Journal of Progress--June 1-7, 2020

Don discovered that the two balcony brackets were not completely identical, so he had to belt sand one to match the other, because the balcony itself will not be flexible.

After carefully measuring the distance between the studs where the brackets will be attached outside, Don clamped them to the stairwell wall inside temporarily, so he can work on the balcony out of the wind. The complete balcony will consist of two brackets, the floor frame, the flooring, two corner posts, and four gates, plus the batter board already installed on the wall outside. Everything else will be fabricated and fit together inside, then transferred outside and permanently attached.

Everything must be checked for plumb, level, and square at each step of construction.

The completed structure, not counting corner posts and gates. The white flooring board is quite heavy, being made of fiberglass-covered, dense compressed wood. All but the edges are waterproof. The edges will be covered with painted, solid wood trim, sealed with silicone. Next step: the gates and gate posts.

A bird finally discovered our window bird feeder.  Here he is on the left on the rope.  It is a black-headed grosbeak. 

 He doesn't come very often but he has returned a few times.

Usually, when one bird discovers a bird feeder, others take note and come but it hasn't happened this time.

 After Don muds, he wipes with a damp sponge.  It makes for a lot less sanding.

 More mudding.  It seems endless.

 The grosbeak also discovered our other bird feeder but I have only seen him go there once.

 This hot and cold weather is getting to me.  I had planted two squashes and then we had snow one night and the leaves on both of them froze.  However, their stems and coming leaves survived and they have both recovered but next Monday (June 7) is supposed to get down to 28 degrees.  I've planted tomatoes and other warm weather plants so now I have to protect them all.

 When Don put the wiring up to keep the deer out, he twisted wire pieces together to hold it in place.  I can water it with the wire up but I can't tend it if I need to thin the buckets or when harvest time comes, to get into the individual plants.  It takes forever to untwist the wires so I needed a quicker solution.  I found that just a few of these binder clamps will hold the wire up.  The deer are not as clever as Mark Roper's squirrels in figuring out how to get around it.  https://mycountry955.com/this-genius-built-an-american-ninja-warrior-course-for-squirrels/

Painting--finally!

 All of the windows have been covered.

The paint was given us by a very kind friend.  First coat went on a very pleasing lemon yellow.  Don is a bit color-blind and the lighting is not always great in some rooms.  When he went to get a bucket for the second coat, he grabbed a shade that is more of a peachy yellow.  We could tell it was going on darker but thought it was just because it was wet.  However, it is a different color, and unfortunately, we don't like it as well.

 We've had a lot of wind out here.  The wind will change direction within seconds from the east, to the west, and sometimes north, or south.  This can result in the flag wrapping itself around the pole.  We're tempted to get a weather-station.  Our phones will tell us that the wind is 24 mph but the flag will be straight out and and pole bending.  At the studio where Don works, the wind gusts will measure at 50 mph or so.  We're sure we're seeing at least that or more.

  The mayor of Eureka is also an historical travel guide. Someone, possibly him, took a tour of old cars through Mammoth.  There is a monument across the street from us marking were the hospital was in Mammoth.  These cars are stopped to look at it.  Since they were gawking at us, I went out and gawked at them. There were nine old cars and then a whole slew of new vehicles following them.

We had lots of rain on Saturday.  In the evening when it is so pretty how the sun shines on everything, we got this rainbow to the east.

 I could see the whole arc if I were willing to go out in the rain.  Here is the other end to the south. Both parts of the rainbow were much more brilliant than it appears in these pictures. It looked like a huge, neon arc across the sky. Don says it's the most brilliant rainbow he's ever seen.

 And the sun shining from the west, making the sky look like it was on fire.

[No picture] On Friday night there was a lightning-caused fire only a couple of miles from the studio where Don works. It was a big fire, fanned by high winds, and burned right up to the road, forcing a road closure. The only way for Don to get to work was to drive eighty miles out of his way, making him an hour late for work. The wind was so strong on the freeway that all he had to do to exceed the speed limit (80 mph) was take his foot off the brakes! One of his security cameras is rigged to detect Infra-red light (heat), so he was able to help the fire department by reporting on new hot spots. Fortunately, it rained, helping the fire fighters to control the blaze.