Sunday, August 17th, 2008
Like I mentioned yesterday, this morning’s task was to seal the lower portion of the driveway. I had twenty five gallons of Latex-ite Driveway Re-surfacer on hand and was hoping that was enough. I think I read that each five gallon bucket does around 300 square feet, which isn’t much.
Ok, here is how it went. I started off at about 11:30AM and began by cleaning the entire working area with my spankin’ new pressure washer. If I didn’t have this pressure washer, I would’ve wished that I did. It did a great job.
In the photo above, you can see the dry driveway. I didn’t spray it yet and you can see the dirt on it towards the end. The reason that I cleaned the driveway is pretty obvious…the get the surface clean so the sealer really sticks to it.
This is the cleaned driveway. Lots of dirt, sticks and acorns came off it.
Driveway sealed with five gallons of sealer
My brother was right. Keeping the driveway wet is better than not. The moisture really helps keep the squeegee spreading smoothly. Also, the sealer goes much further. The photo above is after I spread the first five gallons. It did about half the area I wanted to do.
This is a photo of the driveway after I spread ten gallons of sealer on it. You can see that I didn’t get as much covered as the first five gallons gave me. Also, when the driveway is dry, I noticed that the sealer doesn’t get down into the pits of the blacktop. For that to happen, I had to go over it a few times, using up more sealer.
Driveway after fifteen gallons of sealer
The last five gallons of sealer got me the least. It covered the smallest area because the area was dry and cool. The coolness didn’t let the sealer “run” like the others. The good news is that I only used fifteen gallons of sealer for the lower portion of the driveway. That means that I have ten gallons left and I can estimate that I need about another ten gallons.
Tonight, I am going to clean any cracks in the upper driveway and seal them up with the crack sealer. If I run out, I can pick some up when I am buying the rest of the driveway sealer.
By the way, I did this project bare footed. I recommend wearing old sneakers because the blacktop gets hot and the sealer splashes naked feet.
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Friday, August 15th, 2008
In my last post, I said that people need to start writing more. I said that our readers don’t care what we write about, just that we write. I even threatened to take my camera out with me this morning.
Well, guess what. I did just that. Since I had to go to the mailbox this morning to put some outgoing mail in it, I decided to enjoy a little walking tour with the good ol’ camera in hand. I know this feels like a Seinfeld episode (about nothing) but this is what I do.
After I put the mail in the mailbox, I headed back down the driveway. I looked at the ground and noticed all sorts of acorns laying there all spread out. Every day this happens. There is a big Red Oak at the end of the driveway that makes a huge mess. I think the squirrels are $%^& with me. I need to call a tree service to come prune a few trees, this being one of them. I hate having this messy tree for everyone to see. Maybe when it’s getting pruned, I’ll take some before and after shots.
Anyway, when I looked down at the driveway, I noticed some ants running around. I took a bunch of pictures of them, but they were too fast and the pictures came out blurry. They would’ve been really cool because they were close up. While I was down on the driveway, I decided to take a picture of an acorn so you know what I am talking about.
Red Oak acorn
There are hundreds of these things. Every time I mow the lawn, I take out the blower to blow off the driveway. Within a few days, they are back. After taking the picture, I had to get up and run because a car was coming. That’s all they need to see…G laying down on the driveway taking more pictures.
Last night, I also mentioned that I was taking down some small trees in the woods along the driveway. My goal is to make it a bit lighter in there with some breaks of sun. I have to be careful not to take down too much, because I really like the trees. The last thing I want is full sun. I have already made a dent. I would say I am taking down anything smaller than 6″. Here are some photos of that.
Woods along driveway
Woods along driveway
Woods along driveway
As you can see, there is some filtered sunlight coming through. I probably have about 10-15 more trees to remove.
A few days ago, I discovered a faster and quieter way of doing this. Well, one way is quieter, but not faster. I am using a hand saw for some of them. Basically, I take the tree down and then cut the top leafy part off of it. I drag the stalk up and place it in the pile you see in the last photo. I drag the top of the tree down into the brush pile in the woods. I always need a good brush pile. You would be amazed at how fast a big brush pile collapses over time.
The faster way is to do what I described above, but with a chainsaw. I used to cut the wood into firewood right there, but that was noisy. I will do that all in one shot when I am done taking down the trees.
Here is a beautiful picture of one of the stumps.
Birch tree stump
At the bottom of the driveway, I noticed a new flower growing in the spot I just mulched. It was mixed in with all the others. It just bloomed so I thought that deserved some recognition.
After I took a picture of that flower, I walked across the front lawn to get some shots of a nice pink flower up there. I did that and then I took a shot of the Highbush Cranberry that we have growing. There are a few of these bushes and the berries are getting very red.
Highbush Cranberry
You see how nice that was? It was a big blog post about nothing and I think I got away with it. Well, we’ll see what people write about it to see if I really got away with it.
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Sunday, September 10th, 2006
We often look out our back door early after we wake up in the morning to find a very pretty family of deer. Lately, it has mostly been the two youngest ones, just roaming around carelessly eating the acorns that have fallen from the large Red Oak tree on the edge of our property. They are so tranquil…we really enjoy watching them go from place to place…
…until this morning. Now, I am not so sure I love the deer as much as I used to. They ate our plants. I was afraid of this. All summer long as I was planting the Arborvitae, I kept thinking of all the deer-eaten Arborvitae I have seen throughout my life. You know the ones…a nice full, green top, with skeleton of dead, wirey branches at the bottom. Poor victims of a hungry deer assault. Well, they got our front garden.
They didn’t get everything, but did eat one of our plants right to the root. We’ll have to see if that one comes back in the Spring. I hope so. They did the most damage to our Easter Lilies.
So, what to do? Well, I immediately got on the internet and started doing some research. I came across two websites. One has liquid deer repellent and is called “Liquid Fence.” They say to apply this spray once and then again the following week. Then apply every month thereafter. I also found a pellet deer repellent called “Deer Scram.” They say to apply this granular deer repellent every few months as needed.
Well, I needed something for tonight, so I ran out to our local Agway. Just as luck would have it, they had some Liquid Fence. I bought a gallon and brought it home. (now that I have a blog, I really am starting to take some strange photos)
I bumped into a lady in the store who was buying the same stuff. She said it really worked, but smelled HORRIBLE at first, but not bad after it dried. I had to see for myself. I opened the top of the gallon container and took a whiff. UHHGGGGG…I came a few milliseconds away from losing it. She was right, this stuff smelled like a mix between road kill, rotten eggs and the bottom of your kitchen garbage pail. Great, not only will I repel every deer this side of the Hudson, but my neighbors will have to move out as well. Hopefully it won’t be so bad after it dries. I applied it to all of the new plants I put in over the summer. I will let you know how it goes in a follow-up post.
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