And the Garage Begins!

The landscaper finished trucking away debris a week ago between bouts of rain. Now it's dry enough for the garage to begin. The photo shows the beginning of the forms--the frame into which the garage pad will be set. It is somewhat stalled because Lazy Gnome didn't think about what was happening enough to consider calling in One Call to mark the gas line, so the Garage Guy has done so and is going to wait to ensure he avoids an explosion. Yes, Edmonton has been the City of Exploding Houses this summer, and we don't need one here!!

After the forms are finished, the road crush will be set down then the concrete will be poured. It is SO exciting to see something positive, something going up rather than being torn out.

However, we must return to the evils of water: more in the basement last week. Why? The Usual Suspects: Poor grading still. Eaves troughs are hosting wee trees. Possibly weeping tile full of sediment. Today's worries: drain/ re-do the weeping tile? Put up new eaves troughs? There's little point in fixing the grade if the downspouts aren't working!!

Wonders of water....

Well, dear readers: Lazy Gnome's frustration over the weather might soon turn to outright melancholy. She must be strong, and remember that water gives us and the world as we know it life, beauty and strength. As events this weekend in Newfoundland and Labradour have also reminded us, water is stronger than we are. At risk of getting partisan, LG would just remind everyone that water is a precious resource but far more than a commodity and that the pundants assume the next great war will be over it or because of it.

We cannot live without water. This much is true. Here are a couple other thoughts to ponder:

~"Water is life's mater and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water."~~ Albert von Szent-Gyorgyl (1893-1986)

~"Now I would give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground." ~~William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

~"The biologist passes, the frog remains." ~~Jean Rostand (1894-1977)

If you are terribly bored and frustrated over this weather and feeling creativity pent up inside you like cabin fever, feel free to write a 50 or 500 word essay, or a limerick or even a Haiku celebrating water or anything that comes to mind after reading the quotes, above. At the very least, guess which play the Bard's quote is from! (LG just finished reading a book that takes place in the late 1800's Japan which is full of images of balance and beauty, and all the strength and conflict it takes to create a moment of serenity. Highly recommended: The Teahouse Fire. Water figures prominently in the world of Japanese gardens and of course in the making of tea.)

Anyway, feel empowered to pen an ode to your basement flood or an elegy to the picnic that never was...or , if you are a Street Performer, well, you are allowed to just wail a bit.

Red Hot!

Well, nearly red hot, but large it's definitely not. Still, it's like a little miracle: with all this rain, and having been moved from the sun-drenched south side of the house to the shade-dappled West side to accommodate the landscaper guys, who would have guessed this wee tomato would be looking ready to pluck so soon!

Lazy Gnome bought this plant at the Old Strathcona Farmers' Market and plunked into this pot only about three weeks ago--and look!! LG feels like a real farmer! Well, maybe not so much but, it's a tiny step toward really local eating.

It's so cute, though, I can't really imagine eating it...oh, wait, yes I can!

Hope your garden is growing well; at least everyone will save on water charges this year, although we may bemoan the actual yield.

Cheers!

Work is progressing!!

Lazy Gnome is "happy" to say that this is the bottom photo is the view of the house from the alley as of this morning. Isn't it swell?

The Landscapers hauled away about 9 truckloads of concrete, earth, sod and green stuff yesterday alone. LG was surprised to see them here yesterday, and on Friday and on the day before that as there has been a lot of rain in River City this past week. One of the crew said that kind of work they were doing in my yard is about all they can do when it is this wet. He usually works in commercial rather than residential--putting boulevards into new developments, etc. LG realizes, too, that although she may be frustrated with weather-related delays, the companies also have to deal with the fact that they can't earn any money either.

The crew member also said that three years ago, some clients were waiting a whole season before their work could be done. Yikes!!

All this is to say that LG is less likely to be complaining about delays from now on--in part because the work has actually started and so there is some relief in that alone.

The top photo is the wooden walkway that the landscapers have provided to ensure LG has a way in and out of the house....it's a long way through mucky sludge without this gangplank, for sure!

