Incarceration, II
Time to elaborate a little bit on my weekend incarceration. And, before I begin... no, you do not need to go to the smoking gun to see police line-up pictures of your favorite blogger...
You see, to be incarcerated, one needs only to be confined, or trapped. Medically speaking, this may also be applied to a hernia, which, oddly, would not be a misapplication of the word to the events of the past few days.
So this past weekend, I was confined. Where was I confined? My mother's back yard -- normally a place happily remembered from my childhood, site of baseball games and pitching greens and archery practice and running amok with my pet dog, Patrick. What item was doing the confining? Ostensibly a wooden fence long pasts its prime.
I say ostensibly because the fence, in its present-day condition, would not thwart a hamster bent on crashing through it (Forgetting, for a moment, that any given hamster would have no desire to break into my mother's backyard. Further forgetting that were a singularly minded rodent to decide that such trespassing was a worthwhile endeavor, it could easily squeeze through the open gaps between fencing boards.). Trust me, when speaking of this fence: an immovable object it ain't. What truly kept me there was a promise made in March to "paint your fence, mom, one day this summer".
23 solid hours later and the fence is not yet painted. How?? you may ask... well.. read on!
Ed's Guide to Bass Ackwards Pence Fainting
(Friday) Step 1: Pressure Wash The Fence
This almost always involves a device called a pressure washer. Many, many thanks go to my friends John and Liz for the gracious donation of their washer for this effort. The pressure washer was picked up Thursday evening. I took a half-day on Friday and started pressure washing. After 4 hours, about 80% of the interior of the fence had been pressure washed.
(Saturday) Step 2: Trim Foliage away from the Fence, the first try
Large sections of the fence were invisible agains the overgrown backdrop of trees: white pines, holly trees, oak trees, saplings, bushes, evergreens, poison ivy, poison sumak, poison oak, poison grass, poison poison, moss, lilac bushes, weeds with inch-thick stems, etc... Saturday morning, 9am, Linda and I were trimming back trees and pressure washing the outside of the fence. This took the entire morning.
(Saturday) Step 3: Discover boards that must be replaced
The process of pressure wshing a fence is good for three things:
1. Removing caked on dirt and moss from fence boards.
2. Removing crackling paint chips from fence boards the need repainting.
3. Punching great gargantuan holes through fence boards so rotten that they only hold a fence-like shape out of habit.
By Saturday afternoon 37 fence boards had been marked for replacement.
(Saturday) Step 4: Repair fence boards While Helpers Scrape the Fence
Linda and Kathy went on post-pressure-washer-post-tree-trimming paint-scraping duty. Even after a good pressure washing, a little scraping needs to be done. I went to Lowes, bought about 37 fencing boards, and began replacing boards.
by 8:30pm on Saturday, all boards except for 6 were replaced. The fence was scraped. We would paint Sunday. It would be easy.
(Sunday) Step 5: Continue to trim trees and foliage
Mom called her landscaper to come on Sunday in the AM to help us remove trees and foliage that we could not cut with our meager cutting implements. He came and removed several small trees that had grown into the fence. He removed dozens of pounds of weeds and overgrowth. We could have our own burning man competition in the back yard now.
(Sunday) Step 6: Continue replacing boards
Just 6 boards to go. Oh, wait, in the process of clearing trees and foliage, 10 more boards disintegrated for no good reason. Quickly, a trip to the local Lowes hardware store for 12 more boards (always good to have extra!). Oh, wait, upon returning, 6 more boards had disintigrated. Turn around and go back to Lowes hardware for 6 more boards (never hurts to have extra). Oh wait, 2 more boards broke, using up all the extra. Board replacement, tree trimming, paint scraping, and some horrible thing I will just refer to briefly as "tarp management" was finished by 3pm.
(Sunday) Step 7: Paint!
3:30pm on Sunday, after dozen of grueling hours preparing, stripping, trimming, itching, biting, gnashing... the fence was ready to be painted. We took out and assembled the newly-purchased paint sprayer. We painted 1 fence section and the sprayer clogger. Why? We forgot to thin the paint. 20 minutes later we were happily spraying. 45 minutes later, we had to stop so that we could go to see a play we had tickets for.
-Ed
epilogue:
Linda and I skipped the play, as Linda had been ill before, and this weekend of manual labor left her in need of a quiet night in. We will go back to mom's on Friday (I'm taking Friday off) and will finish the painting job then. Of course, having replaced 50-some boards, felling several trees, pressure washing, and hand-scraping, I don't think paint-spraying will be too much trouble!
