Wind - This has been a week of rain & blow - not to the extent that others have had, but enough for us. We received nearly three inches of rain driven by winds from 10-60+ miles/hour. The only damage done was that trash from our across-the-street neighbor's overturned trash bin blew all over our yard, some of it ending up against the house (by the back porch), some up against the dense parts of our woods, and some that I caught early enough to stop it in our front yard; sticks & limbs were taken off of our tree and strewn about the back yard and the edge of our woods, and the aforementioned neighbor's trees (along with those of other neighbors across the street from us) were forced to give up their leaves to the wind, being deposited in our front yard and curb guttering.
The photo, below shows the leaves in the front yard. There aren't as many leaves as we've had deposited most years; but I really can't rake them for fear of uprooting the newly sprouted grass. Note the blue bin at the top, center of the photo. It is the trash bin that had previously been deprived of its trash. Today was recycle & trash pickup day for our street.
The bin is frequently overturned by wind; but, the neighbor rarely catches it since he cannot see it from inside his house. I gathered up the trash (mostly, large plastic bags from lawn dirt, but also some trimmings from his shrubbery), placed it into the bin (leaving the bin parallel to the ground), closed the bin, turned the bin around 180 degrees about the vertical , and placed it snuggly up against the side of the garage to keep the wind from causing more mischief.
Garage Door - Early in the week, as the wind and rain were just getting started, Jeff came by to install our new overhead garage door for Hunky Husband's car's bay. I don't recall whether I had mentioned HH's misfortune of opening the wrong door, one day, then backing into his bay's door. Only his lightning-fast reaction and fine coordination allowed him to stop his car before it became a full-blown "thing".
I seem to have failed to take a photo of the damaged door; but, the casual observer might not even have noticed the slight widening of the space between sections, center span of the door. Even so, the door was damaged beyond repair (doesn't take that much damage). The door allowed normal operation; so, we didn't even need to make a temporary repair.
The new door is, supposedly, a slightly different design from our old door(s); but, tell me if you can see much difference between the new door (on the right) and my car bay's old door (in the center), by looking at the photo below. A coat of paint and it should fit in nicely. (We had told the sales person who came by on 9/2/2021 that we would live with the new door for a while before deciding if we needed to replace the remaining two doors to match it. I'm thinking "no".)
HH's Ears - Today, HH had his every-three-months checkup with the audiologist. All that was required was for her to clean impacted wax from his "better" ear and turn the gain down on both hearing aids. I would have guessed that the gain would need to be turned down by about 10 dB, which I did not share with Dr Combs; but, she turned them down only 2 dB. He can try them for three months to see if they need turning down more.
New Grass - I took some photos to show the green fuzz that we now have in most of the previously bare spots. They may be compared to photos in The seeds are sown, that were taken just before and just after planting.
There are still a couple of noticeably bare spots that are next to the fence beyond the little tree. It shows that we're not getting full coverage with our sprinkler heads. That's not surprising since the sprinkler head is a few feet from the fence (there was a planting bed full of trees and shrubs between it and the fence when the sprinkler head was installed) and is adjusted to clear the fence. The photo, below, of the largest bare spot that we had after the invasion of the Army Worms also shows a bare strip toward the camera from the bluebird house. Again, water wasn't getting there. Again, not surprising since all of that patch is beyond the real lawn and in the drainage easement.
Irrigation System - We had some ill luck and then a stroke of good luck. I had asked the lawn service people to service our irrigation system for the winter, this week - pushed forward from our original schedule (of having it done last week) by the pushing forward also of the planting date. (It rained on the originally scheduled date, which I had considered late; but, what can one do when they are hurting for employees?) When I hadn't heard from the lawn service by Wednesday, I called them. Oops! That change in their schedule had not been accomplished. They couldn't get us this week - perhaps next week, they hoped.
This is where the good luck came in. Yesterday, as I was striking out on my morning walk, I noticed that a neighbor who lives a couple of blocks from us was having his irrigation system winterized. I waited for the lawn service guys (not the same company as our lawn service) and the home owner to return from the back yard and asked if they would have time to do our system. (I did ask a "by your leave" of my neighbor, of course.) Fortunately, the answer was "Yes".
I turned around, came home, and unpacked the backflow prevention valve assembly. They arrived as promised and perhaps 20 minutes later had our system ready for the 24-26 degree (F) weather that we are expecting early next week. Below are photos of the unpacked valve assembly of the eight bags of mulch that I had packed around it. (No photo of the sheets of heavy plastic, old bed sheet, old drapery, and wastepaper basket that had been in the mix of insulation.)
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