The Hilton Chronicle

I'm finding it hard to get any progress on the fence building project. The weather has not been cooperating. We were hampered by rain all last week and today it has been raining steadily since I got up. I did a little work on Saturday but had to quit early in order to go to work. We'll push on and do what we can and eventually this project should be complete. The only problem is that until then everything is on hold. The garage sale slated for this weekend has been postponed and we can't even get the vehicles in the garage due to the piles of lumber and the setup for staining that's in there. I know that building a fence should not be so hard or take so long, but once again this project has taken over with a mind of it's own. We have to wrestle it to the ground before it consumes us all!

Posted 1:00 PM by Jeff

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Hard Work

The fence building project is progressing but at a snail's pace. We thought we could get it finished this week but I can see that is not to be. I pulled down the old fences last week with not much trouble but we had a time consuming and backbreaking job of cutting up all the old fence boards into 3's for firewood which is stacked pretty high behind the garage. On Saturday the hard work began. We dug all the post holes by hand and put in the posts then poured concrete into each hole. It took most of the day and we were a little rushed towards the end as it was threatening heavy rain. Dianne and the girls got busy staining the lumber which we had hauled home on the trailer. Now we have 318 fence boards to stain which Dianne is working on while I assemble the rails on the posts. However, rain hampered us one day making the yard a sticky quagmire. It is raining pretty steady again today which has brought things to a standstill. So it looks like this will become a long term project as I am back to work Friday evening and Dianne goes back on Monday. We will only be able to work in our spare time. It hasn't been such a very pleasant holiday and we were not able to get away for a couple of days as Dianne would have liked but this was a project that had to get done.
We picked Sandi up from the airport a week ago already from her trip to Quebec City where she had a great time attending a conference and catching up with some friends there.

Posted 11:17 AM by Jeff

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Summer Holiday Project

It's been a busy couple of days here as we prepare for out fence building effort set to start this weekend as well as a major housecleaning project. We tackled the garage yesterday and a mounting pile of debris that was accumulating beside the garage. All the junk that we had been storing in the rafters of the garage for the last 20 years was hauled down and gone through. Most of it was tossed on the junk trailer to be taken to the dump and the rest was sorted into piles for the garage sale we're having in a couple of weeks. We also managed to clean out my workshop in the basement which was long, long overdue and was a project I was deeply dreading. Today we hauled some stuff to the architectural recyclers, the Goodwill and the Eco station. We were hoping to get out to the dump as well but a problem with the truck brakes caused us to postpone that trip until they are repaired. While that is being done tomorrow I am tearing down our old fence and cleaning up the space in between the yards. The lumber is being ordered in the next couple of days and we will be picking out some stain as well so that we can start staining the boards. There is a tree on the neighbour's property that is encroaching our fence which will have to be cut down before we can start construction.
Last week we had Dianne's sister Carol and her husband Denard staying with us as they participated in the World Master's games. Denard did very well in his triathalon event and ended up with a gold medal for his age group. After a promising start Carol's soccer team looked like it could win a medal but after all the points were counted they did not fare that well. It was fun having them with us for the week and the girls had fun visiting the various malls together while Denard and I spent an afternoon changing out the timing belt on the Corolla.
Sandy is due back from her trip to Quebec tomorrow night and so far we haven't heard from her to know how things are going. With her gone and Nikki at work everyday it's been nice for Dianne and I to have the house to ourselves and we have been enjoying the time together.

Posted 10:58 PM by Jeff

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