Porch Steps Decisions and Calculations

We need some porch steps.

I may have finally found some pavers I like for them!!!  I have looked all around at places and there are SO many choices and styles.  I think these will work and look the best.

source: Lowe's

They measure roughly 15x24 inches.

Now I just need to figure out how many I need. 

I found this cool site: (link: http://www.gardengatemagazine.com/64stepchart/) that had a handy dandy chart to easily figure out treads and risers.  I want my treads to be 15 inches wide so my risers need to be between 5½-6 inches high and I would like the whole thing to be 6 feet wide.

Ok.  Got that figured out.

Now to figure out how many steps there will be.

On this site (link: http://www.wikihow.com/Build-Porch-Steps) I found this:

source

And since I couldn't really measure the height because of the slope of rocks,

I decided to check out this site,

(link: http://inspectapedia.com/Stairs/Stair_Calculations.php).

I read this section called 

The Mathematical Approach to Building Stairs Spanning Uneven Ground

This is how it started out:

Quote: The geometry approach to calculating stair rise and run over rough terrain when you have only two measurements works correctly provided you know enough triangular geometry to convert between your sloped-line measurement (the hypotenuse of the triangle) and the triangle's other sides that form the rise & run dimensions. Using a calculator and it's square root function, and the most basic knowledge of geometry is not enough - we also need a table of sine and cosine values, functions readily found these days online. [45]

 a2 =b2 +c2 - the square of the length of the hypotenuse (a) equals the squares of the lengths of the opposite sides of a right triangle (b) and (c).

And I said- Oh yes!  That is as clear as mud!
My eyes totally glazed over and I stopped reading right there.

  AND I ACTUALLY TOOK CALCULUS AND TRIG AT SCHOOL.

Must have been about a hundred years ago though because I can't remember A THING.  I guess I will be going forward with rough eyeball estimates.  If I start out at the top and go down I can always adapt the dirt at the bottom to be higher or lower.  Right??????  Much easier than math.

Then I reread the article and they were only kidding. 

They actually say to do this:

source

Ok.  Whew!  Much more sensible!!!

Who knew engineers had a sense of humor.

I need to find some long boards.
I know what plumb means but to achieve it????
Might take awhile....

Now I also need to figure out what the risers need to be made out of....

For some reason I thought I would be able to whip these out in a couple of days. 

Tumbleweeds

Living in the west as we do, we have tumbling tumbleweeds.  Last year some came rolling across our property. They left a few trails of seeds and with all the rain we've been having they've been having a grand ole time.

Last Saturday morning we picked tumbleweeds.

Some places, there would be just one scattered here and there.

Other places they were thick and heavy.  Get 'em while they're young.  Before they start to scatter more seeds.  How come they are so romantic sounding in stories and songs but in real life they are so miserable... 

 They were in this tree area....

And scattered through this open area. Our property goes a little past those trees you see across that dirt. It was daunting.

Bill and his cowboy hat and me and my sombrero picked tumbleweeds.

Bill said we picked HUNDREDS of them.

Pretty sure we picked a bushel....

....and a peck.

But there probably isn't a market for them, alas.

June Purge- Week 2

I have a LOT of kitchen utensils...

A LOT.

3 Drawers full.

Here are the BEFORE pictures:

They say to help your problem you first need to ADMIT you have a problem.

And here is the AFTER:

Hahahahahahaha!

I didn't get rid of ONE thing!

They all fit my criteria of bringing me joy and making my life easier. :) 

 Hee hee.
I love my gadgets.
Maybe next January I will try to look at everything with a critical eye.

The rest my kitchen was pretty much fine because I did a huge purge in January and it has still been working- I just fine tuned some areas and cleaned everything.

These are the only things I got rid of this time.

Misc.- And Sunday, June 14th Is Flag day

I feel like the character in Sam I Am.

I have always said I don't like salads but thanks to my friend Susan R., I found out I love them!  She made a salad with eleventy-eight hundred vegetables in it.  The key is, they were all DICED.

I made myself a salad with 9 vegetables in it; green onions, red bell pepper, green leaf lettuce, cauliflower, cucumber, spinach, broccoli, carrots, and a tomato.  And I always have said I don't like raw vegetables- I prefer them cooked!  I think the problem with other salads is you have to try shove a huge piece of lettuce in your mouth and that's all you get.  Or you get a big mouthful of dry broccoli.  With this salad you get a forkful of many different vegetables all at once!  Now I am a HUGE fan of salads!  Although, technically, this may be more of a relish?  But boy howdy is it good. :)

We had a visitor last Tuesday evening down by Bill's shed.

Kingsnake

From that article comes this quote:

"An opportunistic feeder, it will eat many things including lizards, birds, mammals, frogs, bird eggs, and snakes (including rattlesnakes)." 

Bill had been walking down to the shed and saw some quail acting very unusually.  He went closer and noticed they were trying to distract this snake away from their babies.

This is the second time we have seen him.

He needs a name.....

But I haven't thought of a good one yet.

Maybe Reginald or Leroy....

I have been noticing on my new Ziploc bags that there is a raised portion on one side of the opening.

  I was wondering if they were a defect but then one day....I thought that maybe they had intentionally made them that way so they would be easier to open.

I looked on the package.  SURE ENOUGH!  I can't believe it.  Are we becoming that helpless and weak that we can't even stand a little frustration over getting a bag open????  WHAT is this world coming to? 

