy. In the morning we drove to Cawston to buy some bedding plants at a small greenhouse business. In the afternoon I tried to nap in the gazebo with Sully, but it was a bit too windy to be comfortable. Joanne started working on waxing and polishing the trailer, but it was a bit too windy for that as well.

DSK