May 30 to June 5, 2010

May 30 to June 5, 2010


As I drove through Cawston recently, on a rainy day, with a tractor trailer behind me, up ahead a quail crossed the road. A few seconds later, as I got closer to where she had crossed, YIKES … zip, zip, zip ! A long string of teensy little baby quail began to run across the road. There were so many of them they stretched from one side of the road right across to the other. I couldn’t slam on the brakes, the road was wet and there was a big truck right behind me. I twitched the wheel to swerve a bit, but they were stretched right across the road from one side to the other. I glanced in my rear view mirror, and in the brief second before the truck reached the same spot, I could see at least a few of the little spots were no longer running across the road. DAMN ! I don’t know how many baby quail I killed, but probably not even as many as the truck right behind me would have. DAMN ! This is the third spring in a row that I have killed wildlife with the truck. First a baby Osprey, then a rare Flammulated Owl, and now a bunch of baby quail.

The first few days of this week the weather was still bad. Mid-week it finally cleared and warmed a bit. On Tuesday afternoon the gazebo doors and screens arrived. We spent Tuesday afternoon uncrating them. As before, the crate was wrapped with a tarp, stapled to the wood with hundreds of staples. Then we began dismantling the crate just enough to get at the contents. As before, lots and lots of nails, shot in with a nail gun.

There were no assembly / installation instructions for the doors and screens. I sent an e-mail to Alliance Woodcraft asking for instructions. They didn’t reply. On Wednesday morning we installed the screens on the lower half of the walls. The screen installation procedures were fairly simple to figure out. On Wednesday afternoon we installed the screens on the upper half of the walls. One of the upper wall screen sections arrived damaged, with a big puncture through the screen. On Thursday morning we installed the screens on the angled corners of the gazebo. After lunch I drove into Keremeos to buy some screening to replace the damaged section while Joanne phoned Alliance Woodcraft to get instructions for installing the doors. Neither the hardware store nor the building supply store in Keremeos had black screening, only grey. I didn’t want one section of the screening to look different than the others, so the repair / replacement of the damaged section will have to wait until after we go to Penticton next week. In the meantime, and with considerable effort, Joanne finally was able to get the door installation instructions from Alliance sent by e-mail, no thanks to the buck passing and run around they gave her !

I downloaded and printed the door installation instructions. And … ( sigh ) … because the assembly instructions for the gazebo without doors and screens are different than the instructions for the gazebo with doors and screens, step eight of twenty-five of the instructions I received did not specify / emphasize a couple of critical dimensions necessary to ensure that the doors would fit precisely ! So, when I began to fit the doors, I discovered that a critical dimension or two were slightly off ! ! ! That angered and frustrated me. Because some moron in Alliance Woodcraft’s shipping department sent the wrong kit initially, the negative ramifications have just continued and continued ! And I lack the wood working skills to easily overcome this door fitting problem ! By the time I called it a day on Thursday at supper time I had installed one of the two door main sections.

On Friday morning I installed the second door. It fit poorly, and rubbed the door frame at the top. In the afternoon I helped a neighbour trim a tree behind and above us. The lot behind and above us has a fir tree right at the edge of the rock wall. It’s on the neighbour’s lot, but hangs over our gazebo. I asked the neighbour to trim off some dead branches, and helped him do it. Joanne and I hauled the dead branches to the park’s burn pile, then I continued working on the gazebo doors. I installed door stop trim pieces. And that’s as far as I could go with the gazebo for now. It’s about 99% done.

I need to replace the screening on one section of upper wall screen. It arrived with a puncture in the screen. I need to seal around the entire bottom edge of the perimeter with silicone sealant to keep moisture and bugs out. I want to weatherstrip the upper wall screen sections to completely eliminate any gaps that might allow mosquitoes to enter. And most importantly I need to buy hardware … and wood … to finish the doors. The doors came with no hardware except for the hinges. There is no latch ! How do they expect these double doors to stay closed ? ! ? I want threshold sweeps on the door bottoms to keep bugs out. And … ( sigh ) … the two pieces of wood that are supposed to be the door astragals are unacceptable to me. They’re an inch wide. I want astragals that are two to three inches wide, for both function and aesthetics. Regardless, Alliance Woodcraft sent two inside astragals instead of one inside and one outside, as required. Since I have to buy one piece of wood for the outside astragal anyway, I decided I might as well buy two pieces, and wider than Alliance provided. And it’s not worthwhile trying to make a claim with Alliance Woodcraft for one damaged screen section and one incorrect piece of wood.

On Saturday I borrowed a belt sander from a neighbour and sanded the top of the door that was rubbing the frame. It didn’t need much sanding to solve the problem. And I caulked around two sides of the bottom perimeter, until I ran out of silicone sealant. I have a fairly lengthy list of hardware and materials I need to buy in Penticton on Monday to finish the gazebo, despite how close to complete it is !

DSK