Tag: Leftist Lawn Militants

A sort of Vacation to Seattle

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

As part of my work contract with my J-O-B, we are flown back to the States twice a year. One of those trips has to be coupled with work travel, but overall not a bad deal. Stamps-With-Foot and I flew in to Seattle last week and stayed with my mom at our/her place. This was our first time back “home” since our move and my mom has transformed our eclectically decorated (books everywhere, Moroccan bits, craftsman furniture, mid-century couches…) home and turned it into your grandmother’s place: ceramic chickens, recliners for TV watching, lace doilies, a tin of cookies ripe for raiding, special soap in the bathroom that is meant just for looks…

We stayed in the basement and by our second day we had trashed it with clothes and books and other stuff to the point that it looked like a staged teenager’s room in a TV sitcom. I felt like I was in high school: mom cooked, did my laundry, made sure I got up on time every morning, offered to pack me a lunch, I played a little music, watched a few movies when I should have been sleeping, tossed clothes about… The only exceptions were the lack of posters on the walls and that I had permission for the pretty girl to share my bed and I didn’t have to sneak her in the basement window. 🙂

I ended up working for 5 days of the 8 day trip, but I got a good bit of other stuff done this week:

Sorted 3 months of mail – we get a LOT on junk mail
Picked up backyard and garden a little bit – long winter
Went to a couple of our favorite restaurants
Made 3 trips to Woodcraft for  toys tools to take back to France
Coffee at C&P 🙂
Cut and edged yard
Fixed a few things
Hung out with my mom
Had great breakfast at Easy Street
Moved a room full of boxes into the basement
Painted a mirror frame for my mom
Ate 2 dozen cookies – true story
Snagged treasure at Goodwill: baseball bats, rolling pins, sweatshirts…
Ridded the yard of filthy, dirty, evil dandelions
Treated the yard for moss
Accidentally poisoned my mom’s cat with Moss Out
Spent evening in veterinary ER and dropped $250
Cat all better now
Turned compost pile
Paid some bills
Set up a Skype account for my mom and showed her how to use it
Got a sweet new pair of running shoes
Arranged for professional lawn care – warned them about the cat

Weekend Update – Spring flowers, Lincoln Park, and thoughts of Arborcide

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Oh Seattle… Why can’t you be pretty and green and sort of warm all year? I keep telling myself that Summer and early fall here make the crappy six month of fallwinterspring all worth it, but that is a hard pill to swallow right now. This has been an especially dreary winter: rain, cooler than normal temps, very few sunny days (I remember 4…) and it didn’t really get cold enough to kill the mosquito eggs, so we are looking forward to a buggy spring. Oh Joy. On the bright side of things, the lawn and garden at La Masion du Talley are erupting with jonquils, tulips, cherry blossoms, the begonias and the dahlias are just coming up, there is green on the espalier apples, new raspberry canes are shooting up, my rose bushes in the back are leafing out, I saw a couple of honey bees out foraging, the grass is lush and green, and the first hints of the lavender up front are coming in. I spent the weekend splitting my time between the inside of the house and the yard. In the last two weeks I have been in Tokyo, Orange Co.., CA and Las Vegas, so my part of the household chores had gone unattended to. Here is how it all went down:

Slept late Saturday.
Breakfast and coffee while sitting next to Brodie.
Washed a load of whites and a load of colors.
Thought about going for a run.
Lost two hours of my life to Pinterest instead…
Put dishes away – some of them anyway.
Stamp-With-Foot took Brodie to new vet.
Got dressed and picked up living room and office.
Wife loves new vet. Brodie, not so much…
Finished a couple of small house projects.
Got ready to take Brodie for a walk in Lincoln Park
Started raining.
Started hailing…
Canceled trip to the park.
Brodie went back to sleep on the couch.
Went downstairs to work on my Workbench of Doom in the basement.
Heard water running outside… SHIT! Gutters overflowing! Downspout Plugged!! FVCK!!!
Ran outside, put ladder up DURING hail storm, dug pine needles and holly leaves out of gutters on both sides of house.
Water started moving down drainpipe.
While on top of wet, slick ladder – wished I possessed The Force – would kill neighbor’s trees and lift them out of the ground like X-wing fighter…
Said loud dirty words about gutters, pine needles and neighbor’s trees.
Squinted eyes, pursed mouth, and made mental note to buy copper nails, a large auger bit, some Drain-O, and a vile of the poison that coated the blade that Bilbo was stabbed with for that hateful tree.
Climbed down slick ladder with frozen hands prayed for a single bolt of well placed lightning.
Went inside, threw wet hat down and stomped downstairs to plan a crime.
Stamps-With-Foot made me coffee.
Felt better & cleaned the basement a little.
Wife took me out on Movie Date.
Had a nice time.
Came home and sat in the hot tub for a good long while – nice light rain fell.
Wife all for me taking a hit out on the tree.
Fell asleep looking at Pinterest again.

