"It is good to be working on something physical again, sore muscles at the end of the day and the satisfaction of seeing plans become reality." That's what I wrote in my last post about the demolition of the steps to our front porch and various fences that will interfere with the planned covered entryway to the front door. Work continued this week with the removal and replacement of two rotten boards on our deck. What seemed like a relatively easy task turned into a brutal contest against rusty screws with crowbar and circular saw.
Wednesday morning, after two days of hard work, I learned that my running was impacted in a big way. I had run three miles on Monday, but fatigue is cumulative, and I felt it in my heavy legs. I have also come face to face once again with that uncomfortable truth: "I am no longer as young as I was!" I ran until I was tired, then walked, then ran some more. Fortunately I met my friend Fred half-way through the run and I turned and finished it with him. 82-year-old Fred is actually planning on running in a track meet next weekend and had been running intervals, so we paced each other back to the park at 12-minutes per mile. A track meet! What an inspiration.
Thursday I put the finishing touches on the deck, adding another decorative horizontal beam for hanging flowers this summer, something I had been meaning to do for some time now.
And what is a deck without rocking chairs? Our last remaining rocking chair finally succumbed to old age and rot this winter and could no longer be repaired with hose clamps, screws, or new runners cut with my jigsaw, so I sadly took it to the landfill. Martha had identified some acacia-wood rockers at Walmart, of all places, so on Friday I took an extra rest day and we drove to Clayton and bought two of them. I unpacked and assembled them, challenged by the claim "Easy Assembly: Assemble in 30 minutes or less!" (21 minutes 52 seconds - hah!) We were heartened to learn that acacia is "100% wood from well-managed forests," and surprised to learn that they were made in Vietnam.
We had our house pressure-cleaned by Martha's nephew last week and he did a great job, making our green metal roof shine as if brand new as well as the boards on our deck (above). Now we are planning to have our house painted. It is a good time after a thorough pressure wash and painting is long overdue. We had agreed on a new color scheme, a shade of tan or beige instead of gray, the same green window frames, but brick-red accent colors on the window sashes and doors. We found the exact colors for the windows on the first try, but we went through four shades of tan for the siding before finally (with some remaining trepidation) settling on a shade.
We had already sampled, among other colors, Shakespeare Tan (is that based on the color of cottages in Stratford-upon-Avon, I wondered?) and Woodstock Tan ("By the time I got to Woodstock . . .?") before settling on the comparatively unglamorous Grant Beige.
Now to find somebody to do the work. Construction (and painting) is booming in Highlands this spring; Covid-19 restrictions are being lifted, everybody wants to build a house in Highlands, and there is more than enough work for everyone. As a result, the cost of lumber has gone up 200% since last year and contractors who are not tied up all summer are hard to find. Our first painting contractor told us he might be able to get to our job by August. Now we are waiting for the second estimate from a genial Latino who spoke excellent English and whose truck ran out of gas in our driveway, where I gladly gave him all the lawnmower gas that I had on hand. Maybe he will remember the favor and find time for our project.
The extra rest day paid off, and Saturday morning I was able to complete six miles. "I am no longer as young as I was" is a condition, I have found, that can be treated by another truth I am learning more and more about every year: "I need an extra rest day!"
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