Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Shen Yun

At 5:30 on a near-freezing morning, I stopped for gas on my way to work.  Across the street, I noticed this sight.  I thought it was picturesque, so I snapped this photo.

I looked them up - they were playing at the Escondido Center for the Arts.  Wish we would have seen the show.

Back Yard Remodel: Demolition

As many of you know,  we have been planning to do a back yard remodel for some time now - years in fact.  The design has morphed greatly over time, so I'm glad we waited.  I think what we've come up with will work wonderfully for our family.

Here's what we started with.  It was here when we bought the house and I'm sure it worked fine for the prior family, but we needed something different. 
 I thought about adding to what already exists, but I couldn't get it to work out quite right, so I decided to start from scratch.  Here is the 'service area' part of the yard.  Trash cans, etc.
 And the other side of the house.  I had already started to strip out the grass, but didn't get very far on my own.  Time to call in the professionals!
 The first thing they did was to take out the concrete and grass.  They used a jack hammer for the concrete and unfortunately I happened to be home that day - it was   L  O  U  D !!!
 I'll put a short video of the jack hammer going at the bottom of this post.
 It looked even more creepy at night.
 But slowly they worked at getting the concrete removed.
 And one day - it was gone!
 But then a heavy storm started rolling in.  They covered everything the best they could...
 ...and hoped for the best.
 The day of the storm we had the biggest lake on the block!  Complete with two islands!
 And the storm slowly rolled out...
 Days later, it had dried enough to start work again.
 And as of today, the demolition is done!  Ready for the construction crew!
 Looks very nice, can't wait for the new features to be added!
 They hauled many many loads of dirt out.
These were the last two loads on the last day.  Next post:  construction!

Thursday, February 14, 2019

Happy Valentines Day Everyone

Artwork by Troy Barker on Feb 11, 2019