Reconnoiter

There is an ongoing friendly debate between Wendy, Gwen and I, as how to pronounce the word reconnoiter.

Evidently there are two ways.  The first pronunciation sounds like 'wreck-and-order' to me.  Which is kind of what the word means to me... to re-order the wreck.  That's because I thought the word meant to re-group.  But, according to dictionary.com, reconnoiter means "To make a preliminary examination of an area or a group, usually by moving around and observing, in order to gather information, especially for military purposes."  I thought that was reconnaissance.  Reconnoiter also means to survey, scrutinize, inspect, or investigate.

Jeremy arrived on time Saturday morning, but said something had come up with the sitter, so rescheduled for Sunday.  After reconnoitering out back, I got to work.
I finished removing sod (seen left) and got this area (below) mulched. 








Then I worked on concrete for several hours.  I only did two batches, with the first being a little too wet, and difficult to work with.  So I added a second bag of cement mix and had better luck. 

I was adding little rocks to the top of the wall to fill in the low spots and finish it off.  This took lots of patience and persistence to get each rock concreted in.










Mostly the work was along the left side of the wall, but I also filled in some gaps on the right side.

Joe and I wanted to reconnoiter the newly remodeled Phil-ling Station, which is now called Spikes.  We invited Brian, who joined us for a few beers and a bite to eat.  The pub has a nice new look to it.








Once home, I took Maggie on a long walk to burn off some of the newly acquired calories.




The wagon of flowers has been moved from the front porch to this side garden so it gets more sun and helps hide the cover to the grinder pump.


Sunday I went outside early to check on and clean up concrete work.  I hosed it all down and then watered many plants that were in need.  I ended up being late for Church, not because I was outside working, but because I got the start time confused with last year's time.

I rushed home from Church to meet Jeremy, who ended up texting 45 minutes after he was due to arrive, to again reschedule when he would come.  I then took a power nap (a form of reconnoitering) before doing one job outside.

I knew I didn't have time to finish the mulching on the back hill, so decided to move logs.  I wanted them out of this area (seen left) where I was going to mulch.  We have decided to convert our fireplace back to a gas burning, fake log deal (no more wood splitting, hauling, ash clean up, or smoke in the house) so we could do away with the log pile.





I hauled most of the wood up to the garage so Joe could take it to the barn for the bonfires they regularly have out there.  I did keep a few logs in case we do a little bonfire here.  I re-stacked them at the bottom of the hill (seen right) so that they are out of sight. 

I then had to hustle to get to work on time.  Gwen and I were very busy for the first four hours of our shift, but it did quiet down for the remainder of the evening.  Walking the dog once home is a good way to kind of wind down and blow off any extra energy.

Monday morning Joe left for Cincinnati and I got to work in the back.  Upon my reconnaissance, it looked like rain would come in the late afternoon.  I debated doing concrete work, since the weather forecasts are often incorrect.  So, I prepared to put up more rock wall and mix up another batch of concrete.  When an early pop-up storm moved into the area, I changed my mind about making cement and instead worked at moving mulch to the back.  Seen left, by the end of my work session, I got mulch spread everywhere I had intended to put it.  I kept the log splitting stump and put it where the old log pile had been, seen in center of left photo.

I had stopped moving mulch at one point when there was a little downpour, but then got back to work after coming in for a late lunch while it rained.  I got showered on a second time, but continued, bound and determined to finish off this pile (seen here Tuesday morning).

At last, a major, serious thunderstorm arrived so I was done for the day.  I took this video after getting all my tools in out of the rain.







The temperature had dropped and I was now wet and cold so I took a warm, cleansing shower.  With more rain and more water running down our ditch, I decided to go out and get another video, but ran out of space on my phone shortly into filming.


I got word that Mirror Lake Blast had been cancelled and Shirley invited me to dinner as an alternative.  I made a quick trip to Food City and walked the dog between showers.  I enjoyed meatloaf and potato salad at Shirley's, that she had made, and the broccoli salad, corn and cheese cake I had bought and brought.

On the way to Shirley's, I took a photo of this tree at the end of Flossmoor, that had come down during the storm.






Joe sent this photo of him with Tamika and Patrick at the baseball game (Reds vs Cubs) in Cincinnati where, thankfully it wasn't raining.

I quickly got Maggie out for another walk once home at 8:30, before the next rain shower.  When I was a 'block' away from home, it started pouring.  We 'sprinted' down the street for home, but still got quite wet.

