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Originally posted by Brenda:
Out soon to meet my friend.

And waaaah! Didn't get the leg show from Pedro. Not that I mind them concentrating on his face. Still it would have been nice. The main guy had nice legs too and saw more of his.
Pedro's character is dead where I left off last night and they killed Derek Jacobi's character too. Though he had less to do this time. But still.

Sorry for the spoilers. So if you haven't seen it or don't ignore this post.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Out soon to meet my friend.

And waaaah! Didn't get the leg show from Pedro. Not that I mind them concentrating on his face. Still it would have been nice. The main guy had nice legs too and saw more of his.
Pedro's character is dead where I left off last night and they killed Derek Jacobi's character too. Though he had less to do this time. But still.

Sorry for the spoilers. So if you haven't seen it or don't ignore this post.

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Hehe... No worries about spoilers for me. I can't imagine any scenario where I watch Gladiator II and pay any attention to it. I honestly can't believe they didn't show off Pedro's legs in the movie.

I gave you a happy early birthday, but now I'll give you a happy late birthday.


Finally going back outside to work today. We still had some rain early in the morning yesterday, so I didn't go out in the slop. It's going to be 87 degrees today, with 3 more in the 80's and that's it for the toasty weather this year around here. Gotta make the most of the time I have left.

That damn mole didn't take a break after I quit on last Saturday. For a full week he's been ripping up that sandpit that I had leveled out last week. He still doesn't appear to have gotten into stuff that I've finished, although I'm a little worried about behind the garage. It's hard to really tell though because I've got about 5,000lbs of rock stacked up on top of it so I won't know until I start filling in the main sand pit later next week after I get all the other stuff done.

Going to trench out the foundation on the back and side of the house first so I can scrub and rinse it before putting on the tar. After that, I'm going to work on the fencing to try to keep the mole out of the 2nd half of the main sand pit. At least so far, it doesn't look like he's been able to get in and damage anything other than possibly the back of the garage slab.

My old man asked me what do I do if I trap him in the sand pit. I laughed and said that he can go above ground and just dig a hole outside of it. But I do wish I had been able to build those underground fences for the sand pit before the week long rain made its way in here. It would be nice to be able to verify he couldn't do any damage in there over the last 6 days before putting down stone.

There's really only two fences I need to put down to keep him out of that pit though. I'm going to try to get those done along with 1 coat of tar today. There are still a few more fences I want to make inside of that sand pit too as double protection around the porch and the side of the house foundation, and I do want to allow enough dry time for the tar to apply a 2nd coat like I did everywhere else, so I should have a few days time to see if I'm successfully keeping him out or not.

Gotta start getting up earlier. Sun is going down way too quick these days.

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For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Originally posted by Brenda:

Nope, no real leg on Pedro but lots of face shots which like I said I could more than live with. The movie was good and different from Russell's Gladiator. Going to get a copy but not sure if my birthday or Christmas.

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Nice.

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Oooh, you get dry and we get rain all weekend, even on my birthday. Waaah. S'no fun.

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Yeah. Nothing but rain for a full week now that really put me behind on my work. We were only supposed to get 1.5 days of rain, but it turned into 6.5 days. But it got so hot again that even with all that rain the sand was dry on top so I didn't get too messy today until the tar came out.

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Sorry about the mole. But I doubt they can get through rock. Dirt and sand would be nothing to the critters.

Yeah it is too bad that you couldn't have put that fence down deeper with the wire. Is the chicken wire holes really small because if they are too big a mole could get through easily. Just my thought.

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They're strong, but I doubt they're made for lifting a bunch of river rock to get below it. I think their strength lies when they're underground and they wouldn't have the leverage to lift those rocks out of the way when they're top side.

I still couldn't tell for sure if it got up under the rock I put behind the garage, but closer inspection on both sides leads me to believe that it actually couldn't even though it REALLY was trying to. I won't know for sure until I remove that rock, but at both ends where I blocked it off it looks like the earth wasn't displaced inside of that.

