Hot and Heavy
Today, which is Monday, February 22nd it is supposed to hit 78 degrees here on our hilltop. I don’t know why that surprises me other than to say that I am not yet totally acclimated to living here in Southern California. I started my day by driving to the local Hidden Meadows Market and getting a breakfast burrito for myself and an Asahi bowl for Kim, so clearly some parts of my life have adjusted just fine. But as I sat at my front door assessing what the ravages of years of weather and sun have inflicted on the heavy exterior Masonite door with imbedded strips of polished steel, I realized that it is indeed getting very warm in the direct sunlight. I have yet to shift to what I consider summer gear of shorts and sockless Crocs, so I heated up pretty quickly. It all caused me to wrap up my conclusions about the front door replacement. I am determined to not make the mistakes of incrementalization that I have made with the deck. This time I have three ways to go. I can buy a whole new pre-hung door and have the existing one ripped out and the new one installed. I can buy a new slab door and just fit it to the existing frame. And I can try to repair the existing door, on which I had pried off one metallic strip to see more closely what kind of materials were underneath. My conclusion (with advice from my work crew) was the middle approach. A complete front door replacement has the disadvantages of being VERY expensive and with the repair work needed after installation, would take a long time to order, a long time to replace and along time to finish. The repair approach looks to involve lots of labor to get the door smooth enough to repaint. Therefore, the approach of buying a new solid slab door for $275 that will be routed and drilled to fit with new hardware seems the most sensible.
As my crew arrived today to start laying down “the mud float” that precedes the waterproofing and tiling, they rolled their eyes as they saw me poking at my front door. The first question that Handy Brad asked was why shouldn’t I wait to do that later. In general, Handy Brad is a wait and do things over time kinda guy. I, on the other hand am a why put off until tomorrow what you can do in a half-assed manner today. The truth is that I see the finishing of the deck, the replacement fo the front door and the replacement of the laundry room (Kim’s favorite project) as the end, for now, of a long array of home projects that I have undertaken and long suffered through. Truth be told, there is also the parapet caps, which get put on later this week and then the fix of the dining room ceiling, but both of those are being undertaken by Santa Fe Roofing and only involve me to the extent of writing a check. The heavy lifting of home improvement projects which I view as mandatory (we can debate the laundry room renovation, but I have beaten that dead horse to the point where Kim is getting defensive about it all, so let’s just agree that it is mandatory) are done. That does not mean that I will not undertake any other projects as the year progresses, but I am hoping to have more days without work men (including Handy Brad) onsite that I have them here.
I honestly feel very much in control of my property right now, both in terms of the physical plant of the house and garage, the utilities that serve them and the landscaping and the watering thereof. This is a mere 2.5 acre property, so we are not talking about an estate of massive proportions. I define the difference as being whether you need a tractor of some sort and I simply do not need one nor would I have a place to store one or even drive one so much. So, I guess that means I have a lot and not an estate. The natural topography is quite diverse since it is a true hilltop which falls away towards the front, the back and on both sides. As you have heard me explain, I have many large granite boulders on the site and it is almost entirely planted with succulents and cacti of all sorts. My 21-zone irrigation system with the WiFi app that allows me to control it and the synchronization to the local weather makes this all give growth opportunities to whatever I seem to want to grow. The cacti and succulents supposedly thrive on neglect, but I haven’t found that to be the case. Perhaps I am too picky, but I feel that regular pruning is very much needed and given the prickliness of the plants, that requires a good deal of care. My next big pruning task is to cut off the seed pod stalks on the agave attenuate that abound on the property. I counted them yesterday and there are about eighty stalks that are six to eight inched in diameter at the base and ab out six to eight feet long, usually bowed over like alien flora. I’m hoping that my long-arm clippers will handle the cutting and that I will find a way to get the stalks all into the organic matter buckets for the trash man. I have to wait for all the seed pods to open since the bees are having way too much fun drawing out the nectar. I may be willing to rush Handy Brad, but I choose not to rush Mother Nature.
After all that and a little maintenance here and there in the garden, there is little else for me to do. I am anxious to see if several of my supposed dormant plants are returning. I have two indoor bonsais in hospital on the kitchen window sill that have yet to show signs of life, but I am hoping for the best. In the outdoor bonsai department, those over on the patio are all doing well because they are more miniature succulents than they are bonsai (a fine line of destination to be sure). The bonsai that I am most anxious about are the trees set into the rock garden where I have a stand of Redwood, Maple, several Pines and Junipers, a Boxwood a Pyracantha, a Fringe Flower, a Japanese Willow and a Chinese Elm. About the only ones that seem unaffected by the winter so far are the Boxwood and the Asparagus Fern. The rest are lying in hibernation waiting to surprise me for better or worse. I doubt I can or should fuss with them for another month at least. I have until May 1 to insist that the nursery replace the Crepe Myrtle tree at the entry area. My gardener said it was hibernating, but it looks so barren that I have my doubts. That was an expensive plant investment, so I have every expectation that the nursery will replace it if I insist.
There are minor little maintenance chores for me to tackle here and there, but my overall point is that I will probably be driven by some degree of boredom to undertake hotter and heavier tasks as the winter turns to Spring and then a rapid return to the heat of summer. I am hoping and planning on more travel this year, but I do not pretend that my days will otherwise be filled with enough activity to keep me from moving to the next project of some sort. Stay tuned for the next installment of hot and heavy on the hillside.