July 19 - From Prison Yard to Child-Friendly Woodland Wonderland in one (or 2) days!

After a fun trip to the irrigation supply store (and you didn't know that such a place existed!), I met with the gardener and a couple of his guys and started working on the area on the south side of the house - the area we affectionately refer to as the prison yard due to the dead, scrubby plants, jumble of rocks and broken-off shivs littered about.  Well, no longer!  Jose and his guys got to work right away clearing the years of debris, taking out dead and mostly dead trees and resetting some of the rocks so as to create a pleasing terraced effect.  I was hoping to get the whole side yard cleared up today but, alas, everything seems to take a little longer than hoped so Jose and his crew will have to come back to finish the job.  When it's done though, and we have added the new fence and gate close to the garage, we will have a fully enclosed and hopefully mostly safe area for the kids to play outside that does not require an adult to constantly block their access to the cars hurtling down Sir Francis Drake.   It will take a few days for me to fully trust that they cannot escape, but, once that is achieved ... oh happy day!  Children playing safely outside - on their own, without any parental involvement!  Is there anything better?!?


Oooh, I have big plans for that hillside ... I see a tree house linked to the top of a slide by a rope bridge; I see a swing and a zip line and, and, and ... so much potential, so little time/money/energy!  Well, if we can get the tree house in, I'll say we're ahead!


Inside the house, the old bathroom was demo'ed today.  It's gone.  There's a toilet on my lawn and a bathtub in my debris box ... and all that lovely tile is gone ... boo but so is the lead paint ... hurray!  Now, I need to convince Jack that we should finish that space with a little drywall and turn it into a 'bonus room'.  Why not ...


The team has been patching all the swiss cheese holes for the plastering team who will come in over the weekend.  It's a big no no to work on the weekend so they'd better be very very quiet.  I think plastering is fairly quiet ...