The State of Our Borders, Part 1: Horse Residue
As we’ve said numerous times in numerous posts, the Previous Owners took little care of the property. Another example of this is the state of…
Category: Exterior
The View, Part 2 of 4
Last week, as the latest storm system started to seep in to the valley, the sun was just setting. Here’s is the second of four pictures I took.…
And now we have a hot tub!
A few days ago I filled in the trench containing the buried electrical conduit, raked the river rocks into some semblance of ground cover, filled…
Mud: we has lots of it
Not just any mud but clay mud that sticks to everything. As such, we now have shoe scrapers scattered about and this is what they…
If a tree falls on a power line,
and nothing is connected to that power line… Suffice to say, there was much head-scratching all around last week when a tree decided to fall…
Hot Tub, Step 4 – Electrical
As mentioned in an earlier post, we’re in the process of replacing the antiquated hot tub that came with the house. Now that the deck…
Hot Tub, Step 3 – Delivery
Our new hot tub arrived! The guys from Trade Wind Spas trucked it up the hill late in the afternoon. There was a bit of difficulty…
Hot Tub Update – Pad done and new tub purchased
At the beginning of January, we visited Trade Winds Spas in Los Gatos (we had to wait a couple of weeks as the place was…
Neighbors up here…
Living on the outskirts of civilization means we have neighbors with large animals–cows, goats, sheep, llamas, the asthmatic donkey and, of course, horses. Last night,…
The final bit of the planter box story.
Back when we lived in SF, we had a couple of planter boxes out on the side balcony. Originally a light well when the building…
Different Days, Different Looks
It’s rather lovely living up in the hills. One remarkable facet is the ever-changing light and ever-moving clouds. First shot below is a shot I…
Drinking Hard
In light of the rant I just made, here’s a happy water moment to lighten the day.
Forgotten nugget of PO craptasm
I’ve been doing some cleanup, as we upload images for a post and then forget about them a lot of the time. I try to…
Next Project: Hot tub, Step 1
The house came with a hot tub. Like everything else here, though, it was fairly old (estimated age 35 years) and in need of attention. We…
So many wood chips
The trash pile is gone, but a small pile of random garbage the previous owners had chucked into that space remained (first pic below). I…
Will it rot?
Now that the great and all-mighty trash heap has been cleaned out (although it was not named Marjory nor did it have two odd creatures…
Another pool post
Installing the new pool lights revealed yet another issue left by the POs. When the pump and original solar were put in, the pump controller…
Stega cleans up
Last week when the crew was working on the giant garbage pile, I took the mini truck around to the north pasture area and pulled…
Trees: Before and After
As part of the great trash cleanup, we had Tree Techs By the Bay prune three trees near the house. Here are the before and…
The Trash Heap
One of the less-than-lovely things the previous owners did while living here is never disposing of things properly–namely yard waste, tractor tires, bits of concrete, old…
Finished Fence Fotos
Try saying that title five times fast. Anyway, I realized I had uploaded a couple of pictures of the fully-assembled fences Agent Smith and his father…
A muddy start…
The grinders arrived this morning! We had serious rain last Monday and then again yesterday, which meant getting this new project underway took a bit…
Pools, hot tubs, and other watery updates
I’ve been working on lining up contractors for a couple of projects and thus have no big news to share. Instead I have a few random…
Outside my windows, there is life
My big Canon sits behind me as the area just outside my office is visited by wildlife all the time. Occasionally, I actually get a…
Final Kennel Details
On Sunday, the Smith boys finished up the dog kennel by placing some long boards to secure the gravel bed. Below are the before shots,…
Debris Removal Week
As mentioned numerous times, the POs did next to nothing in terms of taking care of the property, so we have been sorting out and addressing…
The end of the little stable
Another of the eyesores on the property was a small three-sided stable built on the south side of the property. It too dates back to…
Dog House Down
One of the worst of the structural nuisances was the old dog shelter. Structurally unsound and downright dangerous, it needed to go. A great opportunity…
Great News Everyone! They’ve Fixed the Slime Pipes!
Able were back today to finish the work. Around lunchtime, a county inspector arrived to check things over. I was all excited that I could give…
End of Day One: Septic tank in place, and we can flush the toilets!
Things are not done yet though. The outbound end isn’t connected to the leach fields and the inlet isn’t fully connected, but we can take a…
More Pics of the Septic Work
The hole is now much, much bigger and the pieces of the old tank were trucked away. The crew is now readying the hole for…
Septic Day!
The previous owners had a new septic put in over ten years ago, but in all that time never had it pumped. When we were…