We grilled out brats for the first time this season on Friday, and replenished the mulch between the gardens on Saturday. Only a few of the garlics planted last fall survived due to the mild temperatures late last year, but plans have been made for planting the rest of the gardens soon. Kate is planting lettuce a bit at a time indoors to hopefully keep waves of lettuce ready for us in the garden at any time for the foreseeable future. I planted sunflower seeds for home yesterday, and in another week will start more sunflower seeds to take to work and plant with our clients. I got plant stakes that they can decorate sometime while I'm on vacation that we will then use to mark where we plant them in the back yard perimeter. (There is a landscaping crew that comes weekly to mow and clean up, thus the need for markers.) I have a vacation starting in about a week and a half, so more plantings and pots and ornamental hangings will come then.
On a different note, the major hail storm we had a couple weeks ago caused enough damage that I just had to call the insurance company and file a couple of claims. One for my wife's car which sustained many good dents and the broken windshield, current repair estimated to be over 1300 dollars. She has to decide now if it is worth it to fix or just eventually sell the wheelchair van, at a loss anyway, as is and just keep the check now or get the repairs. Neighbor Jane said they totaled her car, though she intends to keep it.
The other claim is for the house damage, mainly consisting of the broken basement storm window, numerous dents in the siding, window flashing, gutters, and damaged window screens, mostly all on the west and south sides of the house and garage. Then there's both roofs, new in 2016. Late Neighbor Dave's house's roof is two years old and they said to me they were told it needed to be replaced. We had an inspector for the insurance company out yesterday morning to inspect and document everything, and it appears to be much more than I initially considered. It's possible we get a brand new roof and siding out of this.
The roof would be relatively easy, the siding a different story. Any settlement I would not expect to include the entire house for siding replacement, so we would surely be upgrading out of our own funds, as well. Plus, I suspect there may be a lot of rotted wooden siding underneath the aluminum siding we have now, so would expect extra expense for repairs. Also, we have a bodged three season porch attached at the back of the house. A very nice space that we greatly appreciate having, but is nowhere near built to code, and interestingly attached to the house but falling away slowly. Another expense to work around it, and even more, much more, to replace the porch entirely.
Decisions will need to be made.
