Vacation Recap and NRII Part 11

Well, before it gets too far away from me I should recap my vacation last week.  I didn't have many exact plans for the time off this vacation, and that was on purpose.  It started with a simple birthday, going out for a few drinks after work then coming home and ordering out pizza.  Good times, but nothing unusual.

The next day I made a batch of baguette in the morning, for the second weekend in a row.  The prior weekend I must have just gone through the motions as they didn't turn out as well as I would have liked.  Neither did this batch, but it was okay.  The afternoon was spent watching the Badgers play football and relaxing.

Sunday morning I made a trip down to Mom's.  When I was a kid I would always ask for Mom's butterfinger dessert for my birthday, and she would make it for me.  We went out to lunch, then afterwards I made that same butterfinger dessert for her from her old recipe.  Her birthday is not long after mine, so it felt good to make it for her, for a change.  And it was yummy.  Very rich, but yummy.  We then spent the afternoon and evening watching the Packers game and relaxing.  The next day I got to work on her list of things that needed to be done, had lunch, and I left for home early afternoon.  It was a nice visit, and overdue as I hadn't been down to see her since my vacation in May.  I hate to admit it, but we haven't even talked on the phone as much.  I used to give her a call when I would be out by the fire, but I've not done that so much this summer.

The next couple days were spent being lazy relaxing, with a few chores here and there and lunches out.  And on Thursday I had a wonderful massage.  Only 60 minutes as that seems to be about right, but I added on a scalp massage at the end, and it was so relaxing.  I feel like I drifted in and out during the scalp massage, but kept trying to stay awake to enjoy it fully.  I think I'll be adding this on to all future massages.

By Friday the weather was very cool and damp, and I don't think I left the house the whole day.  Didn't accomplish anything with my time, just took it easy and told myself that was okay.  More of the same on Saturday, though we did have a late lunch out and watched the Badgers play again that evening.

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Sunday, 9/20,  got a little busy at an inopportune time.  I spent the morning making another round of baguette that turned out the best of those last three weekends.  But about 11:30 I ran out to get gas in the car and pick up lunch, getting home in time to put the bread in the oven.  At 12 o'clock noon the bread was in the oven, lunch was getting cold, and the Packers were seconds away from kickoff when the doorbell rang.  It was someone from the roofing company here to trim the excessively overhanging shingles on the porch.  They wanted me to show them but I said it was the whole porch and I was busy.  After thinking for a second I went back to tell them to come some other time, but they were already up there so I let it proceed.  Thankfully they didn't bother me again.

I haven't been up to check their work yet so I will have to do that soon, but that brought the roof back to front of mind.  Yesterday, 9/22, three weeks after meeting with Matt and him telling me to watch my email, I emailed him.  I wanted to call, but I want the paper trail.  I told him rather than cutting into the siding to do that seam up right, I just wanted a wider board to cover the old caulk line.  Truthfully, I don't trust them.  I also inquired about my supplemental insurance claim.  When they were removing the old roof they were supposed to take pictures of the whole process - standard operating procedure, I was told.  This was important because I needed proof that the roof had the ice barrier at least 3 feet above the bottom edge under the shingles.  This was worth at least another $2000 from the insurance company, per their salesman.  When Matt was here I saw him go through the pictures and there were none of this.  Without pictures as proof, I'm out that money from the insurance company.

I've not heard anything back yet, but I'll get that money even if I have to withhold it when the bill comes due.  And that won't be the only discount or credit that I'll demand.

Fall Equinox 2026

Tonight at 7:05 is the Autumn Equinox here, 11 minutes after sunset.  Fall has already made itself known around these parts.  Last week was cool and damp, this week is even more cool though it is supposed to warm up a little toward the end of the week.  Plant life is showing the ravages of summer and my mind drifts to all the cleanup to be done though it is not time for any of it yet.  This summer seems to have gone faster than usual and some things seem to have just gotten away from me this year, but I'm not going to spend my time worrying about weeds and such until spring comes and with it hopefully a fresh start and more effective weed killer.

I bought two pumpkins today, small ones.  Halloween decorations and candy have been in the stores for a month and now Christmas stuff is coming out everywhere.  Still September, right?  I swear it gets earlier every year.