It's not really chicken wire. I just call it that. It is fairly rigid metal, and it's got 1/2" by 1/2" squares. It's quite a bit more expensive than chicken wire, actually, but I knew if I did that chicken wire it wouldn't be protecting anything. I don't think that moles can scrunch themselves down like mice can when they get under doorways because their entire existence is much different than a mouse's. If it was able to get that small to get between the 1/2" holes, they haven't figured out how to do it yet. The only time I've had a mole get past where I wanted it to go was when I didn't make a fence deep enough on the far side of the garage. So far it looks good.

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Well, I hope you can keep the mole from doing too much or any more damage to all your work.

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Me too. Thanks.

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Tell me about the sun setting too early. After 6pm and I have to turn on a light or it starts to get too dingy in here.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I don't know why I thought today was Tuesday this morning when I was posting. Thought I missed your B-day but I didn't.

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Originally posted by Brenda:

Nope, no real leg on Pedro but lots of face shots which like I said I could more than live with. The movie was good and different from Russell's Gladiator. Going to get a copy but not sure if my birthday or Christmas.

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Nice.

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Oooh, you get dry and we get rain all weekend, even on my birthday. Waaah. S'no fun.

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Yeah. Nothing but rain for a full week now that really put me behind on my work. We were only supposed to get 1.5 days of rain, but it turned into 6.5 days. But it got so hot again that even with all that rain the sand was dry on top so I didn't get too messy today until the tar came out.

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Sorry about the mole. But I doubt they can get through rock. Dirt and sand would be nothing to the critters.

Yeah it is too bad that you couldn't have put that fence down deeper with the wire. Is the chicken wire holes really small because if they are too big a mole could get through easily. Just my thought.

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They're strong, but I doubt they're made for lifting a bunch of river rock to get below it. I think their strength lies when they're underground and they wouldn't have the leverage to lift those rocks out of the way when they're top side.

I still couldn't tell for sure if it got up under the rock I put behind the garage, but closer inspection on both sides leads me to believe that it actually couldn't even though it REALLY was trying to. I won't know for sure until I remove that rock, but at both ends where I blocked it off it looks like the earth wasn't displaced inside of that.

It's not really chicken wire. I just call it that. It is fairly rigid metal, and it's got 1/2" by 1/2" squares. It's quite a bit more expensive than chicken wire, actually, but I knew if I did that chicken wire it wouldn't be protecting anything. I don't think that moles can scrunch themselves down like mice can when they get under doorways because their entire existence is much different than a mouse's. If it was able to get that small to get between the 1/2" holes, they haven't figured out how to do it yet. The only time I've had a mole get past where I wanted it to go was when I didn't make a fence deep enough on the far side of the garage. So far it looks good.

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Well, I hope you can keep the mole from doing too much or any more damage to all your work.

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Me too. Thanks.

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Tell me about the sun setting too early. After 6pm and I have to turn on a light or it starts to get too dingy in here.

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I could have probably worked until 7PM tonight still with the light, but I had wrapped up something big and anything else I need to do was too large a project to try starting at 6:20PM when I got the other thing wrapped up.

I trenched out all the foundation like I said I would, I cleaned it up with a wire brush and gave it a good scrubbing with water and a brush before letting it all dry and getting a coat of tar up there. I'll see how that dries and hopefully in a few days I can get another coat up there before I back fill it all. I can't put any of the fencing where I need it for the pavers along the back foundation of the house until that is done and filled back in.

I also dug out all around the concrete slab that is under the water spigot too, so I could clean that off with a wire brush and dust it off real good. Now it's ready for bonding agent and new concrete when I'm ready to do that.

I may or may not have mentioned that before but this stupid slab is around 4.5 feet by 3.5 feet with the longer side being perpendicular to my house. The idiots poured the slab so that it grades down into my foundation instead of away from it. It's made of the concrete with rocks in it and it's at least 6" thick, so there's no way I can cut it off with one of my concrete blades.