When the crew was packing up to leave for the day, LG asked the crew lead if they found anything interesting in the yard as they were digging things up. "Nothing we can sell on e-Bay", he said.

Demolitionland....waterland

The landscaper demolition crew were here on Monday for about 2.5 hours. They managed to dig up pretty well all the cement in the back yard and the deck and pile it up into these lovely mounds before they left.

By then, it was raining hard. And it continued to rain hard all that night and much of the following evening. Parts of the yard are secure enough to walk on, cautiously, but some is still too slick to really get a secure footing. This is the second full day that they haven't returned, and Lazy Gnome is assuming they may not be here tomorrow, either.

Meanwhile, Monday night at 9:30 water was discovered in the basement. Not a huge amount and nothing appears to have been damaged, however, water is water and water in the basement is frightening. By some small miracle the garage guy showed up at the door Tuesday morning so LG showed him the situation in the basement. He believes based on consultation with his business partner that it is due to the grading and that once that is corrected it will not happen again. This is why we are going through this whole procedure, so it might be a huge sign from Mother Nature that we are doing the right thing and at the right time.

However, others have suggested having some magic composition injected into the wall at the point of the drip. This is worth checking out~~interjection: THUNDER! Surprise! So much for the sunshine which appears in the photo taken 15 minutes ago. This is reminiscent of the summer of 2004 when LG and her neighbours were trying to get fences built...hours spent hiding from the rain on the verandah, watching the water flow across the front of our properties and down the road...it was fascinating.

Back to the water in the basement: The most extreme possibility is that the weeping tile needs to be re-done. That is a huge intervention but should be entertained NOW given that the landscaping work is underway and why do everything up pretty just to dig it up again next year, say? Plus, it appears to LG that a poor backfilling job of the installation of the weeping tile originally is what has caused all the land around the foundation to slope toward the house.

Okay--more thunder: time to go close all the windows, again. Any drying the mud did today is now shot.

LG might crawl under the covers and hide...or, she might pull out the paint samples for the back entry and the back bedroom that she picked up although one should really select colours based on sunlight....

Or, she could wait in the basement for the first signs of more water.

...and now they have left

Well, the landscaper's demolition crew worked for a couple of hours in the rain, calling it quits around 6 PM. This is reasonable.

They piled up a montrous mountain of wood scraps that were once my deck, which sits in the shadow of the higher mountain of cement that was once the old garage pad, various sidewalks in the back and the patio underneath the old deck. Both piles are high a forboding, and awaiting ferrying away to a dump or recycle centre soon.

Lazy Gnome uses the word "ferry" purposefully: the torential rains out there now will force anyone trying to get near those piles tomorrow to use a boat, a special boat that floats and navigates through rivers and lakes of mud...no doubt over night the cement pile will glisten its cleanliness in the moonlight should the clouds clear, having been showered all these hours by loving Mother Nature. argh.

In short, every drop of rain that pummels down now melts away LG's waning optimism that this project will ever finish. There is no way they will be able to operate their wee bobcats in that gumbo in the morn...

They're Here! They're Here!!

Yes, the landscaper's demolition crew are here...they started about 20 minutes ago and already the place looks, well, under demolition....it's exciting, a bit sad and very distracting at the same time.

Three guys and two wee bobcats, which surprises me. The sewer guys had a backhoe whick broke up the deck and old patio really easily; this is taking more work. And they are going to hurt their backs.

The first thing they did was drill some pointy attachment on the front of one bobcat through the hard surface of the gravel driveway right above the gas line. I freaked out a bit even though the drill-thing wasn't very long. Edmonton: City of Exploding Houses.

The house is rattling a bit, but that will be worse as they get closer to the house. The old deaf cat hasn't noticed, but the younger two are hiding or running about with their bumbs as close to the ground as possible.

So, I'm home on vacation and in part am happy to be in order to see some of this...perhaps this is not such a good idea. I might snap some pictures but do have other things to do.

More later....

Okay, the house is really rattling now...they must be breaking up the patio right by the backdoor...