Knitting Hiatus

Is Over

Recently I took a bit of an unplanned knitting hiatus when house projects started to spin out of control a bit.  We recently ordered a shed, and digging out the foundation and space for a retaining wall was a bit more work than we thought it would be.  Then the shed delivery was put on hold for technical reasons, so we had more time to dig…and dig we did.  And then the rain came…and literally swept our shed, and many others away when their office flooded.  So  we’re still waiting…

Fun tidbit – we picked the location for the shed based on a craggy old tree, to hide it a bit…and while waiting for the shed, ants ate away the bottom of the tree and it’s since fallen over.  GRRRRrrrrr

In the meantime, while we were waiting, we thought let’s get a jump on another project.  We have this little planting box on the edge of the front porch of our little ranch home and the brick in certain spots is deteriorating a bit.  I did a little bit of digging in the planter and soon found out why.  Originally the builders of our home (this is in the 50’s/60’s) threw all of the broken bricks and cinderblocks into the planter to take up space and give water room to drain – which worked for a number of years I’m guessing.  But over time, the dirt all settled and got packed in, leaving the water no way of reaching the drains they had installed (and these also looked like an after thought).

My little investigative dig turned into a full scale, empty the planter kind of dig, that required my husband’s help.  He climbed inside of the planter and spent a solid day removing all of the dirt and detritus.  We even found a broken beer bottle and some seashells.  I’m wondering if the shells were thrown in on purpose – like to deter bugs or something but I could be totally wrong.  We piled this all on a tarp.

Then we were left to figure out a solution.  So we put the larger cinder blocks back and got some new ones to fill the space (it was pretty deep) and then bought 12X12 paver stones to place on top to create a level surface a few inches under the lip of the planter.  Then we cut some of the free tarps that we’ve stockpiled over the years from Harbor Freight, and lined the bed.  Finally we filled it with water absorbing pine bark and placed potted day lilies that I rescued from our beds (the bunnies have been eating all of the buds right before they bloom).

We were done!

…Or so we thought.

We had about a solid day to enjoy all of our hard work, as the next evening Pittsburgh received some intense thunderstorms.  Whelp our gutters are basically so bad that we might as well not even have them.  The water came pouring down between the gutter and the roof and flooded the front porch.  I asked my dad if we should put a tarp up to divert the water and he concurred that it was a good thought.  So we went down to the garage to get the last tarp…and found that the water was actually coming through our porch, into the little room below it off of the side of the garage, and working its way to the drain in the center of the floor…only it wasn’t draining because our drain cover sits up a bit.  So dad put the tarp in place, in the pouring rain (he is incredible), While I removed the drain cover and started directing the water with a broom.  Two hours later the last of the water was trickling down the floor drain and we were done.

We have a dehumidifier that my husband remembered, so we put that in there for about a solid day now and have emptied it three times.  Good news is that the water cleaned that room out a bit.  Bad news is now we have to figure out what to do to seal the floor of the porch because I refuse to run out with a tarp every time it rains – or deal with the foundation issues if we don’t.