Anyway, I normally like to have a fire pit on this type of occasion, but I'm going to have to pass tonight and hope the spirits forgive me.  Fire pit count is still at 2 for the year, and I'm not proud of that.  But instead tonight I'll be staying inside and watching the Brewer game while trying to get started writing a recap of last week's vacation and a roof update.  Happy Autumn, everyone.

Buds to Blooms

Patriot Day, Sunflowers & More

Today is the country's 25th anniversary of 9/11, and my 59th anniversary of 9/11.  Patriot Day is a national holiday of observance, but not a federal public holiday.  I like to get this date off, but I'm not so lucky this year; I'll be at work.  (This post has been scheduled.)

The original sunflower blooms are long gone but the secondary blooms are popping up all over the place.  I've not even tried to count them, but the quality of bloom will be less and some may not get to be much more than they are now.  The tallest sunflower, in the corner of house and porch, reached 10' 7" this year.  I like trying to grow them tall, and I will save the seeds from the head I have bagged, but more and more I'm thinking I might try a different variety next year.

There is also one sunflower plant that the secondary blooms have a bit of different color to them, with the yellow.  They appear to be a different hybrid, but could be some kind of soil deficiency or who-knows-what.  I could look it up, but you know, I'm just not going to worry about that.

I have some plans coming up and some rest and relaxation scheduled.  No big project on my list, just maybe little ones and the PITA ones that I never seem to get around to doing.  I don't want to be too busy right now, anyway.

Starting today I have to relax and just enjoy my time.  I may pop in and out, here, or I may just recap at a later time.  No matter what, I hope it's an enjoyable week for all.  Cheers!

NRII Part 10 & Weekend Musings

8/31 Monday    I expected supervisor Matt around 3:30.  At 3:45 I texted him to see if he was still coming, he replied that he had me on his calendar tomorrow.  Looking back I believe he was correct and I was jumping the gun.  I had not written it down.

9/1 Tuesday    Had a good meeting with Matt.  He saw my issues and said they would be corrected.

Prior to meeting Matt I got out the ladder and did some more checking.  The rain deflector over the walk-in garage door was short and had no angle.  And, an even bigger issue, the bottom row of shingles hung over the roof edge 1 to 2.5 inches, covering much of the gutters.  Ideally this should be 3/8 to 1/2 inch, tops.

Now I wait again.  It will be some time before they can get a crew out, but I'm okay with that as long as it all gets fixed before winter.

I cleaned up the back yard yesterday morning, before the heat and humidity moved in.  Temperatures actually aren't so bad this holiday weekend.  This past week was very hot and humid, with rain here and there.  Our drought status has improved to 'abnormally dry.'

I'm not sure if I will keep seeds from these sunflowers or not.  I've had thoughts of trying a different kind of sunflower than the mammoth, something that is supposed to have multiple blooms as the hybrid mammoths I have do continue to flower but the quality of the later blooms isn't that good.  We'll see what I decide, probably in spring.

Kate and I took a walk this afternoon.  Recently there had been some sort of burn in places along the creek.  Unannounced and the wrong time of year, so I'm not sure if was on purpose or arson.  Anyway, we found some ducks today.

Today I've made baguettes and taco sauce, already enjoyed the Brewer game and later the Wisconsin Badgers open their football season at Lambeau Field against Notre Dame, and I'll be right here watching.  Tomorrow is Labor Day, so a three day weekend and short work week, and I finally have a vacation coming.  Cheers, everyone.

New Roof II - Parts 1-9

8/10, Monday    8:30 a.m.  Roofing supplies on a pallet along with longer trim pieces are dropped off behind the house on the side of the driveway, a bit on the lawn.

8/11, Tuesday    11:30 a.m.  The roofing crew begins working after being delayed by rain.  Roofing and cleanup completed and the last truck leaves at 6:58 p.m.  Some sunflower disrespect pointed out when I got home from work, but mostly I let them work and checked in from my window views.  Also received text from Julia, saying she was the backup project manager and secondary contact to Isaac, the project manager - not on site.

8/13 & 14, Thursday & Friday    Gutter crew arrived late afternoon.  My house gutters are six inch, but they arrived with 5 inch for the porch.  They asked me, and I sighed and figured 5 inch was adequate for the porch and let them proceed.  Not ideal, but whatever.  When the porch gutters and gutter covers were completed they let me know they would be back the next day to put the gutter covers on the house since they only had 5 inch.

