They swear the humidity is only 34% at 78 degrees—but glug! I normally don’t sweat,–never have been able to sweat much, not since heat exhaustion (or was the cause of the heat exhaustion) way back at age 7 or 8—and several times since.
You know me—Ms. Can’t-Take-Heat-above-72-Degrees. 78 while crawling around to reach bits of both bridges was a toasty warm, and the bucket hat I wore to try to keep paint off my hair was soaked all around the band—that’s got to be a first in the I-don’t-sweat annals.
But I got the deck of the 12′ bridge and the deck, sides and rails of the 5′ bridge-let out front, and it’s a great improvement. I got it done in a sunny bit around noon, and it fairly sparkles, it’s so bright.
We’re thinking of using the same Japanese red on the moon-gate, which is not real great wood, and could use some protection, though it’s a beautiful object—if we turn out not to like it red, we can always repaint it brown.
One of the reasons we had to get the bridge deck painted is that protect-the-wood idea—we have water, and we don’t want a very difficult-to-replace bridge to fall apart; you don’t want something wooden or metal to fall apart, I guess you paint the daylights out of it every couple of years.
I will say the Lowe’s paint-matching technology is super. We took in a bit of the original bridge scrap, painted and stored, and when I poured the last of the old paint and the first of the new paint into the same paint pan, you couldn’t see a difference, but the weathered red is now a very vivid red… They say they can take a bit of fabric under their color match scanner and deliver you paint to match, and within limits of reflectivity of original—I’d say they can do it.
Yay me, anyway—got a shower, and cooled down with an iced coffee, and the job is done.
The same red on your moon gate would be highly kabiu. Red or black is a traditional gate color, and it would then match your other bridges as well and ‘unify’ the garden with the same color.
Being a Westerner, I always read that as “Kaibab”, as in Plateau and Squirrel.
My guess is caw-BEE-oo.
It’s just one of those word sight recognition things. I know it’s wrong. It creates a mental “hitch” and would trip me up if I were reading aloud, but I know what’s meant and rush past.
Oh, you’re right. That would be the pronunciation… But like Paul, I’ve always read it differently and didn’t realize I was transposing letters in my mind until you (correctly) gave it a different pronunciation than my mental one of “kah-boo-ee”.
🙂 We think so.
I think the red might make the moon gate too much of a focal point in a garden that already has several, maybe a matte black or coal gray might be less busy. On the other hand, you have to live with it, and the red is a lovely color.
I defer to the people who have actually seen the garden and its layout, and the people who will have to live with it 😀
You make me think of Tom Stoppard’s Albert’s Bridge
“A radio play about a philosophy graduate student who gets a job painting the Clufton Bay Bridge. It takes him and three other workers exactly two years to paint the entire bridge, at which time they must begin again immediately since the paint has a lifetime of two years.
Some mathematical jargon is used to explain the beauty that Albert sees in the bridge, but the primary mathematical content is Albert’s claim that he can paint the bridge himself using paint with a lifetime of 8 years. The seemingly infallible logic of this argument, reminiscent of many elementary algebra problems, falls apart when it is tried. In particular, after two years in which he has painted only one quarter of the bridge with the new improved paint, the paint on the remainder of the bridge is in serious disrepair.”
I lived for a while in a house on a channel, near mud flats and boats and all such marine delights. As an infant I ate bugs: I didn’t leave a stone unturned. As a child I threw rocks: I didn’t leave a tern unstoned. As a teenager I painted: I didn’t leave a stern untoned.
CJ, it seems like you wrote Visitor very much faster that the typical Foreigner book. I would guess the reason is you wrote so intensely that you never dropped a thread, lost your situational awareness. (I’ve worked like that writing software.) But how did you like it?
Actually I was behind most of the way. Jane graciously stepped in to read, provide suggested scenes: we do that for each other, and in this case, she’s kept me sane and helped me out immensely.
Besides the 3A hay field out back, when I bought this place there was ~2/3A of U-Cut Xmas trees beside the house. I’ve kept it up, as it gives me my “walking around cash”.
Well, during the 2008-2010 recession business was slow, so some of them got really tall. I don’t price by height because that may influence people to leave trees that get too tall, which is a big disadvantage! And it’s been really hard to convince people to look at the tops of the tall ones. They really prefer to look at the 8′ trees. So I’ve had to add to my pricing, “Anything over 8′, $10″
Some can’t see my point of view, and argue that 8’4” is over 8′, so they should get it for $10! “No, over 8′ is 9′, 10′, 12′, 14′. But I don’t care how much you leave in the field–take the top 8′ of a 14′ tree–what do I care how much you strapped on your roof, I got the same money.” It’s been a hard sale until I did that.
So, until today I had some “stumps” up to 6′ tall in the field. My wine making buddy came over today as “spotter. 😉 I strapped on my logger’s chaps (filled with Kevlar string that will clog the chain), put freshly mixed gas and bar-oil in the chainsaw put up “dry” last year, an imperative, and cut them into wood-stove sized pieces. And when I was done, I was very hot, it was humid today, and tired, being past my Biblical three score and ten, but all my precious parts were still attached. 🙂
but then, burning coniferous-bearing tree wood in a stove creates a lot of creosote, not to mention a very hot fire inside the stove….which means either you hire a sweep, or you get to do it yourself.
Last night was interesting night, watched the storms fly in from the Northwest, a lot of rain on top of what we got yesterday morning (I think I got something like 6/10″ yesterday morning, and another 6/10″ or so last night. Today is shaping up to be a repeat of last night. Tornado warning about 15 miles southwest of me last night, but fortunately, it dissipated quickly and no reports of damage. Flash flood warning for most of the night, too. Today, it’s already starting to pick up in humidity, and it’s about 83 or so with a relative humidity of 74%….my weather station isn’t giving accurate data right now, perhaps because of the placement of the sensors.
I also need to get up on the ladder (shudder!) and replace a piece of vinyl siding that blew off. I need exactly two nails, and do you think I can find the right sized nails around my house? Hah! Fortunately, the piece is small, and easily handled, but it’s on the top tier of the siding…..
I have an old Earth Stove in the family room, without the catalytic insert, but a straight metal flue. The damper is on the inlet side.
But the only time I really use it is when we have a “major” electrical outage. (My NG water heater has a standing pilot light, and I have a few oil lamps. I have my hot water/showers, light to read by, and can warm a can of something on the wood stove, so for a day or three I’m fine. Only problem is the fridge.)
My reserve of firewood (that which hasn’t been stolen) is ancient, so as this past winter if we get a week of subfreezing weather, I’ll fire it up just to cycle through some of this old wood and save some coin on the gas bill.
Slings are great inventions.
Are the undersides of the bridges due for a repaint as well? Does that mean you pull the bridges to paint them on dry land, or does someone go wading? Considering the heat and humidity, a dip in the pond might be okay, as long as you don’t traumatize the fish.
We can move the bridges ashore, with a little fussing: to move the 12 footer, which probably weighs as much as 2 refrigerators, we would lift one end, slip 2 12′ 2×4’s under it, and repeat the procedure across the pond; its’ how we got the bridge in place in the first place. But an examination of the underside of the bridge doesn’t show the problem the top had. We coated it all really well before we set it in place, and it seems to be holding. If we had to do the underside, we would likely bring it ashore, because tipping it would be too destructive of the plantings.
Fortunately that’s not needed at this point.