Hot and more hot with a side of hot. Humid too. Joy.
I did get a lot done yesterday, even if it wasn’t stuff from the top of my list. In fact it was from pretty far down on the list, but it fit perfectly with scorching hot weather…. I spent five hours pressure washing things.
The house front and the entry way both needed pressure washing. I wanted to do it before spraying for bugs, as I didn’t want to wash away the poison. And since the wife has moved “killing the gorram bugs” up my list, I got out the pressure washer. Usually I pay an itinerant worker about $200 to do the whole house. He hasn’t come by this year though, so the brick was looking green, and the siding was looking dirty, and the gutters and drip edge were black. Once I’ve got the washer out, running, hoses set, fuel can ready, I can’t help myself… everything looks better after being pressure washed.
The flagstones on the walk are no longer green. The walk is no longer blackish-green. The white truck is white. The fence (driveway gate) looks new again. The driveway is a clean tan, instead of black (well, about 2/3 of it, the last should happen today.) The siding, brick, and trim on the house all are their original colors. Everything looks freshly scrubbed.
Today I have to cut the grass to complete my ‘grey man’ strategy of looking like all the other houses on the block. And finish spraying the driveway. And maybe wash my Ranger, and my wife’s vehicle. I noticed a funny thing about the vehicles on my block. With the exception of my blue ’03 Ranger, all 7 of the vehicles parked on the street were white. I’ve read that when the economic mood in the country is dour, people buy conservatively colored vehicles. On my street, for the last few years, almost everyone’s bought pretty conservatively….
BTW, the pressure washer started on the first pull after I put gas in it. Run your small engines dry and you won’t have a jacked up carb that needs cleaning before you can run your gennie or pump, or lawnmower…. it makes all the difference in the world.
Organize your stuff, maintain it, stack it high.
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