8/18, Tuesday    Morning text to Isaac hoping to get a timeline on the work that needed to be addressed yet, more later, and when extra roofing supplies would be removed - 1 week after roof was done.  I waited two days with no response.

8/20, Thursday    I texted Tony the sales guy about the lack of response and he responded right away.  Later that morning Isaac left a phone message.  Tony texted to verify he got a hold of me.  I called Isaac after work, we set up time on Tuesday at 3:30 for final fixes and walk-through.

8/23, Sunday    Trimmed bushes out front.  Collected my third pail of garbage, nails, shingles pieces, and other left by the roofers.

8/25, Tuesday    Expecting to meet Isaac at 3:30, found out he arrived earlier, did some work, talked to Kate and tried to get her to sign off as complete.  I really did not like this.

8/26, Wednesday    2:30 pm I texted backup project manager Julia, asked for Isaac's supervisor's name and number.  4:00 pm that day the leftover supplies got picked up, 15 days after roof completed.

8/27, Thursday    Project manager Julia texted back with names and a number.  When I called that afternoon that number never rang, so I looked up the Madison office number from their website.  Eventually I was put in contact with supervisor Matt.  We spoke that afternoon and I went through my whole complaint list, noting to him that in the grand scheme of things most of it was nothing, but it is the work that lasts.  We have an appointment at my house after work on Monday so he can see my issues in person.

These are pretty much my timeline notes so far, with video to back up almost all of it.  I should have written this in parts as it happened, but I was not expecting this to be so drawn out.  My big issue is with the seam between the porch and the house.  It has looked like shit since we bought the house so I expected it to look much cleaner after this, but it did not.  They did not use a wide enough board to cover the old black caulk, so you could see the old caulk and the new, and it was ugly.  Apparently Tony failed to measure this area too, beside my gutters.

Isaac's proposed fix was some paint.  I was skeptical, but was willing to see what he would do.  Then he was sure to get in and get out before I got home from work.  He knocked on the door and my wife happened to be home, so he told her generally what he did and handed her a paper with some random numbers to pay and asked her to sign it off as complete.  She wouldn't, of course.

He didn't paint, he attached a piece of flashing that creates a channel.  Well, I've never seen anything like it on a house so it's hard to describe, but I don't like it one bit.  Then I saw him on video strategically photograph it for their records, but not the view of the second picture below.

This is a very reputable company with great google reviews, an inspiring backstory, and an A+ Better Business Bureau rating, all reasons I chose this company.  But yet, service has been terrible and this is yet incomplete.  I require a better fix for this and we'll see what Matt says on Monday when he sees this work in person.  I can't imagine anyone thinking this is okay.

Our Pottery Pieces

As I noted before, we tried something small, but we think they turned out well and may try again with something more adventurous.  Fired Up Pottery; their website isn't much, but is here.

August This-And-Thats

I know I've lamented my waning use of the firepit each of the last few years, but it continues as I've only had the two so far this year.  The mosquitoes haven't seemed as bad this year, but that may be because I've spent less time outside with less fire pits.  Allergies have been present, but have been less severe as last year.  Again, less outside time, maybe?  We've had some good stretches of windows-open weather, but more stretches of heat and/or humidity keeping the air conditioning on.

Summer was at its peak when I mentioned it here, and a week after that it showed.  That's not saying there's not some good summer left, just that I recognized the peak.  Atwoodfest has normally been when I've accepted the season is waning.  It certainly doesn't mean that summer is over, but it's time to just appreciate the warmer weather while we still have it.

We attended Eken Park Fest yesterday for an hour or two.  A nice, nearby neighborhood festival, but small, and it actually snuck up on us.  When we realized it was this weekend we chose in the spur of the moment to go there to find lunch.  We chose a local Mexican restauranteur, and it was very good.  That morning we had gone to a pottery place where you can choose from premade pottery to paint/glaze yourself.  You pay, they fire it, then call you in about a week to pick it up.  It can get expensive so we started small to try it out.  Kate wanted to get a bear as a gift for a friend and they only had a small teddy bear one that will have a magnet on the back.  I did a small gnome in some common colors.  I had visited once before with a group of clients for work, and it was interesting enough I told my wife about it, and so we wanted to try it ourselves.  I hope they turn out well and we like it enough to get more adventurous the next time.

