Webb Family Blog

Well, it has been some time since my last posting here, so I figured it was about time.  One thing that Kellie and I have done since she had her surgery was watch every episode of the TV show Stargate SG-1… a science fiction show on the SciFi Network, but now on DVD.  I have the first 8 seasons on DVD.  During many episodes, they have had some pretty unusual names.  Kellie has been joking about when we have kids, to name them some of these strange names.  She even joked with Richard, as he’s been at our house several days this week.  They decided to call the dog by a Stargate name… Master Bra’tac.  This week has probably been quite confusing for Bear, as he’s been called "Bear" and "Bra’tac".  As I somewhat suspected, he bugged Richard a bit during his visit.  The capper came yesterday.  Kellie and I were both at work.  Richard was just home with Bear (Master Bra’tac).  Richard had made arrangements to go to PASCO (manufacturer of scientific testing gear) to get a demonstration of a product they make called GLX.  Anyway, they were going to pick Richard up to go over to their facility (since Kellie and I had our own vehicles, and none left over for Richard).  When the man from PASCO arrived, Richard opened the door, Master Bra’tac made his move!  He took off running.  Barefooted Richard chasing after him.  He first ran to the park, then across a large plowed open space towards Highway 65.  Richard estimates it took a half-hour to catch him.  Since he didn’t have the leash, Richard had to drag him back by the collar.  (Last time I had to chase Bear down, I picked him up and carried him home… Bear is nearly 90 pounds.)  Generally he hangs his tail low and provides a lot of resistance to being brought back home. 

This morning, on my way to work, I had to take Richard to the airport.  His flight isn’t until 10:30AM, so as of this typing, he is probably bored at the airport.  I dropped him off a little before 6AM. 

Well, I’ve been spending nearly every weekend doing endless jobs in the yard, trying to beautify it.  I’ve had many jobs that I’ve needed to haul stuff, but without a truck, it was kind of difficult.  My father-in-law has a Toyota pickup, but that is his means of transportation.  While he has been generous with allowing us to use it, we have to work to HIS schedule.  A couple weeks ago, I came up with a thought.  My grandfather had an old Ford pickup that doesn’t get much use.  A 1980 F100 Custom… Inline 6… "3-On-The-Tree" transmission… no air conditioning, no power steering… poor radio, but it runs great with less than 28,000 miles.  I asked my mom, who asked my Uncle David, and I was granted permission to borrow the truck.  Thankfully this was granted.  I went down to Modesto via Amtrak the first weekend of June and picked it up.  I’ve been able to do MANY jobs with it.  I was able to rip up a section of backyard sod and haul it to the dump.  I then filled in the space in the backyard with crushed base rock, then sand.  I used a vibrating device to pack the sand down and be relatively level.  We then placed 20 pavers on the sand and filled the "grout" lines with pea gravel.  This area extends the patio for the fire pit.

In addition to the patio extension, I’ve also placed decorative bark along the bushes to the north edge of our property, between the back fence and the sidewalk.  I then used dark cedar mulch around the flowers and garden.  All-in-all, I’ve made MANY trips in the truck.

• 1 yard crushed base rock (2 trips)
• ½ yard sand (1 trip)
• ¼ yard pea gravel (1 trip)
• 2 ½ yards medium (decorative) redwood bark (3 trips)
• 3 yards dark cedar mulch (3 trips)

In the process of building that patio extension, I had to add a sprinkler and fix a piece of sprinkler pipe that broke upon finding where the pipe was… with a shovel.  This was a week ago Sunday.  I fixed the pipe with more PVC pipe.  As I was dry fitting the pieces, I was unable to get one of my joints apart for gluing, so I figured it would be OK.  WRONG… I learned AFTER filling everything back in.  My lawn was doing terrible and I checked the sprinkler.  My pipe joint came apart.  I had to dig it up and fix it PROPERLY.  I now have the sprinklers covering the lawn pretty well.  I have some large brown spots for now, but hopefully they will green up this week.  I still need to finely tune the sprinklers though.

Last night, Kellie and I decided to sit back and relax.  We used the fire pit and BBQ’d some veggie burgers.  We took a few pictures in the process.  These pictures can be found in my new "Photos" section.  You can see my pictures from last night under "Garden".  You may notice in some of the pictures that Bear happens to be the same color as the mulch.  This was NOT on purpose.  We’ve had a tough enough time keeping him out of the garden as it is, now he’s camouflaged!  We relaxed, ate our burgers and roasted marshmallows and had some s’mores. 

As I type this, I keep remembering other new things.  Since I haven’t been keeping up with the blog, things aren’t quite in chronological order.  We purchased a new outdoor table, since I broke the glass top in the old one.  This new one has a tile top.  Like the fire pit, it uses interchangeable, standard 12" ceramic tiles.  Currently the table tiles are darker than the fire pit, but we COULD buy new tiles and make them both match.  We also purchased some staking outdoor chairs.  Much of the work is making the backyard a great place to entertain.  Now we just need the time and people to entertain.