Cleaning Up, Cooling Down

On Saturday, I was mostly outside while Liz worked inside. She was cleaning up a lot of the basement, and was a flurry of activity in terms of all the stuff she attended to. Though I was a bit under the weather, I worked on getting our growing pile of wood/debris under control – sawing down pieces and getting them shoved into our garbage bins.

One thing we learned with the local garbage pick-up: if you place trash in a non-city receptacle, the garbage guys will assume that you meant to throw away the entire thing, garbage can and all. We’ve lost two brand-new garbage cans this way (we thought the first was just stolen), but apparently they just chuck the whole darn thing in there.

So – slowly but surely, I’m cutting down our excess wood and fitting them into our city containers. It’s taking a little longer, but we are also saving money instead of getting yet another Bagster bag.

Liz, with dirty hands from a late afternoon in the backyard.

She started to clear out some of the plants near the back of the house. She also discovered that there’s a really large amount of brick that seems to be buried in the ground. Underneath the concrete we have (which seems like a very thin layer), there’s a base of brick.

Just in time before the heat kicks in, Bob helped us set up a new air conditioner. Different from a regular window unit, this device helps pull a lot of the moisture out of the air (and sends condensate down a pipe into the basement). The upstairs is still going to be pretty hot, but we’re good to go on the first floor.

Much like how having hot water for the first time felt luxurious, having working AC feels incredible. With tomorrow being a day in the mid-80’s, we got this thing set up in the nick of time.

Related:
Lily of the Valley of the Backyard
Sunday Workday and a Surprise Visit