Summer has finally arrived this week.  We have had lower than normal temps.  Now the sun is strong enough that I have to put some shade over the clothesline to prevent against sun rot.  Or sudden rain drops....

It's so odd this year.  We have been getting rain about every other week- and sometimes even every week!  I remember in recent years we have had periods of 90+ days with zero precipitation.

This Sunday is Flag day. Every year around this time I like to replace the flag on our front porch because after a year it starts to look dirty.  I had wanted to replace the pole last year because the top half was all discolored.  Then I decided I would maybe paint it this year but when I took it off, I noticed that it was just a plastic sleeve over the pole that had gotten all sunburnt.

I broke that off and now it's all silver.  Crazy how I have never noticed that sleeve- especially when I have had to bring the flag in many times because of violent storms!  Now my new flag doesn't have to hang on a nasty old pole.

Isn't she beautiful!!!

And I will leave you with an observation from my 3 year old grandson.

He had put a flag into the end of a broken fishing rod and then told me...

Sometimes there's an eagle at the top.

He stares at you.


:)))))))

Two Projects: Owl Feathers And A Blue Horse

I did these projects long ago but this post has been sitting in drafts for months.  I took a few new pictures because the other ones were either very outdated or GONE.

Almost exactly a year ago a great horned owl was caught in our barbed wire fence.  A raptor rescue guy came and brought it to their place to get the wire out and then for rehab.  

In the right hand picture the wire is out and the wing bandaged.  The wire was stuck right in the joint- ouch!  I found two feathers on the ground when I walked up the hill later.  I decided I wanted to use them on my Arizona Wall in the family room.

I dug through my stockpile of frames and found a long thin one.  I painted it blue and then painted the paper backing a very light blue and taped the feathers on.

I hung it on the wall and it looked pretty wimpy.  I wracked my brains on how to make it look bigger.  I didn't want to spend money on a new frame- plus, this one fit the feathers perfectly.  Then I thought how cool it would be to back it with a weathered piece of wood.  Time to go 'shopping'!

I went wandering out around behind Bill's shed.  I found two pieces instead of the one wider one I wanted.  Beggars can't be choosers!  I gave them a good scrub- they had been half buried in mud. 

Ta-dah!

I love how the wood complements the color of the feathers.

Another project I did was to spray paint a black horse.

He started out as brass but his eyes were so freaky I had to paint him.  Black is the only color I could think of at the time.....  This is the only picture I could find of him black:

He blended in too much with the fireplace screen and I needed/WANTED! more color.

I'm fairly certain I took pictures for 'before' and 'after', but they seem to have gotten lost.  This is the only picture I had left:

It was a big OOPS.  It was a breezy day and I was too impatient to wait. The rocks were now a lovely blue too. :((((  My poor husband must be inured to this kind of stuff because he said NOT ONE WORD! 

But the horse managed to get some blue paint on him too!

Doesn't he look fine!

June Purge- Week 1

I started my June purge last week and here is what I got done.

This first picture is a mess. It's so hard to get a picture of the coat closet in the hallway. The left side is the before and the right is the after.

 Not too much changed in here. But we did get rid of some jackets- it was overstuffed but now we even have some empty hangers! I also got rid of the last of the games that no one has played in 5 years. That made room for our duffel bags we use for travel that can now take their space on the top shelf! The floor area has a highchair for my grandkids, two leaves for the table, a 5 gallon bucket of gift wrap, an ironing board, and my mop and bucket.

I only have two extra closets in this house; the coat closet and the linen closet. At first when we moved here I was thinking we would have to find more storage somewhere but now that I have gotten rid of so much stuff over the years, I am finding that there is plenty of space!

Next I went through the linen closet. It's very narrow and shallow.. You can fit two stacks of towels side by side and that's it.

 Now it's better organized. I moved the duffel bags to the coat closet and that made room for the sheets (they were in the brown basket) onto that shelf and then I could put the rags that had been in a grocery bag into the brown basket. Some of the shelf space is taken up for storage for future projects. Two rugs I am saving for the new sauna and some leftover shelf brackets from the kitchen that I may want to use in the sauna for wall shelves. Also two new sconces for the main bathroom- we are slowly getting ready to update a few things in there.

I didn't get rid of as much as I hoped to but everything in there is stuff that we really do use. It does feel good to know that I went through everything in these two closets to be sure of that, though!

When I got to the living room I decided to try an old trick.

I decided to take everything off the top of the flat surfaces except for the houseplants. My living room has been feeling too cluttered lately. I also felt that the living room was growing stagnant and needed to be freshened up a bit.

As soon as I brought everything into the kitchen, there were a few things that I knew right away I could get rid of! It's amazing. Looking at and dusting these things all the time, I didn't notice but as soon as these things were away from their usual spot I could see they needed to go.

 These are the things I got rid of.

These are the things I am keeping. I brought them all into the extra bed room to rest for a few days and then I will slowly bring out each thing and see where I like it best.

Here are the before and afters.

This angle didn't change much because the only thing missing is the indian bust from behind the plant on the little end table.

This wall looks fine- there's plenty going on.

But this angle looks stark to me.

This wall looks fine by itself though.

It's only when combined with this wall that it looks bad. Definitely needs something.

This angle, the plant on the book case looks a little lonely.

But I am going to leave everything like this for a few days so when I go back to my decorations it will be with a fresh eye.

So at the end of week 1:

This is the stuff I have gotten rid of so far. (Not the bench though!)