Up at the crack of dawn on Sunday: 9:00am
Coffee and breakfast.
Wrote some e-mails and sent a few pics to Instagram
Wife left for appointment and Brodie and I went to C&P Coffee.
Brodie tried to eat a black lab the looked funny at him while I was ordering coffee.
Being French, he has a Napoleon Complex – Really, really.
I grabbed him in mid air and other dog looked like he wanted to tinkle on the carpet: hid behind owner
Brodie looked hard at that dog whole time we were there.
Stopped by Home Depot on the way home and got moss killer for the roof and yard.
Noticed the moss while unstopping gutters.
Came home, cut the grass and spread some Weed&Feed that will lead to the eventual demise of all the dandelions, clover, and nettles that dare to take root in my yard.
Mwahahaha…
Felt happy.
Edged and mowed the front and back yards.
Found a couple of ferociousness dandelion patches.
How had I missed them?!
Got out the instant death weed killer and murdered me some dandelions.
Giggled like Buffalo Bill as he put the lotion in the basket.
Other neighbor walked by told me that I had a beautiful yard.
Beamed with pride and tried not to look like a weed serial killer or that I was hatching a plan to commit arborcide!
Wife came home and helped me spray the roof for moss.
Took off overalls and went with wife and Brodie to Lincoln Park – pretty end to the day!
Went to Trader Joe’s for the week’s worth of groceries.
Stamps-With-Foot made dinner while I worked on some handmade Christmas gifts (starting early)
Looked at Pinterest and Instagram again.
Stole wife’s phone because her pics of Lincoln Park were better than mine.
Heard noise outside.
THE WAS A FVCKING RACCOON ON MY ROOF!!
Thought about getting The Ruminator’s pellet rifle.
Decided I did not want to be on top of ladder and at eye level with mad ‘coon that had just been tagged with a pellet.
Turned the water hose on and ruined his night.
He jumped off roof and into the hated pine tree.
I thought about the pellet rifle again… decided to let the raccoon and tree just have each other.
Came in and wife was asleep and the dog was snoring like a 75 year old alcoholic with sleep apnea.
Wrote a couple blog posts.
Turned off lights, set alarm, and went to snuggle with wife.

Lawn Furniture done!

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

As I mentioned in a previous post, there had been parts for Adirondack lawn chairs all over the house and shop for 9+ months waiting on me to gather the will to glue them up and drive some weatherproof screws home.  The Ruminator and I put together when he was here this summer – he supervised while waxing poetic about dressing up like a viking – and I spent a combined 12 hours priming and painting them candy apple red.

Since I don’t want to repaint them every spring I used an oil-based exterior paint.   Holy crap, it was hard to find!   It seems that everyone has switched to latex based paint for homeowner use (ease of use, easy cleanup, better for the environment, etc…) and I had to resort to having gloss deck and concrete paint custom mixed.  It went on like glass though and should be impervious to our rainy long winter weather for three or four years.  My sweet wife super loves them and could barely wait until they were dry before giving them a proper, reading a book in the sun, test.