Roofing supplies were delivered on Monday, off to the side of the driveway in back.  The roof was done eventually on Tuesday, due to morning rain.  They got started about 11:30 in the morning and wound up leaving at 7:00 that evening with all roofing and cleanup finished.  Gutters were completed two and three days later.  Currently they still need to pick up the pallet with leftover supplies, add a water deflector above the walk-in garage door, and clean up the line of caulk above the porch where it meets the house.  More later as there is more to come.

The sunflowers took some damage from the roof and gutter replacement, but came out of it pretty good overall.  Some leaves snapped at most, from what I've seen.  The tall sunflower on the left has about 10 flowers currently, though tough to see in this picture, and more buds coming.  These multiple flowers generally get smaller and smaller as they bloom.  And the one in the corner has several blooms as well, but also has reached 10 feet and 2 inches as of today.

I like the idea of pure mammoth seeds that grow tall and have a large flower, but only the one.  But the unknown cross-pollination with the multiple flowers is more enjoyable, and for a longer time.  I must get the seeds of the first flower of at least one of the two I mentioned last paragraph, preferably the taller one but I'll try for both.

I've been making a different recipe of baguette recently, and I'm really liking the crumb.  I think I left this last batch in the oven a bit long, but the quest for the perfect baguette is a never-ending process, after all.  I made pizza dough this morning.  I'd been wanting larger portions so today I made the same amount of dough that I used to make for four crusts into just three.  Thicker than thin crust with 50/50 00/AP flour should be a good combination, I think.  Anyway this baguette made as crostini was absolutely fabulous.

I had some vague ideas when I started to write this, but it was mostly stream of consciousness.  Basically one of my this-and-thats posts, unformatted as such.  Oh well, good enough for me.  Go Brewers!

Rain 1, Sunflower 0

My heart skipped a beat this morning as I checked if anything happened overnight on the security camera.

The large sunflower (pictured last post) had fallen during the night, a little after 1 a.m.  It rained more often than not for the last day, and we needed it terribly, but the conditions just put it down.  It was only about seven in the morning but I immediately went out and wound up putting in three stakes to stabilize it.  The little one next to it came up with it but the cage that is still around it was enough support for that.

And after raining all day we just got a bit of sun so here it is now.  I think it's going to make it.  

That flower I was planning on bagging so I can collect the seeds, and it has at least 10 more buds on it to come yet.  The one on the right also has multiple buds coming.  I'm thankful for the sunflowers I have, but it has been a brutal year for them, overall.

Scorched Sunflowers & Follow-Ups

From what I noticed this afternoon we got up to 98ºF (37ºC), with a feels-like temperature of 114ºF (46ºC).  Definitely the hottest day of the year so far, but thankfully we should just be regular-hot the rest of the week.

The sunflower on the outside of the back steps was the first to bloom, but the petals are rather deformed.  This is the second one to bloom, and is a bit more picturesque.  That first one has no other blooms starting off the stem, while this one has them coming in all the way down.  I'm not sure why some of my mammoth sunflowers have multiple blooms and others don't.  Perhaps one is male and the other is female, I'm not sure.  The first batch planted are definitely the strongest, though, while the second plantings are much smaller plants yet still growing buds.

Our air quality is back to normal levels, though there is still smoke out there so if the winds shift the right way we may get smoky again.  I think I heard something like the smoke would affect us about one day a year until 2020, and has averaged about 8 days a year since.  That would explain why it seems like more now - because it is.

The protests continue with base camp at the intersection where it happened and nearby streets shut down.  The city has been working with them, providing port-o-potties and trash collection while working with the protesters to keep up services and driveway access for the unfortunate residents in the area.  One of which is a friend, who is not enjoying the extra traffic and hassle.  I'm not sure how long it will continue but would surely calm down if they announced criminal charges against the police officer.  Seems to be the right thing to do, but no rant on this today.

The neighbors have added some interesting lights to their house.  It was red, white and blue earlier this month for the holiday, and was like this the other night.  Thankfully we only have two windows on that side so it doesn't really affect us at all. I find it to be an interesting choice, what do you think?

And, finally, I'm feeling much better and practically back to normal after my fall a couple weeks ago.  When you're young you can bounce, and I haven't been young in a long time.  It would behoove me to avoid any more falls in the future, I think. 

Oh, and the new roof should be happening very soon, but I don't have a date yet.  Have a great week, everyone!