Not only don't I want to bust it out with a sledge hammer because I could probably bust my foundation too, but it's also got the top of the cleanout valve for the back drain in the middle of it, so I'd almost certainly bust that too. So as much as I hate the idea, even with good prep work, I'm going to be pouring concrete on top of concrete to raise that up about 4.5" in the back and have it slope away from the house into the grass.

I never bothered measuring it before, but since I got it nice and clean I brought out my level and found out that the outside of the slab that is in the grass is 3" higher than the part of the slab touching the foundation.

NO WONDER I GOT SO MUCH WATER IN MY BASEMENT!!!!!

Tomorrow I will be putting down the rest of the fence boundary to the sand pit, and I'll probably put the edger bricks down while I'm at it too. I've kind of got to wait on that tar, and I'm getting my gas meter swapped soon and it's in the middle of my work and kind of close to that slab. I don't want to do anything with that slab or the landscaping back there until next week after they've swapped the new one in.

So this week now is all about fencing in and protecting the rest of the sand pit and getting those rocks down finally.



Oh yeah... and I was about to lose my CGM, but I caught it just in time. Most of it had peeled off, but enough was there to keep it inside and getting readings. Nothing I tried worked when I was trying to tape it back up, so I saw some box tape and actually wrapped 3 layers of it around my stomach to keep it in place. It's worked for about 3-4 hours of reaching and scrubbing low walls and then painting them all with tar. I can't believe it's still working right now.

I don't change the CGM until tomorrow night, so I'm afraid that's going to be staying wrapped around me all tonight and during work tomorrow.

:(

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For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Originally posted by Brenda:
No worries about loosing days. I lost last Monday for a bit. I thought I had just gone from Sunday to Tuesday. Took me a bit of thinking before I realized what had happened. Nope, not missed at all.

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Yeah. Totally weird. It was only for a moment when I replied to you and thought that I missed your birthday and Monday was yesterday. I knew that it was Saturday when I was outside working. Brain fart.

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As I said. I haven't decided yet. I found a Funko of the Adama from Battlestar Galactica that I used to watch in high school. You wouldn't know the actor but he was Canadian. Lorne Greene. No relation to Graham.

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That's fun too. My brother has a ton of them. I know they're cute and most people think they're cute, but they kind if creep me out. I dunno why.

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Well at least the sun dried up all the rain and it won't hurt the sand anyways. Yeah, we get rain starting Sunday well into next week. Oh, well. Welcome to Fall in BC.

Have to agree with you there. I doubt that they could shift river rock like you are describing. I hope it didn't do any damage to your work.

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I think I'm good so far. Everything that I can see is good anyway. The good news about the activity is that I've had several tests now where I know it's tried to get in somewhere and it couldn't. I've also had 2 times where it was able to get in somewhere and I knew to go back down and double up deeper and they haven't got back in there now.

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Got ya. I was just thinking as I can remember my dad using chicken wire around a veg/fruit garden at a house we were living in in the Valley. Here's another memory from that time. A cougar took a walk through our yard when we were all in bed. My dad found the print in my brother's sand box. He was worried for a bit incase the cougar came back when my brother or I were outside. I saw the print but to me it looked like a big dog print. My dad let me think that. It wasn't until well after he was gone that my mum told me about the print. And my dad would have known what a cougar print looked like.

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Yeah. I think what I got is called "wire rebar" or something like that. I'm assuming that with a smaller concrete paver like the one I'm going to slope away from the house, you could use that to make it more solid. Probably wouldn't do much for a large slab, but something small it could help keep it from cracking during the cold weather.

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Yeah, with the sun going down so early you don't want to be starting anything big.

Sounds like you have a fair number of projects to get to next Spring.
Okay. Those pavers were really dummies. I mean had they never heard of a level. It is no wonder. Like I said dummies. Sledge hammer and foundation not good.

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Yeah... Lots of stuff needs to be done. I got enough to last me a few more years. I'm glad I'm back to working on it now.

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Ouch! I hope you don't have a lot of hair in that area. But still be careful as you could also pull off a whole lot of skin.

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