We had lots of rain overnight so it was quite soggy out Tuesday morning.  The creek (above) and pond were both quite full of rain water, and muddy looking.

I was debating with myself, whether or not to try to get a batch of concrete made.  While waiting for things to dry up, I got a call from the Landscape place down the road.  Rose of Sharon (Althea) had finally arrived.

I went to pick up the three bushes I had plans for, but when saw the price, decided two would work and bought a cheaper (and smaller)  Hydragea to go in the third hole.

Anytime I am out in the yard working, which is a lot, I have Maggie tied out.  She enjoys being outside and having me in her sight.

To get the Althea planted I had to dig the holes larger because they were in 3 gal. pots.  I did a little more weeding out front as I was finishing up and then had to get ready to go to the Dorchester Pool for my 2-7 shift.

Work at the pool is so easy and relaxing compared to the front desk at the CC.  The residents were having their weekly pot-luck pool party and invited me to join them, so I even got to enjoy a great dinner while working.


Clean up at the end of the day is my least liked part of the job.  Again I struggled with trash cans and ended up spilling the contents (not just once) from two, down my front.  They were extra heavy (full) from taking on some rain water.  However, the liquid down my front had me smelling like a brewery.  I will perfect the trash can dumping as time goes on.

I like that I get home well before dark, and took Maggie on a nice long walk.  I even took time to eat some wild blackberries along the road.  Joe was home early, having gotten knocked out from a poker tournament sooner than planned.

Wednesday morning I was at the CC before 8 am for a two hour employee meeting.  Much of the information was of minimal use because I only have one more shift there.  But I did get some needed procedural instruction on various things, such as how to ring up Wyndham employees and their guests.  Rushing home ten minutes after Jeremy was to arrive, I was relieved that he had not beat me here.  Joe was here, but I usually communicate with Jeremy about what and how I would like work to be done.

I finished moving the rest of the mulch off our drive and piled it (seen right) by the mound of dirt and rocks in the back, because I would need it once the drainage ditch was completed.  After about an hour of messing around while waiting for Jeremy, I decided to get on with cement work and take a break when he got here.  He never did show up or even bother to text or call.

Two batches of concrete and I got more wall and three pavers cemented in.  With the base being two blocks (24") across, the walls do not have to be as high or as steep.  Hopefully this will make their construction easier and it will go faster.  I am really getting tired of this project.  Now that I have the rest of the back done (mulched areas with plantings and grass areas) there is nothing to distract me (relieve me) from drainage ditch work.  I will still need to seed both sides of the hill once the rest of the ditch is finished and there is also the gardens out front that need weeding and mulch.

I don't know what these flowers are in Rodger's yard, but they are pretty.  Photo taken during one of Thursday morning's walks.  When filling the bird feeders, I also noticed some critter (probably skunk) had rooted around in the new mulch, flipped some small pieces of sod over, and hit this older mulched bed. (Seen below, dark spots where mulch was dug up).  I guess if I am going to put food out for birds and deer, I am going to get other creatures too.
 

I was back at cementing mid-morning, continuing with wall and the floor of the concrete ditch.  I got as much work done as the day before, but in much less time.  I had more energy (and less time) so kept up the work pace.








Maggie sleeping on the job, looks quite relaxed.



She woke up when I moved closer to get these photos.




From 2-9:15 pm, I put in my last shift at the CC front desk!  I am really going to miss working with the girls, but am so glad to be done with the late nights and long shifts.  We were quite busy (pre-July 4th weekend) so the time went very fast.

Friday I planned to hit the ditch work hard.  I am bound and determined to get it done!  Sitting here working on this blog, I scanned my desk and realized it's a wreck that needs to be ordered.  If I were to reconnoiter it, I would find tons of notes, some cards I bought (including Father's Day that is long past so will be used next year), important vet documents, and many other things that need filing.  But I left it and my blogging to go out back to cement.

I removed the plastic, brushed and washed off excess cement and took the photo seen upper left.  I moved dirt in behind the newly finished wall and then spent much time preparing the next pavers and rock for cementing.  I scrubbed blocks and rocks with the wire brush, fit more rock together for the wall and hosed everything down.

After a lunch break I then started on concrete work.  Two batches and three hours later, I had it all covered with plastic (above).  Seen below is the work I had accomplished that I uncovered the next morning.

I had planned to go for an evening ride since Joe was working, but as usual, I ran out of time and energy, and couldn't even finish this post, I was so tired.