Jello Rat

Well, we are at the point where I have the floor and walls done. First, the floor is done, primarily. With self stick tiles there is always a chance a few of them will bow and bubble. We’ve had uncharacteristic 90F days, and it did loosen some of them. I will be using a dab of liquid nails to keep them down. That’s worked for me in the past with no issues. I lived for 7 years in a double wide…

It’s going slow. This years garden is sad. None of the explosive growth from two summers ago. My plants are not doing great, and I am not sure why. I’ve had extreme pest issues, and in general a lot of yellowing leaves around the base of everything, and I have just not figures it out yet. However, I’ll just keep at it. Saddest tom’s and basil ever. The most sad are the tomatoes and basil. I…

Things have been coming together the last few weeks. My wife and I have kept on moving forward with the shed progress. I wish my garden was doing as well as my shed. Wall insulation went well. The wall insulation took us two days. I cut all the insulation to size from the rolls, and put it in and my wife followed me with the staple gun and stapled it in. We had to do it into two days because…

My first impression of insulating a ceiling is that the damn insulation is so expensive! The R13, 23 inch wide insulation was $126.50 for 11 bats. I had to buy two. That was the most expensive item on my interior list of supplies. By comparison the 15 inch insulation that is 32 feet per roll was only $31.87 per roll. The funniest part was when I was trying to find a source for this, every post I…

With all this hoopla about the shed installations, I haven’t been documenting my garden work. Early morning garden. This year I topped off my beds with soil, finally getting them up to level. I used my own compost for the first time. I was amazed that it worked. I will likely get another compost bin or build one at some point. I then planned out my garden for planting. Every year I plan out my…

My wife and I started insulating the ceiling of the shed. This was the hardest so far physically for both of us. I am not sure I could have completed it easily if she wasn’t 6’2″ tall with “monkey arms.” I can only do a few hours of work each week. I mean, if my body was fine, I would do more, but neither my wife or I am in good enough shape that we can do much more. I miss being in my 30s and…

Remember when we got a shed put in our front yard? We had to paint it within 60 days to make our warranty. We chose a nice blue with white trim. The first step was caulking, which became a mini whirlwind of disaster for me. Caulking on seams and nail holes. Remember NOT to caulk under the windows so water can get out. I bought two paintable silicone caulk tubes off Amazon, and unbeknownst to…

I have two problems. My home is only 899 square feet and my wife and I want to work out at home, instead of a gym because my wife is visibly transgender and in the current political climate that is not great. Even if the bluest of blue areas, we run into people that have taken this new political attack on trans folks as open season, carte blanche, to just be the shittiest humans ever. I also hate…

I missed gardening last year, but now that I know my wife is okay, I feel emotionally able to make an attempt at it this year. My first year here in the house was really successful, but as we know, the squirrels really came in strong as garden raiders and soil destroyers. While kind of funny that they just ignored the chicken wire and crawled right through, it was aggravating. Now that my hoop…

Well, with my wife’s cancer health scare behind us, and my health being more reasonable these days, I am starting to work in things again. I managed to drywall the hole in my bathroom wall from the HVAC install months and months ago. I was pretty intimidated by the idea of drywall work, but I watched a few YouTube videos, and got the strapping in and the drywall up. Drywall hung and first bit…

Last month my wife had a pretty credible cancer scare, and an emergency surgery. It was enough that 3 doctors told us to prepare for the worst. Luckily, it turned out to be a gallbladder issue and the inflammation was so bad they thought it was shelf sign, which is a metastasized set of cancer cells, and no cancer was actually in evidence. It did mean she spent a week in the hospital, and when…

We have had a helluva time here this year. I had surgery surgery, then my wife had an emergency hospitalization, where we were told she had cancer, shelf sign, which is a sign for metastasized cancer, and two docs and a surgeon told us to prepare for the worst. However, my wife is okay, and pathology came back in our favor. No cancer! However, she has to have surgery and remove her gallbladder,…

It alls started with a gazebo that went on sale on Amazon. We don’t have a covered porch, and we can’t use an awning because we are in a funny little windy area, so fabric awnings just shred. I thought it would be nice to have a covered area for packages, and trying to get my keys out, so I started watching the $1500 gazebo, and last winter it went on sale for $800. I bought it instantly. We…

Alright squirrels, try to get through this! Hardware Cloth Installed! This was actually really hard on me, unexpectedly. Reaching up and over is not a movement my bad collarbone does well, but little by little, I got it done. Wife helping me! My wife helped me, but she’s not much better off than I am. However, with the two of us, we got it done. Close up of the half inch hardware cloth. The…

Well, not much is getting done. I might miss this season for gardening. After surgery I had a lot of recovery time, then I had to work on getting my garden cage squirrel-proofed, and that is a lot to do. I haven’t even tried to plant without these protections in place because the squirrels are literally digging up my beds constantly. It’s never ending. My garden plan is to finish the hoop…

In my home, I have an old school stove, but it’s very old. I know when it fails I will be upgrading to a glass top. Because I do ham canning, I know I will NOT be putting those heavy canners on a glass top. Add to that, I have a really hard time dealing with such a large pot of water with my reduced abilities. This led me down a rabbit whole looking for a solution. I found the Ball Water Bath…

My garden is not going to be up to snuff this year. Between having surgery, and finding out the squirrels destroyed every bed I had, I am going to have to reset my expectations. My big plan is to get the original garden space covered in hardware cloth. I did the back wall last weekend and I’ll be damned if the squirrels will get into that side now. The end walls are the hardest and most fiddly…