Dangling Roofers

Our neighbors decided to redo their roof yesterday. The trickiest part is that decorative bit at the very front. The crazy thing is that one of those guys that you see up there had hopped over to the front where he had about 2 feet to squeeze his body in order to grab at the roof. It was crazy to watch. Kind of of one of those trainwreck moments. No harness. No nothing. Nothing but certain death if you fell. Anyhoo, all went well and the new roof is coming along swimmingly.

Some progress on the sheetrock yesterday. He estimates that it will be done by Wednesday and then we can schedule the nailing inspection. We are afraid to schedule the inspection before he's done because his timing is usually a little off (read: slow). Our tile guy is lined up and ready for action as soon as the rock is. Then we will really see this place start to come to life!

Josh added another electrical outlet to the area where the dryer will be that we didn't realize we'd need because we were hoping for a gas dryer. But Bosch doesn't make the Axxis series in gas anymore for some reason.

Neighborhood Greening

We spent yesterday doing more concrete removal for the greening of the Mission. Above is Josh with the concrete cutter which you use to cut the perimeter of the space that you will be removing. Afterwards, you jackhammer out the interior of that space. We had a bigger crew yesterday which made things a little faster, but still exhausting. I was the sweeper, the post lady and the caution tape lady. My favorite job was holding the Stop/Slow sign when Josh drove the Bobcat to the dumpster. Oh, how he loves to drive the Bobcat! I don't know if I'll ever be ready for the jackhammer. I don't get quite the thrill out of it that Josh does. We won't be planting anything until next weekend. Should look pretty great after that (aside from the fact that is definitely odd that we're planting in January)!

A Jackhammer, A Bobcat & Neighborhood Lovin'

Like much of the Mission, our neighborhood is a sea of concrete. The sidewalks are almost 15 feet across which is great for walking arm-in-arm doing Rockette-style kicks, but not so great for breathing in fresh plant-related oxygen. One of our neighbors motivated to get a grant to fund a neighborhood planting and actually succeeded. Luckily, she and a few brave others took on the task of coordinating the efforts of almost 30 neighbors. I have remained pretty much completely uninvolved with the coordination efforts up until this point since we have so much on our plate with our own little reno.

Today, our superstar contractor neighbor, Pat, and Josh jack-hammered out the concrete areas in front of 5 of the houses on our block. That's Josh in the Bobcat above moving the concrete to the dumpster in front of our house. Josh loves Bobcats. It's one of his favorite toys. We had to rent one several times when we redid our backyard. We removed over 200 yards of dirt. I hope I have that measurement right. Whatever it was, it was a helluva lot of dirt and that little Bobcat barely fit up the side of our house. I digress. After they hammered out the concrete today, the rest of us moved the concrete into the mouth of the Bobcat and shoveled out the remaining rocks from our clayish soil. It took 5 hours to do 5 houses today and we're supposed to do 20 more over the next 2 days...not sure how that's gonna happen. Party on.

Water Shooting 5 Stories High

I don't know what's up with the neighborhood this week. I stepped out my front door moments ago to go get some groceries for dinner. I was in the midst of thinking up something creative to make since the gas is off right now (this means no stove). I stepped out onto our front stoop and saw two giant fast-moving rivers flowing down either side of the street. Each is about 4 ft across and moving really quickly. I peer down to the end of the block and there is a huge stream of water shooting way up into the sky. The stream is taller than any building on the block. I think it must be at least 5 stories high. All I can think about now is how many days we are going to be without water. There are a bunch of guys from the water department milling around looking rather befuddled. I think the only way to fix it is to turn off the water completely. If only it were Summer and the middle of the day, we could all bring our bbqs out front and make hot dogs and drink beer. Sadly, that is not the case, but this will make for excellent gossip with the neighbors for the next few days. I had better go figure out dinner now before the water gets turned off...