You see, to be incarcerated, one needs only to be confined, or trapped. Medically speaking, this may also be applied to a hernia, which, oddly, would not be a misapplication of the word to the events of the past few days.
So this past weekend, I was confined. Where was I confined? My mother's back yard -- normally a place happily remembered from my childhood, site of baseball games and pitching greens and archery practice and running amok with my pet dog, Patrick. What item was doing the confining? Ostensibly a wooden fence long pasts its prime.
I say ostensibly because the fence, in its present-day condition, would not thwart a hamster bent on crashing through it (Forgetting, for a moment, that any given hamster would have no desire to break into my mother's backyard. Further forgetting that were a singularly minded rodent to decide that such trespassing was a worthwhile endeavor, it could easily squeeze through the open gaps between fencing boards.). Trust me, when speaking of this fence: an immovable object it ain't. What truly kept me there was a promise made in March to "paint your fence, mom, one day this summer".
23 solid hours later and the fence is not yet painted. How?? you may ask... well.. read on!
(Friday) Step 1: Pressure Wash The Fence
This almost always involves a device called a pressure washer. Many, many thanks go to my friends John and Liz for the gracious donation of their washer for this effort. The pressure washer was picked up Thursday evening. I took a half-day on Friday and started pressure washing. After 4 hours, about 80% of the interior of the fence had been pressure washed.
(Saturday) Step 2: Trim Foliage away from the Fence, the first try
Large sections of the fence were invisible agains the overgrown backdrop of trees: white pines, holly trees, oak trees, saplings, bushes, evergreens, poison ivy, poison sumak, poison oak, poison grass, poison poison, moss, lilac bushes, weeds with inch-thick stems, etc... Saturday morning, 9am, Linda and I were trimming back trees and pressure washing the outside of the fence. This took the entire morning.
(Saturday) Step 3: Discover boards that must be replaced
The process of pressure wshing a fence is good for three things:
1. Removing caked on dirt and moss from fence boards.
2. Removing crackling paint chips from fence boards the need repainting.
3. Punching great gargantuan holes through fence boards so rotten that they only hold a fence-like shape out of habit.
By Saturday afternoon 37 fence boards had been marked for replacement.
(Saturday) Step 4: Repair fence boards While Helpers Scrape the Fence
Linda and Kathy went on post-pressure-washer-post-tree-trimming paint-scraping duty. Even after a good pressure washing, a little scraping needs to be done. I went to Lowes, bought about 37 fencing boards, and began replacing boards.
by 8:30pm on Saturday, all boards except for 6 were replaced. The fence was scraped. We would paint Sunday. It would be easy.
(Sunday) Step 5: Continue to trim trees and foliage
Mom called her landscaper to come on Sunday in the AM to help us remove trees and foliage that we could not cut with our meager cutting implements. He came and removed several small trees that had grown into the fence. He removed dozens of pounds of weeds and overgrowth. We could have our own burning man competition in the back yard now.
(Sunday) Step 6: Continue replacing boards
Just 6 boards to go. Oh, wait, in the process of clearing trees and foliage, 10 more boards disintegrated for no good reason. Quickly, a trip to the local Lowes hardware store for 12 more boards (always good to have extra!). Oh, wait, upon returning, 6 more boards had disintigrated. Turn around and go back to Lowes hardware for 6 more boards (never hurts to have extra). Oh wait, 2 more boards broke, using up all the extra. Board replacement, tree trimming, paint scraping, and some horrible thing I will just refer to briefly as "tarp management" was finished by 3pm.
(Sunday) Step 7: Paint!
3:30pm on Sunday, after dozen of grueling hours preparing, stripping, trimming, itching, biting, gnashing... the fence was ready to be painted. We took out and assembled the newly-purchased paint sprayer. We painted 1 fence section and the sprayer clogger. Why? We forgot to thin the paint. 20 minutes later we were happily spraying. 45 minutes later, we had to stop so that we could go to see a play we had tickets for.
-Ed
epilogue:
Linda and I skipped the play, as Linda had been ill before, and this weekend of manual labor left her in need of a quiet night in. We will go back to mom's on Friday (I'm taking Friday off) and will finish the painting job then. Of course, having replaced 50-some boards, felling several trees, pressure washing, and hand-scraping, I don't think paint-spraying will be too much trouble!
posted by Ed at 1:37 PM
1 Comments:
at least you didn't do all of this in the current weather we had! (aka welcome to Baltimore's summer)
Post a Comment
<< Home