Below is a gallery of the whole build process:



Sawdust and paint fumes

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

It has been roughly eight months since my shop was robbed.  It is just now that I have found the will and desire to start building furniture again.  I have let projects and repairs pile up and let my garage shop digress into a sawdust filled junk-room.  There have been parts for Adirondack lawn chairs in my basement and shop since December.  I finally got around to gluing them up and screwing the pieces together when my son was here this summer.   That little project led me to start cleaning the shop and find all the stuff that has been waiting on me.  I dabbled with a couple of boxes, then started making pieces and organizing tools and supplies to tackle the larger stuff.  Below is a list of current projects that are in work:

  1. Painting the Adirondack chairs
  2. Re-build of my father’s 1971 bookshelves
  3. Kitchen cabinet doors
  4. Misc. Lathe tasks
  5. Kitchen cabinet pullouts
  6. Camp Kitchen box build and paint
  7. Campaign furniture for luxury car camping
  8. Hall mirror
  9. Copy of a 12th Century Abby oak door
  10. Fireplace surround and mantle
  11. New Kitchen cabinet pulls and knobs
  12. Garden tool shed
  13. Christmas gifts
  14. Garden table

The above are started and in-work.  I have plans to also build the below items soon:

  1. Small basement work bench (reloading and winter projects)
  2. Rebuild bookcase in master bedroom
  3. Murphy bed for my home office
  4. Box ceiling for master bedroom
  5. Home office bookshelves
  6. Chicken coop
  7. Ornamental planter box
  8. Cookbook shelf in kitchen
  9. Rebuild my standing desk
  10. Basement stairs rebuild

Fresh cut grass makes me tingle in the lower abdominal region…

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

After 100+ days of rain, spring is finally here.  I only really know that because my lapin cherry tree and the ornamentals on the block are in full blossom.  Hopefully, all the hard work done in the rain and mud till now is about to start paying off.

Prep has been the theme for the past few months.  I spent some quality time killing yard moss, reseeding in the front and back yards, adding weed and feed, conducting property-wide dandelion genocide, planting 70+ bulbs, and getting the soil in the garden bed ready for the tomatoes, carrots, onions and garlic.  In addition to finishing the raised beds and converting the cat litter-filled pond into a flower planter for my wife, I have cut all the trash trees, vines, and blackberries from my south fence.  My neighbor on that side keeps his home and yard in the Miss Havisham fashion.  I have taken three loads of branches/leaves/vines to the dump and I can now see from one end of our property to the other.  So far this year his pine tree has delivered three 5-gallon buckets worth of pinecones in my front yard and I have had to clean my gutters three times.  I have a sneaking suspicion that the particular pine tree in question is not long for this world…  There is a holly tree of some relation that is not looking all that well either...

I finally got a great espalier apple tree in the ground, two columnar apples to flank it, and an additional cherry (a glacier) up front.  There is now a fig for Laurel, a dwarf Helena apricot from Dave&Sarah, a Satsuma, and an Improved Meyer lemon – all in containers so we can hot-house them this winter.  For the side yard, there are two huckleberries in bloom – ready to plant.  The last rose bush (a J&P Radiant Perfume) has been planted on the back fence and irrigation lines have been run to the roses, garden boxes, raspberries, and fruit trees.

The Apricot and citrus trees will stay in containers so that I can

move them into a hot-house when the temperature drop in the fall.

The multiple weird cold snaps this year have been decidedly unhealthy for my strawberry pots, but the kitchen herbs planted last spring are doing well.  The orange-mint has taken over a rectangular container and the rosemary is starting to bloom tiny baby-blue flowers.  The two sunshine blueberries in pots are covered in small white blossoms and the grass in front and back is thick, healthy, and Ireland green – I can’t wait to string up the hammock and snooze gently swinging above my lawn.  Although I still have dandelion farms on either side there have been very few that have dared to peak up in the grand lawn of Le Maison Du Talley this year.  Their appearance has been followed with swift and forceful retribution.  Speaking of the weed farms adjacent to me: It seems that someone sprayed them in the middle of the night with Scott’s liquid death.  Now all the yellow-orange flowers that they were cultivating seem to be shriveling up. I think it was the gnomes. -I have a couple of English garden gnomes that are leftist lawn militants.  The local dogs give our place a wide berth – narry a singe poop on the parking strip this year and there is a racoon living over at Miss Havisham’s and they are preparing to hunt safari-style…

The second of three loads of branches taken to the dump in the last month.  My neighbor loves me so much that he shares his trees and yard waste with me…